Hi! It’s Katie from the Boston office and like many interns, Manny and I were excited to attend our office’s intern event to Six Flags. Although it required an early start time, we were looking forward to thrills, fun, and a good time. About a week before the actually event, the Managing Director of the Boston Office emailed everyone to let us know about the details of the day, with a subject header titled, “The Intern Challenge”. Here we were, thinking that it would be a fun, innocent day at the park riding rides, and now we were in for a challenge?! And to top it off, Manny and I were to car pool together, adding a new factor to the challenge, if the new interns could navigate to the park and be on time.
That Thursday night, we saw that Friday would be a beautiful 80 degree sunny day and became very excited for the upcoming day’s events. Manny and I decided to meet at 8:15 at the North Quincy T Stop, allowing ourselves two hours and fifteen minutes to make out way to Springfield, Massachusetts, where Six Flags New England is located. That morning, we woke up to sunshine and warm weather and started our “challenge.” The first obstacle we faced, was trying to find our way to the highway. Since I wasn’t familiar with the area, it took us an extra 15 minutes to navigate our way from the back roads of Milton, Massachusetts and on to the Mass Pike. But, once we got to the pike, it was a breeze to fly down the highway. While driving, Manny and I shared stories from our internship, as well as laughed how we could go to the same, small, private school for 3 years and never have even seen each other around campus.
After about an hour and a half of driving, in the far distance, we started to notice something very dark and dreary. Of course, as we became closer to our destination, the sky seemed to get angrier and before we knew it, we pulled into the Six Flags parking lot while being pounded by heavy rain. Now what were we supposed to do? We had just spent the morning driving more than 2 hours to have some fun, which was now not going to happen because of a storm.
One thing to note, is that we were the third group to arrive, ten minutes ahead of schedule, meaning we passed our first test of not being late. But, how were we supposed to pass the challenge? As a group, we collectively decided that going to six flags in the rain was something none of us wanted to do and instead decided to drive to a half way point to see the new Dark Knight movie. Now, we were back on the road to drive to our new destination, hoping that we would not get lost.
Finally, at 12 o’clock we made it to our new destination and entered the movie theater. This was the first time we actually all got to hang out today as an office, because before we were all stuck in our individual cars. As we entered the movie theaters, our small office of 13 people sat together in the middle of the theater with our popcorn and beverages and began to watch the movie.
After the movie, we ended the event with a quick trip to Red Robin, and indulged in some burgers and fries. By 4:30, we were all back on the road again traveling home to Boston. Manny and I were excited for we thought we completed the challenge with flying colors, only to receive an email that Monday learning of rescheduled trip to Six Flags this upcoming Saturday to have a second attempt at our challenge.
Hi this is Manny and yes we are ready to embark upon our new challenge on Saturday, hoping the weather forecast doesn’t lie to us again. I just have to add a few little details to make this trip a little bit more fun. Being in the CVS project I am required to visit many CVS areas all around the New England area and to my surprise I had just been to the CVS next to Six Flags the day before the challenge. It had meant an early start to take the 2 hour drive down to Springfield/ Agawam, Massachusetts. (This was one of the many stories we talked about with Katie during my second ride back to Agawam). So basically I was making a 2nd trip to land of dragons (Massachusetts name to Western Mass) and to go on those dreadful roller coasters that I despise so much. But I had come prepared to escape from going in those rides and go off the water park with some of the people in the office that also feel awkward riding roller coasters. At the end I guess it worked out better for me anyways being able to go watch The Dark Knight Rises, a film that I absolutely wanted to go see, and also have some quality time with the people from the Boston office, something that had not been possible because of our busy schedules. It was a fun time in my part and I guess we, the interns, did come out of that challenge with flying colors, we felt proud of how we handled ourselves among our superiors, getting some laughs out of them and resisting their jokes and little challenges. Let’s hope this second time around we are up for the challenge and don’t get dragged into a roller coaster.
