19CaseyA – CA Work Experience Program

Last Day – Work Work Work

For my last day I needed to do so many more activities than what I did on the days before. I needed to finish the inventory, do more inventory and then finish the folders that we give to possible donors. The inventory took most of my day, 6 hours, while my folders took 2 hours – and I wasn’t even completely finished because we didn’t have enough items to put in the folders.

We of course had our daily meeting, and I had to do my final elevator pitch. Apparently I did really well, and when he asked a random question about my elevator pitch I answered correctly – these two weeks really brought me good luck. Since it’s my last day I will finally say what my elevator pitch is – “Curamericas is an organization that strives to save the lives of women and children in underprivileged communities”. Just a short phrase to hook people to ask more questions.

Besides that my nanny and her baby came to have lunch with me at Happy + Hale, it really made my day great.

That was my last day.

Day 7 – More Tasks

Today, I started out trying to finish the descriptions of each of the inventory items. This all though it sounds simple, took – hours. And I mean hours. Reasoning because I needed to look through our company dropbox for past descriptions of items, however, most items didn’t have past descriptions – so I needed to scour the internet for descriptions about items from places like Guatemala or Sierra Leone.

After about 5 hours of doing this – I finished and it was time for our daily meeting. It was the same old same old until I was told that I needed to do 5 more tasks, which was a tall order especially since I only have tomorrow left. However I already got 2 tasks done, and I guess the last 3 will be finished tomorrow. Besides that I nailed my elevator pitch again.

I think my favorite part of the day though was I actually connected and talked to the older interns today. It’s usually pretty awkward talking to them because of the fact that there’s such an age gap, but today we had a nice conversation, and it was pretty great.

For the rest of the day I just spent completing my tasks, and that was it.

Day 6 – More Inventory

Firstly, on Tuesday, Ms. Eason came to visit myself and Kaela, and asked about our work so far. She sat in on our daily intern meeting. And thankfully today when Andrew was asking me questions about my elevator pitch – I stated them correctly. Perfect day. In the meeting I basically explained how I was continuing to finish the inventory, and how I needed to send my translations of the website to a fluent spanish speaker.

After the meeting was over Ms. Eason left and I continued doing inventory. Today it was much more work, because Mr. Herrera stated that he wanted me to redo the work I did and separate it by price. So that was most of my day. Thankfully though I got to watch my new favorite tv show “The Society” while doing it.

After about 4 hours of inventory I got to go to Whole Foods and get some sushi, edamame, granola and sparkling water. It was VERY good. But after I ate my lunch I needed to find descriptions of each inventory item. Which is still going on because it’s a tall task.

That was my day. I did inventory the whole day.

Day 5 – Oof Inventory

Today was a big one. It was finally inventory day. I must say – I kinda enjoyed it; I love organizing things and actually feeling like I’m working, whereas typing on my computer makes me feel like I’m just sitting all day. But I will say, the amount of inventory I have to do is – a lot. I’m taking inventory of every trinket or bag we’ve gotten from each country for auctions or giveaways. In total there’s at least 500 items. Plus, I need to put tags on every single one, which is definitely the hardest part. However, it was quite relaxing, and the older intern and I decided to watch a show while doing it so it was quite fun.

Besides that during my lunch break I went to lunch at chopt, and went to Lululemon because I had extra time and needed workout clothes for my cycling class after work.

It was a good day to be honest. I felt like I was actually useful, and I did things I wanted to do. 🙂

Day 4 – Simple

Friday was the day to just continue the work that I was currently working on. I needed to keep working on the website and then we had another daily meeting at 2:30. The daily meeting brought us new jobs to do. Mr. Herrera wanted me to send the work I’ve done for the website to a fluent spanish speaker to see what they thought, and then he wanted me to start doing inventory Monday. My inventory would include counting how much of giveaway products we have and putting tags on each one. I will keep you updated about how many we have. Myself and Kaela went to happy and hale for lunch again, but besides that, that was my whole day.

