Main RMI Number
408-554-4960
SCU - St. Joseph's Hall
Room # 108
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Retail Management Institute Newsletter -Fall '04
Internship at........
Every Day Adventures at Gymboree - by Christine Tran '05
Christine Tran '05 Gymboree Internship
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"I'll never understand you. You live in your own world. How can you MISS your job? What did they do to you?" As I look back at my summer, I can’t help but recall this bemusing conversation with my best friend. She couldn’t comprehend how my internship experience at Gymboree has been one of the greatest experiences of my life.
I have always enjoyed a career in retail because of its allure and demand, yet people are constantly questioning my choice. I love how they always ask, “You’re paying all that money for a degree and you want to work in retail?!?” But retail, as many people tend to think of it, is much more than the five-minute interaction with the cashier when you are making a purchase or a ranting with the manager when you have to wait a million years to hear ‘Sorry we don’t have it in stock.” On the contrary, there is much more to retail than what immediately meets the eye. There is a whole back bone- infrastructure that exists for the very store where we all shop.
I knew I wanted to intern at Gymboree because I had worked at the store and knew the culture was amazing. I mean how many of us receive a birthday card from the CEO on our birthday? Not to mention, every Thursday at 3 p.m. is designated as “snack time” where everyone stops work and gets together to relax, talk, and snack. It’s the little things that count and Gymboree knows it.
Every day at Gymboree was an adventure on its own. Things moved so quickly. When I started in June, Gymboree was already planning 2005’s spring and summer lines. One minute I was working on the line notes for the Newborn department and the next minute working on creating style numbers for the Boy department. It was so exciting to see how things moved. I literally had my fingers in every line delivery from now until next fall. I was analyzing the in-store lines, marketing samples for the holiday lines, working with proto samples for the spring lines, evaluating the development samples for the summer lines, and the trend for the summer/trans 2005 lines. I was immersed in it all. Working with Jannette Emerson, the Newborn merchandiser, I was able to team up with everyone from the designers to the planners to the production team. It was incredible being able to witness the whole product life cycle from birth to end: how design was conjured, the planning process, the background negotiations, all the way to delivery.
My internship at Gymboree was an amazing experience. It is ironic because I do not think many of us really knew exactly what we were each getting into when we walked into our interviews five months ago. We were told to market ourselves and it was more so what we could do for the company, and not what they could do for us. But answering my best friend’s question, it was not so much as what they did to me, but it was more what they did for me. I was given so many different opportunities to explore my options after graduation. Going back to what people would ask me about my career path, I knew I wanted to go into retail but specifically what, I did not know. Maybe a buyer? Maybe a merchandiser? Is there a difference? I had no idea. My naïveté got the better of me and I was intimidated… But after all this, I am not afraid anymore. I can say, “This is what I want to do.” Now I’m definitely looking forward to graduation and the future because I know what exists, I know what opportunities it holds.
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Back to Newsletter -Fall '04
Retail Management Institute - Santa Clara University
rmi.scu.edu
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