My First Desk Job

In the first half of my semester here in London, I was in a class called Music in 20th Century Britain. Our professor brought us to three different concerts throughout the duration of the class, and one of them was seeing Band of Burns at Union Chapel. Even though the music itself was not my cuppa tea, it was by far my favorite venue. Union Chapel is a church that also works as a music venue and homeless shelter on Wednesdays.

the first time I was in Union Chapel

A few weeks later, I received an email that contained my internship placement. I opened it and was happily surprised to see that I was going to be working as a Marketing and Communications Intern at Union Chapel!

After my interview with my supervisor, I was extremely excited to start my internship. She knew that I didn't know as much about the marketing side of music as I do with the production side, but she knew I was happy and very open to learn.

My tasks range from doing data analysis about web traffic, to taking pictures for event promotion, to drafting press releases. I never get tired or bored at my job because I am doing such a wide range of jobs.

A picture I took for an event's flyers outside Union Chapel

I love what I'm doing at my job and its even more interesting to be working in Britain. I've never worked in an office before because my previous jobs were either working in an ice cream shop or Temple's Performing Arts Center, but I actually really like sitting and doing work. Granted, I usually only sit for two or three hours at a time and then my tasks usually change to something more physical, but either way I'm genuinely surprised at how unbothered I am with sitting and working online for long periods of time.

The thing that I find really funny about working in Britain is how true the stereotypes are about Brits and their tea. My coworkers drink tea a LOT. Like, they drink TWICE as much as I drank during our afternoon tea which was ... too much. And they do it every day. I personally try to keep my drinks to one cup of coffee during lunch and water all day otherwise, but my coworkers drink as much as five cups and that's only when I'm working with them and notice it. The thing that I do find nice about it, though, is that whenever someone makes them-self a cup of tea they ask everyone else if they want anything to drink. This happens every thirty minutes or so. I feel bad that I never want anything because I'm sure they want me to have tea along with everyone else but I just really don't like tea.

it's just grass water... sorry

All in all, I really love working at Union Chapel. It's exactly the type of place I could see myself working at in the future. I actually just told my supervisor today that I'm really glad that the internship was outside of my knowledge and comfort zone because it only showed me that there is more aspects of the music industry that I could see a future for myself in.