Meet the Boss

        The power switched off in the Conrads house last night.  Luckily I happened to wake up but it was a little bit of a late start this morning.  I was still at work in plenty of time but didn't realize that Will Webb, executive director of CCF was going to be at work when I got there-he's on vacation this week!  Anyways, when I got there Will asked us to meet him in his office to discuss the internship in his terms.  He emphasized that the opportunity for employment at the internship's end would not be guarenteed but would be possible, which is certainly an added incentive to do impressive work.  His guarentees were that we would have a lot of fun and would learn a lot, and I've already seen these fruits in just three days.  I was excited when Will mentioned that if we ever wanted to go to an ACC game, that we just ask and he will hopefully be able to secure credentials, or at least tickets for us!  Oh, the perks of sport related jobs. 
        Will offered up a ticketing project to for one of the interns to head up and I jumped at the opportunity because if I learned anything about breaking into the sport industry while I was looking for jobs, it was that understanding the ticketing side of the biz is extremely important.  He gave me a few tickets and said "alright, just keep track of the invoice and we'll regroup in a couple of days".  My thought was, 'so, are you going to send me the invoice, orrr...".  I quickly realized that it was up to me to create my own system.  Self-starting and creativity are going to be two important themes of the internship.  Most questions that I've asked result in the answer 'it's really up to you'.  This means two things...if things go really great, we as interns can take ownership.  But if something goes wrong, with which we are involved...it's all on us.  So far, the freedom encourages thinking outside the box for me.  I'm learning that there aren't many limits; if I think it's a good idea and present it to the right people, the answer is usually 'yes', and that thinking outside the box is a good thing! 
        On that note, Sarah and I came up with a plan for contests and giveaways on our twitter and facebook sites.  One thing that we are definitely doing with the Meineke social media sites is a weekly giveaway contest.  Twitter (MeinekeBowlGame) now features "Football Friday Giveaways" and Facebook (Meineke Care Care Bowl Game) will have "Tuesday Trivia".  On each site we'll have contests that will either be trivia based or some sort of incentive for you, as a social media user, to promote our brand to your friends and followers.  Prizes will be some really cool Meineke Bowl garb and even some ticket giveaways!  ACC champion sites will feature similar promotions, but may not be as frequent as the game is smaller scale in general.  If these things interest you, then you should make it a point to follow those pages (wink, wink). 
        I don't know that i've mentioned how much I enjoy the people I work with yet.  I definitely don't feel like an insider yet (yikes, excuse the bachelor pad reference...guilty), but everyone is really great.  The group is pretty laid back, there's a good bit of humor, a bit of sarcasm (anyone that knows me, knows that I thrive in sarcastic environments), and a lot of support.  Apparently there is no such thing as a stupid question, although we all know how that goes...and I'm sure I've said SOMETHING that has left people snickering.  I'm really excited about tomorrow and for those of you who are in charlotte, I will be working a promotional event at Alive After Five in the Epicenter if you're interested in coming out to that!