Parallel Roles

Interning over the past three summers of college has really given me perspective on different situations that coworkers often encounter with one another when working together. From working on teams or just interacting with the people in the cubicles around you, one easily realizes the general fact that people are different and similar in many ways. It is these differences and similarities that really create positive or negative interactions with one another. For instance, when working at a firm this past summer, I encountered many positive interactions with my coworkers. My very first day on the internship, right after meeting my boss, I was informed that he was leaving for a international business trip for the next three weeks. Being only my first day, I had no idea of what was required of me, what types of projects I would be working on and who I could go to for assistance during his travels. My boss quickly introduced me to others that worked in the same division as me, handed me a list of projects I would be working on while he was away (which included a brief overview) and handed me several books telling me to learn about the business. Being completely overwhelmed and confused many of my coworkers stepped in to help me out. They included me on trainings to help me understand what the division did and allowed me to sit in on higher executive meetings. They also guided me to the right people when I was working on certain projects so I could have resources. I think one of the biggest reasons for this is not only their kind personalities but also because of their dedication to their work. Many of the people I worked with had been with the company for over 10 years. They had dedicated a lot of time to their jobs and the company and had gathered a lot of experience along the way. This dedication to their job is what really lead them to help me out.

On the contrary, I have also had bad interactions with coworkers at another internship. Two summers ago while working, a majority of my projects were team based. Not only would I be working with associates who had been with the company for years but also with my fellow interns. Working with interns in this situation was rather difficult while working on projects only because everyone was trying to do everything. To be more specific, at the end of our internship at KPMG we had to do a final presentation with our fellow interns on our overall experiences and describe some of our projects to top executives from the company.  While trying to work in a group with individuals who essentially are competing with one another to make the best impression was very difficult. I think that in this particular instance, personalities played a huge role in the functionality of our group. We had no direction with the presentation because everyone had different ideas and no one wanted to step up to the plate to organize it because individual sacrfices would have had to be made. Because of this, in the end our presentation unfortunately was not as smooth as it could have been if we all had evenly distributed our work and worked together as a team.