one month in.

so i've been working for just over a month. despite the longer-hours-than-i'm-used-to and the everyday-ness of it, that's still hard to believe. a whole month has gone by.

looking back, i've done a lot in those 5 weeks. i've worked on 4 focuses (not sure how to make focus plural, but... you know what i mean), several brochures, and... lots of little projects. (oh, and lots of boring stuff like printing labels and making copies. but you know, all of that stuff has to get done by someone...) :)

right now, i'm trying to decide if i could work in a place like this, post-graduation. i still don't know what i really want to be when i "grow up." but... i think maybe i could see myself in a working environment like this. i mean, after i take a few more classes, i could completely change my mind. right now, i think it would be amazing to work at some sort of magazine. but... who knows? at this current job, i'm not really utilizing the "writing" part of my major. but then again, i've always wanted to work in a coffeeshop, and that utilizes... let's see... none of my degree. :) so i guess we'll just have to wait and see where the good Lord leads me. and you know, i'm really ok with that. i'm thankful i like this job enough to say i could potentially see myself working at a similar place.

the details.

so today my boss said something profound. (well... in the eyes of a little comm. intern like myself, anyway.) :) she said that "when it comes to a piece like the focus, people don't really notice the little things you do to make it look good. they just know it's good." and that is so true. i can spend all day finding the "perfect graphic," resizing and cropping pictures, enhancing the brightness and contrast, curning the text so everything fits in the columns... essentially, being a perfectionist. and no one will notice all of that. they'll just notice that it's sharp and clean and informative.

this job really makes me see print in a fresh light. i have a significantly greater appreciation for writers, graphic design artists, and editors. they have a huge job and few people will ever be able to fully appreciate their work for the details. i guess that's just part of it.

amazing.

you know what's amazing about my job? well, i'll tell you.

this morning, my pastor walked into the communications department and stood in the middle of our three offices. "ok. so what do you girls think about getting out of this office for awhile? my department will take yours out for coffee..?" anna and jo (my boss and coworker) stood up immediately and pushed their chairs in. i just sat there, not sure if he was kidding. pastor hughes high-fived me and said, "c'mon, kiddo! let's do starbucks!" i looked at anna. "really?!" jo had already grabbed her purse and sunglasses and was standing in the hall ready to go. "listen, honey," she said. "the man said we're going to get coffee. if there's one thing you need to learn here, it's DON'T QUESTION AUTHORITY! get up! we're going!"

so we all hopped into his mini van and drove down the hill to starbucks. and the 5 of us had coffee together in the middle of the morning, when we were "supposed to be working." and that, my friends, is one of the many reasons my job is amazing. :)

...and it just keeps coming

it finally hit me today that this job never ends! all the jobs i've ever had have had distinct starting and ending points. a couple examples: when i counseled at a summer camp for inner city kids, i spent three weeks with the kids and then it was over. the kids got in the vans and went home. when i worked at the front desk of english hall, i worked for the year, and then i moved out because school (and the job) was over for the summer. but with this publications job, the work never ends. when i leave at the end of this summer, the workload will continue just like it always has (my boss will just have more work to do!). that's the nature of working in a publications department. we have a weekly newsletter that we put out. we have a specific schedule we have to follow (update information, add new graphics, contact people, rework layout, send out first draft, edit, package, send to printer, distribute). this is a long process. i work on the focus most on friday and monday... then tuesday, at noon, we send it out to staff for corrections, suggestions, and edits, and then on wednesday afternoon, we send it to the printer. we just sent it to the printer yesterday afternoon (wednesday)... and today, as i sat down to start working on the focus for next week, it hit me. i ALWAYS have something to do at this job. and there will always be something for me to do. if i'm not working on the focus, i'm updating church materials or printing off labels or making copies or... something. it's a department that cannot take a break. (which is good, don't get me wrong! i guess that just finally hit me today...)

a few pics

this is where i live 30 hours a week. (note my fake tree.)















































i opened my church bulletin this morning to find the ministry focus that i worked so long and hard on this week. there's something so ridiculously satisfying about seeing the finished product. it looked good. :) it's funny how this job has changed my entire sunday morning perspective. i now notice everything in my church that falls under the category of "communications." everything from the ministry focus to the inserts in the church bulletin to the powerpoint slides to the announcements. it's crazy having all this background knowledge and experience now. but i like it. :)

