10 posts tagged “boss”

            If I could do it all over again, I wouldn’t have had more than five birthday parties throughout childhood. That’s about how many it takes before the responsibility starts to outweigh the honor.  Now don’t get me wrong, the first couple times were great—the birthday boy’s only duty was to celebrate good times--and leave the rest to Mom.  But that’s before I learned how to talk.  And write.  All of a sudden I was turning six, and realizing that my annual celebration of life had become a burden.  The decisions to make were now many (the theme?  invitees? goodie bag contents? the thank-you notes—wearying; and the trick candles?)  No longer surprising. 

            Having abstained from birthday hosting for the past decade, I was noticeably ambivalent when Mrs. Boss asked me to assist in planning DailyMe’s Launch party.    She offered to share some of the responsibilities once she saw the look on my face, but it didn’t really matter.  Because it was me who placed the first phone calls to the venue, the caterer, the cupcake store, cameraman, and virtually everyone else involved.  If you have ever planned a party before, you know how this works: the guy who places the initial call to a party service becomes the “contact,” and it’s very difficult to transfer the role. 

            Now a couple weeks into the planning, the event is almost there.  Not that  the process hasn’t been without its headaches. To name one, the cupcake people!  I don’t know about you, but I would have thought cupcake-makers formed a humble industry.  But I guess that doesn’t hold for stores that deem themselves “cupcake designers;” they can be downright arrogant.  Needless to say, I expect their product to be delicious. 

            Other than that, the party is coming along nicely, and I don’t really have any more complaints.  Well, besides the fact that I wasn’t invited.  Ironic, I know.  I was so angry when I found out that I cursed the person who made the guest list…until I remembered that it was me.  Turns out I would have been invited, only the venue is a club on South Beach that does not allow guests under 21 years of age.  Very sad turn of events. 

I don’t want to be a complete party pooper though; this party is going to be awesome.  It’s on Saturday, August 2^nd at 7:00 p.m.  Fun guaranteed.  Plus, you never know who’s going to hide inside the DailyMe cake to sneak past the bouncers…

Happy 4^th of July everyone – Be safe!

Peace, Love, and Personalized Media,

-         John the Intern

http://DailyMe.com

            If I could do it all over again, I wouldn’t have had more than five birthday parties throughout childhood. That’s about how many it takes before the responsibility starts to outweigh the honor.  Now don’t get me wrong, the first couple times were great—the birthday boy’s only duty was to celebrate good times--and leave the rest to Mom.  But that’s before I learned how to talk.  And write.  All of a sudden I was turning six, and realizing that my annual celebration of life had become a burden.  The decisions to make were now many (the theme?  invitees? goodie bag contents? the thank-you notes—wearying; and the trick candles?)  No longer surprising. 

            Having abstained from birthday hosting for the past decade, I was noticeably ambivalent when Mrs. Boss asked me to assist in planning DailyMe’s Launch party.    She offered to share some of the responsibilities once she saw the look on my face, but it didn’t really matter.  Because it was me who placed the first phone calls to the venue, the caterer, the cupcake store, cameraman, and virtually everyone else involved.  If you have ever planned a party before, you know how this works: the guy who places the initial call to a party service becomes the “contact,” and it’s very difficult to transfer the role. 

            Now a couple weeks into the planning, the event is almost there.  Not that  the process hasn’t been without its headaches. To name one, the cupcake people!  I don’t know about you, but I would have thought cupcake-makers formed a humble industry.  But I guess that doesn’t hold for stores that deem themselves “cupcake designers;” they can be downright arrogant.  Needless to say, I expect their product to be delicious. 

            Other than that, the party is coming along nicely, and I don’t really have any more complaints.  Well, besides the fact that I wasn’t invited.  Ironic, I know.  I was so angry when I found out that I cursed the person who made the guest list…until I remembered that it was me.  Turns out I would have been invited, only the venue is a club on South Beach that does not allow guests under 21 years of age.  Very sad turn of events. 

I don’t want to be a complete party pooper though; this party is going to be awesome.  It’s on Saturday, August 2^nd at 7:00 p.m.  Fun guaranteed.  Plus, you never know who’s going to hide inside the DailyMe cake to sneak past the bouncers…

Happy 4^th of July everyone – Be safe!

Peace, Love, and Personalized Media,

-         John the Intern

http://DailyMe.com

Greetings from Florida!  I arrived here but a week ago, and can't help but feel that my summer is off to a late start.  There I was Friday, finally on the transcontinental flight home, so antsy to arrive that I couldn't even watch the in-flight episode of Two and a Half Men. And by the time I did reunite with my friends and acquaintances later that night, the conversations were way off; my “catch-up” questions were just too May.   By mid-June, “how did finals go?” is passé.

