Submitted by Samantha O’Brien on the 2013 summer session study abroad program in Australia sponsored by the Alfred Lerner College of Business and Economics…
With my third week in Sydney, Australia complete and every weekday spent at my internship, I have learned a great deal about the workplace, how it differs in Australia from America, and specifically how my field of study, accounting, is actually handled on a day- to-day basis. Thinking back to my very first day, I remember being incredibly nervous. Every job and more specifically every boss I have had in the States has been exceedingly intimidating even if they eventually became more jovial as they gained faith in me as an employee. This is exactly what I expected walking into my job here; especially since this job is what some call a “real job,” an internship, not a part- time job just to make some spare cash. This job is the first step to my career in accounting. With the increased seriousness of the position, I fully expected my boss to be the most intimidating yet, however this was not the case.
In fact, my boss here in Australia has proven to be the least intimidating and most friendly boss I have ever had. Here in Australia, my boss as well as the rest of my co-workers are all extremely pleasant and even comical. There is not one person in my office that is harsh or strict. They are all extremely relaxed, not giving me a time I need to specifically come in or leave, and even telling me that I can have an hour break for lunch. The first day, I was personally introduced to every single person working in our office, including the CEO himself. Right away, I absolutely loved how welcoming my office was. In the past, I have always hated working in an office where you are not introduced to your co-workers. How are you supposed to work together productively if you do not even know each others’ names? Here everyone knows each other and people will wander about to have a chat or just yell jokes across our small office to one another. It creates an extremely happy environment that actually makes you want to be productive unlike many of the quieter more stern offices I have worked in within the United States.
Even more enjoyable as well as surprising was that on my first day, my boss took me into a conference room along with my co-worker who was to work with and instruct me daily, Gloria, and simply asked what it was that I personally wanted to do during this internship. He explained that this was for me, not for them, and he wanted to make sure I was working on projects that I actually found interesting. The two kept repeating how they wanted to make sure that they were not boring me. I was shocked. I had never had an employer tell me that they were worried about boring me. It was then that they had me explain exactly what it was I was hoping to learn from the internship and they based my work around that explanation. After that, I began work with Gloria who walked me through everything step-by-step. She explained each task with a smile and a laugh and would even apologize if she thought that an errand was too dull. She would explain that in the end, I will have more challenging tasks that will tie together with my first assignments and showed me just how important they were even though they were tedious. I found this extremely amusing and because of her happy and relaxed demeanor have found myself all the more willing to perform any project, no matter how menial, to the best of my abilities.
I feel that because my bosses as well as the rest of my co-workers are so friendly and because we have a relatively small company (less than twenty-five employees total in our office) I have had an extremely enjoyable experience working here. There are many nights that I go home and speak with the other interns who are working for larger companies who I was initially jealous of (I had originally wanted to work for a large international company) and found that when talking to them I had a much more positive view of my internship experience and was drastically more satisfied with my work, even though we were all performing similar jobs. Many of them said that they would get all their work via emails, having many days when their bosses did not even show up to work. I am now extremely happy to be working for a small company and in many ways have changed my original goal to work someday for a large firm. I would still like the firm to be international because I really hope to travel, however, I am finding that I would much rather work within a small office with sociable co-workers than a large one where there are many people I may never even meet. I am less than half-way through my internship and have already learned so much about my career goals and desires for the future.