Thursday, August 4, 2011

What have I been doing the past two months???

As I am approaching my final week at my job I have been thinking about everything I have learned. I don't think I could express how grateful I have been in participating in this experience of a lifetime. I have made excellent friends and have come to thoroughly love interior design. For posterity purposes I am going to layout a few randoms about my internship.

  • My boss, Helen, is brilliant. I was incredibly intimidated by her and she made me shed a few tears at work and she may have yelled at me near fifty times but she has taught me so much. She has an eye for design like no one else. She adapts herself to each client and is able to create lovely interiors (and exteriors). 
  • The first week of working I was optimistic about working there. I was going to try my best and just deal with a crazy boss. Then the next couple of weeks I began to hate it. I could never do anything right and Helen was never satisfied. I continued to work hard and do what I can to please her. After a few weeks, boom, she changed overnight and liked me. She liked what I was showing her in my design ideas and she actually offered me a position. This was truly amazing. Now it wasn't smooth sailing the rest of the time but I have come to really enjoy working there. 
  • I really love interior design. I love helping client's in deciding their paint color, the fabric they want to use, the flooring, the different furniture options. (p.s. we do what is called bespoke furniture, which means the furniture will be made to the client-from start to finish---AMAZING!!).
  • Tea and coffee are served ALL the time. People are so weirded out with my decline every day. But I'm okay with it :)
  • The UK does not teach English well, nor computer classes. The emails I receive are so poorly written and spelled. Also, people "peck" at the keyboard when they type. HOME ROW PEOPLE! My coworkers are amazed that we can type so fast. 
  • The few different vocab words...such as: hoover {vacuuming}, trousers {pants}, full stop {period}, rubbish {garbage}, uni {college}, biscuit {cookie}, carriageway {highway}...just to name a few.
  • Ethics are not applied in the work environment. One thing that really bugged me. I will be glad to go back to a company that is honest in ALL of their dealings.

This experience has literally changed who I am and who I want to become. Sounds corny but I have learned soo much. 

This was at the beginning. I didn't really fancy everything chosen for this client but we were given all the material and made it look presentable. 

The same client as above but for her bedroom. This one I thought was classy. We spent so much time and put in so much work looking up all sorts of different types of designs for this client. Good thing she dumped us. :)

This is the office. Pretty cluttered eh? Yes, I was dying. We did a bit of organizing but man it was stressful being in such a cluttered space.

The other part of the office, aka the "showroom". This was a little more presentable...All of these walls are filled with fabric books, carpet, paint, and wallpaper books {this is not picturing near as many books as the company owns}. My first day my boss said, "go familiarize yourself with the fabrics and wallpapers". We literally had to sit there and memorize ever single fabric in all the books. Needless to say I was a little overwhelmed. I surprised myself with how much I actually retained.