-preface names and companies have been changed for discretion-
When I was interning at the Shark Group for the second year my project from the first year was picked up by Daymond John to be his new business venture. I was very excited and was given the opportunity to come aboard and be a part of building the foundation for the new venture. I was offered the chance to build the website for the new venture. This new venture was in an industry that I wasn’t completely prepared for let’s say for the sake of the story it is the lighting industry. I was working with high profile people and a little nervous. However, my supervisor lets just call him Bill was a friend of mine from the summer before and was a mentor is a way to me. Bill has been in the lighting industry for decades. The lighting industry is a big deal, I decided to learn everything I could about the industry. I went to lighting events, bought lighting magazines, studied everything about being a lighting agent. The lighting industry is a completely different culture it’s dominated by men. Me being a young female intern I felt like I wasn’t going to be taken seriously. Especially coming in and pitching a website, I saw myself from their perspective a millennial girl who wants to help with tech- annoying. However, I was able to win them all over, for the first two months it was great. I was working directly with Bill on our Shark Lights initiative the website was sleek and everyone was happy.
Until Bill introduced me to his marketing manager *Quincy. Quincy didn’t like me for whatever reason. I think he thought that I could be stepping into his territory, he would offensive listen to trap me in my lighting terminology or defensive listen. I would sit down with him to discuss the website and he would just keep his ideas coming. This was great I knew what direction to take, however, when he would leave to go back to Atlanta I would send him updates but it was clear he would never see them. I had to learn how to communicate with him. I did so by listening to what he said and taking the words he used -and these are just everyday words not even lighting jargon- and make my ideas sound like they were his. For example here’s a phone conversation:
Quincy: Okay Margot, for the slide that has our roster of lights I want it to be a black background with white overlay and have the Jordan light shown and then I want a link to the information. I want it to be like click, boom there’s the information.
Margot: That’s a great idea so let me just think this through again, so you want a matte black background with a glossy white underlay behind the Jordan light Tile with a button that says discover more when the users click it boom! It takes you to the roster for Jordan and gives you all of the information. Great!
That’s just an example but further, down the road, I began to pitch ideas with his voice and he would like them better.
Meanwhile, while all this was going on outside my internship. My internship was for a completely different division. The division understood that I was working outside, balancing school and planning my wedding that was only a few months away.
I let everyone know in advance that I had a bridal shower memorial day weekend and that I would be taking the week off to road trip to Saint Louis with my family.
I told Bill and Quincy I would be away for two weeks because finals were the week before. I told them I can be reached by phone and email but I won’t be working on the assignment because I wanted to be with my family and not stressed which I cleared with my division who knows Bill very well. They all thought it was reasonable.
Now, when I returned back to work following the bridal shower my mentor Sydney took me into her office and said “Margot, Bill is very confused as to why he hasn’t heard from you. I told him there has to be some mistake Margot is very professional and never leaves a loose thread.” I was shocked and scared, I love my job and never want to jeopardize it. I work hard to keep a reliable reputation and value a quick turnaround time as any PR girl would. “I told her, I’m just as confused, I have not heard from Bill and I told everyone I would be out for two weeks. I worked ahead and told them they can call and email. I haven’t heard anything since.” “Bill said he tried to call you and got no reply.” I then showed her my phone and it had no missed calls from him. She told me to be careful as he will be fierce in a meeting but that he likes me and just to address this issue. She told me to tell the truth and don’t hold anything back. The most important lesson I learned from her was and I was guilty of this was that as a woman I don’t ever want to let anyone down. I want to always present my work one time and do my best. I do that but if you can’t be upfront about it. That wasn’t the issue here though. The issue here was that there was miscommunication. We resolved the issue but I was nervous because Bill is a high profile attorney and he was looking for pitfalls in my story. He even presented his phone. The day that he called me was when I was in rural Pennsylvania with my family so the call never came through. We resolved the issue and all was good. Until my last day before I left for my wedding.
On my last day, I just wanted to make sure that Bill had all the files and information he needed for the website. I also was going to present him with my hours and ask for compensation of some sort for my time as he offered in the beginning. When we sat down I reminded him that I was working on this project outside of the internship. All work was done from home at night after school work. I told him I wanted to make sure it was the best and on par with Daymond’s brand. I had wracked up 2,000hrs. Bill was shocked, he said he had no idea I was working this hard and did not expect this level of work from me. This is where the cultural difference came into play. Bill was not familiar with the amount of work that went into a website. Every photo, color, font, etc. has to be cleared of copyright and has to be unique especially for what this brand is. I also had to write all the verbiage and create the logo. He was completely unaware because he doesn’t understand technology like I do. This is where we both failed together. He felt bad that I worked so hard and was scared of what my parents thought of it. I assured him my parents aren’t mad but they did ask me to ask for compensation because of my student loans.
The moral of this story was to always communicate, communicate when there is a known culture barrier and don’t be afraid to ask for clarity. Bill should have asked for clarity on my hours and I should have tried harder to communicate just how detailed websites are.
Moran, R. T., Ph. D., Abramson, N. R., Ph. D., & Moran, S. V., MA. (2014). Managing Cultural Differences(Ninth ed.). New York, NY: Routledge.
This is a really great post. You made me understand that culture can mean many different things. I really only thought of culture in the sense of where a person lives. You pointed out that culture can even be between departments within the same business. It was interesting that the person you worked for didn’t understand all that went into your job. I would imagine it takes a long time to build a website and you put a lot of work into it. It impressed upon me a couple things. A boss should understand and appreciate everything his or her employees do for the company. I would think that when employees feel appreciated it makes for a better work environment. Another thing is that we should be more aware and appreciative of different cultures within the businesses we work. It would create more appreciation and understanding between co-workers.