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The Inspiration for My Future Career

Sara Hughes

Spring 2019

Salisbury University
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Imagine waking up to an alarm at 7:30am, rolling out of bed, and sliding

into your uniform. Sliding through the Starbucks or Tropical Smoothie Café

drive-thru knowing you are about to go to your internship for the next four to

eight hours. Not knowing exactly what you will be doing that day because every

day is a surprise and or new task. Every other morning, it is the same routine for

over fourteen weeks. When I started my internship, I did not realize how much it

would prepare me for a career that would be my every day routine for the rest of

my life. Almost everyone else has been through this routine or will someday to

come in the future.

I remember waking up the last week of January not knowing what to

expect at my new internship at Planet Fitness. I was going to become a marketing

and customer service intern for the next few months. Joining the Planet Fitness

family overall has enhanced my communication skills and helped me decide what

I would like to do in life. Not only did it surprise me every single shift, but it

taught me a lot of what I am going to expect in the real world. I am so thankful

that I got the opportunity to work with the Planet Fitness family this semester.

There are many forms of communication: interpersonal communication,

group dynamic communication, public speaking, verbal and non-verbal

communication, and organizational communication. I dealt with each and every

one of these at my internship on a daily basis while at Planet Fitness. Planet

Fitness taught me how to not only communicate better, but to know how to treat

customers and use my skills to enhance the atmosphere at the workplace. My

marketing and customer service internship showed me how to learn from

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authorities, learn from members, be caught by surprise, learn how to be confident

and proud of my work, and advance from my mistakes.

My internship taught me a lot about communication. Being a marketing

and customer service intern, you work with communication on the web and you

work with verbal communication in the club. There are a variety of platforms that

I would use to communicate with my coworkers. Many of the times, I would send

my manager and assistant manager text messages and emails. I would also call the

facility frequently. I would even use my social media platforms to communicate

to members of Planet Fitness for events and with news that I had complied to

share with them. One of the valuable things I learned was that emailing and

written communication is a great way of communicating with your managers. The

majority of my emails consist of my hours for the week, the work that I could do,

and forms to fill out for helping with events. I would also learn that text messages

are a much faster way of communicating with my managers than emails. A lot of

the times, my two managers, Lela and Shaina, were very busy and would receive

eighty plus emails a day. I learned that to get ahold of them I need to contact them

more directly by text message.

One of the aspects of my internship was to gather sponsorships for various

events we could work with. I did all of that communication by going directly to

the organizations and talking to the management face to face. Face to face is very

valuable in communication because you have the opportunity to make a good

impression and share positive body language. Meeting with organizations can also

enhance my public speaking skills and verbal communication skills. When I got
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Jimmy John’s to sponsor our Member Appreciation Day I felt that I was able to

handle the situation very professionally. I went in to Jimmy John’s and spoke with

the general manager and felt rather confident. This internship has really helped

improve my speaking and communication skills with authorities. Some of the

times I would call the organizations or email them too.

Other aspects of communication I used at my internship were formal

communication, informal communication, and interpersonal communication.

Formal communication was used the most because you want to represent your

organization to the best of your ability. Some of the concepts I would incorporate

in being formal were to always wear my uniform and present myself in a formal

manner. I would also use marketing lingo and formal speech to look professional

when dealing with my management, members, and outside organizations.

Informal communication was commonly used on site at Planet Fitness. The

conversations and communication I had with my team members were always

informal because we all became friends too. It is smart to know the time and the

place to be informal because you never want to be informal with management or

members of the club. I can remember a couple of times where I got the

opportunity to be informal with my managers Lela and Shaina. We would send

texts back and forth that were informal discussion about my weekly hours or

about an upcoming event that we needed quick answers for. Shaina and I text

messaged a lot during the planning of the Member Appreciation Day to make sure

we were contacting the right vendors and that everything was going smoothly. I

would send her messages confirming that Jimmy John’s could sponsor or that the
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corporate office at Ace Hardware was struggling to get back to me. These text

