It's July 6th, 2020, and today marks the first day of my firm's first ever all-virtual Summer Associate Program. It’s a momentous day, and one my team and I have diligently been preparing for weeks. But in spite of our practices, test runs, constant emails and Webex Teams chats, being that this is the first time we’ve ever done the program like this, we’re all on high-anxiety alert.
Normally, the summer program is a breeze once it starts.
Normally the summer program is a breeze once it starts. Tasks consist of setting out nameplates on tables, sitting through speeches and panels we’ve heard year after year, solving an occasional AV problem, ushering nervous summers to the correct room locations and reassuring them they can take the food back to their offices. There are a lot of late nights but there is also a lot of free food and camaraderie to make up for it. You deal with collecting data and the occasional emotional upheaval, but for the most part the work is done and you’re just letting the program run itself. Not so this year.
This year, not only did we not have the luxury of planning the program several months in advance, we’re also making an abrupt transition to an all virtual platform - and no one really knows how it’s going to go.
We’ve never done this before.
And to add an extra layer of complexity, because of the all virtual format, we’ve factored in another new aspect of the program by making many of the sessions firm-wide offerings rather than doing them office by office as we had done in the past. Firm-wide sessions meant a whole new level of coordination, never attempted before, that basically just added anxieties of everyone on the recruiting team and spread them across all offices. It made sense at the time but has turned out to be not an ideal mix in practice. Too many cooks in the kitchen, as the saying goes.
I am particularly nervous.
While I happily asserted myself as the DC team’s tech “expert," I’m starting to realize the weight of that responsibility as the program gets started. If these meetings don’t run well, it will be perceived as my fault. If I run into something I don’t know how to fix, I will have failed in my role. And to be clear, I am not a “tech person.” I just happen to be a bit more versed tech-wise than it seems anyone else is on the DC recruiting team. But I’m well aware that there is a heck of a lot more to know, and a heck of a lot more that can go wrong, or be set up wrong, or be executed wrong, than I can be prepared for in the few moments I’ll have to diagnose. Sure, I can research the problem after the fact, but in the moment - when everyone is staring at my video screen - it’s me that’s going to need to know how to use my resources. And that makes me feel like I’m on center stage, my least favorite place to be.
When everyone is staring at my video screen - it's me that's going to need to know how to use my resources.
Palms sweaty but showered and professionally attired, I open the first Webex Meeting, and the virtual summer program begins. The first session is a solid 8 out of 10. We have a slight glitch when the presenter powers don’t switch as they should but easily move past it by just delegating slide movements to me. A quick email to the next presenter alerts them to the new routine, and we’re good to go. My session ends, and the rest is up to the firm-wide presenters who now have AV and IT techs on all their calls because they made a switch to Webex Events last week (!) after learning that with so many people on these calls that would be a better platform. (As you might imagine, management freaked out upon learning this a week prior to the start of the program)
The first day has seemed to be off to a good start, and we all, somewhat hesitantly, breathe a small sigh of relief.
Immediately after, we get back to work.
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