Work-wise, though, I came home just in the knick of time.  DailyMe had earlier agreed to take me back for another round of interning, and it wasn't until early June that they cleared me office space.  Turned out to be worth the wait: by the time I got back, they had cleared me a whole suite’s worth of space.  Well, not me personally.  More precisely, Sales and Marketing--the two groups I work with--recently moved to a different set of offices within our building.  This was partly to help accommodate the burgeoning company's staff increase, but also to give the Sales and Marketing a little space as they matured into teenage departments.  The CEO even let them get bunkbeds in their new pad. 

So I've been relegated to the new suite with another recent hire and Mrs. Boss--but the function goes hand in hand with the new features on DailyMe's site.  DM just incorporated some news organization tools meant to help readers find the most important news at a given time.  Users can still prioritize DailyMe’s articles based on their personal preference survey, but now they can also see what headlines our editorial board thought worthy of attention along with the most popular news of the day, DailyWe, as determined by what fellow DM’ers are reading.

I don't mean to wax nostalgic, but it felt funny to experience another DailyMe launch so soon after returning.  It was more than 7 months ago, but I remember the original service's initial Beta launch like it was yesterday.  I had just finished my first summer internship, and watched the old site go live on a laptop screen not unlike the one I'm viewing now.  Reliving that excitement all over again last week was great, and I hope we continue the trend of one grand unveiling per summer.  Pretty soon, I'll have seen more launches than an astronaut's wife and the mayor of Cape Canaveral combined. 

Until then, though, I’m just happy to be back and be bloggin’. 

Peace, Love, and Personalized Media,

-         John the Intern

http://DailyMe.com

The college life is oft credited for its lack of structure, but I see this as more of a mixed blessing.  Because the unforced hand must bear a lot of responsibility, and the choices we make—as perceived by others—are completely our own.  And just like under any government structure, students are frequently confronted with trade-offs for which they must pick a side. 

In a co-ed dorm with a co-ed bathroom, it’s either privacy or hygiene (you are never alone in there, but it’s the only place you can get a good hand-wash these days); and when it comes to biking across the campus’s full sprawl, it’s either safety or style (refusing to wear a bike helmet may be man at his most irrational, but for some reason [the chin strap], many share his stance.) When it comes to finding good outside news coverage, however, our choice is more of an ultimatum.  The only two options: ignorant bliss, or find it for yourself.  So here is where my summer internship at DailyMe REALLY made it easy to choose the latter. 

The only universal adjectives to describe a college campus are “insulated” and “digital” and hopefully DailyMe will find a large captive audience in my demographic.  I mean, it’s not that no other news reaches us: each dining hall is well stocked with copies the regional rag, and we also receive a student-run daily.  When I pick one of those up, though, I seldom get beyond the classified ads (psychological experimenters offer up to $25-a-week for willing subjects).  Bottom line: I seriously give DailyMe props for creating a platform to give me all the information I want in the most convenient way possible and FREE – muy importante to the average college kid.

And it adds some structure to my day, too.  I chose the automatic print delivery option (the only dependable paperboy left in this world), and it’s the best alarm clock I could ask for.  My laserjet’s print-in-progress sound is just what I need to get my feet on the floor (I love the smell of toner in the morning).  The way I see it, this system will only fail to wake me come the day when there is no news to print—and is it even worth waking up, in that case? 

            As far as my former Florida officemates - well, I haven’t seen them since long before their launch date.  I do I share the occasional text message, email, IM and/or phone conversation with Mrs. Boss.  It seems as though things are off to a real good start.  I did hear that the atomic clock synchronizing dilemma peaked once again with the changing of weeks for Daylight Savings this year, but it’s safe to say that was a secondary business interest of the CEO. 

And now for the part of my blog you really want to know…college life is awesome! (but you knew that already – right?) - More to come about the daily trials and tribulations of my freshmanhood in my upcoming blogs.  The DailyMe Intern is back baby!    

Peace, Love, and Personalized Media -

-John the Intern

I always count my blessings that the Earth is—beyond a reasonable doubt—round and without end.  Our ancestors put up with misconceptions about a flat planet for years, but could modern man even handle the notion of a “terminal edge”?  We have evolved into a species that always fears the finish, and our habits verify this fact (when was the last time that television-watchers were satisfied with a series finale?). Of course, this idea is no better put to work than by our farewell customs: people these days would prefer a novelty e-card to the warmth of a genuine goodbye hug, and I’m no exception.  This is one reason why it will be difficult to wrap up my internship at DailyMe come the end of the week. 

