You know how the stereotypical intern experience is characterized by boredom in the form of data entry, coffee runs, and a heavy dose of Reddit, all of which is mostly ignored by management?

Well. The stereotypical intern hasn’t interned at Stories Incorporated.

Turns out that when your business revolves around celebrating great organizational cultures, you’re pretty good at creating a great organizational culture yourself. Here’s what happens when you empower your interns with the resources, trust, and culture necessary to thrive — and flourish.

We do things like set up seven meetings with potential clients within our first six weeks of our internship. We hunt down and coordinate eight interviews with potential contractors. We revamp the website’s copy and case studies. We try our hands at design and experiment til graphics look good — creating images for client projects (which then earn such high praise that the client wants them for internal use outside of the project) and 16-page booklets. We write insightful content spanning eleven blog posts and three newsletters. We track down the richest, most relevant articles and research to strengthen the company’s pitch that much more. We spearhead significant PR campaigns that result in articles with over 1k views and increase your Twitter followers six-fold (organically).

And we do it all with team lunches, breaks for hilarious music videos, and acting out our horoscopes throughout a day.

How? Because Ben and I never felt anything but supported, encouraged, and included in every aspect of the business. Any question we had was answered immediately, thoroughly, and happily. Any issue we ran into was discussed til all parties felt confident. Scott and Lauryn consistently encouraged us to give them feedback on our experience. We were immediately trusted, having “proven” ourselves in the interview stage: as Ben put it, “the trust that Lauryn and Scott have in me is daunting and awesome at the same time. I don’t think any other 20 year old is emailing CEOs and SVPs of top companies.” We both felt an enormous level of comfort to be ourselves, ask questions, and contribute our ideas (which were often enthusiastically accepted).

Of course, in doing so, we’re learning a great deal and building completely new skills. Ben says it best: “Interning with Stories is working in a small and mighty team of passionate, fun, genuine, and helpful individuals. I think I’ve learned something new every day I’ve been here from each one of our team members. Learning about running a small business, sales, client management, recruiting, graphic design, teamwork and having fun at work has really allowed me to grow professionally and personally.”

Win-win-win. And thanks, Lauryn and Scott.

Pamela Kaye does PR and Communications for Stories Incorporated. Questions, comments, concerns, poetic insights? Let me know at info@storiesincorporated.com; I’d love to hear from you!