I am a second year communication science student pursuing a bachelor’s degree a the University of Amsterdam. I am currently still doing my internship at Zoku Amsterdam which is a cool little hotel and coworking space near the campus. The Zoku hotel chain is relatively well accomplished with locations across Europe in big cities, so WOO go them! They have a sort of innovative look on hospitality where they aim to really make you feel at home, starting with the smallest things that like referring to people staying there as “residents” instead of guests or visitors.
Well then, to start things off, I’m pretty new in terms of working in general so this was already quite a start for me but it has really come to be quite fun. My position as the Meeting and Events intern was generally very operational and hands on with a lot of flexibility. My main tasks were to keep all the meeting rooms and event spaces organized in both their appearance but also the scheduling happening inside them. Making sure that everyone was running on a smooth transitioning schedule from their breaks to their lunch times was half the job, and I’d like to think I’m really good at managing everyone’s time.
If there was one thing that I have learned that I am sure can’t be replicated on paper is the chaos of unexpected or surprise guests that come in large groups. The sudden appearance of a group of 20 people saying that they had previously called in for a reservation can cause quite the thrill. From finding the right people to talk to, to hunting down who made the initial reservation, and finally to fixing the problem and creating a solution to satisfy the group, everything can be quite stressful but still fun with the right people around.
The occasional prickly customer or demanding event organizer were one in a dozen as I have found throughout my internship but I would say that this only completes the experience for me, especially with this being my first real job of sorts.
Looking back on how I had started this internship, I would say that I’ve grown a lot in terms of my confidence in making things happen around the hotel as well as making decisions that I believe make the compromise for the operations team to have a smooth run of events while still satisfying the event organizers. I have picked up on a lot of practical skills and the simple niches of communicating with the rest of the hotel to work together towards a final goal.
However, looking forward, I still have quite a bit of my internship left and I hope to create an even larger impact than I already have with new innovations and small system changes to boost the efficiency of some of our processes.
For any communication students looking to do the meeting and events internship at Zoku, I would truly recommend it with the friends that you make on day 1 and the cool and interesting experiences and parties that you get to be a part of. Not to mention the great lunch and snacks everyday. There’s a lot of practical experience for you to gain while not being at a complete rush all the time. If you happen to get as great of a manager as I did (hey Patrick!) you’ll surely have a great time learning and working at Zoku!!