Monday, October 31st

I was sick on Friday, so I didn't get to go in to work. But today was a really fun day because it was Halloween. Not only did I get to leave the office really early at around 3:30 or 4, but we hardly did any work. I was so glad that Halloween fell on a Monday because it always sucks doing a lot of work on a Monday. The office was decorated with little Halloween things here and there and everyone was dressed in black and orange. Renata and pretty much every other assistant had candy on their desks for the guests and for the interns and other people that stopped by. We did a few Halloween inspired artist news stories. We did one on singers' past Halloween costumes and then we put up a poll of what people think our singers will dress like this year. Really the rest of the day was spent chatting to Renata and relaxing. It was hard to be productive because everyone was really excited to just get out of the office and celebrate the holiday. It's hard to write a blog about what I did today because…we didn't do hardly anything. I was grateful for the small break from work.

Today Renata gave me another big project to work on. After I was done archiving and opening mail, and doing all of the normal things, I had to start working on the website again. It's been a while since the website was updated by the web technician, so Mara and I had to go through the website and write down everything that needed to be updated or changed. We had to go through every artist again and figure out what singles were missing. So we had to go on to iTunes and write down every single for every artist. It wasn't hard work, it just took a long time. It will be a project that we work on over the next few days because we have to many artists. The rest of the day was pretty calm, I had to get tea and water for one of Monte's business partners, Matt. He was really nice and actually sat and talked with the interns for a while. Then once I got back to Renata's desk, she told me and Mara that we were going to start doing intern friday starting next week. Each department will take an hour every friday to sit down with all of the interns in the company and explain what their job is like and what they have to do on a day to day basis. I'm excited to start learning about different aspects of the industry that I don't really know anything about.

Wednesday, October 26th

There was a lot of energy in the office today. We found out early that Nelly was going to come in to the office to meet the team so everyone was really excited. For the first half of the day, I had to take down all of the pictures on the boards outside in the lobby and inside the office and replace everything with Nelly photos. Then I had to find some Nelly CDs that we could play over the speakers the whole day. This is just kind of the procedure that we go through whenever any artist comes in. I packed some fliers and CDs into mailing envelopes after that until Nelly came in at around 3. I was introduced to him and he was really nice. He was kind of shorter than I thought he would be, but he was very polite and said hi to everyone, even all the interns. After that I tried to focus and work on some artist news, but I was too excited that I just met Nelly. That, and Nelly and his team and Monte were blasting some of Nelly's new music from the lounge which my desk is right by. It was a pretty laid back day because of Nelly. After he left, Renata let me go early because we spent the whole day getting ready for him.

Tuesday, October 25th

Today neither of the other interns were in the office because they were sick, and Renata was in meetings with Monte for a large majority of the day so I had to do a three person job by myself. I was extremely stressed out today and had a million things to do. I had to do five different artist news articles and I had to create something new called “Breakout Artist of the Week” where we spot light a certain artist who is releasing their album that week. I had to monitor Renata’s phones all day because she was hardly at her desk, and they ran about every five minutes. I had to send out a few things in the mail, which obviously wasn’t very difficult. And then a few ladies came in from the Florence and the Machine management team and I had to get coffee, tea, etc. After the meeting was done in Monte’s office I had to archive a few things in Monte’s email and them I opened all of the actual mail and organized it. Then we got three packages of CD’s that I had to organize and put away. There was a lot of stuff to do on my own today, but luckily it was all easy stuff that I already knew how to do. It was exhausting, but kind of nice to work on my own for a day.

Monday, October 24th

It seems like Monte just got back to New York and he already left again. He went over to London today until Wednesday next week. No one ever really tells us why Monte is going where he is going, so the whole thing is kind of mysterious. When he left, the office got more relaxed again. I didn't have to order his lunch because he was already gone so I spent the day eating New York style pizza and researching our artists. Renata came over to our intern desks (what we call intern row) and just hung out for a while. It feels more and more everyday like I'm just hanging out with my friends. Actually today it didn't even feel like I was at work. I'm very lucky that my work consists of things that I do on my own anyway. In my free time outside of work, I like to stay up to date on entertainment and artist news, and now I get to do it for a job. In fact, a lot of times when I have to write an artist article, I hardly have to do any research because I already know what's going on. Renata called me over to her desk to do the call sheet. When you do the call sheet, you make a list of all of the people that called for Monte today and leave a memo of what they want. There is a certain process you go through on the computer to enter the callers. The first day it took me a while to get the hang of it, but now I can do it like it's second nature. I've only been at this internship for about a month but I already feel very comfortable and I'm more and more confident each day in the jobs that I have to do.

