This is a guest blog post by Revelwood intern, Zachary Vinik.
When I told friends and family that I was interning at an established business they all made jokes. “You are just going to organize papers and deliver coffee to everyone.” My mom even told me that in her first internship she had to highlight any English words in hundreds of pages of computer code. I’ve never been happier that everyone else was wrong.
Walking into my first office job I pictured what I’ve seen on TV. A boss that is either too strict or too aloof. Coworkers that spend their time complaining about work. A college student that is treated like trash. Revelwood took those expectations and flipped them upside down. I found a boss that allowed me to go in my own independent direction, noticed when I took a wrong turn, and then subtly pushed me back on the right path. I found coworkers that didn’t just complain about work, but coworkers who seem to actually enjoy what they are doing. And I, the college student, was treated like a valuable member of the team.
The type of camaraderie that exists at Revelwood can only really be understood by being here, but I can attempt to show it in two stories.
My second day at Revelwood, I was doing basic Financial Performance Management (FPM) training. It was just Brian (a coworker) and me in the room. After many hours of basic training we were going over FPM job listings, and at the top of every listing there was a single line, “ad hoc reporting”. When it showed up on the first one I asked a quick question about it, Brian gave a quicker answer, and we moved on. When it showed up on the second one, I made a snarky comment and Brian smiled a little. “Ad hoc reporting” showed up on every listing that we looked at that day. By the end of it I could not read the word “ad hoc” without Brian and I sharing a laugh about it. Even today, whenever I see “ad hoc” on any document, I smile.
The second half of my internship, I was given a programming assignment. The first thought that popped in my head was something like, “Oh god. I’ve never done anything past high school assignments. How the hell am I supposed to do this?” I wore my worry on my sleeve, and Rob came over to the office I was using that day and took an interest in what I was doing. My original thought process was to lie and say something like, “This project isn’t that bad,” but I didn’t. I was honest with how difficult I thought the project was. Rob looked at me and instantly gave me relief. “Just try the best you can. Any result is a good result.” Everyone gave me help on the project when I needed it and in the end I exceeded both Rob’s, and my own, expectations.
Revelwood has these five core values, and when I was introduced to them within my first 15 minutes of stepping into the office, I ignored them. All I wanted to do was move onto, in my opinion, my actual training. Ending the internship has shown me that those first 15 minutes were the most important training I received while here. Everyone here is passionate, does the right thing, takes initiative, focuses on the team, and cares. Hopefully, with what I’ve learned here at Revelwood I will be able to take these core values wherever I eventually go.
