Communicating

With having worked in the Office of Admission before, I had some knowledge about those that work in the office. Before my internship began, however, I did not have much communication with them. Both with my internship and before, I am stationed at the desk in the suite—there is a suite desk and a tower desk. Each of these desks are the first thing visitors see when they enter the office. This location is why I would see many individuals in passing. Our office is split into two floors, so those on the bottom floor I would see much more frequently than those on the second. This is still mostly true. With my internship, though, I have noticed more of the norms of the office organization. I have had to call on people on both floors to meet with students, ask questions about projects, and check in with them about some other things. The majority of the people that work at my internship site are very accessible. I can call them on the office phone and easily reach them. This is especially true of the admissions counselors, who are the ones that most closely work with the students submitting applications to the University. They are often found talking to other admissions counselors and the interns, such as myself. A part of their job involves customer service, so it makes sense that they would be around the front of the office pretty frequently. The next step up in the organizational structure we see slightly less frequently, as they are working on things more behind-the-scenes from my understanding. The individual at the top of the organizational structure, however, we see pretty often, at least twice per day. He likes to be around the office to make sure everyone knows him and he knows them. I cannot tell if seeing him more frequently is completely attributed to his character or if it has anything to do with his position. When calling him, I usually go through his secretary, but I often feel that is just to better manage his day-to-day work, rather than a desire to put a barrier between the organizational levels. Communication between all levels seems pretty free-flowing thus far, but I’m interested to see how it goes when the office gets more busy.