Flippin’ Aint Easy
2146 hours ago
An outsider’s look on the inside
I am an intern here at Flip Media, I have been here for a little over a month now and I will be for another 2 …hopefully. So far my living legacy involves breaking the microwave and front door, telling crude jokes, not attaching items in emails, sporting borderline-inappropriate cleavage, and harassing the IT guys every hour on the hour. I came to Flip not really knowing what I was going to be doing, but I’ll leave Flip knowing that my experience here will open the world to me.
I was kind of thrown into the work- sort of like the sink or swim deal- I swam, well it was more of a doggy paddle, but after a few days I started to figure my place and get to know where I fit-in at the office.
My first day I got to shadow Yousef, which was awesome. I went to meetings with him; I didn’t really know what to do so I just took notes and sketched an elaborate hand-to-hand combat scene between the prospective client and Yousef. Yousef won. When we got back to the office he taught me the “…black art of SOW[s]…”. I wanted everything to be perfect. I wanted to impress my boss and the prospective client. I spent the majority of the day writing, and even after it was completed I was still nervous about submitting it, but I guess that’s how first days go.
Weeks go by and I found my footing, I got into the flow of things and start getting more and more responsibility. One of which was working on the Flip site. Scary. We make websites, so naturally clients and prospective clients would be looking at our site as a representation of what we are capable of and that made me nervous as hell. I didn’t want to do anything even remotely close to wrong, and misrepresent Flip as an illiterate/incompetent company…all this pressure I put on myself and I wasn’t even doing anything uber important like overhauling the site or anything. I was mostly doing copy and uploading, every now and again I would do some updates for the site, but I was mostly writing about events, case studies and wrestling with my own inability to grasp all aspects of basic technology.
So now I am almost halfway into my stay here and I don’t think I’ve done too shabby. I am still working on the Flip site and still learning about about basic technical jargon on an almost daily basis. It was important to me to understand all aspects of how a website works, not just the creative side. I still have some trouble with it, but I think the ones that suffer the most are the IT guys. Poor IT guys. There was no doggy paddling with these types of problems, this time I was drowning. They were really great though. They answered all my questions and talked me through everything…the first few days… then they started doing this really cute thing where they ignore my MSNs. I managed though. I started physically going to their table, I give them warning though, well, my shoes do, they can hear my heels clacking on the floor and as I approach I can literally see them cringe. I will miss them when I am gone, and I hope that every time they hear heels from now on they think of me (whether they want to or not).
I will really miss Flip, though; I’ve had some amazing experiences, met some great people, and learned more in my short time here than I have in my years of schooling in the States. I will be coming back to Dubai after I finish college, and who knows? Maybe I can continue my legacy…
comments
Humza Ijaz
February 17th, 2008 at 12:01 pmWe love you Angela.
Can you get some coffee now - The way I like it.
Jokes apart, Angela is the best intern ever! It is always nice to have her around and help out with projects.
Vikram
February 17th, 2008 at 12:15 pmIndeed. Flipping ain’t easy. But it sure is fun!
Imthiaz
February 17th, 2008 at 12:33 pmAngela is such a funny character. When she comes near the IT table everyone just start laughing
. It was fun working with her @ flip.
Humza what do you meant by best intern ever ?????
Farrukh Naeem: UAE copywriter and journalist
April 13th, 2008 at 1:14 pmNice, eloquent glimpse of life as an intern at Flip. Enjoyed reading it. The first para got me hooked.
Looking forward to the sequel…