Click. My future was sent away.

I had researched hard, nearly painstakingly, to finally arrive at the place where I wanted to do my first internship. It was for a website, which excited me because of all the usual reasons: personal attention, more work and thus lots to learn, since you did everything virtually and had one on one contact with the admin through email.

I became familiar with this site when I had bought a notepad and the website was written on the back. I had hopped onto the computer and spent a little time roaming the links. This site was like no other. It is one of the top five girl websites in the nation where I had spent most of my spare time on. It a website for girls, by girls. By girls, I mean the interns that helped keep the site running with day to day demands. Miss O & Friends allows girls to still be girls with their Girl2Girl Wall which we can all communicate on. After constantly being on it, I knew I wanted to help assist in enhancing the site and my admiration for technology built; therefore I applied for the position.

I had already sent in my information as I awaited the reply of the admin. I sat on my sleeping quarters, hunched like a turtle on its shell, staring at the clocks ticking away without a care in the world. Anxiety built up as the hands of the clocks danced away in circles.
I kept on contradicting my choice. I don’t know how long I had been talking to myself for, but I knew it was worth the time.

“What if I get denied the position?” I hesitated, “This is a once in a lifetime opportunity I hope I didn’t blow.”

A page popped up three hours later. “New Mail,” it read. I double clicked it with a bottle of exhilaration about to explode. I opened the letter that would be the blueprint of my life.

“You have qualified! We would unconditionally love to have you as part of the intern committee for our site. As far as the work goes, which we will jump right into, I will be sending out the tasks as per according to what you mentioned you knew how to use. The tasks should be completed within a week. To get you started, I have supplied you with the task of coding games already on the site and making an excel spreadsheet for it.”

“Dad, dad,” I bellowed with enthusiasm, “I’m officially an intern now, look!”

My dad lectured, “Congrats, I knew you would be given the spot. You should start working right away to make sure the admin has a good first impression of the newly joined intern. You don’t want her to regret the decision because I am sure there are plenty more of girls like you.”

“Alright, easy as pie,” I assumed.

I started working on the assignment immediately which forked with an issue. The problem was that I was never experienced with “coding” games. Thoughts raced through my head. This is due in a week and I don’t know how to even start it. Why isn’t this on Google? Everything is on Google!

I absolutely didn’t want to tell the admin that I had not even a slightest clue on what I had to undertake. If I were to tell her, that would just give her a bad impression of me. She would only think I was definitely not worthy for the opportunity. Therefore, I knew I couldn’t take a chance.

I was assigned a to-do, and I want to prove to the head how spectacular my initiative and can-do attitude was. I had a bit of a phobia of interrupting the admin and or potentially wasting her time by bothering her with my question, which she thought I knew how to answer. I constantly thought about it and then asking questions seemed to be beneficial at this time.

I knew taking the inconvenience of an extra 30 seconds to have my question answered was far more beneficial than taking an extra 30 hours to figure out how to code a game. I had to meet a strict deadline to raise her expectations of me. I was not getting compensated for it, but every hour counted, and if I was not striving to be the most efficient with my time then I was not benefiting anyone– least of all myself.

I finally built up some audacity to question how to code a game and shot her an email. It was just one day before the deadline and I had a bloodcurdling feeling she was going to get disappointed that I procrastinated. I could imagine how fiery her thoughts would be, just like a heated kiln. Nevertheless, I still decided to tell her.

She promptly responded, stating that it was crucial for me to straighten out what I didn’t understand ahead of time and not at the last minute. She explained how it was only a first task and there was no problem with her taking a little time to explain because that was her job and I emulated her.

After she kindly described how coding games worked, I immediately finished it without a hesitation because I knew precisely how to do it. Asking questions assisted me gain success instead of stare at failure.

Being involved with "Miss O and Friends" has taught me responsibility, and dramatically given me a taste of the working world at a young age. I don't know what I would be doing today if I had not become a "Miss O" intern, but I know my life would not nearly be as fulfilling.