8 insane things an intern will find only in a startup

It’s been 8 months, 17 days and a few hours since I started interning at this startup – Internshala (an intern hiring portal). An internship at a big brand may sound like a future-securing deal, but the thrill of exploring and building your career at a startup is unmatched. More importantly, the undocumented perks you get is something that can make your friends working at big brands turn green in envy. I’m a first-hand witness to that.

Check out the 8 insane things you’re going to experience only if you are interning (or have interned) at a startup -

1. You can work directly under/with the CEO – There was a recent article on Business Insider answering if interns at Facebook get to meet Mark Zuckerberg. Hell, in a startup you might even work with the CEO! Owing to its small size and general absence of hierarchy, interns are no less than permanent employees (get ready to head more responsibilities)!
2. You can be the Editor-in-Chief or the Business Manager – imagine the pleasure in flaunting your title - “Hi, I’m Rajeev, Head of Client Relations at XYZ” while you are, most probably, still in your college or may be fresh out of it! Sounds awesome, right?
3. You don’t have to worry about your getup - For most (including me), this is the best part! We have this intern in our team who, when asked during his interview if he had any questions for Internshala, politely quipped, “Do I have to wear formals?”. As amusing this question was, later he told us that had we told him yes, he would have told us bye-bye.
4. You can call your colleagues by their counter strike names – Uber cool, right? Some could be as good as Neo, some could be as witty as Baba Marley and a few (actually most) could be as weird as ‘AalooPotato’.
5. Work hard, party harder in your office – At any giant conglomerate – How do they celebrate a project success? A formal team lunch/dinner. And how do we do it in a startup? Pizza, Coke (or beer), subs, burgers and all the food with the whole team in-office. Trust me, nothing beats an in-office party!
6. You will have a lot (really a lot) of groupfies taken – This entails the previous point. In the 21^st century, how can a party be considered complete without a selfie, or as in our case, a groupfie? I have more number of photographs in my laptop in these 8 months than I had in my life of 22 years!
7. In case you get a new office, you can play the interior designer – Why waste money when you have tons of creative ideas, a talented graphic designer and lots of grey matter for jugaad – says the company which has changed 3 offices in past two years, courtesy team expansion.
8. You have a game-day set aside – Almost every startup has this ‘feature’. They have fun Fridays or cricket-strike Saturdays (cricket in the morning and counter-strike in the evening), or Maggi Mondays or whatever.

Beyond all these points, a startup is a close-knit family. There are no set protocols you need to adhere to or extremely defined, rigid rules. It’s all about respecting each other for the work they do and yes, always about completing your work on time.