You live and you learn

A week or so ago at my internship I finished with about 80+ letters to be sent to all different companies and organizations.  I had been able to copy and paste the letter and change only a couple of the words to fit the organization.  Unfortunately, I could not really do this for all of the addresses that needed to go at the top of the letters so I entered 80+ addresses manual (not an exaggeration either) for a good 10 hours (again not an exaggeration).  After this was finished and the margins were all perfected and the letters were finally printed, I showed them to people in the office because I was clearly very proud of all of my hard work and time invested.  

Logically, the next step would be to print envelops for all of the letters but I was unsure how to go about this portion.  I asked for help on how to print on envelops and it was in that moment I learned about the greatness of a mail merger. 

We created a new document for the mail merger in about 5 minutes and merged the envelopes with this document in less time.  The 10 hours I had spent on the before mentioned letters would have taken about 30 minutes (tops) to do with this new little trick I learned. 

At the time I only felt silly for not knowing about something so simple but then my boss told me a story about her time as an intern.  She was asked to make 50 copies of a packet with about 50 pages in it, so she went to the copy machine and placed the first paper in and made 50 copies.  She then did this for the rest of the packet and started putting the packets together like we did in elementary school: one by one.  Her boss came along and taught her how to collate in a rather harsh manner and that day she too learned a lesson. 

I have learned and will have that skill set for the future.  Now it just makes a funny story when people ask me what I do at my internship!

Found this note my father wrote and at the bottom it says
"If it doesn't challenge you.  It will never change you."  #lovethatquote

Inspiration of the week

This week I was blessed enough to have three great inspirational events happen to me.

First off, a delightful sister from Northwest was at Jewell to interview for the nursing program and learn more about Jewell.  She is considering transferring to Jewell in the Fall because we have Alpha Delta Pi, her home.  She did not care that we were not the chapter she had signed a bid card with, she did not care she might be in a house full of women she had never bonded with.  All she said was it is going to be different but it is all ADPi right? Her love and devotion to our organization made my day and week.  She reminded me that regardless of everything occurring within the chapter, we are working for something much larger than ourselves.  

Second, I had two people in the same day tell me they think I am doing a good job in my office.  This was the first time I had heard this from someone other than my roommate or suite mates.  It was nice to have the affirmation from two women I respect a lot, a recent Alpha Delta Pi alumna and our Greek Advisor on campus.

Third, at my Career Mentorship on Thursday I picked up a magazine while waiting and read the letter from the Editor.  I was pleasantly surprised to find that even though she was the Editor of a women's magazine, she spoke of empowering the woman.  She spoke about her trials and tribulations and how they have shaped her into the woman she is today.  Her struggles pushed her to do a man's job and encouraged other women to do the same until there is no longer a job designated as a "man's job".  

There is inspiration to be found in the littlest of things in the world... it is only a matter of finding them.