"Hey intern Jonny!"

"It's Ji…"

"Sorry, my mistake Jenny, good morning and welcome aboard! Do me a favor and sort these pushpins by color and when you're done, sanitize the door knobs.  I'll let you call it a day after that."

"But Jenny is a girl's name…"

That's what I dreaded all internships to be. Worthless and humiliating. I've always wanted the opportunity to immerse myself in agency work and soak up everything I could learn into every pore. But that's not an easy thing to find. Every time I researched an internship opportunity, I immediately envisioned myself sorting ballpoint pens not by color, but by levels of remaining ink. The mundane of the mundane. Thanks but no thanks.

Then came Stokefire. This past Monday was my first day and I don't know why, but I was slightly expecting to be eased into my internship by reviewing office procedures. Au contraire! I was lured to the Stokefire pool and pushed right in. It was liberating! I have already been given a real project to work on, attended an energetic meeting involving a current client, and kept myself busy the whole time I was here. In one day (actually, on the fly during the meeting), I learned more about working with a client than I have after four years of undergrad and two years in the "real world."

"Okay, I'm done, what do you want me to do now?" was a question that never even crossed my mind and I don't ever see that happening while I am here. I can't say that Stokefire is unique in this regard, but from what I've seen, it's definitely rare. I feel sorry (not really) for the unlucky few that will ask me what I did that day. No more will my answers be a simple "meh, nothing." Ears will be talked off. Mercy will not be shown.

I have arrived!

-Jimmy