How I learned to ask simple questions in the office.

My name is Mark Sabatini. I’m a senior advertising major with a concentration in art direction at Temple University. This summer, I was given the opportunity to work as a social media marketing intern at the YWCA. The YWCA is a nonprofit organization that aims to eliminate racism, empower women, and promoting peace for all. I did my part to support the mission by utilizing social media platforms to spread information to the community.

The projects I was assigned to required me to write, design, and schedule social media posts. I’ve included a photo of a small informational design that I completed as an example of what I would be assigned to design. However, in the beginning of my internship, I struggled a little more than I thought I would. I found it sometimes difficult to get the correct wording or be confident in my design choices. Other times I would feel as though I didn’t have all the necessary information for a flyer or post and would be left feeling somewhat stranded. Being in this position left me with really only one thing to do, ask my coworkers questions.

This was a larger task than I would like to admit because I didn’t want to be seen as incompetent by the other professionals in the marketing department who were doing what I was struggling to do with ease and confidence. I managed to start asking simple clarifying questions and was receiving answers that were so helpful to my work. Simple tweaks and changes that brought my content up to another level.

As I became more integrated with Zoom calls, email chains, and chats through Microsoft Teams, I realized that everyone in every position has been asking questions the whole time. Questions about assignments were asked between departments all the time it was normal to shoot an email and quickly ask someone something for clarification. I started realizing that asking questions isn’t a sign of incompetence, but a sign of dedication to your work and wanting to bring it to its full potential.