First impressions of my internship

My first day in the company was pretty...let’s say strange. J I met my boss just for 5 mins only for him to give me the basic tasks for the week. Thankfully I work with another intern, Maja from Croatia, who was working there for 2 weeks before I came. So she told me about working hours, the people there, the work she was doing, etc. The first week was also kinda strange because it was during Ramadan, which meant that we only worked half the day.

Overall things were pretty chaotic at the beginning. I knew that we were organizing a big congress in December, which will host many important people and will have approximately 800 participants from many countries. When Maja and I heard that we have our first meeting as a conference team we were quite excited. We went into the conference room with all the other co-workers and the meeting started in French….and then somehow magically, after 3 mins, switched to Arabic, or rather ‘Tunisian’. For you to understand how confusing this meeting was I’d have to tell you that ‘Tunisian’ is actually a nice little mix of Arabic and French. Which means that when they speak up to one point you are wondering if they are speaking French, and you just don’t get it, or if they are, in fact, speaking ‘Tunisian’. Yeah, for most of the meeting we didn’t have a clue what was going on. And at the end of it the boss asked “So you know what to do?”….My answer to that was simply “Ahhm….Noooooo… not really”. And then we had to ask our colleagues to explain to us what it was all about.

Now I am totally used to this and I know how to get the information I need, although sometimes I get surprised by random deadlines I never heard about. I miss the AIESEC working style, with proper project overview, plan and everyone knowing where they fit in the whole puzzle and what their role is. I miss the leadership style which encourages results but does recognize efforts as well. Here we were told that results are THE most important thing and it doesn’t matter if you put 100% or 150% of your energy into it, as long as you get it done. Motivating employees is not done and the importance of team spirit is not really recognized.

Still, I’m super happy to be having this experience and to work in a different environment with a different working style. It gives me personally a lot and I learn from it every day. Plus, now I have been at this job for long enough to really have fun with my colleagues and enjoy my work.