Lesson 1: get over the nerves!

Hey everyone, my names Kiranjeet and I'm in my final semester of degree. Just to keep you in the loop.. I started my internship at the Shire of Kalamunda back in March and so far it has been awesome! I started my blog but didn’t actually post it - had a few technical difficulties but here it finally is!

When I was told that I got the internship, I was super excited to get some real life experience yet I was scared at the same time.

What if my work wasn’t good enough?  What if they don’t like me? What if I’m too slow and they kick me out? What if the lady turns around and says my work is rubbish? All these questions kept running through my head making me feel nervous for my first day.

Anyway a week later, I rock up to the office and ask for the HR Manager Davina, who also happens to be a friend of a friend – sounds typical, I know. A couple minutes go by.. and I’m still waiting awkwardly at the front counter with the ladies looking at me confused because they don’t know who I am.

Lucky for me, Davina finally came to my rescue. We headed down to her office where I met the public relations coordinator Nicole O’Niell. After our introduction, I was given a tour of the office. Everyone that I had been introduced to was really friendly and kind which didn’t make me feel awkward – so that’s a plus.

I had my swipe card organised, email account set up and log ins all verified – I started to really feel like a proper employee at the shire.

My manager told me “this isn’t going be like a stereotypical internship where I make you do mail outs day in day out and boring stuff like updating mailing lists… We like to keep everyone busy at the shire so there will be a lot of work to do so you and hopefully won’t get bored.”

After hearing my manager say that, my heart started racing and I was excited - finally I get to do some proper work! So my manager and my system worked like this… She sends me a brief description or even just the flyer of an event, I write a draft media release, email it back to her for editing, she sends me back the final copy giving me feedback along with it and bang - job complete.

After sending her my first media release, I was scared to hear her feedback until I opened my email and read her response “great work! Really well written Kiran”. I will admit I was a bit stunned so just to clarify I turned around and asked her “are you sure its okay?” and she laughed and replied “yes its great, just a few tweaks but otherwise it looks good, don’t stress!”. After that, the next few media releases kept rolling out and before I knew it, it was 3pm - time to go home!

Overall, I found my first day to be initially nerve racking and overwhelming but once I got into the office, met everyone and began to work… things felt great!

Lesson learnt from day one: don’t sweat the small stuff. Meeting new people, entering new surroundings and building connections is half of what public relations is all about.. Get used to it!

- K