Friday, October 21st

Today was a pretty standard day. I did archiving and artist news and we chatted with Renata about some more interns for the Spring term. We have to set up the interviews soon for the two students that we liked. Then late in the afternoon, Renata sent Mara and I an email that asked if we wanted tickets to a concert for Saturday night. We went over to Renata's desk to talk about it and she said that Monte and his wife and Avery and his wife were going to go to the Enrique Iglesias and Pitbull concert, but now they weren't going to go. So Renata asked if we wanted the tickets, and of course we did. So tomorrow night, I get to go to Enrique for free, which is just another reason I love my job. After that, we had to redo one of the boards in the office and one in the lobby. When we have an artist or artist's team come in to the office, we have to change the boards around the office with picture of them. Today we changed them to Washington who came in again. It didn't take very long because we keep all of the photos on file and we just have to staple them up. I'm glad Mara was helping though, it would not have been a fun one person job. After that we helped one of the newer interns put up a new huge poster of Florence from Florence and the Machine. It was about 6 feet tall and was hard to keep it from sticking to literally everything. It was a three person job for a reason. I guess I was in an organizing mood because after we decorated a little bit, I just wanted to keep going. So I organized a lot of things around the office including Renata's desk, the CD cabinet and my work area.

Thursday, October 20th

Today Mara and I spent a lot of time at Renata's desk working with her. We got some resumes emailed to us for Spring interns who will fill our positions. We spent the day facebooking them and doing some background research. We read over there emails and gave our first impressions and then we broke down what we did and didn't like about each person. We made a list of pros and cons of all seven of the resumes and then kept narrowing it down from there. All of the resumes were sent in to us through an organization called Dream Careers, and it was kind of a turn off right away that these resumes were sent in by a teacher or an adviser of all of these students as opposed to them taking the time of finding us and sending in their resumes themselves. But we still went through and researched them. We narrowed down the seven applicants to two that we liked. Then in a few days, we'll set up a phone interview with them and me and Mara and then if we like them enough, we'll set up an interview with them and Renata. It was fun to see potential interns, but I'm not sure if any of them are the right fit.

Wednesday, October 19th

Today was another fun day where I got to learn some inside information from the music business. I got to go through and organize some Grammy nominations. When an artist gets nominated for a Grammy, they have to be nominated to be nominated. And I got to go through the list of nominated nominations. There were a lot of artists from our label for almost every category because we have had a lot of successful performers this year. After I went through the list, which took forever, I got to do some expenses with Renata and Mara and I had to archive Monte's emails twice today. He was in and out of the office a lot so we did a lot of cleaning up and organizing in his office. He had a meeting with Washington's manager and The Cab came in to showcase. They have a song on the radio and have already made a name for themselves, but we're working on signing them. It was a pretty busy day and there was a lot of running around and not so much sitting at the computer. It was hectic, but I prefer hectic days.

Tuesday, October 18th

Today wasn't very exciting at first. Monte flew down to Nashville for a meeting with Taylor Swift, so he wasn't in the office. It was a slow day and we got caught up on expenses and mail and what not. At 2:30 we had a conference call with Jessie J and her manager and an interviewer. Basically we had to listen to the interview and if the interviewer asked Jessie J any questions she wasn't supposed to, we had to step in. They talked about when Jessie wanted to become an artist and a little about her past, and then they talked about her upcoming tour ideas and album ideas. It was a pretty stereotypical interview, but I thought it was cool to be on the phone with Jessie J. I love her and I loved being able to hear the inside scoop on her talents. After the phone call was over, we were getting a lot of work coming in from Monte from Nashville, so we had to stay a little late and work on everything that was flowing in. We got a lot of potential album art work for some of our artists like Drake and Mayor Hawthorne. It's neat to get to see all of the creative ideas from people in the industry before the public gets to see it. Unfortunately, it's kind of hard to write a blog about what I do and see at work because a lot of it can't be released for everyone to know, unless I want to get fired...which I don't.

Monday, October 17th

Monday, October 17th- Today we had another artist come in. Unlike when Gotye, this artist was trying to get us to sign her, instead of us wanting to sign her. She came in and performed a showcase in the lounge which I got to watch. The performance was interesting and everyone from the label that was watching was really supportive of her, but I kind of got the sense that she wasn’t really our label’s style. After she showcased, she went in to a meeting with her people and Monte and his people. Obviously we weren’t invited in to watch that one, so Renata Blaine and I talked for a while about what we thought of the performance. Renata explained in very clear terms that signing artists is like dating. She said, “When we sign artists, they’re one of two people in the relationship. They’re either the girl who does everything to get the guy (our label) to notice them, or they’re the guy who ignores everything the girl (our label) does to get noticed.” It was a brilliant analogy and I had never really thought of an artist/label relationship like that. It was obvious that this performer was the girl in the relationship, while Gotye was the boy. I like it when artists come in to perform because then the rest of the day is pretty relaxed from all the excitement of the morning. After they went in to the meeting, I did the normal things like archiving and writing artists articles.

