My first office work | Gems and corporate world | Advice from boss
a young person on the start of her career
This was one of those jobs where I was working the same amount of work in the same 9 to 5 but without prior experience so I had to call this ‘job’ an internship, fair enough, I was there only a month, which actually got down to 3 weeks since my classes started early.
This Boss that I had was an incredibly friendly person but a true business man since he didn’t give me a fixed salary when I started, infact I should be happy that he said it would be a paid internship.
I don’t blame him I was the one who asked if I could work at his office. You see, his company make Gems and Bead Jewelry, meaning they had mines at the Karakoram and they had workers in the office sitting down to machines, faceting these stones. The whole idea of it pleased me.
Like a normal person I greatly admire the beauty of gemstones, Infact I spent a good time looking at big chunks of these minerals lying on the office tables when he wasn’t around ( he wouldn’t have stopped me anyway.)
Though sometimes the sight was a little unsettling, the office corporate light on these beautiful creations of nature was all wrong. Their shapes were still beautiful but they don’t look too majestic laying categorically at an office table.
Maybe I’m naive like that since I’m ‘so young’
When my boss said he assumes some things about me and he hopes they are true,
I liked that he said ‘You’re a self starter’ to which I said to myself I also hope its true sir.
‘You’re serious about a career’
‘You are open to learning’
and like that he continued and listed some things that he hopes to impart in me, as he does with every young person that works for him, these were,
Being a visionary
Having empathy
Being good at communication
I found this little lecture from him incredibly interesting and I was smiling, a smile that you do to show that you understand, the whole time.
I memorized the names of many gemstones from this job and I met people who have been carving them for a very long time, and heard stories which were awakening to say the least.
After praising me on my last day in the office my boss advised me to be practical
Well actually he said to “apply your ‘bookish knowledge’ to your life as much as and as early as possible” “because bookish knowledge is, he scrunched his nose so to say it’s useless”
I would like to think this would probably be my only boss who paid enough attention to give me life advices with work,
which by the way I tremendously enjoyed. The work was essentially photographing these gems so PRODUCT PHOTOGRAPHER intern I was.
Thanks for reading!
