Learning from Grunt Work

One of my greatest struggles this semester has been finding a way to make myself necessary within the organization. I feel that often times in internship situations, the person occupying that position knows they are expendable, and that can have an effect on his or her attitude and quality of work. One article I read during my industry research explained how difficult it can be for a young intern to stand out and make a good impression during such a small window of time in a new environment. When there are so many other interns working in my office at all times, and not enough responsibility to go around, it can be especially difficult. As a result, I have spent much of my time on site this semester attempting to navigate my desire to take initiative while being assigned tasks that can sometimes be frustratingly menial. This week many people were out of the office doing groundwork in preparation for election day, but we were contacted on very short notice by an out of state company to tackle a new defense project (Defense projects tend to be confidential, so I cannot disclose any details). Because there were so few people in the office, the other interns and I had been waiting around for most of the day to be given something to do. When one of the VPs came in a little late on Tuesday, we asked him if there was anything he needed from us. He promptly handed over a box of mailers and a basket of phones, and we spent the majority of the next two days making cold calls and stamping mailers. At first, we were annoyed at the thought of spending our days like this, but two of our VPs came into the conference room to help us stamp the mailers. We knew they had other work to do, but they stuck around and chatted for a bit, and answered some questions we had about this new client. When I checked my phone last night I received a Slack notification that project had been successful, and that the client had signed on with us for a subsequent project. This was concrete proof that our work had been successful, and a reminder that even though it may have felt unimportant in the moment, that did not mean that we were not making a difference within the organization. Up until this point I felt I had spent a decent amount of the semester learning how to become comfortable speaking up and asking for more responsibility in the office, and was frustrated and bored when I kept getting assigned grunt work. However, this proved what a small difference it made to simply ask to be a part of something new within the company.