Not Your Typical “9 to 5”

Hi all! I’m Ashley, a junior majoring in Advertising with a concentration on Brand Strategy and Research. This semester, I had the opportunity to take a Sales and Marketing position at Tide Cleaners, which is a national company under Proctor and Gamble.

As a Sales intern, I was responsible for setting up table booths at apartments in the Greater Philadelphia area to promote Tide Cleaners’ Dry Cleaning and Laundry Service App. At each event, I answer questions or address any concerns residents had about Tide, help them sign up and place orders, offer promotions, provide them free samples of Tide products as well as serving them light refreshments. Now, this internship position sounds completely opposite of my concentration which is absolutely true – what I did had nothing to do with what I want to do. I was hesitant to accept the position at first because I didn’t think it would benefit me since it wasn’t what I was exactly looking for, but I didn’t want to pass up an open opportunity. I’m grateful that I accepted this offer because it gave me a new perspective in the advertising field. This experience has helped me into knowing that Sales is difficult but on the positive spectrum, it helped me to become an effective communicator. It was not your typical “9-5” office job – I do not work at a physical office and neither does the company have a physical office, so that’s the only downfall of this internship. My manager works remotely from me, so I attend meetings through a phone call every week. Lacking the work environment does have a big affect on me because I’m not getting the full experience of an ordinary internship. Sales may not be the most suitable job for me, but it was worth trying this position out in order to know that.

Now that I’ve completed two internships, I’ve learned what I like and what I don’t like in a career, which is slowly helping me narrow down my choices. I’ve learned to take every opportunity that exists (whether big or small) because you never know what you’ll get out of it. Since both of my internships have lacked the working environment, I’m going to make sure that I will get the desired working environment for my next internship.