I now have three internships under my belt. Three forms of employment in which I worked for free, while concurrently having real jobs and taking classes.
I really hope I never have another internship again. Some may look at internships as slave labor that you are supposed to be excited to partake in. Others might look at it as "free schooling". I am not sure how I exactly look at it, but I will say that I don't like working for free, and I don't want to be at school anymore even if it is free!
That being said, I really loved this internship. I was exposed to what I consider to be a dream job. Even though this job was in Tokyo, where I currently don't intend on living longterm or pursuing a career, it meant so much to me. Being a part of a globally recognized sporting event involving Japan and the USA was something I was proud to be a part of.
The office work that led to the Opening Series between Oakland and Boston was difficult at times. It primarily consisted of every single aspect of the organization of two Major League Baseball games being played in Tokyo that you could imagine. Overtime hours were often required in order to complete the day's work. My social life severely suffered do to my lack of free time as I was often teaching English on the weekends.
Lunches with my coworkers were always very cool as there are lots of high-end places to eat near the MLB Japan offices. The prices of lunch didn't quite match my salary ($500 for two and a half months) but I just had to deal with it. Us four men of the office would sometimes play wiffle-ball in the office which was always a good time.
As the event approached in late March we moved our office to the New Otani Hotel where we were joined by some of Major League Baseball's New York staff, and staff from around the globe. We all stayed at the hotel because the work load was enormous and the hours were long. The office we had at the hotel was open from 8AM to Midnight and there was basically always one of us two interns there to answer the phones and just be someone bilingual for the New York staff to use.
The office after midnight:
The late arrival of the team busses at around 1:30 AM
You wouldn't believe what was stored in the intern hotel room!
A very nice staff member of the Red Sox, Adam Grossman, arrives at the airport with his team's trophy as my coworker translates.
I was always pleased to do work out of the office. I got to do some exciting work so let me see if I can remember all of what I did:
One of the cool jobs I got to begin with was to observe how the company we hired to display the World Series Trophy was doing. I went through multiple layers of security and survived being yelled at by a Marine to a special lobby at the huge US Embassy here in Tokyo for that presentation. It was my first time seeing that building and it was cool to go inside and see some of the important diplomats in their working environment. I also did the same job at an exclusive club for Americans in Tokyo.
I also got to get involved in a clinic the Boston Red Sox's coaches put on for children of Tokyo. It took part at the Tokyo Dome and was a major success. The coaches were very enthusiastic and Okajima, one of the Red Sox's pitchers, came and talked to must of the hundred, or so, kids. I actually took pictures for the league with a company camera. It was fun to run around on the Astroturf too!
For a few of the overall six games that were played I had responsibilities in the league's suite at the dome for making sure it was suitable for our top executives and their very special guests to watch the game from. This included the commissioner of the league, the president of the league, and more. We decorated it with flare, and made sure all of their special requests were met no matter what they were. I also manned the suite during a couple games so they had a Japanese speaker in case any requests needed to be met.
With the event to busy, and the hours so long, it is all already a blur to me so I can't exactly recall everything that I did. At the welcome party for the teams I met a Bay Area cameraman originally from Salmon Creek who was hired by the A's to do some filming of their trip. He said he went to a club that night and met someone from Mendocino County who was planning on sailing back to the USA. We kept bumping into each other at the hotel and the stadium just like when we were working at the same events in the Bay Area last year.
What really made my experience in this internship top-notch was the awesome staff at MLB Japan that I worked with. I have never had workplace superiors as encouraging, helpful, and generous as these. The head of the office, whom I posted an article about in an earlier blog, would be an ideal boss to have sometime in the future.
I have now been done with that internship for seventeen days but still have been too busy to blog. During the event my mom and eldest sister arrived to hang out with me here in Japan and my adventures with them will be the subjects of my next few blogs until I finally catch up to present time.
Thanks for reading.
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