Day 3 – Short but Helpful

Today was my third day at Curamericas Global, and the work was definitely hard. My task is a continuation of yesterday of translating the website to Spanish. I actually finished quite a lot for the time I had.

I arrived a minute late, but still no one was there. Once our boss arrived everyone once again piled into the conference room and sat til our morning meeting. It didn’t start till much later today, but we still were able to share what we were working on. It was the same old, same old, yet Mr. Herrera decided to bombard us with random questions to see how much we knew. It was kind of nerve racking. Scratch that. I was very nerve racking. I’m not good at coming up with answers on the spot, and Mr. Herrera was really testing me. But luckily, I was prepared with answers – this time.

Today we also had an intern lunch for every single intern working right now – college, high school and adults. We got mediterranean food, which was nice. However, I sadly had to leave early due to a doctors appointment at 2:15. But while I was leaving work, I did see a very cute dog.

That was my Thursday.

Day 2 – Only Spanish I Guess

Today was a hard one – that is safe to say. Although I was scared that I would arrive late today, I actually arrived early – meaning I had extra time to talk to Mr. Herrera.

Yesterday, he found out I’ve been to Argentina and I “speak” Spanish, so this morning he decided to give me a new task rather than just learning about Curamericas. My new task is translating the whole website to Spanish. The. Whole. Website. Safe to say, I am unsure when I will be able to finish this task – I (un)fortunately have gotten done with 3 pages over an 8 hour period. Not nearly close to the 50 pages I need to finish (there might be more, I haven’t counted yet). There’s also the worry that I’m not using correct grammar in my Spanish. But, since I’m just translating the website and there is bound to be words I’m unsure of – spanishdict is ok in this situation. In some ways though, I’m quite thankful for this new task. I feel like I’m being a lot more useful than I would’ve been by just reading about Curamericas. And by reading the website, in order to translate it, I’m basically reading about Curamericas. So it’s two tasks in one.

Just like yesterday, we had our daily intern meeting. Except today it was just a quick overview of what everyone was doing. Then it was back to work. I can’t say that we do much else than sit in our conference room and stare at a computer screen, but that is basically the job I guess. And of course, we got to go get lunch. Today I picked juice keys to get an açaí bowl and a coffee, while Kaela picked Chipotle. Basically just a bunch of driving to different places.

That was my Wednesday!

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Day 1 – the basics

It’s my first day here at Curamericas, and boy has it been a long yet influential one. What is Curamericas you might ask? An organization that fights to save the lives of women and children in underprivileged communities. Simply put, Curamericas is a non-profit health organization.

This week here is supposed to be used as sort of an educational experience. When I arrived, with anxiety to spare, I walked in and was greeted by Andrew Herrera – the executive director of the organization. I was sat in a conference room, where I was surrounded by other interns – most of whom were college students. Once Kaela arrived, we were ready to start.

We were first brought to Mr. Herrera’s office where we were told what we would be doing with our time, and then we were off. Our task was to create some SMART goals for what we want to get done for the next two weeks, read the guidelines/policies and sign them, and most importantly, get to know Curamericas. We needed to scour the internet, through their social media and websites, to learn about their mission and familiarize ourselves. Mr. Herrera stated that this is the most important aspect because our main job is to spread awareness about Curamericas – and we can’t do that if we don’t know the company.

After about an hour, at 10:30, we had a meeting with the other interns and Mr. Herrera to discuss each of our goals. Obviously, the college students had more specific jobs to talk about, but myself and Kaela were able to join in on the meeting. This meeting lasted about 45 minutes, then we were off again. Like I said, our main task each day is just researching and learning. So we basically sit in the conference room and type on our computer for a total of 8 hours. Except we do get an hour for lunch, whenever we want and wherever we would like. Myself and Kaela decided to go to Happy + Hale in North Hills, to get a salad for me, and two quesadillas for Kaela. I can’t lie, this was a really great part of the day. It felt like too much freedom for a normal Tuesday school day – but obviously, it was great.

And most importantly, one of the main volunteers brought her dog.

That was my first Tuesday on the job.