Internship
For the first semester of my senior year I worked as a pad intern at Toy Safari, a local toy store located on Park Street. Below is my documentation of hours to date.
Date Hours
2/1/13 2
2/4/13 2
2/9/13 8
2/12/13 4
2/16/13 8
Total
Hours 24
Journal Entries
2/1/13 Today was my first time interning at Toy Safari. I am going in hoping that the local business, and entrepreneur skills of my boss will be passed on to me by the end of the internship. Today I went in, and my boss, Helen, had me working on calculating how much everyone got paid for the month. I had to add up everyone's hours and minutes, then subtract the break time, and multiple that by their hourly wages. The hard part was finding where on the time cards each individual would write the advances they had taken out on their salary for the month.
2/4/13 I was in charge contacting all of the shipping companies to confirm that our toy orders where on their way. I would then put that information on a calendar. I was a little bit intimidated though when the calendar square for February 9th was getting rather full. After which I did a lunch run for everyone; which when on Park street was pretty fun to do. It was only a little awkward going into a restaurant with your arms filled with food just to order more food.
2/9/13 As I arrived at work today I saw the HUGE shipment we had just gotten in. In total we had just received 47 boxes worth of toys. I spent the day moving the boxes from the front of the store to the counter, where I would then open the boxes, find the serial number on the toys, look that number up in a booklet to find the price, multiple that price by two, and then set all of the toys out amongst the store. It only took me six eight hours, but it wasn't too bad.
2/12/13 Today I went into work, and was responsible for responding to schools and charities that had asked for a donation of toys for their auctions, and raffle fund raisers. Luckily I was allowed to say yes to everyone, but I was only allowed to give them $50.00 worth of toys to each function. So that was my challenge for the second part of the day. Putting together baskets of desirable things that anyone would want to win/ buy that all together was less than $50.00.
2/16/13 Last day on my internship, and I was glad to hear that for a portion of today I would be able to sit in on a few interviews Helen had arranged for possible employees. It was nice to see what she expected from them if they were to work at Toy Safari. It was also nice to know what to ask if I ever need to interview someone. Things like what their preferred hours to work would be. If they have any major priorities they have in their lives etc. Towards the end of the day I was in charge of pricing a bag of toys we had bought from a collector, and then at the end of the day I got a Toy Safari T-shirt.
Closing Report
I am very grateful for the internship I had at Toy Safari. Going into the internship I really wanted to become a little more familiar with
entreprenuering and the running your own bussiness because I eventually want to work towards having my own. Running a business is defiantly much more than just passing merchandise. You have employees to take care of and instruct, people to pay, customer relations, calendars to keep track off etc. Despite me not wanting to own a toy store in the future, I do think that the entreprenuering aspects will translate over well. I realized also that being a local business often entails sporting and donating back to your community which I really loved how involved and generous Toy Safari was when I interned there.
The tasks I was given were heavily supervised and checked over by my boss, probably because they involved lots of fiancees. I calculated pay checks, stocked the store, verified orders, made lunch runs, and priced inventory. It was all very educational, and I can see why Toy Safari is such a successful business.
Some obstacles that I found myself facing during my internship were ones of self motivation, and endurance. Some of the tasks I was given required much time and were very meticulous. Though I consider myself a diligent person, calculating pay checks for four hours at a time isn't the easiest. But what I did realize is that the faster you get the assignment over with, the less time you have to spend with it. Also I have become accustom to the feeling of pride after accomplishing such a major task which makes it all worth it. I've learned a lot, and hope that this will jump-start my career in business.
Date Hours
2/1/13 2
2/4/13 2
2/9/13 8
2/12/13 4
2/16/13 8
Total
Hours 24
Journal Entries
2/1/13 Today was my first time interning at Toy Safari. I am going in hoping that the local business, and entrepreneur skills of my boss will be passed on to me by the end of the internship. Today I went in, and my boss, Helen, had me working on calculating how much everyone got paid for the month. I had to add up everyone's hours and minutes, then subtract the break time, and multiple that by their hourly wages. The hard part was finding where on the time cards each individual would write the advances they had taken out on their salary for the month.
2/4/13 I was in charge contacting all of the shipping companies to confirm that our toy orders where on their way. I would then put that information on a calendar. I was a little bit intimidated though when the calendar square for February 9th was getting rather full. After which I did a lunch run for everyone; which when on Park street was pretty fun to do. It was only a little awkward going into a restaurant with your arms filled with food just to order more food.
2/9/13 As I arrived at work today I saw the HUGE shipment we had just gotten in. In total we had just received 47 boxes worth of toys. I spent the day moving the boxes from the front of the store to the counter, where I would then open the boxes, find the serial number on the toys, look that number up in a booklet to find the price, multiple that price by two, and then set all of the toys out amongst the store. It only took me six eight hours, but it wasn't too bad.
2/12/13 Today I went into work, and was responsible for responding to schools and charities that had asked for a donation of toys for their auctions, and raffle fund raisers. Luckily I was allowed to say yes to everyone, but I was only allowed to give them $50.00 worth of toys to each function. So that was my challenge for the second part of the day. Putting together baskets of desirable things that anyone would want to win/ buy that all together was less than $50.00.
2/16/13 Last day on my internship, and I was glad to hear that for a portion of today I would be able to sit in on a few interviews Helen had arranged for possible employees. It was nice to see what she expected from them if they were to work at Toy Safari. It was also nice to know what to ask if I ever need to interview someone. Things like what their preferred hours to work would be. If they have any major priorities they have in their lives etc. Towards the end of the day I was in charge of pricing a bag of toys we had bought from a collector, and then at the end of the day I got a Toy Safari T-shirt.
Closing Report
I am very grateful for the internship I had at Toy Safari. Going into the internship I really wanted to become a little more familiar with
entreprenuering and the running your own bussiness because I eventually want to work towards having my own. Running a business is defiantly much more than just passing merchandise. You have employees to take care of and instruct, people to pay, customer relations, calendars to keep track off etc. Despite me not wanting to own a toy store in the future, I do think that the entreprenuering aspects will translate over well. I realized also that being a local business often entails sporting and donating back to your community which I really loved how involved and generous Toy Safari was when I interned there.
The tasks I was given were heavily supervised and checked over by my boss, probably because they involved lots of fiancees. I calculated pay checks, stocked the store, verified orders, made lunch runs, and priced inventory. It was all very educational, and I can see why Toy Safari is such a successful business.
Some obstacles that I found myself facing during my internship were ones of self motivation, and endurance. Some of the tasks I was given required much time and were very meticulous. Though I consider myself a diligent person, calculating pay checks for four hours at a time isn't the easiest. But what I did realize is that the faster you get the assignment over with, the less time you have to spend with it. Also I have become accustom to the feeling of pride after accomplishing such a major task which makes it all worth it. I've learned a lot, and hope that this will jump-start my career in business.