Work Swag

I had mentioned in an earlier post that I had an internship while in New York. I was a marketing and social media intern for Flavorpill, a PR firm that promotes cultural events in major cities all over the US. I had a friend who was an intern for MTV that had heard of an internship opportunity while she had partnered with Flavorpill for an event with MTV. I applied, and a few nerve wracking interviews later I was hired! 

There were a lot of really repetitive, mind numbing tasks they would ask me to do. You know all the ads on the right hand column on Facebook? Yeah, companies make their interns make those. I also had no idea that every single piece of information your company ever comes across needs to be put into a spreadsheet that takes hours to make and I am assuming is looked over (maybe) once and then never used for anything ever again.

There was also a lot of perks to working at Flavorpill. I’m not talking about the letter of recommendation I would get at the end, or even the fully stocked kitchen that fed this poor college student a few too many times. My favorite perks, were the ones that didn’t come with the job description, the ones that I probably weren’t supposed to have at all... You see, I received a Flavorpill e-mail account as soon as I started working there. Their mail system, by default, sends all non-personal messages to all Flavorpill staff, including the interns. What is one of the primary things a PR firm does? They throw lots of parties.

When I first started receiving these emails I simply deleted them. They obviously weren’t meant for me so I just disregarded them. One day, fate intervened and gave me an invitation I simply couldn’t pass up. As I was deleting my emails (when all non-personal messages get sent to everyone you get a ton!) I came across a few words that caught my eye: New York Yankees and cocktail party. 

I quickly weighed the pros and cons in my head: going to a fancy party with rich good-looking men versus possibly losing my internship if my boss happened to be there. I could always get another internship, I might never have a chance to hang out with the Yankees again. 

I texted my best friend Myra, who is a master celebrity stalker and my go-to person for getting into places I’m not technically supposed to be. After much deliberation we decided my boss would most likely not be there because she was pregnant and typically pregnant women do not go to cocktail parties (but that was just a hunch). 

Our next dilemma was RSVPing. I already had a Flavorpill email address  so I didn’t have to respond from my sketchy gmail account, but I didn’t know how marketing executives (which is what I had decided to pretend to be because intern was obviously going to get me nowhere) respond to RSVP’s. Myra and I decided to keep it short and sweet, something along the lines of “Myself and guest will be attending the New York Yankees fragrance release party. Thank you.” Genius right? Then I might have possibly copied and pasted my boss’s signature that has her job title and work phone number to the bottom of my email just to look legit (don't judge, I kept my own name) but I didn’t even feel bad, because it worked! 

I received a response acknowledging my RSVP within the hour and the hard part was over. I was on the list! I’m attaching pictures of the invitation PDF and response email because everyone knows if there’s no pictures, it didn’t actually happen. Want to know how the actual party was? Guess you’ll have to read my blog next week!