By Miro Bergam (V)
Early last summer, I embarked on my first foray into the professional working world. Dressed in my business casual best and armed with a shiny new MetroCard, I hopped on the 7:30 A.M. train for the first day at my internship with a video journalism company down the street from the New York Stock Exchange.
After series of newbie mistakes—buying a ticket to Newark Penn Station instead of New York Penn Station, walking up Wall Street at least five times before finding my building, forgetting a photo ID, etc.—I arrived thirty minutes late to my office feeling even more daunted than before. I expected nothing less than a stuffy, time-crunching work environment run by an exacting boss, who would be annoyed by my tardiness on the first day.
Upon arrival, I was astonished to find that I was earlier than my boss. When he arrived, he apologized for his lateness, saying he was exhausted from a weekend of surfing. Before he showed me what I would be working on for the next month, he insisted on having coffee with me so we could learn more about each other. I’m not sure whether it was the relaxed manner of my boss and coworkers or the massive poster of an almost-naked Howard Stern on the wall near my desk, but I could tell that this job was not going to be the stereotypical, stringent, Wall Street experience I had expected.
That’s not to say my work wasn’t highly rigorous and educational. Over the course of my internship, I learned about the production of video journalism at all of its stages. I operated several different advanced cameras, used advanced editing software, and distributed videos to our third party buyers. Beyond these technical skills, I wrote and reported on reputable news stories. I also learned about finance through my multiple visits to the NASDAQ and New York Stock Exchange.
The casual and colorful environment under which I worked optimized my learning and made for a positive experience to which I would be eager to return. My boss made a point of this to me; he told me that he would rather his employees come to work happy than punch in a card on time, so long as all the work (around 15 videos per day) got done. He always emphasized the importance of loving one’s job, telling me how he had left his job on the Stock Exchange to pursue journalism. He said that although his previous job had been more lucrative, he had chosen to follow what made him happy. His choice to run his business in an easygoing, lively way reflects that same desire for all his employees to come to work with a smile on their face. The functionality of this work model really shone through when one of the reporters had a crisis at home. Thanks to the compassion of my boss and coworkers, the reporter took as much time off as she needed to handle the incident, as the rest of the employees gladly filled in for her. If the workplace were not run so leniently, I doubt anyone would have been as eager to help out, and the reporter would have had to compromise either her work or deal with the issue at home. However, since the company had been understanding in their times of need, the employees readily offered to fill in.
I came away believing that the style in which my boss leads his company should be applied to our lives at Pingry. On a personal level, this translates to how students allocate their time. I know how hard it is for Pingry students to quit anything; it took me several years to quit swimming, an activity I started out of obligation instead of interest. However, as my boss taught me in regard to his old job, doing something you dislike is neither productive nor sustainable, and pursuing what you are passionate about will optimize happiness and mental health.