The Internship

Back in 2014, I was given an opportunity to do an internship at a Private wealth management company In Bengaluru. This is a very high turnover institution however a small enterprise in terms of staff. Though the working environment in this firm was very different (due to it being a small firm with a close knit faculty) from what I am used to, I took this up as a challenge to apply my ongoing corporate experience and to suggest process improvements. This was agreed upon as a weekend commitment. However as my work progressed, I realised that there was much more to this internship than just bring about process improvements. Some of the staff members were not happy with the fact that there was a much younger person coming up with changes in the process that they have

been comfortable for over a year, one staff member left on maternity leave and one on personal emergency and I was left with a bunch of others who could not be influenced much. Looking at the plight, the proprietor of the firm asked me if I could step up to the situation. This was when my weekend internship project turned into a 7 days-a-week work. I was determinate to finish what I had started off, also to prove to myself that in the face of adverse experience, posed by the staff members or by the nature of work, a challenge can only become an opportunity. In spite of having a full time job, I decided to churn out additional effort to help with day to day work load of the staff. This meant that I was working 15 hours on an average a day. Another major challenge was that I recently got transferred to a new ole at my day job, which required me to work at the same timings as this “internship”. After almost 2 months of working with this small firm, I still had my project pending as I focus was now shifted to helping staff with day-to-day work. To ensure I was not compromising at both work places, I had to utilize my work from capabilities and also be creative in terms of flexibility. At the end of 3 and half months I was successful in terms of original expectation, ie, process analysis. Though the project too longer than it was supposed to be, my commitment towards that organization was well appreciated. The staff members, who were initially unsupportive of me, came very helpful, when they were offered a helping hand.