I definitely have encountered a few obstacles while
participating in my internship. The PR company I work for has a very specific
way of doing everything. This is especially true when it comes to the Publicity
Status Reports they send to their clients for each film they work on. On my
very first day they gave me the PSR training manual where “everything” that we
needed to know about the reports was listed. However, being the person I am, I
ask a lot of questions. At first I figured that asking questions was good
because it showed that I wanted to do everything correctly. Yet overtime I
began to feel like I was annoying my coworkers with the amount of questions I
was asking. I suddenly became somewhat insecure and stopped asking a lot of
questions. This became a problem though because I started doing the reports
wrong. In a team meeting about a week later my boss actually addressed the
problem and explained that asking questions is fine as long as you first
utilize your resources, and if you still don’t know, then ask. I felt a little
bit better, but still wanted to make sure that I did everything correctly. So,
I decided to ask my “mentor” Sarah to go over a few things with me regarding
the PSRs. She was more than willing to help me and the next PSR I turned in was
significantly better than the last. I think what I realized the most was that I
needed to look around more because there are so many resources that you have
that you wouldn’t necessarily know about if you don’t just look.
It seems like this was a very big learning experience for you. I know that I am always a little timid to ask my supervisors questions, but it looks like you realized that it is better to ask questions and do the job correctly, than not ask questions and make a huge mistake! I also am working on waiting and trying to figure out the answer to my own questions for a little before immediately jumping up to ask someone else.
ReplyDeleteComing into an environment where everyone around you knows what they are doing can be scary, but most people are more than willing to help if you ask. I was also a little hesitant at first to ask for help, but no one expects you to understand everything right away, especially in such a small amount of time.
ReplyDeleteI felt the exact same way! Sometimes it seemed like a better idea to ask a question then to just trust my own judgment and risk making a mistake.
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