Friday,October 14th

Friday, October 14th- I got to spend less time away from the computer today, and more time doing some cool work. Instead of working with Renata, one of the other assistants borrowed the interns for the day. The other assistant, Jack, had Mara and I go back to the huge (and extremely messy) back closet to take inventory. While it might not sound fun, we weren’t looking for boring things like computers or files. We got to take inventory of autographed items. My first items to take inventory of were the guitars. There were about 6 signed Taylor Swift guitars, 5 signed Hinder guitars, and 4 signed Jack Johnson guitars. Those items weren’t hard to find because they were in huge boxes just sitting in the back, but after we found the guitars we had to take inventory of signed photos and music and other miscellaneous papers. This took a little longer because the paper was everywhere in the closet; in file cabinets, in cardboard boxes, on their own, everywhere. I couldn’t even keep track of how many artists were in that back closet. I saw nearly every signature that belonged to the label. It took us a while to look through everything, but part of the reason was because I was taking my time to read what the artists wrote, or I was just looking in shock.

Thursday, October 13th

Thursday, October 13th- I came in and did the usual today. I got there about 15 minutes early and, so I took my time with the breakfast and tea set up. There were a lot of emails to archive, so I got most of those done before Renata came in. Once she was there, I had to start working on the notecards that go in Monte’s office on the bulletin board. The notecards have the names of artists that he’s working with right now and lets him know who’s a priority. Usually it’s as simple as putting a notecard in the computer and hitting print for what you want, but Monte decided that he wants smaller notecards. So Blaine and I had to spend a while cutting all of the notecards in half and then rearranging the margins and the setup of the artists names and logos that are printed. It took us a while, especially because the notecards were so small they kept jamming the printer. Once we got one notecard with the artist names figured out, we would have to change the margins and rearrange the print on every card after that. It was a little frustrating that there wasn’t just one template that could be applied to every artist name, but it went by kind of fast because it was just Blaine and I working while Renata was in Monte’s office. The notecards, which there are about 200 of, took us most of the day, so I spent a long time with a computer and a paper cutter.

Wednesday, October 12th

I spent the whole day today doing one task, but I thought it was really fun. Today I had to organize and book a trip for Monte. He's going to the Dominican Republic for a Christmas vacation. It's not a trip for business so I didn't have to find information on meetings or business partners, instead I got to look up vacation info. It took me all day to finalize plans and flights and hotels, but I actually like booking trips so I didn't mind it. I had to search forever for a non-stop flight from New York to Dominican Republic. The only airport out of all the airports in New York and few in New Jersey was JFK. So once I found the flight, I had to go and find the hotel that was fit for him and his family. It wasn't exactly hard work staring at beautiful resorts and beaches all day. I made sure to look at the activities each hotel had so that everyone in his family would have something to do. They're staying in Punta Cana, which looks gorgeous, and will be there for a little over a week. This was one of the few days that I didn't work with anything music related, but it was a nice change of pace. Especially because it was something I enjoy.

Tuesday, October 11th

It was hectic in the office today. Because we've had a lazy last couple of days, we had a lot to get done today. Thankfully, Monte had a meeting outside the office first things this morning so that gave us a little more time to get everything ready. It seemed like everything came at once this morning; Monte's breakfast came while I was archiving emails and burning CDs at the same time. Blaine was in the office today so she helped out a lot. I had to burn some CDs of some unreleased Florence and the Machine albums and then I had to burn a CD that had a whole bunch of big name artists coming together to make a Christmas CD. After I was done making the discs, I finished archiving emails (which there were about 30 of) and then I had to do some of Monte's scheduling. I had to go through the list of red marked emails and schedule the events emailed to him and add the contacts that were emailed to him. Right after that, I had to make a skeleton for the next London trip he's taking, which is basically just an outline of what he will be doing from day to day. Things are more relaxed when Monte isn't in the office, but all the preparation leading up to him leaving is extremely fast paced and stressful.

Monday, October 10th

Today was all about CDs. I spent a good majority of the day making CDs of 90 second snippets of unreleased songs and of demos. It was actually kind of fun because I got to hear a whole bunch of potential music from big name artists. I had to make labels on the computer, which I had never done before. I didn't ask Renata for help and I tried to figure it out on my own. I messed a few up, but by the end of the day I knew what I was doing. I did about 50 CDs and then I did 30 CD cover inserts. Those weren't as fun because I had to cut those all with scissors because the huge paper cutter went missing. It took a while to get it all done, but I got to listen to some new music while I worked and then when I was done Renata let me leave early. It was a pretty relaxing day. I spent most of the time at my desk cutting and sticking on labels and packaging CDs.

