Week 4 Sunday

Bret Menicke's Catalog of Transferable Skills

I have successfully held leadership positions in the Boy Scouts of America as well as on my high school and college lacrosse teams

I am a hard worker who is self-motivated and sets personal goals that I try to improve on.

I can coordinate service projects to help the community

I can put together group trips, from transportation to food to housing

I can coach and am currently a high school lacrosse coach

I am able to manage my time in an affective manner

I can handle complaints and seek for the highest level of customer satisfaction

I have the ability to teach others

I am able to use computer software programs:
Microsoft Word
Microsoft Excel
Microsoft Outlook
Microsoft PowerPoint
Final Cut Pro (and most other editing programs)
Adobe Photoshop
Garage Band

I am able to do research and prepare materials

I am a quick learner and can adapt to situations

I can communicate effectively and actively listen

I have the ability to compile statistics and compare data

I can collect and handle money

I am a keen observer and pay attention to details

I can work quickly while producing precision work

I am creative and can promote/market

I know there is always room to improve

I know how to take inventory

I can monitor progress and can converse with others about our progress

I have a ‘can do’ attitude

I have the ability to follow directions

I am understanding of others

I am able to work with a team

I can entertain others

I can thrive in all different social settings

I am athletic and have good hand eye coordination

I am able to do heavy lifting

I have the ability to install ceiling fans, light switches, outlets

I am able to build skateboarding obstacles (Mini half pipes, launch ramps, boxes) as well as sheds, indoor walls, outdoor bars and benches

I have good survival skills

Week 4

Although I do not see myself staying at my internship as a career, it has opened my eyes to new information. As I have stated in previous posts, I want to ultimately work towards being my own boss and starting a business of my own. I know that this is not something that is easily done and to be successful is even that much harder. At my internship I have the opportunity to work directly with the owner on a day to day basis and get to see what is necessary to run the business. Until now, I have only really worked with children as an assistant teacher during summers or as a kid’s club counselor. Going into my internship I had no knowledge about working at a business involved with retail. I have been able to learn about the different computer programs that are used for running the business as well as gaining experience in using them. Learning the technology that is used will be helpful if I want to consider working in retail in the future. I have also had the opportunity to interact one on one with customers which has helped me understand what goes into making a sale. Also with working directly with customers I have had to deal with people who are dissatisfied by our service. This has shown me that you have to be able to make adjustments on the fly and work with people to make sure they are satisfied with our business and to make sure we keep theirs. Another thing that I have seen while working at my internship is how much time and effort the owner has to put in to make the business work and it has showed me how much is involved in running even a small business. Although I see my boss working harder and longer than anyone else, I also see the enjoyment of being your own boss. The only real downside to my internship is that there isn’t a way I could move up in the company, at least not at this time. Although this is a downside, I am enjoying my time and will be able to take the skills that I have learned where ever I go next in life.

week 2

Multidisciplinary is when people of different backgrounds and different specialties come together to solve a common goal. Each person has a specific job that corresponds with their knowledge and they don't vary away from that one form of thinking. They are there to provide a certain insight. For example, a communication major would bring to the group the communication point of view while a economics major would provide the economic point of view. With interdisciplinary, people combine ways of thinking to produce their outcome. The interdisciplinary field has no boundaries across concentrations or schools of thought. The goal is to combine different ways of thinking to provide an answer that involves more than one way of thinking. I feel as if my organization I work for runs in more of a interdisciplinary manner. I work for a small business and everything is done with few employees and we are responsible to be able to do any of the various tasks that are needed to run the business. No one really has a set position, except for the boss, but works where they are needed. The structure of this organization is a hierarchy in the sense that the owner is on top and delegates the work to the employees of the store.

Week 1

My name is Bret Menicke and I am a senior at Arizona State. I have chosen the concentrations of business and communication for my degree. I chose these two concentrations because I felt that they went together perfectly. I wanted to learn about the many aspects of business and in most business professions, you need to be able to communicate properly and effectively which is why I chose communication as well as business. These concentrations are reflective to my identity because I want to start my own business later in life and I also enjoy interacting with different people. By having business as a concentration I was able to learn about what goes into businesses that will help me start a company of my own one day. Having communication as my second concentration allowed me to understand how to connect with people more so than I did before entering this program.

This summer I am interning at Smarty Pants Consignment which is located in Phoenix. I chose to do my internship here because it is a fairly new business and I am hoping to learn from the owner how he went about starting his business. My goal is to start my own business down the line so being able to intern under an entrepreneur is exciting for me. My responsibilities so far have included helping costumers, taking inventory, floor modeling as well as starting to make marketing fliers to hand out. I have used information that I have studied by working on my communication skills through customer interaction and by using what I’ve learned from marketing class to produce an effective advertisement flier. The main reason for taking this internship is to be able to gain information about how my mentor started his business and to learn, by experience, about all the jobs that need to be done to run his business successfully.

I really am not sure what I am going to do after graduation, which is coming up fast. I have a few options on where I can go but my ultimate goal down the road is to start my own business. As of now my plan is just to apply to jobs everywhere and to hopefully start making some money. I am trying to find a job outside of Arizona for a change of scenery but if an opportunity comes up that is appealing, I won’t pass it up. It is very nerve wrecking not knowing where I am going to be and what I will be doing in a few months, but it is also exciting to be starting another chapter of my life.