Bryan, Daniel and I sat in the intern office after lunch on the second day of our internship, unsure of what to do next. We had already gone over the intern manual extensively, discussed upcoming projects for the summer, and were now left fiddling our thumbs. We quickly learned a lesson, though: there’s always something to do at Double R Productions.
The moment Bryan walked into Rosemary’s office to ask if she needed help with anything, she jumped up and put us right to work. The tape library was cluttered with packed boxes of old tapes, and rows of tapes in Paul’s office needed to be re-shelved in the library. In less than a minute, we had gone from thinking there was no work to be done to having a sizeable project that took up most of the afternoon.
Sorting through the piles of videos was like traveling through the past. Rosemary has accumulated videos that date back to the late 70s, so we weren’t just dealing with VHS tapes, but bulky three-quarter-inch tapes. Cataloging them revealed how much reporting and broadcasting work Rosemary has done throughout her career, an inspiring feat for a burgeoning journalist like myself.
It was also a good opportunity for us three interns to work as a team. We had to put our heads together and figure out a way to organize these piles of old tapes that seemingly had little relation to one another. We soon developed a sorting system and figured out the contents of each tape, all the while wishing we could watch some of them.
It’s strange to say, but shelving and reorganizing the tapes in the library was my favorite part. Having worked in a library for three years, I was right in my element. Although most people consider tasks like that to be tedious, I find them oddly relaxing. Shifting, shelf-reading, shelving — it’s all up there on the list of things that put me at ease. Hey, if journalism doesn’t work out, at least I have what it takes to be a librarian.
Although many interns resent smaller clerical tasks, they’re often what keep the company running. In this case, we brought much-needed order to a valuable pile of work that had been accumulating dust. We no longer dread walking into the tape library this summer, seeing as we can actually walk in it now.
Most importantly, though, is the valuable lesson the project taught us. As an intern, you can always find something to do to better the company you’re working for.
— Alex Migdal
