Tuesday, September 20th

Today, Renata taught me and the other intern, Blaine, how to do Monte's expenses. I was extremely confused at first because I had never done anything like expenses before. Renata explained that you mark the magazine, food, parking, etc. expenses with an E. For magazines we put a post it that says "pay and expense". The E expenses are paid for by the company, and then there are the personal expenses that you mark with a P. These include things like clothes, haircuts, etc. Then there are the FYI expenses that is everything and anything that comes from the bank. Because expenses are something important, the interns have to sit at Renata's desk with her so she can double check all of our work before we put it in Monte's office. That's also why we use post it notes for nearly everything in the office. I went through an entire stack of sticky notes in the first week, and now it's already like a habit for me to write everything on a post it note. Besides learning expenses, I did the usual desk work. I wrote some artist news articles, but I spent a majority of the day away from the computer and more so on the phone with people. Even though I wasn't with people, it was still nice to be able to talk to people instead of look at a computer for hours and hours.

Monday, September 19th-

Our boss, Monte, left for LA over the weekend and he won't be back until Thursday morning, so Renata gets to run the ship around here for a few days. When Monte is gone, it gives us less work to do. We don't have to do his breakfast, lunch, or tea and all of his emails are automatically forwarded to him in LA. I usually come in to work at 9:30 in the morning, but when Monte is gone I get to come in to 10:30 which is nice to have an extra hour of sleep. Renata told me that when Monte is gone we get to leave work early too so today I got to get out at 5:30 instead of 6. Today there was a lot of communicating with Monte's people out in LA. I had to call to arrange the car pick up for Monte for the few days he's there. I also had to make reservations for Monte and his business partners out there. Work is very slow when Monte isn't here, so I did little things. I submitted an order for more office supplies and did an artist news about Jay Sean. I always leave artist news until the end of the day because I can do it quickly; so then I got to slip out of the office by 5:30.

Friday, September 16th

Today I got to take a peek at the new Jessie J video that is coming out soon. Jessie J is one of our big artists and I happen to love her music too. She recently had surgery on her foot, so the music video had to be adjusted a little because of her situation. All in all, I loved the music video and it prompted me to look up some other info about Jessie J. When I have a little free time at work I like to do some research on our artists so that I can stay up to date on what the company is working on. After about 3:00, it was hard to get a lot of work done because we had a group come in and perform a demo in the lounge. The lounge is right behind my desk so it's super loud when they play live music. I was never told who the band was or whether or not they were part of our label, but I really liked their sound. Renata told me that next time a group comes in to perform that the interns are allowed to go in and watch. For the rest of the day, I did one artist news article about our artist Dev and then did small tasks for Renata like sending out mail and archiving emails.

Friday, September 16th

Today I got to take a peek at the new Jessie J video that is coming out soon. Jessie J is one of our big artists and I happen to love her music too. She recently had surgery on her foot, so the music video had to be adjusted a little because of her situation. All in all, I loved the music video and it prompted me to look up some other info about Jessie J. When I have a little free time at work I like to do some research on our artists so that I can stay up to date on what the company is working on. After about 3:00, it was hard to get a lot of work done because we had a group come in a perform a demo in the lounge. The lounge is right behind my desk so it's super loud when they play live music. I was never told who the band was or whether or not they were part of our label, but I really liked their sound. Renata told me that next time a group comes in to perform that the interns are allowed to go in and watch. For the rest of the day, I did one artist news article about our artist Dev and then did small tasks for Renata like sending out mail and archiving emails.

Thursday, September 15th

Today was kind of a hectic day. We had an Australian artist come in. His name is Gotye and he came in with his management team to discuss signing him to our label. A few minutes before they came in to the office, Monte pulled me and Renata aside and explained to us that every record label in the business is trying to sign Gotye, but we need to get him. To make Gotye and his team more comfortable, Monte had the office go on a mad hunt for The Book of Mormon tickets for that night. The musical was in about 3 hours and we had to find 4 orchestra center seats, which was nearly impossible. After making a few phone called, Renata finally found some and we were able to give the tickets to Gotye and his team when he was done with his meeting with Monte. A majority of the day was spent greeting people at the door and taking them to the lounge to wait for their meeting with Monte. I performed the standard procedure of asking if they want anything to drink and then saying that Monte will be with them shortly. There wasn't as much office work today as there was people work, and it was a nice change of pace.

Wednesday, September 14th

Today Renata came in late to work because she had a doctors appointment. I got in at around 9:15 and she wasn't in the office until 10:30, which gave me and the other intern, Mara, the chance to run the office by ourselves a little. We did the usual morning tasks like turn on the specific lamps and lights in Monte's office, (Monte is the CEO of Universal Music Group) we opened up the lounge where artists come in, and we did the sound scan and label analysis which is something we do every Wednesday. For those, we take last week's top 200 charts and top 40 charts of our artists and arrange them for Monte to see and evaluate. I found out today that our record label is number 3 in the world which is up two spots from where it was a month ago. I love learning little things here and there about our company as I go along. Once Renata came in, it was a pretty relaxed day. I did three stories on artist news; one about Amy Winehouse, one about Lil Wayne, and one about The Band Perry. I did a little more research on the label and our artists just to stay up to date, and I found out that we own more artists than I thought. We have about 10 labels that we own under the UMG name including Lady Gaga's label, Enrique Iglesisas' label, etc. We have a connection with nearly every major artist in the industry and it felt neat to be a part of something that big.

UMG Week One

I recently got an internship at Universal Music Group in New York City. I'll be here for the remainder of the Fall semester and my first week here has been exciting and a bit overwhelming. In just the first day I was shown the ropes of how nearly everything works. The woman I'm interning for, Renata, wasted no time spreading the lessons out over a week or even a few days. She handed me a black leather journal and told me to write down everything that she said, and so I did. There were a lot of things to take in, but most of it was simple. I had to do basic intern things like get the lunch and breakfast for the CEO of the company, I had to staple together incoming emails, I had to archive messages, I had to call for limo pick ups, etc. The first day was me figuring out what to do and how fast I could do it, and by the second day I already had the routine down. For the first week, the first 4 or 5 hours of the day would fly by because I knew exactly what I was doing and hardly ever had to ask for help. But the last few hours of the day, I started to get handed tasks that I performed more slowly because I wasn't familiar with them. But I tried to restrain from asking questions, and I figured out most of the problems by myself. I love the other interns I work with and Renata is a lot of fun. Even though it's an internship, I can tell it's also going to be like hanging out with friends. Another intern, Blaine, writes artist news with me every day. Artist news are the little news articles we write about our label's artists (obviously). I like writing them because it gives me a chance during the day to be a little creative and stray away from the usual office work. The first week was enjoyable, but I can tell I still have some settling in to do. I'll have a more structured routine by the next couple of weeks.