On Monday, I started a digital marketing internship with Tyndale House Publishers. Tyndale’s internship program is fantastic, and I am super grateful to get this experience in Christian publishing this summer. The part of this experience that feels the newest to me? The office!
Tyndale’s office building is three stories. During my first tour, I was surprised that the building felt big enough to get lost in! Since then, I have had many other surprises as I navigate office culture and an 8am–4:30pm work schedule. Here are six surprises in particular.
#1: My cubicle is actually pretty fantastic?!
The word “cubicle” has such negative connotations, but I was incredibly excited to find that I had a cubicle of my very own.
I am used to working on a college campus, where I find somewhere to study, and then I pack up my laptop and everything when I’m done. No longer! With my own cubicle, I can leave everything there at the end of the day and pick up where I left off the next day.
Tyndale set me up with a monitor and a little touchscreen laptop. And I got my own nameplate too. Fancy schmancy. 😮 I feel like a real employee. The cubicle is also so much bigger than I expected. Much more desk space than my dorm room!
#2: Spontaneous cubicle visitations are a new phenomenon for me.
I guess the point of sharing a big office like this, at least for Tyndale, is that employees can visit each other, ask questions, and collaborate. If I have a question for my supervisor, I can usually pop over and ask her right then. And sometimes employees pop over to say hi to me, which I really appreciate, even if they catch me off guard at times! I like this part of Tyndale’s culture where we can interrupt each other’s work to connect with each other. It was an adjustment, though, and I am gradually getting less awkward about visiting others’ cubicles and having others visit me.
#3: Office culture feels like a slower pace and more freedom than part-time work.
At Tyndale, it is strange to arrive at work and not need to check in anywhere. It is very new and strange that I don’t need to tell anyone when I take my lunch break or have it at a specific time. When I have done remote work, especially contract work, I feel the need to set timers, count every minute, and ensure that I am productive with all my work time. When I worked in fast food, I was constantly moving. Even when I am tutoring writing, I often need to carefully manage my consultations so that the student and I can accomplish as much as possible within a set time period.
With this 9-to-5 job, it doesn’t feel that way. From what I have seen of the work culture, it seems that off-topic discussions with coworkers are perfectly fine, even during work hours, and perhaps encouraged. Of course, this is kept in moderation, and no one is excessively distracted. Currently, my internship workload is not heavy. It has been easy to meet deadlines well ahead of time and to work at my own pace for my bigger projects. I would like to be intentional about using my time well, even when there are no deadlines hanging over my head.
Update 5/31/25: I now have a very full schedule of meetings and exciting projects! I wanted to write a small update here so that no one imagines me as just spinning around in an office chair for the whole summer. 😂
#4: It is easy to charge my introvert battery.
I was concerned that I would be pretty drained after a 9-to-5 in an actual office, especially as an introvert. In reality, just because my work is in-person doesn’t mean that I am constantly interacting with people. I get to spend a lot of time in my safe little cubicle with my independent work assignments, and this is very effective for recharging my introvert battery.
Yet while I am working on my own a lot, I still get to see and talk to people throughout the day, especially at meetings and during lunch. I would probably go a little insane if I were just locked up in my cubicle alone all day, but this is not the case. There seems to be a great balance between alone time and socialization here.
#5: I actually have the same hours as most of the working population now?!
As a homeschool graduate, I am very used to having a flexible schedule. Even at college this spring, with a full schedule of classes, a remote internship, and tutoring, my schedule has been somewhat flexible. Under these flexible schedules, I’ve been trained very carefully to avoid rush hour, crowds, and lines by choosing off-peak times whether I’m traveling, shopping, or doing laundry. However, now I have no choice. I will be driving during rush hour, grocery shopping on the weekends, and sharing holiday weekends with everyone else. (Rush hour turns out to actually not be too bad in this little suburb.)
It feels like I end one workday, and before I know it, the next workday is starting! It is eye-opening to think this might be my schedule for most of my working life. I want to learn where I can squeeze my priorities in; specifically, I am hoping to find time for a regular volunteering opportunity and short daily writing sessions. I’m realizing that if I say, “I’ll work on my novel when I’m less busy,” that might never happen!
#6: It is a challenge to know how to balance professionalism and openness.
When I started at Tyndale, the sentiment toward the interns was made clear: We are so excited to have you here. We have been carefully planning this internship program and praying for you all. We want you to feel welcome, to stop by our offices, to ask us questions, to feel connected, and to learn and gain as much as you can from this experience. You are a part of our team now, we already know you are competent, and we appreciate that you are here.
