I wish that I could say that my experiences over the past two weeks have been better than they were when I just started, but it is still very hectic. Firstly, they had to figure out how to get the new interns into the payroll system which took way longer than expected, but eventually was solved thankfully. Then I was trained on how to use the basic software by the kind editorial assistants and my supervisor. Then, I received my very first assignment from an editor at Minotaur, which entailed working on a puzzle book for the New York Times. This was an extremely daunting task at first and I definitely had to meet with the editor a couple of times to actually get what I had to do down, but through sheer perseverance I prevailed. As a result, I am now more experienced in using Google sheets and Adobe Acrobat.
Unexpectedly, a couple days ago I received a giant package that contained a giant computer monitor, a keyboard, and a mouse. I was so confused and thought that I had received someone else’s package, but after a quick chat with IT, they told me that this package was requested for me by my manager as “work from home” equipment. I then had to restructure my entire home office to accommodate this beast of a monitor, but when I finally figured out how to put it together, it served and has continued to serve very useful.
This week started off with President’s Day, but I requested to work that day and was granted permission. That day went fine, but the day afterwards, on Tuesday, my email has been utterly FLOODED with requests from the editors about reading manuscripts. Right now I have about 8 manuscripts to read through–5 for a contest, and three for book launches. For the contest manuscripts I have to read them and then draft either acceptance or rejection letters. For the other three, I have to read the manuscripts and come up with literary questions that the editor can ask the authors in an interview. I am really just trying to keep my head above water right now, but I think that I am managing everything pretty well so far.