update from the intern

a few things i’ve learned this week:
1. finding graphics (what i said was my favorite part earlier) can be absolutely maddening. haha. so that clipart.com we subscribe to…? yeah, it’s not all it’s cracked up to be. all i needed the other day was a simple ice cream cone graphic and i couldn’t find one. out of 6 million graphics, i couldn’t find ONE good one! (this might be where the perfectionist in me comes out, ha...) i had to resort to sites like flickr.com and google image, where i FINALLY found one (after working on it a bit in photoshop). but yeah, it’s a lot harder than i thought! i had trouble today finding some graphics, too. you really have to know how to search for them (which often involves a lot of creativity, i’m finding).
2. i’ve discovered lately that most of my job involves “playing.” i have to play to make the text fit, to make the pictures look right, to make the text wrap around the image so there’s some anchor text at the bottom and not too much text crowding the top and side, and that it's all evenly spaced throughout the layout. with every picture i find online, i have to take it into photoshop and change it into black and white (because it’s a black and white publication). then i usually play with the brightness and contrast and i always crop and resize it. that part's not bad, but the rest is tedious. it's not like i've never played around in InDesign before... it's just that i've never had to work with a publication that a couple thousand people will read! it's my responsibility to inform... and to make it all look good. if i make something too big, it will spill into the next column… or if it’s too small, i have too much white space. it's like a giant puzzle of text and graphics! good thing i enjoy that kind of thing. few things in life are more satisfying than making it all fit together perfectly. :)
3. taylor is everywhere! it turns out, my boss’ son went to taylor! AND not one, but TWO of my coworkers have kids who went to taylor! a-mazing. i love the connection. :)

and now some good news to report. this week was my first week doing the focus (our church newsletter) almost entirely by myself - the graphics, the text, contacting people, sending the focus out to staff for corrections (when i learned how to make a distribution list in outlook and how to make a PDF of the document - all by myself!), editing, and finally, packaging everything and sending it to the printer. my bosses (yes, i have two) were quite pleased. one of them said “blake, look at you. this is what, week 3, and you’re already running with this! think about all we can do in the next couple months! i am just thrilled.” then my other boss (the one who was in charge of the focus before i came) said, “not as thrilled as i am!!” ha. so that made me feel good. there’s nothing like a good pat on the back. i’m happy with this week’s focus,too. it’s clean and sharp. and i really love the graphics i used. (and i’m glad my bosses do, too!)

well, it's bedtime for this intern. more later.

THE office?

so, i work in an office, right? right. but sometimes, it feels like i work in “THE office.”

as i was sitting at my desk today, i came up with a few ways my office job is like “the office.” (this probably won't make sense if you haven’t actually seen the office…)

1. i have a fake tree by my desk. (enough said.)
2. the receptionist has a candy dish at the front desk at all times.
3. i go to tons of meetings every week (only most of these are actually important meetings – not meetings for “movie mondays” or “diversity day.”) :)
4. at an all-staff meeting last week, they announced the birthdays for the month of june. (and all i could think was “c’monnn dowwwn, meredith!”)
5. for pete’s sake, there is even a woman named PHYLLIS that works in my department!

ha, i love it! i’ll think of more later… (sometimes, when i’m bored at work, i think of office references... and then laugh about them... to myself. the other day, i wanted so badly to answer the phone, “dunder mifflin, this is blake.” but… i didn’t.)

of course, i thought the office was hilarious before, but now that i’m actually working in an office (my first time), it’s SO much funnier. (of course, my days would be far more amusing if we had a michael or dwight in the office… aaand i wouldn’t argue if a little jim halpert was thrown in, either…) ;)

quick update

a few things i’ve learned this week:

1. with this job, i work until i’m finished. i'm supposed to get off work at 4:00, but i haven’t left at 4:00 once this week. i can’t just leave in the middle of a critical project. for example, on monday, i stayed late to make edits for the church newsletter that we sent to the printer today. (however, before we sent it to the printer, we had to send it out to staff yesterday so they could make any edits or corrections.)
2. i am a nerd. you should have seen my face when i realized how to use the textwrap, curning, and eyedropper tools in InDesign. let’s just say i got VERY excited. (i think my boss was pretty amused…)
3. everybody does things differently. today, my boss noticed that i doubleclicked on a word to highlight it. she then made some comment on how it’s just so fascinating how everyone has their own little shortcuts that work for them. and… i don’t know… i just love being able to talk about shortcuts and program tools in everyday conversation. :) (i know. NERD.)
4. i hate “readability”! i can have fun with some of the titles and headings (in the brochures i’ve been working on), but apparently, the body of the text needs to be in times new roman or arial. and i just think they’re both so terribly boring. i understand the need for “readability” (obviously, ha)… but with 50-ish sweet fonts at my fingertips, i kinda hate being restricted to two plain, boring ones.

so far, the internship is going great. really. i’ll elaborate soon... :)