            Yes: by this time on Friday, I will be putting my seat in the full upright position in preparation to land at an airport close to college.  But before I recede from the blogosphere completely, I’d like to reflect on some of the DailyMe team members who made my summer fun and informative (FUNformative!).  The first word that comes to mind is “roast”, but those are usually done with permission. 

The CEO/Founder a.k.a. The Founder/CEO: The dual-title alone explains why this guy got the corner office, but don’t think for a second that our fearless leader lacks humility.  This is a man who shares a refrigerator with his employees, which says a lot more than “Please! Call me by my first name, and shorten that to a nickname if you’re promoted to management”…we have that policy, too.  The Chief was never a stickler on time, but time was often cruel to him.  Like the time he bought three atomic clocks for the office, only to find that they were out of synch.  We did “eeny-meeny-miny-moe” to decide which one read correctly. 

Mrs. Boss a.k.a. 20-Words-Or-Less: I’d like to keep this reflection short and sweet, because that was my direct supervisor’s style.  She has plenty of fun things to talk about, but wait until lunch to hear about them.  Always the champion of focus--Mrs. Boss can bring a meeting back to center from just about any digression (just about any digression), and sometimes manages to fit an eight-hour workday into six.  She taught me a lot about Sales and Marketing (her two areas of expertise), and skillfully wore both hats throughout my internship (three hats, if you count the DailyMe manual-fit cap we produced for a convention).  But seriously, goodbye to my partner in crime, and biggest fan (second to my grandmother).

The V.P.s a.k.a. The Veeps a.k.a. The Two Programmers a.k.a. Thing 1 and Thing 2:  These guys only have one thing in common—their job--but it happened to be the only thing I was using as a basis for nicknames; this is why they have been aggregated for the sake of description.  Not that they really mind, having spent months aggregating your relevant news with their well-tweaked DailyMe algorithms.  You could almost say it brings things full circle.  Either way, these are some very particular characters: they like their work hard, their lunches cheap, and their cubicles by the window.

            At the end of the day, I’m happy to have worked with such a lively crew.  These co-workers taught me both the written and unwritten lessons of working for a company, and the only ones I neglected to learn were in messy cursive.  I will sign-off now, but not for the last time.  I plan to make guest web appearances throughout the school-year, and cannot wait to keep you posted on all irrelevant things DailyMe.  (And of course the actual launch of DailyMe, scheduled in the upcoming weeks!)

Goodbye all!

As always – Peace, Love, and Personalized Media.

-John the Intern

www.dailyme.com

No less than thirty-four days ago, I promised all of my faithful readers (my mom, my grandma, and nine web crawlers) a DailyMe video production.  The pain grew worse each day that I deprived you of our film debut, but can you really blame me for putting it off?  The summer movie season is difficult to compete with, especially when blockbusters like I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry still loom large.  We CHOSE to hold off release until the turn of the autumn tides, but that is not to say we didn’t have our share of production hell. 

            I may have also mentioned in an earlier post that our digital short was entirely no-budget (not to be confused with low-budget).  This is no longer the case, however, as we ultimately hired a Miami editing studio to…well…smooth things over.  For any disappointed purists out there, I have but two bits of consolation: first, we plan to release a later version on DVD titled John the Intern: RAW and UNCUT; second, the editing process gave me some interesting fodder for a blog post! 

            We’ll start with the drive from Point A – DM Headquarters to Point B – the Editing Studio, with a short-lived stop at a fast food joint.  Getting there was a hassle…mid-day traffic, mid-day heat and mid-day South Florida drivers.  Following Mrs. Boss on a 4-lane expressway was also no easy feat.  As an otherwise no-time-to-spare-person, Mrs. Boss had no trouble traversing the highway at intense, controlled speeds; my car—never the fastest or most furious—was left in the dust. 

We were rushing partly to grab a quick nearby lunch before our appointment time, which was one of our two meal options.  Of course the studio had mentioned that they provided food to clients who were interested, but how many of you would have waited to see what was behind door number two?  Evidently we should have, because their “modest office food display” included a 30-item silver-tray buffet served on china (but with plastic forks).   Needless to say, I had fit two lunches in that day complete with coffee and dessert. 

            Fortunately, the forgone luxury was a sign of other good things to come.  Our “Smoke Room” aka editing room for those of you not in the know, (myself included), was sweet – no pun intended.  Huge plush couches, a well-stocked beverage spread and endless trays of chocolate covered strawberries, chocolate cake and anything else chocolate we desired.  A far cry from the cubicle life this intern has lived thus far.  Anyway…the overabundance of chocolate thankfully eased the otherwise tense Mrs. Boss, who kept her focus mainly on managing the time and budget, while ever so tactfully not interfering with the creative integrity of developing the actual video.  (I guess someone has to do that right?)

