Monday, July 30, 2012

The Mailman, He Cometh

Even the camera failed to keep up with my swift packing!
Actually, that title is a big, fat lie.  The mailman was nowhere to be seen.  I suspect he may have been hiding.  As a result, I had the opportunity -- nay, the honor -- of loading over 2,500 Lake Shelbyville Visitor Guides for bulk mailing.

I suppose the moral of the story would be "don't smile and agree to do something without actually understanding what the task entails."  With that said, I was glad to help.  It wasn't really all that horrible.

It was, however, very surprising.  I wasn't aware of the sheer amount of mailing that needed to be done.  And anyone who has ever needed to move any great distance knows one of the worst things to pack: books.  A magazine is just a really thin, glossy book, and let's be honest, a book is just thinly-sliced bits of tree.  Trees are heavy ... writing interns are wimpy.

Still, there's something to be said about this very practical, mundane task.  Thus far, most of the work I've done has been electronic. It's involved communication, social networking, or writing.  It's been communication, contacts, and e-mail.  This was a nice wake-up call, to be honest.  Sure, the point of the internship is to help develop professional communication skills, but it's easy to forget that the physical, mundane aspect of mailing is still just as important as its electronic component.  Tweeting, Facebooking, and e-mailing is well and good, but it doesn't help much when you have a couple thousand mini-tree slices to send all over the place.  And yes, while many publishers are opting for wholly electronic publication, there are still plenty of people (myself included) who prefer something to hold.  Until we develop molecular teleportation, that means bulk mailing.

I didn't actually fall asleep, but it was a fun photo to take
There's always going to be something surprising in any given job.  If the purpose of an internship is to prepare one for the professional world, I think it's equally important to learn to prepare for the unexpected.  Well, that and to develop a spontaneous case of the flu when mailing day rolls around.

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