messages were more efficient ways of getting ahold of each other and at a faster

pace. Interpersonal communication was used with any and all individuals that I

spoke with on a day to day basis. I would participate in a two-way communication

process. This is something I learned day one in my CMAT101 class with

Professor Dewitt. You send the message simultaneously back and forth and

receive feedback. There are multiple channels used whether I was speaking to

individuals in person or over the phone. The channels being speech and vision,

you have to be able to give and collect information and then gain or give back

feedback to complete the process. Sometimes noise will get in the way. Noise can

be any distractions or obstacles that are stunting your message from being

completed. Some noise in my communication processes would include physical

separation and status difference. My general manager, Lela works very hard and

when I was trying to communicate with her when I was not at Planet Fitness it

was hard to get ahold of her sometimes because she was very busy. For example,

when I wrote my proposals sometimes it took days to hear back because she was

busy and had high priority tasks to complete. The status difference was another

form of noise because since she is a general manager and I am the intern like I

said she has higher priority things to take care of, so I had to be patient and wait

for the feedback in my two-way communication process. Not only do you learn

new things every day at a job, but you can also be caught by surprise often.

Some aspects that surprised me were that deadlines are very important. In

high school and even college, many teachers and professors are very laid back
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about deadlines. In general, that leads to many students procrastinating or just not

doing the work at all. Personally, I would always get my work done even though a

couple of times I would turn assignments in late. At work, I would sometimes get

frustrated that my manager or an organization were not getting back to me as fast

as I wanted and I had to learn to work with that. Whether it was following up in

person or sending a follow up email. This taught me that when I am planning to

contact someone I need to communicate to them the importance of the message,

phone call, or meeting and also try to contact them a week or two sooner than I

planned to do so. An example of a deadline I did not meet was the Women

Supporting Women Bra Event. This event was organized to raise money for

Women Supporting Women by creating a fun event where organizations and

individuals can design a bra and submit it to win a trophy for your organization

and receive recognition for supporting and donating to Women Supporting

Women. I was made aware of the deadline early on and decided to start my

submission too late. Two days before the submissions were due, I was struggling

to complete a bra and I did not meet the deadline. This made me very

disappointed in myself. Another deadline I had to deal with was the Member

Appreciation Day. Shaina and I were put in charge and we needed to have

everything set in stone before the tenth of March, which was a week prior to the

event. I was very organized though and was able to contact our vendors and

confirm their participation. Our vendors included Jimmy John’s, GNC, Mayor

Jake Day, Habitat for Humanity, and Planet Fitness corporate. We were able to

get free sandwiches, a speech from the mayor himself, free protein samples, and
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freebies from our Planet Fitness corporate to hand out to our members. It was

really neat to be in charge of an event and I was very proud of myself the day of

the event because it went so smooth and we had a great turn out. A lesson I

learned was to always expect the unexpected and to not have your hopes up. That

is because we could have had no one participate or show up and we could have

had vendors drop out of the event. Luckily, we only had one vendor drop that was

going to perform blood pressure checks, but we made up for it by having a DJ!

Running this event made me confident and very excited for any future marketing

or events I am going to work with.

This internship made me realize that I want to continue with a career in

customer service. I feel very secure in my career decision because I am highly

qualified. I have great communication skills verbally and nonverbally. I also

know how to be responsible, work with a diverse group of people, and adapt to a

new environment. Working in management with customer service made me learn

about all of the great ways you can communicate to your coworkers, clients, and

organizations to get the job done. I learned more about deadlines and worked on

not procrastinating as much. You also learn to be very patient. Patience can be

important in absolutely any aspect of your life. Customer service prepares you to

handle any kind of person and to be patient. Also, you cannot be perfect, but you

always want to try as hard as you can. In the real world, you only really get the

chance to do things right the first time. So, I have created a more organized

routine for my future marketing plans and event planning situations. An example

in my internship was I kept multiple forms of notes to make sure I did not miss a
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thing. I had a notebook of notes for my internship. I kept notes on my notepad in

my iPhone and I kept notes in a word document on my laptop. This gives me a

mini CRM, which is a database called Customer Relationship Management.