            But more importantly, the Smoke Room was equipped with a skilled veteran editor who was well versed in the language of laymen terms.  Together, in one of the studio’s largest rooms, my vague sense of direction was transformed, scene-by-scene, into a cohesive product.  All in all, this was definitely a day for the history books of my interning career at DailyMe.

            Oh, and I hope you all enjoy the vid.  You can call it that once you’ve made one! 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAbQff6nuhc.

Peace, Love, and Personalized Media.

-John the Intern

www.dailyme.com

In our lifetimes we have been both consumers and producers, but never at the same time.  That is, unless you shop for clothes online during work hours or——like most corporate types--- conduct business via Blackberry during family dinners. 

On some levels, it is easy to reconcile the two roles: members of the workforce can produce from 9-to-5 on Monday-thru-Friday, and purchase their food/house/life supplies from shift-managed stores throughout the evenings and weekends.  But what happens when this salaried, 5-day-a-weeker desires a product or service that is only sold during his business hours?  He ditches work to take care of his schtuff…that’s what. 

            So where is the line drawn?  To what extent should self-preservation come to mind during a paid grind?  By now, like with all other aspects of office courtesy, an unwritten book of guidelines has been long unpublished on the subject.  There are several types of during-work errands that an understanding boss would find acceptable, mine included, and the appropriate time off for each is directly related to the criteria it fulfills. 

            One important criterion should be of course, that the errand can ONLY be completed during work hours.  This generally includes anything postal, medical, or financial; sometimes it’s all three. 

              Beyond this, the breadth of errands allowed depends entirely on a given work environment.  If one is fortunate enough to leave an office where “every minute counts” for a more liberal group, they’ll see that “grooming” and “automobile”-related tasks are the first to become OK again.  Approval of the former is perhaps influenced by a famously versatile quote fragment, “the clothes/hair/shoes/nails/toenails/moustache makes the man/woman”.  When a boss is more concerned with the quality and appearance of employee time, he or she will know that Saturday is simply too late to hit the salon.  Likewise, the de-clawing aspect of a manicure can be an asset to the work week, because it encourages good, painless handshakes (and we know how important handshakes are).  At DailyMe, my boss actually gave me the name of a trendy hair-cuttery (the ensuing adventure is a whole ‘nother story). 

            On the other hand, I have not yet experienced car-maintenance errands …but I already know why they’re so effective.  Do you really know what’s underneath the hood of your car?  How about the cars of your employees?  And are you willing to wager money on the length of time it takes to get the “free” carwash at the dealership?  If the answer to all of these questions is no, then you should also see the light.  Few people know enough about automobiles to question an employee getting one fixed, which makes this excuse an excellent “wild card”.  No matter what the occasion, just tell your boss there is something wrong with the “carburetor-doodad-combobulator” for a get-out-of-jail-free card.  Until abused excessively, this system is widely accepted in most offices across .  Just don’t try it if your boss is an auto mechanic. 

            This is not to say that trips to Target and Office Depot cannot be taken periodically.  DM does not mind day-trips to nearby retailers, presuming the employee says the secret password: “do any of you need something from there?” 

            The moral of the story is that everyone has to put their personal needs before their work sometimes.  A sympathetic boss will always understand, especially when the time you do spend at your desk is valuable.  A happy employee pays his dues, but also enjoys clean sideburns and a fine-sounding engine.  Too bad I can’t grow sideburns yet. 

Peace, Love, and Personalized Media.

-John the Intern

www.dailyme.com 

 I began work at DailyMe a month ago, and have injected exactly 4,100 words into the web’s noisy blogosphere since.  This number would be greater if our oft-used company name was split into two words, but I appreciate that our current figure is easy to convert into scientific notation.  After all the summer’s toiling, though, many friends have begun noting my transformation from footloose-and-fancy-free teenager to drab corporate stiff. The first term that comes to mind may be “sell-out”, but I’m not making enough money for that to do their observation justice. Instead, I think any differences in my personality can be attributed to a 40-hour-per-week exposure to office life.  I don’t want to become a square, but I can already sense the areas where I am diverging from my own age group.  Here are a couple of them:

1        Sense of Humor: Although “that’s what she said” jokes continue to tap the universal male funnybone, my friends and I can’t relate over many other gags.  It’s not that a big-boy job has elevated the wit of my jokes, but, instead, it has changed the topics that I find funny.  Since joining the civilian labor force, the only “size” I’ve heckled a buddy about is that of his pension.   

