Stumbling from an MNC to a Start-up - The Tough Internship

There is nothing exceptional I am doing here. My goals keep changing. My mentor keeps changing. I am barely able to keep myself from becoming an errand boy. God! Do I sound frustrated?

Accountability is a big difference between a start-up and big corporate. I was accountable for every hour I spent over there. Here days go whining about how ‘this one sucks’.

There is no culture over here. Nothing that binds the employees together. No dress code, formal timings, no formal anything. So if I were to compare my initial days ‘there’. There were proper introduction sessions. Sessions for do's and don’ts. Sessions where employees were explained the functioning of company. I don’t even know half the employees over here. And we are just 30 odd people. There were welcome parties and team lunches. And as delusional as it sounds, these things do motivate people.

Another difference between a big corporate and start-up is decision making. While decisions over there are taken after filtering out the results from organisational process, here decisions are taken by a handful of people. This has its own pros and cons. The work gets done really fast, but is driven mostly by instinct. Second since the chain in not long enough, the decisions can be altered easily but then it effects the employee morale because there is no stability in things.

I am in the last leg of my internship now and I guess not all internships are as glamorous as others. There are definitely lot of take-aways I’ll take from here. One being- ‘work hard for my finals’