Sue Buzzard is a violinist from the east coast currently interning with The Monterey Jazz Festival in Monterey, CA through the Office of Experiential Learning *

So far, I’m still alive.

Personally, I thrive in pressure situations.  At least, that’s what I hope to prove this week.

I think that as an intern, you don’t realize what responsibilities you hold until they’re staring you in the face.  Like my responsibility with credentials, and how it creates the responsibility of leading a team – the team of volunteers who I train to distribute the credentials correctly.

Today, I was working on a long-term project for Bill (creating the binders of information for each stage – each band’s backline and schedule for the whole weekend) and I had to teach several people how to do basic jobs so that I could leave them to their own devices while working in another location.  I had help on credentials in the morning from Karin, a long-term volunteer (longer term than me, at least), and man was I grateful to have her.  She knew a lot more about predicting things based on past festivals, so her common sense was invaluable.  She was much more calm, cool and collected when faced with some questions than I was, so that helped.

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Sue Buzzard is a violinist from the east coast currently interning with the Monterey Jazz Festival in Monterey, CA through the Office of Experiential Learning

The Monterey Jazz Festival internship is offered each year from mid-August to mid-September. The work focuses on the production of every aspect of the festival under the guidance of Monterey Jazz Festival staff. We’ll follow Sue leading up to, during and after the Festival to get a sense of what life is like as an intern at one of the longest running and most well-known jazz festivals in the country.*

Success today!  I sent out all the volunteer emails I needed to, and made some successful schedule swaps for festival week/weekend.  This task was hanging over me all weekend.  For me, it’s a lot of pressure to set up the entire volunteer schedule for production.  I was asked to find volunteers for three activities that production is in charge of: organizing credentials and t-shirts, distributing said items, and selling water bottles on the fairgrounds.

I’m the type of person who works well with exact measurements to fill – how many people are needed and where, for how long, etc.  But I didn’t want to ask for a long list of details to fill in – I wanted to take on a project without being told every single detail.  I wanted to figure out how to put this together on my own.  Now I’ve realized that there’s a difference between that, and cutting yourself off from other people involved on a project in the office.  Wanting to take responsibility for setting up a project doesn’t mean doing it in a vacuum.  I had to take names and compile lists of possible volunteers from the spreadsheet on the office server so Jan and Eva could see who was available for other jobs as well.  Everything I did I had to make available and visible to other people in the office.  It made me extra careful but also forced me to be more confident about my planning and execution.  I had to show through example that I could get a job done well and not be hesitant or worry about being perfect.

Long story short, I created a schedule and emailed each name on the list their days and times to assist with each task at the festival.  I was happy to get that done before noon – woot!  That meant I could field email and phone call responses the rest of the day and fine-tune assignments.  Smooth.

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Sue Buzzard is a violinist from the east coast currently interning with the Monterey Jazz Festival in Monterey, CA through the Office of Experiential Learning

The Monterey Jazz Festival internship is offered each year from mid-August to mid-September. The work focuses on the production of every aspect of the festival under the guidance of Monterey Jazz Festival staff. We’ll follow Sue leading up to, during and after the Festival to get a sense of what life is like as an intern at one of the longest running and most well-known jazz festivals in the country.*

This was an unpublished post from this morning, before work:

When I first went to title this page, I thought of that Adelle song, but realized that I wanted to say the exact opposite. I’m too tired and lazy at this point to find a cleverer title to say “now the hard stuff begins.”

Truthfully, I don’t feel that way yet. We’ve got a week before craziness begins here – next Monday the volunteers show up to sort t-shirts and credentials, and that schedule should be sent out by the end of the day…dammit, I’m late on that one. But it’ll be fine. Anyway, things will really start rolling at the end of this week, I feel. Again, I just wish there was more for me to do. But this week I’m going to make myself work. It’s going to be homework time – listening to all the bands and acts performing so I can get a good sense of what we’re in for at the festival.

Also, time to memorize the schedule and map of the fairgrounds! I want to be able to answer patrons’ questions about who, what, when, where and why as quickly as possible. I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself if I went through this experience as just a lack-wit intern, not bothering to integrate myself into the experience or glean any lasting knowledge. Now I don’t know what lasting knowledge can come from memorizing the fairgrounds map….but that’s not the point. The point is I’m really tired from labor day weekend still, and I need to gear myself up for this last leg of normalcy before the crazy begins! GO TIME!!

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Sue Buzzard is a violinist from the east coast currently interning with the Monterey Jazz Festival in Monterey, CA.  Since her graduation from the Berklee College of Music in May 2010, she sought more experience with the production side of music, and secured the Monterey opening through the Office of Experiential Learning

The Monterey Jazz Festival internship is offered each year from mid-August to mid-September.  The work focuses on the production of every aspect of the festival under the guidance of Monterey Jazz Festival staff. We’ll follow Sue leading up to, during and after the Festival to get a sense of what life is like as an intern at one of the longest running and most well-known jazz festivals in the country.*

This past Wednesday marked two weeks since officially starting my internship with the Monterey Jazz festival. Woohoo! After two weekends, one barbeque and a concert in Los Gatos with the Monterey County All-Star band, I’m still trying to get my head around how a production like this gets put on each year. There are eight people in the office besides myself:

Bill Wagner, the Production Manager (my boss!)
Chris Doss, Management Director
Paul, the Development Director
Rob Klevan, Educational Director
David Murray, Artist Liason
Tim Jackson, Artistic Director
Eva Quiroz-Mojica, Development Associate
Jan Stotzer, Administrative Assistant

The office is small, but comfy. It’s located on the upper floor of an outdoor-modeled office complex. One neat feature – the bathrooms for all the offices are downstairs on the first floor, which means that I get to walk outdoors in the fresh air a few times a day to go to the loo. The view fro the windows is great, too – mountains and hills and trees, a great place to walk around during your lunch break.

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