Your internship is what you make of it! Or, is the glass half empty or half full?

Another two weeks (or 20%!) of my internship down. So it’s time to sit back and reflect – what have I learned, what have I accomplished and equally as important – what else do I want to accomplish before the remaining 70% (I guess that’s what a B.A. in Mathematics does with you – makes you convert everything to percentages) elapse?

A few weeks into the job I now understand why during the interview process someone told me that Groupon is like a human who has the body of a grown-up person but the mind and heart of a child. So what does it mean?!  

Undeniably, the company has grown immensely since it first started some 3.5 years ago. It is now much more than a daily deals site and offers a wide range of products and services to both merchants and discount-seeking city dwellers and explorers. It has undertaken the ambitious task to transform the way SMBs (or small and medium businesses) do business. And to accomplish that Groupon now employs over 10,000 people across multiple functions in 48 countries around the world. And not in the last place – it is now a publicly traded company that had the audacity to reject a $6 billion take-over proposal from Google. Not too bad for less than 4 years in business (and that is probably why Grouponers say that 1 Groupon year is equal to about 3 normal years). That is the grown-up body.

The mind of a child refers to the fact that like many companies that have experienced rapid growth, Groupon wasn’t necessarily quite prepared for it. A lot of processes and structures that seem common sense for anyone who has worked in a big multi-national company, like knowledge-sharing and standardization for example, are not there. Yet! And while one way to think of that is “What a drag, dude!” (reference clarification link) I think the Groupon way is “Great! This means every little thing I do to streamline things can have a huge impact on the day-to-day lives of Grouponers around the world!”

That is what I am trying to do over the course of my internship – help with reporting standardization. And while it does not sound like the most glamorous or exciting thing out there, I have come to realize that if I do what I have set out to do it will truly leave a mark. What’s more – I learned a new trick in Excel that gave me that “I did it!” warm feeling so I guess it is all about the small joys in life and making the most out of every situation.

Outside of work, life is still sunny and wonderful. And windy! My explorations of summer Chicago continue. The free summer concerts in Millennium Park are in full swing and I have come to love my walks around the lake and the bell-like sound the boats make. And there are beautiful fireworks every Wednesday and Saturday! What more can you wish for?! :-)