So there I was, in the plane squeezed like
canned food with, of course, a low-cost
airline towards my destination: Belgrade. The TN form sounded promising:
organize a party (named Belgrade Foam Fest) for 20.000 people with 40 other
international trainees from all over the world in the party city of the world,
at least according to The Lonely Planet. We would have to promote the party
online and offline, travelling in Serbia with a caravan. Sounds good right?
I arrived during the evening where I met the
majority of the already arrived trainees in the backyard of our residence and
found myself drinking homemade Palenka from Hungary after 15 minutes of my
arrival. The quality of the taste of Palenka was not be compared with the
quality of our residence, which was equipped with a large cuddly beer named Marco, large air-condition
room as a workplace, table tennis and
large court for playing sports. Unfortunately the residence, which would also
be our working place, was not equipped with internet.
This seemed to be quite an essential part as it
seemed later that the biggest part of our work would require internet. Unfortunately
there was also a lack of leadership, where I think my first contact with the LC
was after 4 weeks of my arrival (where I was told I had to leave the internship
in the same week, but more on that later). In addition, until this date I have
also not seen any caravan. This affected our work meaning our time was mostly
spent on playing sports tournaments, party until late and playing drinking
games including Flip Cup tournament passionately. Lots of fun, less of
professional working and learning. The assignments the company gave were usually small like do some research
about similar parties in your home country, find out what is the cheapest way
to get to Belgrade etc. When I wanted to work I went to a coffeeshop. I think I
have never drank that manu delicious ice coffee.
Still having the good things in Life: Moments after our team won with Breakfast with bacon & eggs!! Flip Cup Tournament
This all resulted in the fact that the company
was unsatisfied and wanted to terminate the project. At this time we found out
we were supposed to sell tickets, not just to promote, which the LC had told
the company, but not us. Also the company was unaware that we had no internet
and no structure or leadership or any other of the working conditions you need.
During a meeting we were told that unless we would sell an X amount of tickets or
we would have to go home. So this suddenly gave a lot of pressure to sell
tickets, as you might imagine. As a result, lots of complaining letters were
sent to our own home LCs as selling tickets was never an objective stated in
the TN and the possibility of termination of the project either. I guess this
was the worst moment during the internship. Sounds bad right?
Behind my sight, the sent letters gave lots of
pressure to the LC to solve this situation. The problems mentioned before were
tackled, although we had to give up our salary for it. This resulted in the
fact that some trainees went home. The
work was now more structured into different projects, we got some trainings (as
promised in the TN) mainly about online marketing and direct contact with the
manager who would ‘call his friends’ if we would need anything. My highlight
considering work was my interview with DJ Playa (his artist name is of the same
quality of his skill in mixing music) who provided the anthem of the party.
The trainees at the Beogradska Arena
Trip to Macedoni
(Venue of Belgrade Foam Fest)
What I would like to be the main message of
this story is even though all the setbacks causing all kinds of emotions I
still had a great time this summer during my internship (I’m sorry if it sounds
too melodramatic, perhaps I will make an American movie about this). This is
mainly due to all the trainees which I got to know pretty good. I now have
friends from all over Europe who I would happily invite and get invited to do
some more Flip Cup Tournaments. I guess this is also the AIESEC spirit, namely:
“Trying
your best and keep having fun with the things at hand”
(I noticed AIESECers really like slogans)
Sounds good right?
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