2        Down-time: I pity the fool who sleeps ‘till noon each wasteful summer day, but I envy the contemporaries who found honest work at a summer camp: their rest hour after lunch is just what my near-adult body needs to get through the day.  I’m yet to observe a siesta at DailyMe, but I get one notable break each Monday morning: I forget that my superiors are coming in at 9:30 instead of 9:00 AM, and end up with half an hour to kill while I wait to be let into the office.  This is a good opportunity to sleep on a bed of tile, chug a Red Bull, or stick my head down a flushing toilet until my eyes open.  Either way, I’m all the more energized for a day of work. 

 I can’t think of much else that distinguishes me from my peers, and I’m grateful: I’d hate to put “Density of Body Hair” as a third category.  The bottom line is that I’m still a kid at heart—and in physique–and will not lose sight of this as I continue my internship.  Just don’t call me Peter Pan.

   It’s only 10:00 AM on July 5^th, but the flame of Independence Day in South Florida is extinguished.  Though yesterday’s holiday spirit seemed more charged-up than Benjamin Franklin’s libido (or so I’ve heard), the zest has since fizzled like a child-safe sparkler.  Nestled in an online chatroom because its building was closed, however, the DailyMe staff remained largely oblivious of the holiday’s coming-and-going.  One could chalk this up to the management’s international background, but I attribute the diligence to our site’s impending launch date.  As we prepare to go public with the service, we expect to work harder hours, to stay for longer days, and to drink Spicier-flavored V8 juice.  It will take some extra energy on my part as well, but the fruit of labor will be next month’s launch party.  We originally wanted the celebration’s theme to signify progress and innovation—we do claim to produce “next generation news”, after all—but we’ll probably just go with something risk-free like “Daily Me, Vegas Style”. 

            I’ve spent a good deal of time discussing the energy our staff has put into the homestretch, but I haven’t yet told you the nature of our work.  This is partly because it would defeat the purpose of pleasure reading, but there is also some pressure from the powers that be to stay hush-hush.  We are currently fleshing out some marketing strategies, and are trying to keep them under wraps as crunch-time continues.   

            In parallel, our computer whizzes will program codes and algorithms into the new web design while the others focus on some “QA”.  The latter undertaking may be illegal in most grammar books (what’s the deal, Q?  Too cool to hang out with U these days?), but Quality Assurance (full name) is essential for the detail-oriented startup. 

            I don’t know how I’ll fit into the final countdown, but I hope it involves either blogging or jumping out of launch cakes.  Enjoy the holiday-less remainder of summer, I’ll be keeping you company several times a week.

-John the Intern

www.dailyme.com

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but I’m only getting paid for four hundred.  This is why I’m going to reiterate the events of “office photo day” quickly.   Office Photo Day (noun): similar to “yearbook photo day”, “passport photo day”, and “mug shot photo night”, it is an opportunity to fake-smile for a professional picture that you, on principle, will be unsatisfied with.  Unlike other photo days, though, this visually-memorable event includes a fair deal of digital touch-up, and you get more than one picture to choose from.  Someone involved will, at some point, make a throwback reference to either “bunny-ears” or “cheeeese”, but this won’t make it any easier to smile with sincerity.    

Still, the noon arrival of photographers to the DM headquarters was a welcomed diversion from yesterday morning’s hard work.  In fact, it felt similar to another, slightly more nourishing diversion that I would have otherwise taken at that time.  But it’s like my mother always said-“You can eat food for lunch any day, but how often do you get a chance to eat a migraine-inducing light flash?  Less sodium, really.” Overlooked in her nutritional analysis of flash photography, however, were the optic side effects.  These were only brought to my attention when a co-worker (another VeePee of Product Management) was unable to keep his eyes open for nearly twenty takes.  Let me tell you: this guy’s eyes were SOOO closed.  How closed?  So closed that…well, so closed that he probably can’t relate to the hit song “Hungry Eyes”.  

By the end of photo day, I was pleased to have a few solid individual headshots to my name.  Yet the Kodak moment has not fully passed: we could not agree on a formation for the group shot by the end of the day, and have to revisit that ensemble pose next week.  Some major topics of contention among the staff included the battle for the middle spot in the back row (result pending office height measurements, for this spot is reserved for the tallest), along with my futile attempts to convince the CEO that he would look “rockstar” if he lay across everyone else’s arms for the picture.   

I would love to “freeze-frame” my work for longer to continue discussing photo day, but the time has come to go from loud to mum.  Have a good 4^th of July, but remember: it’s tough to launder clothes that include all three primary colors.   Enjoy both symbolic freedom and a day-off.  

-John the Intern 

www.dailyme.com