Friday, October 7th

Today I hardly spent any time in the office. Renata had me and Mara run some errands around town and that took all day. We had to go pick up some organizers from Staples. Staples took us a long time because we had to try and locate the items with the specific item numbers, that and it was extremely crowded in there. Then we had to do a usual intern job and go pick up our boss's prescription at the Duane Reid down the street, which we had to wait an hour to go back and pick up. While we were out, we stopped and picked up a nice lunch, which wasn't much work. And then we had to go to the UPS store to pick up Monte's mail that failed to get to the office in time. It didn't take a long time to complete the errands, it was just the walking from place to place that took all day. When we got back to the office, we only had an hour and a half until it was time to leave. In that time, I archived some emails and I organized the emails that were rapidly coming out of Renata's computer. Then I had to print some CD case labels and cut them out to mail to someone in California.

Thursday, October 6th

Today, Renata, Blaine, and I went to the other floors of the building so Renata could show us where everything was and introduce us to people we will need to know. Today we only got to see the 6th and 7th floors which we never go to since we're on the 8th floor. The 6th floor is the Motown brand of our label and it's smaller than our floor. That's where Barry Weiss's office is and he is another extremely important person to the business like Monte is. We didn't get to meet him, but we saw where his office was and met some of the people that work for him. We went to Motown's publicity department and figured out what they do for a job and it was really interesting. After the 6th floor, we went to the 7th floor which is like another branch of the 8th floor. It's still smaller than our floor, but a little bigger than the 6th floor. The 7th floor is where we go to drop off our UPS packages and it has the conference room that holds the huge important meetings with Monte, Barry, and the other heads of the company. The 7th floor is extremely confusing, so Blaine and I made a map for it when we got back to the 8th floor. For the rest of the day, we worked on informative things to add to the intern folder for future interns. We mapped out the 8th floor and added important passwords and log in names. The day went by really fast today because we got to poke around everywhere.

Wednesday, October 5th

Today was the slowest day that I've ever had in the office. By the end of the day Renata told us that she shouldn't have even had us come in for work that day. Monte was out of the office today so there was nothing to do. We didn't have to turn his office lights on, we didn't have to get his breakfast or lunch, and we didn't have to get the lounge ready. I did a little bit of artist news, but nothing was even going on in the entertainment world for me to write about. Today wasn't a day of work as it was so much a day of hanging out. Renata, Mara, and I spent the day sitting in Renata's cubicle playing sudoko and word puzzles. We ate some candy and watched funny youtube videos. I wish work could be like today was every day, but I know that today was a once in a blue moon kind of day. I got to come in late at 10:30 since Monte was gone and I got to leave early at 5. It was a very relaxing day, and I didn't mind it one bit with the amount of work we had been doing in the office for the last few days.

Tuesday, October 4th

Today we had a whole bunch of boxes waiting at Renata's desk when we got in. I went around and did the usual of turning on the lights and getting breakfast ready before I opened the boxes. There were about 6 of them and they were too large to be normal mail. Once I opened them I saw a whole bunch of big photo albums and then I got excited. It was a whole bunch of Jessie J albums for her song Price Tag. The song had sold 1 million copies so the bosses of the company got a platinum album in a frame with a fancy Jessie J picture in it too. Monte has a whole bunch of platinum and gold albums framed in his office but it was neat for me to be able to take them out of the bubble wrap and be the first person to see them. We get a lot of exciting packages in the office, but this was the first time I got to open one. The rest of the day wasn't as exciting though. I spent a lot of time following Renata around and organizing certain emails and taking pieces of paper to certain people in the office. I went over to the publicity department for the first time today and met some important people over there. There is always new artwork in every corner of the huge office, so I love going new places.

Monday, October 3rd

Monday, October 3rd- Today Blaine couldn't come in so I was the only intern in the office today. Renata gave me a big project to work on that will take a few days. On our Universal website, we have a page of all of our artists, and each artists has their own page. There were well over 100 artists on this page, and I had to go through to each artist page and make a list of what each page was missing. Under each artists, there's their discography, photos, and their biography. A large majority of the artists on there didn't have anything on their pages because our site hasn't been updated in a long time. It didn't take me as long as I thought it would to make the list because a lot of the artists were missing the same things. I got the list done in one day, but over the next few days I'll have to go through and fill in some of the things that they're missing. Renata explained that this is also a good way for us to get to know more about the artists because we will be looking for information about the small artists as well as the big ones. This project will help the interns become well rounded in the knowledge of our label.