My First Entry!

So, I've decided to create this blog to archive all the things that I'm going to be doing for my 13-week long internship with the Long Island Radio Group. The company, which is based on -- you guessed it -- Long Island, owns many popular radio stations including, but not limited to WMJC 94.3, B103, and KJOY 98.3.

My schedule for the internship is every Monday from 2-6pm, and every Tuesday from 6-10am. Today was my first day however, simply because I needed to meet the guy I will be working with in the mornings on Tuesday. I won't be seeing him again until after Labor Day which is when my Tuesday shift will commence. I am also required to attend one event per week to help out with. Tonight is my first event as well!

So here goes what happened today.

My shift started at 10am today, although I came in 15 minutes earlier. I parked right in front, only a few spots away, and went up the elevator only to the second floor. It seemed like a lot longer though because I have a fear of elevators that I've had since I was a little girl living in an apartment building. After I battled the fight of terror, I quickly made my wait to the office where I had a nice greeting with Jamie, one of the sweetest women I know I'll meet. I had met her on Monday at the internship orientation, along with a few other people I would be working with this semester.

Neil came out to the front and met with me, and we walked around for a little tour of where exactly I'll be going and doing when I come in for the morning shows. We sat down and he discussed a few of the most important things that I'll have to do and remember, telling me to keep in mind that sometimes it may get crazy but it's never me. I appreciated that word of advice because sometimes, I admit, I can be sensitive so it is nice to know in advance not to worry if these people I work with like me or not. As we were walking around, I met one of the radio personalities, Jim "The Big Voice Guy" O'Brien. He seems like a great guy, and someone funny too, so I hope I can work with him more as time goes on.

After that, the busy work started. First, Neil sent over a 60 second commercial for Remax's mortgage ad and I had to transcribe it. I decided to do it through typing because I type over 90 words per minute, so that's what I did. I was at Phathead's office though and when he came in, I was a little nervous I was in his way but he said I wasn't. His office was great though. He had tons of photos of his daughter and his dogs, which, I may add, were all ridiculously adorable. He seems to be quite a character and I'm excited to get a chance to work with him as well. The transcribing didn't take long at all, and the next thing I knew I was working for productions. I didn't do anything mind-blowing, but I did make a really nice and neat board of events for them for the upcoming week. When I was done with that, they decided I could do databasing -- one tedious task. For databasing, I just sat down in front of a computer and inputted all the yellow flyers they had received from one of their B103 events. It was a bunch of people trying to win a prize, giving us their information and email addresses for future reference. So there I sat, putting in email after email, name after name, address after address, and number after number. After about 100 of those, another Jamie from LIRG, along with a fellow intern, stopped me to teach me how to input commercial information for her continuity department.

They were both surprised at how fast I picked it up, the other intern that was there saying he was embarrassed that he hadn't gotten it so fast. It was all a joke though -- that Jamie seemed really nice too, and had such a strong Brooklyn accent. She's such a sweetheart. Rob, the intern who was showing me how to do the stuff on the computer for continuity, brought me to productions after I was done and we cut and edited commercials. Then we recorded them onto another computer that would later be used the following week to AIR the commercials. I felt so cool just clicking the button and watching it record.

By the time we finished that however it was almost time for me to leave, so I finished as many more database entries as I could to keep it neat and gave it back to Frank at productions. Then I was on my way.

Throughout my first day I got lost a couple of times -- only finding my way from someone finding me or hearing someone's familiar voice, like the first Jamie I had mentioned, who sits at the front desk.

Overall, it was a very productive day and I did learn a lot. It was exciting to have been giving all these chances already and met the people I met, and I can't wait to meet more of them. Now, I have to go get ready for my first event -- it's a movie event for Hotel for Dogs, which I will not be embarrassed to say was quite awesome. All those dogs? You gotta love it. I definitely do.

I'll be talking about my first event later on tonight so stay posted!