Internship catch-up: variable deadlines

Last week I was assigned a report about Tumblr, which turned out to be time-intensive once I had all the details. This week I took on a shorter project to find science experiments and activities for kids online, turned that in before deadline, and then moved back to Tumblr.

Week 5: Perhaps because of the holiday, I didn't get my new assignment until Wednesday morning. Because of the flow of the week on my end, I didn't start on the Tumblr project until Friday morning. After a few hours of research, I could see this was going to be a larger project. The YA staff had asked for a report on how public libraries used Tumblr, its "benefits and social relevance", and a Powerpoint deck with specific instructions and best practices to accompany the research. Around noon on Friday, I emailed my supervisor and outlined the situation, and asked for his input: should I cut the Powerpoint out and get the report in by the Monday deadline? Or do the full scope of the request with the understanding that it would take longer (probably the next Monday)? I also included a request for a new assignment on Monday, either way, so that I'd have something to work on over that weekend if/when I finished up and needed more hours. That's been a frustration over the past weeks.

When I communicate with CPL, I take the 2-hour time difference into account. Although I don't know my supervisor's work schedule, we've been operating under a broad schedule where I send questions before the  weekend. Sometimes that's been difficult, because most of my available time for the internship (and all my coursework) is Friday through Sunday. I thought I had gotten in this email in a practical timeframe so that he could respond before leaving work on Friday, but I didn't hear back. So I made the choice to work on the report only, aiming to be done by Monday evening. I figured that if there ended up being more time, I could add the Powerpoint on top of that afterward. It seemed like a reasonable compromise.

Week 6: This Monday morning, I checked my email on my way to work and saw a response from my supervisor, saying to take as much time as I needed and do all the parts of the Tumblr project. That's good! Soon after that, I received my next assignment, with a Friday deadline. After consulting my calendar, I decided that I could shuffle other coursework around during the first half of the week and do the project on science websites. I emailed back and confirmed that I could get the new report in by Friday morning latest, and that I'd resume the Tumblr report after that. Tuesday and Wednesday nights I worked a combined 7 hours, and I submitted the science website report before I went to bed on Wednesday.

So in week 5 I worked 13 hours, and so far in week 6 I've logged 7. But my "second workweek" has just begun! This evening I'll be jumping back into writing about Tumblr, and I'll have to spend time tomorrow on the work for other classes that I pushed out of the way. I'm starting to catch up: 42 hours out of 135 so far.