Working at the Mayor’s Office as an Intern

Guest Blogger: Robert Desantes

In my first three weeks of experience as an intern at Mayor Christenson’s Office, one lesson has become overwhelmingly clear to me. That is, teamwork is essential not only on the athletic field, but also it makes up the framework of any effective company. Although the Mayor’s Office is not a typical company so to speak, its teamwork can be compared to only that of the New England Patriots. Mayor Christenson exhibits leadership skills throughout the office analogous to those of Tom Brady, and we interns assist our supervisors much like the players on the practice squad aid the stars like Brady and Welker. Furthermore, just as every player on the Patriots contributes to winning a Super Bowl, everyone in the Mayor’s Office plays his or her own role in effectively managing and leading City Hall.

This was evident to me from day one in the office when my supervisor, Mr. Kevin Duffy, assigned me my first project. He was collecting raw data about the businesses located in downtown Malden, Medford, and Melrose in order to create a future presentation to the City Council comparing the three. In order to make this presentation a success, he assigned another intern and I to walk around the square and write down the names and addresses of every firm located in Malden Center. We then took this data and entered it into an Excel Spreadsheet to be used in his presentation. Although this raw data entry seemed tedious, it actually served a larger purpose. Not only did it create lots of face of face interaction between real businesspeople and me, a representative of City Hall, but it also allowed me to significantly contribute to an actual presentation in front of the Malden City Council.

Being an aspiring businessman myself, this project proved to be both interesting and enlightening. As an intern at the Mayor’s Office, I have been presented with the opportunity to begin building my resume before I graduate from high school. Ultimately, in just three short weeks, I am already aware that all my experiences in the Mayor’s Office will enrich all of my future working endeavors, whether they lie in the business field or not.