Challenges

One of the biggest challenges I have had to face at my internship is the lack of social interaction. About 90% of my day is spent working on the computer at my desk, and while I did expect something along these lines seeing as I was working in an office building, I did not expect this much isolation. My desk is located at the far end of our department by the supply room and the conference table which is primarily used for the Monday staff meetings (meaning, it’s almost always empty). The neighboring desks in relation to mine are empty, as they are reserved for interns and temporary staff, and on the other side of the massive filing cabinet that blocks my view of the rest of the office, are three empty reception desks. I have found that this kind of isolation from my coworkers has been especially disappointing because of how kind they all were when I was introduced to them. The few amount of interactions I have had with my coworkers have all been very positive and I felt so welcome there, and it seemed they were all genuinely excited to have me working with them. I was so excited to be able to interact with all of these awesome people who were doing great things for our community, and was rather disappointed when I realized how rarely I would even be able to converse with any of them. On a typical day, I might have 3-4 (and that is being generous) interactions with co workers other than my mentor, Zach, and they were usually just people on their way to the supply room so the interaction was minimal. The conversations really never go much further than a coworker saying they feel bad that I’m all alone in the back, and me politely trying to assure them that it’s not so bad (there’s not much they can do about it anyways, so I thought it would be better to keep them from worrying). One of the things I was really looking forward to taking away from this internship is the relationships I would form and the skills to do it again in future internships or jobs; now, though, I am starting to worry that I will not get these experiences to the fullest extent.