Upon completing her stint here with us, we asked one of our especially wonderful interns, Rebecca, to consider writing a blog post for the natie site about the subject of her choice. One of our suggested topics was, “What’s it like to be an intern? And what would you want out of one anyway?”

Before sending the blog post, she sent us a personal note which deeply, deeply moved us.

Folks, sometimes we ask for a client recommendation. And we’re always thrilled when we get on. But this note? It came as a complete surprise, it wasn’t requested, and it’s one of the most precious gifts we’ve ever received. We’ve asked Rebecca if we could share it just because, well, it moved us so. And she said yes.

Thanks, Rebecca. Safe travels across Asia. We miss you already.

The natie team

Hey team,

So, I’ve been trying to write this blog for a while now. At first it was going to be about internships in general. Then it was going to be about my MASA program. Then traveling. Then my time working here. I deleted and added paragraphs to try to describe my experience at natie, but nothing came close to portraying it in the right way. I realized that I don’t think I can write about my experience here until I tell you about it first.

I knew nothing about branding before I came here.

It was one of those things that I knew existed, but never considered actually going into. I saw some cool marketing internships, but kept coming back to natie. An Israeli company with an American work ethic and an international team was everything I wanted. After I saw “I’m That Jew”, I knew I wanted to work here. It wasn’t just about the company itself (even though now it’s obvious that natie is much better than the other options). It was about the people I would be working with and learning from.

I expected my first conversation with Eitan to be about what the company does. What I didn’t expect was the passion about why he does what he does. Most people I know think that branding and marketing are the same thing (I thought that too a year ago). If you think of a company as a person, the first things you can tell about them are the basics: what they look like, their history, interests, likes, dislikes, friends, etc.

But what really makes a person unique from others is their personality.

And taking it a step further, about the different ways that their personality is expressed. If a person has a great personality but doesn’t know how to express him/herself, that personality will go unnoticed.

Our job is to make sure that the world sees the best of our clients, and the best of us.

I know you already know all of this, but I didn’t. I can’t write to the rest of the world until I thank you for what you’ve taught me. One of the reasons I was so nervous about going into business (especially branding and marketing) was this misconception that companies can be deceptive about their intentions. I don’t know why I thought this, but you’ve shown me that this is definitely not the case (at least not here).

Everything you do, you do because you love it.

When it comes to working with clients, everything is a balance between the professional and personal connections, and between similar morals. Even maintaining the important values within natie like keeping the company a small group of wonderful people instead of turning into a big corporation. (Another major lesson I learned: it’s not the goal of every company to grow. Sometimes the goal is to stay small.)

Branding isn’t easy by any means, but it’s been an exciting challenge. There’s no way I can list everything I’ve learned. But between account management, scheduling, design, strategy, talking to clients, standards, working as a team, honesty, and everything that goes into the creative aspects, it’s much more than I expected. Even though I’ve been sleep-deprived and mentally drained most days since I’ve been here, I’ve always looked forward to coming into work knowing that I’ll be learning, experiencing and just talking about new and exciting things from brilliant and wonderful people. Not just about work but about health, relationships, traveling, friends, and all of our crazy, wonderful lives.

Thank you for all of this and for everything that my sleep-deprived mind that’s already somewhere in Asia may have forgotten to mention.

I’ll always work hard, and I’ll always be nice.

Cheers, Rebecca

P.S. I have three decent blogs started. I’ll see what I come up with in the next few weeks and update you 🙂