What I remember about trick-or-treating is the etiquette, or lack-thereof.  I can see it so vividly, my neighbors who would leave a giant bowl of candy outside on the stoop, with that little hand-scrawled sign: “One each!” That bowl was almost always empty. It’s dawned on me that I’m a grown up version of my trick-or-treating self, the kid who only took one piece even when no one was looking. I still can’t imagine what my mother would say if I hadn’t. As this pertains to my career, I’ve realized that those grubby-handed children who used to be my neighbors presumably are all grown up too… And out on the job hunt.

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My approach to office inter-personal relationships – well, it’s exactly the same as my approach performing with an audience. A singer-songwriter friend once told me, how he always aims to “just be with people” on stage. What a lovely way to describe an artist’s bond to a live audience. You’re not performing ‘to’ but instead ‘with’ them.  And it got me thinking, what a way to approach business relationships as an intern.

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It’s that frightening moment. You trip over a crack in the sidewalk, stumble — and you’re suspended in that breathless place between balance and gravity — but luckily it only lasts a second. You either bust it, or don’t. Well, I’ve discovered that the best way to describe my internship experience has been to equate it to that moment. That scary, quick little moment, when you slip.

Except if that moment lasted an entire semester.

I’ve heard the old saying that suggests pressure is all in the mind, but even when I find myself saying silly little phrases like, there have been “no major slip‐ups,” I wonder why I’m constantly in fear of falling. There are so many banana‐peel moments in the day, from screwing up a coffee order, to disconnecting a call, to using the wrong language in an e‐mail. It’s hard to count all the obstacles in the way of an intern, but it’s also really hard not to notice them. With all these landmines surrounding an intern, how does one ever really get anything done, let alone give it one’s best?

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