Post 5: Work Environment: Reflect on the work environment at your internship organization. What are the expected dress, work ethic, and general behavior at this organization? Do you feel comfortable in this type of work environment?

There really is not much of an expected dress or dress code here at CityClub. I show up dressed very casually. I often wear athletic shorts and a T-shirt. Nobody seems to mind, and while my coworkers don't wear athletic shorts, nobody dresses much fancier than me. 

At CityClub, it makes more sense to talk about the "necessary" work ethic rather than the "expected" one. There are only five full-time employees at this non-profit. But, I swear, it feels like each of them does enough work to match two normal people (or maybe just two of my college peers! Haha.) They are all creative, efficient, and committed. They don't work hard in bursts; they work hard for eight hours a day, five days a week. This work ethic really is necessary, not just expected, because CityClub operates by being very active, throwing a lot of events, and maintaining a large presence on the Seattle political scene.  

One of the things that has most impressed me about CityClub is that while all my colleagues work very hard, the workplace does not feel stressed. The office is calm, quiet, and everyone feels comfortable in it. I think that my colleagues here at CityClub have gotten very used to being busy and having long to-do lists. I think they have embraced it, and are so comfortable with their backlogs of task that they would not be quite sure what to do without them. Occasionally, being merely an intern with a busy supervisor, I sometimes run out of things to do. Whenever I head to my supervisor to tell her that I need something new to do, I get the feeling that she can't quite empathize with the fact that I have nothing on my plate.

As I kind of insinuated in that last paragraph, I think that I would feel a lot more comfortable in this environment if I were a full time employee. It does not quite feel like there is a real place for an intern at this organization. Each of CityClub's employees is absorbed in their work, and while I can help take the edge off sometimes by doing a variety of tasks, I think I would only feel wholly comfortable at CityClub if my load was as heavy as everyone else's.