Not Your Typical Internship

To be perfectly honest, prior to this summer I had not had a particularly pleasant perception of internships in a general sense.  I had heard that more often than not you were just there to make copies and get the manager's coffee.  Nevertheless, I went to the Career Fair at Arizona State University (ASU) in the Spring and left my resume with a few recruiters for a company called POOLCORP that, as I understood it, had something to do with pools (go figure), tile and backyard landscaping.


I felt like I had made a good impression with the recruiters and was expecting to hear back from them--in hindsight, I should have called them back.  Anyhow, a few months went by and I had all but forgotten about POOLCORP in my search for another job--any job!  To my surprise, I received a call from Amy Coakley at their corporate office asking if I would be interested in a position there.  Of course, their offer beat out any other that I had received up to that point so I went in for an interview and was impressed enough to take the position as the first-ever intern at that location.

So, for the last few weeks I have been working at Branch 235 called National Pool Tile.  It is the largest warehouse of its kind in the entire company.  It is a great place to work because it allows me to get the "Big Picture" as I learn a little bit of everything.  Of course, they do not expect me to perfect every aspect of the business in one summer but it does give me the opportunity to get a great deal of experience. 

Some of the things that I've learned (and am learning) so far include:

• Shipping Procedures 
• Pulling the Product in the warehouse
• Freight companies, Bills of Lading, Packing Lists and Invoices
• Third Party Billing / Consignees, etc.
• Wrapping pallets full of tile with the Big Wrapping Machine!  (that's fun)
• Receiving Shipments
• Producing Purchase Order Receiving Reports, Edit Reports, etc.
• Stocking the shelves
• Driving a forklift to pull / put away products
• Though I am still a bit hesitant to load the 700 pound pallets into the back of customers' trucks--some of which seem way too nice to be used for construction!
• Profit and Loss Statements, Gross Margin Points (and ways to keep that as high as possible)
• Returned Goods / Vendor Claims 
• Inventory / Cycle Counting
• Determining Non-stocking items and how to "move" your inventory (get as many turnovers as possible)
• How to work with your employees in such a way that they respect / like you but also get their job done and take responsibility for their work
• How to work with customers / suppliers / managers in order to develop relationships of trust that promote an effective business 
• How to actually build a pool (all the pipes, filters, cement, plaster, pumps, tile, etc.), which we actually do not do personally but we provide all the supplies--kind of a one-stop shop
• I went out with the Branch Manager to a couple of job sites today and he showed / explained the process of creating a pool and laying a patio out of travertine

I also get to spend a lot of time with the Operations Manager Scott Gilbert and the Branch Manager Jason Gupton who are both great guys that do their job exceptionally well--not to mention they are eager to help and patient with their local intern's learning curve.

Anyway, it's a great internship so far.  It's hard work much of the time but always a learning experience.  They tell me that in a few weeks, I am going to be doing something that "will make you go crazy" because it is just so difficult and complicated--Hooray!