This summer I have been a remote intern at Azul Brazilian Airlines. As a remote intern I work with a team on interns on an assigned project. Since the team of interns are both from Brazil and the US, and also due to COVID, we meet virtually. Most of the work is done independently but we compare results and work together when necessary. We all meet with the company representatives once a week to discuss our progress and to get any of our questions answered. Due to the nature of the remoteness of this internship I have had little ‘real’ interaction with the company to get a good idea of what the company culture is. In my previous response I explained, from what I have understood so far, the company is goal driven and is willing to teach and assist; however, the company puts a lot of responsibility for success on the intern and falls behind on creating positive work relationships among the interns and the permanent employees. As a result of the negative aspects of the company it has been difficult to view the work I have been doing as valuable.
The inconsistencies and lack of communication between the company and the interns have made the internship experience less enjoyable. One the one hand, I had been told that the work I am doing will be used to possibly improve and alter the airline’s booking strategy to maximize profit. As an intern that sounded exciting as it would create a real positive impact on the company. On the other hand, it seems that the company has not taken the internship seriously, which makes their statement seem misleading. Many of the meetings that we had scheduled with the company were cancelled or moved to another date, something that pushed back the progress we made. As a result, we ended up completing one of the tasks we were assigned by the company two weeks later, compared to what would have happened if we had kept all of our original meeting times.
The fact that meetings are virtual causes communication issues between the company and the interns. One of the major issues we face when meeting with the company is that we have never met any of our co-workers in person. Instead we have only met for the purposes of this internship via Zoom. In addition to that, we have never had a video meeting with the company employees, all calls are only voice, which has made any small talk very difficult to initiate. As a result at meetings only work related subjects are discussed, which has made team work and honest conversation difficult.
I hate to be negative, however I can only write about what I have experienced so far. I believe that the COVID-19 situation has caused many things that are considered secondary in the company, such as our internship, to have lesser focus, which may be why some of these issues have occurred. In other circumstances, especially in one where I would work for the company in person, I would be able to give a much more holistic response to these questions of company culture and values.
Feedback
Nectarios-Nicholas,
I feel like your experience really highlights the question of "what is work?" It sounds like your internship only includes a very slim definition of "work," and excludes anything that doesn't specifically and concretely lead to a deliverable. This is the most obvious and visible part of "work," but there's so much more to work than that (kind of like how writing a paper is essentially moving your fingers across a keyboard, which leads to a visible outcome, but there's so much more to it than that - thinking, reading, researching, talking about your ideas with someone, planning, reading what you wrote. etc.). In a society where so much of our lives are shaped around work (where we live, who we spend the bulk of our time with, etc.), it's important for our wellbeing to consider other aspects of work (on the lightest side, small talk with coworkers, which, as you said, you don't have here-- but this can also include so much more, like celebrating milestones together, collaborating, sharing ideas and processes, experiencing failure together). So, basically, what I take away from what you've described here is an analogy: your internship is to work as typing is to writing. If nothing else, I hope this internship experience helps you notice and value to the parts of work that aren't directly related to creating some kind deliverable!
Since Then
Looking back, I think the fact that the internship was virtual caused many of these issues. During the end of the project I had more of an opportunity to communicate with the company managers and they definitely did care about our project. However, the fact that they were running for the first time a virtual internship may have caused many of the communication issues we faced.
