Goodbye To Ascentium

This last week was the end of my time as Ascentium's Portland first intern. To re-cap I really enjoyed my time there. The buzz word these days is agency culture; what is it like to work there? At Ascentium everyone is productive, but that doesn't mean boring. There is a fair share of agency humor around the work place.

While at their desks, people IM, e-mail or yell out across the room at each other to get their questions answered.

	Chris Wong is the resident Project Manager who has taken to carrying around a golf club and nerf gun to enforce deadlines.
The overall culture is laid back. There are people who wear jeans and sweatshirts to work and then there are those who wear slacks and either a nice polo or button up.

I did learn the number one rule for attire is to keep a nice, neutral shirt in the office because you’ll never know when it is needed.








A few of the ongoing jokes noticed over the two weeks...

The dry erase markers and erasers keep disappearing from the conference rooms. No one knows who is the culprit, but they have their ideas. Jokingly a plot was made to gather a bunch of markers and erasers and pile them under a co-workers desk. Some have taken to keeping their own personal supply at their desk.

Mason West has been coined the agency recycling agent. He has posted notes on co-workers computers when they leave them on all night. He removed all paper cups and plastic spoons from the kitchen and replaced them with ceramic cups and silverware. At the quarterly meeting he addressed different ways that the office as a whole could be more conservative when it comes to sustainability.

Employees have taken to decorating their offices with pictures of the family, random artwork and whatever else can be found at a typical desk. Mason has the rhino records which he specifically bought to decorate his desk when he first got the job.

Overall, Ascentium was a great introduction agency for COLABORATORY. It is definitely a company I could see myself working at in the future. Thank you to everyone at the office who helped me, gave me advice and allowed me to work there for the last two weeks. It was great to meet everyone and I hope to see you again sometime soon.

Next stop, starting tomorrow, HMH.