Personally, my CRM was more for my benefit and to just keep track daily what I

was doing and who I was contacting. CRM’s are used daily in marketing positions

and I learned about them in my MKTG330 class with Professor Ross. He always

said whether they were hand written or electronic that they were crucial in being

organized.

Two things that I am most proud of from my internship are the Member

Appreciation Day event that I planned and the informative flyer and poster I made

for a walk we are sponsoring in May. As I stated before, I was co-in charge of the

Member Appreciation Day and got to organize all of the vendors and setting up

the actual event. This was an exciting moment for me. I shared the information

about the event with my coworkers from my part-time jobs, family, and other

Salisbury University students. I had a few of my friends show up which made me

feel great! Also, I was proud of the word I did for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation

Great Strides Walk. This event means a lot to me because one of my Grammy’s

friends had Cystic Fibrosis. I was able to create a flyer for the walk that Planet

Fitness was participating in. The walk is at the end of May after my internship is

completed, but I am still going to go out and help and represent Planet Fitness

there. Not only did I create a really neat flyer, but I made a poster board with

information on the walk about Cystic Fibrosis that was shared during an info

session at one of our Bagel Tuesdays. These were things I was proud of because I
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felt like I made a difference for our members with Member Appreciation Day and

that makes me feel good. I was also proud of the assistance I put in with the

Cystic Fibrosis Foundation Great Strides Walk because I was helping out with a

cause that I cared about and that hit home for me.

No one is perfect and everyone can make mistakes. Something that I did

that disappointed myself was during one of the days I made RFC account calls.

RFC account calls are when Planet Fitness team members receive a list from

management of accounts that owe money that are about to get shut down. I was

going through the list and had made over fifty calls when I came along a member

that was unhappy because she claimed that she cancelled her membership after

not working out at Planet Fitness and getting overcharged. I promised her that we

would waive all of her fees and help her get a new membership and she was so

happy to hear that. It made me feel really great that I made a member happy.

When my manager came in to check on the status of what I got done on RFC

account calls I told her what happened, and she was not happy with me. She was

upset that I promised a member something that was not allowed to be promised. I

felt terrible that I crossed my manager and apologized immediately. Now, I know

that no matter what story a member tells me that I should always back my job’s

side because we had had proof that this member was incorrect in what she shared

with me on the phone. Now that I know we have access to the history of a

member’s account I learned that I should always ask for a manager before

promising anything. Honestly, I should not even promise a member anything

because I do not have the authority to complete some of the tasks that my
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manager handles. Next time, I would calmly explain to the member the situation

and if they were still upset with the matter I would grab my manager who would

handle it. My manager was very disappointed in me that I promised a member

something on her behave and I completely understand why. Following the

incident, I would talk to members who are RFCed and just listen to them and grab

a manager if needed. Many of the times the members were happy to receive the

Amnesty Program and I had a lot of accounts over the semester that I saved!

Internships are meant to train you for real positions and for the adult

workforce. They give students the opportunity to find out if they are truly

interested in a position and if it will be their career for life. I was lucky to get the

opportunity to work with Planet Fitness of Salisbury and to learn so much

information from my general manager, Lela. This enhanced my passion for

customer service and made me so much more excited for my summer internship

with Enterprise. I will be able to continue working on my communication and

relationship skills this summer when dealing with a new organization and

thousands of customers through Enterprise. I have always been outgoing, so these

internship opportunities only help me grow and become more and more

professional. I recommend that everyone has at least two internships in college, so

that they learn more about themselves, various positions, and the real workforce

world. Planet Fitness taught me how to work with a different set of customers,

work on my verbal and formal communication skills, and use my skills overall to

enhance myself and the atmosphere of the workplace. This internship was a great
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chapter of my college experience and I cannot wait to take the skillset and my

communication skills to the next chapter with me.