However, there is a part of me that can’t help but be skeptical and feel more like I’m still being interviewed and scrutinized. In a sense, this is a trial run, right? I don’t want others to see me as just meeting the expectations set for an intern. I want to exceed expectations, to impress, and to be seen as someone who is ready to be hired!
It is a challenging balancing act between being “professional” and being open, humble, teachable, and friendly. There are definitely parts of work that call for professional behavior and attitude. However, I am learning to give up some of the pride and image-focused anxieties that come with professionalism, and to gain a better openness. If I am not putting on a performance, I know that this will help me to learn and gain more from the internship, and to develop deeper connections with the people I meet.
| Professional | Open | |
| Positive Traits | Focused, detail-oriented, considerate | Friendly, humble, teachable, authentic, unafraid |
| Negative Traits | Image-focused, anxious, puffed up pride, guarded, performing | Unfiltered, impromptu, unprepared, awkward, talkative |
| Positive Behaviors | – Focusing on doing good work and being productive, even if saying no to socializing. – Preparing for conversations so that I know what to say and have intelligent questions to ask. – Trying to understand, meet, and exceed expectations. – Looking to others and following their lead when I am unsure what the situation calls for. | – Realizing that I am here to learn. – Asking necessary questions, even if there is a risk that I won’t sound intelligent. – Reaching out and connecting with others, even if there is a risk that I will seem awkward. – Being honest about my shortcomings. – Letting go of anxieties about my work and my image. |
| Negative Behaviors | – Undersharing and putting up unnecessary walls. – Pretending to know stuff that I don’t actually know. – Remaining silent out of fear of being seen as unintelligent or awkward. | – Oversharing. – Asking a question when I could have found the answer myself. – Letting socialization distract me from my work. – Challenging workplace expectations and standards. |
A lot of this comes down to fearing God rather than man. I was reading Hebrews 13:6 (ESV) the other day, which says, “…The Lord is my helper; I will not fear; what can man do to me?” In the workplace, this means that I don’t need to fear or obsess over how others perceive me. I trust in a God who humbled himself to the point of humiliation by becoming man and dying on a cross for my sins. Through Him, I have an eternal hope that is fixed in heaven, not my career.
Now, does fearing God mean being unprofessional? Does our eternal hope fixed in heaven mean that we should disregard our current work? By no means! I am reminded of this verse: “Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ” (Colossians 3:23-24). My goal is to deliver my very best work, not for the applause of people, but because I want to serve and glorify the Lord.
What do you think?
What kind of job do you work? What has your experience been like? Do you like cubicles?
Eliana,
I enjoyed reading about your experience! I was great with cubicles during much of my 26 years in the office workplace. I needed somewhere to keep my stuff, I enjoyed having some art on the walls, calendar, and a plant if possible. (Lots of snacks also, to supplement cold lunches from home.) It only got unpleasant during Covid period when the entire floor was like a ghost town and every day felt like coming in to work on a Saturday in a nearly-empty building.
Then they got rid of assigned desk spaces near the end of my time, and I was so much more ready to be gone! Having to pack all my stuff into a plastic bin each night and pick out a spot for myself every morning I came in was ugly. No more decorating people’s cubicles for birthdays or big events; much harder to even find people when they don’t have an assigned space. Hated that and glad to escape it!
Your chart near the bottom made me think of Ecclesiastes 3 … “A time to be professional, and a time to be open”!
Aunt Joelle,
Thank you for sharing! It is encouraging to hear that these new pleasures of cubicles that I am seeing can even be enjoyed after 26 years in them! Uck, unassigned desk spaces sound absolutely awful. I am glad you escaped that too!
“A time to be professional, and a time to be open” — I love that, haha! I just started studying Ecclesiastes recently!
Eliana, I was interested by your experience as an intern at Tyndale, and it sounds like overall, a very positive opportunity to learn and grow! We talked a little about this at the conference and as I said then, I can certainly agree that my experience with Tyndale on the author side has been fantastic–friendly and so helpful and good to work with! It was great to meet and talk at the conference!
Hi Kathy, what a delight it was to meet you at the Write-to-Publish Conference! Thank you for taking the time to check out my blog; I’m glad you enjoyed this light-hearted post. Tyndale is indeed a wonderful organization all around, and I’m so grateful for this valuable opportunity.