CEO For A Day

At the Moosejaw headquarters, there is not one true “boss” who oversees all of the employees. Moosejaw is split up into different teams –marketing, web content, warehouse, and others –that each have their own manager who is “in charge” of that department. I put “in charge” in quotations because Moosejaw is very much team-oriented. More than not, managers work with their team to get something done, and often recruit people from another team to pitch in ideas.

The CEO is never around the office, as is probably true for a lot of large or corporate companies. So if I were CEO, I suppose you could find me lounging on a beach somewhere in the Bahamas, sipping on strawberry daquiris and getting tan, just because I could. But since I would only be CEO for a single day, I’d try to change a few things.

Moosejaw is a great place to work, but –like every company –it isn’t perfect. My first action as CEO would be to provide compensation to all the interns. I admit I’m biased because I’m an intern myself, but I believe that not paying someone for their work –the same work a full time employee is getting paid for –is unfair and frankly, unethical. Many peers whom I’ve discussed this with feel the same way. Unfortunately, we’ve had to bite our tongues and take unpaid internships because we need them to build our resume and gain experience so we can get a job after graduation.

My second act as CEO would be to make sure that the Moosejaw interns had more time together. When I was in the office, there was usually one or two other interns around me, but I didn’t get to know them as well as I’d hoped. As CEO, I would coordinate intern training and bonding activities (as cheesy as that sounds). I think people work better together if they are able to first discover common interests among one another.

I worked primarily with the Web Content team, so I’m not sure what other things I might change about Moosejaw as a whole. I enjoyed my experience and am so happy this is the path I chose for my summer internship.