I sit next to another intern so we do our immature thing between two half cubes, but I had a rather awkward argument with a team lead that left me realizing how different things were outside of a job at school. It was one of those tussles where the requirements were never defined (that's what I want to say to sate my own ego) and I found my voice to be slightly louder than I'd liked. Of course there were no violent curses or cries of 'godforsaken interns' or 'you're THIS close to getting fired' but I saw at that moment how I did not know how to talk to people in a symbiotic way.
We had a few brilliant seminars and a chance to interact with some wonderfully talented speakers, people whose job was to communicate and to teach you how to do so effectively. They talked about how we progress in our careers, what managers want, what people want from you, how important it is to socialize and I slowly realized that I had another few years to tidy up the talk to not sabotage myself. But what's nerve wrecking is how different communication is inside a meeting and then in the same person outside in the hallway or at lunch.
I'm not an introvert, I love talking about things that interest me. Sadly, they are quite limited. I can listen to rants about anything, but I can't sustain a conversation that is based on something I find extremely unappealing or boring. I could say the usual 'mhmm's and possibly mirror what you're saying (mirror it, not repeat it) but never really add to it. Start a talk about guitars and I could mighty well marry you the next day. And this is where these mentors and communicators really have me awestruck. They talk about ANYTHING. Everything that is being spoken snowballs into an interesting conversation. They bring in their daughters, aunts, dogs, wives and turn a conversation about grocery store chains into a discussion of world politics, taking control of the frame so beautifully. Sadly, I'm sure this is a skill you can't learn through the Rosetta Stone ('how to speak geek' for the non engineers and 'how to speak unintelligent' for the engineers. (Engineering! Woohoo!)) but it's something that must be honed.
And there is nothing more awkward than pursuing a conversation that was dead on arrival. Of course, a lot of times it is resuscitated but that's a skill that's making the world today. Sure there's twitters and facebooks and blogs but a real impression is made by what a person could say or convince you into, not by what their interests or experiences on paper are.
And this rant stems from this frustration on not being social enough to have an entourage of supporters, enough to start the next big fortune 100. Because it's half work, a quarter talk, another quarter presentation, another quarter presence, and possibly a fourth luck. And it is safe to assume today that the half work is something you're brilliant at, which is clearly bad news for someone as mediocre as me.
