Learning To Fly

“Well, you got the position!” said my manager, Vicki Nobili. It was like a wave crashing on the shore from a never ending swell. I found Charlotte Arrangements rather soon in my search for an internship and I traveled 250 miles from Wilmington to Charlotte, NC and all 250 miles paid off. At the end of my interview Vicki told me I had the internship if I wanted it. My first day at Charlotte Arrangements was anything but slow. I was “shown the ropes”. How to log into computers, calendars, and emails, the correct way to make client files, and keep up with my supervisor, Clarke Allen, and most importantly what and why we do what we do.


Being a full service DMC, Destination Management Company, we do a lot here: events, tours, transportation, building temporary and permanent scenery, websites, generating speaking and teaching engagements, television productions all while creating an experience. The expected stereotype of an intern: make coffee and copies, busy work, and picking up the bosses dry cleaning was not to be. My experience as an intern at Charlotte Arrangements included building client relationships, proposals, rebranding Charlotte Arrangements into The Clarke Allen Group, restructuring a website, producing commercials, possibly a TV show, and assisting with Mr. Allen’s book, The Inevitable Box. Yes, really! As an intern I felt very welcome and very useful.

After my twelve week internship here I sit typing my first blog as a paid employee at The Clarke Allen Group! I have always said that school teaches you to follow instruction; detailed instruction. It is not until about your junior or senior year of college when you start getting little to no instruction of how to do it but more of what they expect to be completed. Merging from an intern to an employee you learn that there is less detailed instruction and more expectation to make it happen. It is wonderful once you get the hang of it. “Dive right in; hit the ground running”! To me, the greatest challenge in becoming an employee versus an intern was learning that they are relying on me.

I have learned to trust my instincts and that there is not one correct way of doing your job. It is tough to realize once you are an employee you have goal to meet and no one cares how you get there as long as you get there. Don’t get me wrong that no one cares about you because I have never worked with so many people who are full of knowledge, advice, and caring as at The Clarke Allen Group. If you ask for help it is there but now, as an employee, sometimes you have to fly on your own. Get it done without asking, surprise them. Show them your hired me for a reason; I am smart and I get what needs to be done, done.

Becoming an employee at The Clarke Allen Group from an intern is one of the biggest, ah ha, moments I have ever experienced. I was raised to succeed. I went to school to learn the many ways to succeed. I became an intern to show me, hands on, what it takes to move into a successful world. I am now an employee at a great company and plan to show myself how successful I can be.