Episode 91 – Wrapping Up the Summer with our Summer Intern Hayley Mason

In this episode, I will chat with our summer intern here at Aborn & Co., Hayley Mason. 

Hayley: I meant to ask a question though, what if I mess up? 

Kyle: There is no messing up, you are just talking about yourself. How are you going to mess up talking about yourself?

Hayley: What if I fumble words.

Kyle: That's fine. 

Hayley: Oh okay. 

Kyle: Take it easy, it's a conversation don't worry about it. Alright here we go.

Welcome back to Consulting Logistics, I am your host Kyle MacNaught, thanks for tuning in! Today is going to be a fun one, sitting next to me is someone who in no way knows anything about freight, logistics, transportation or any of that. In fact it is one of our supply chain under 30. But it is even weirder than that because Hayley Mason is our summer intern for 2020. She is about to wrap it all up so we are going to have a fun conversation with her. We are going to talk about

• Her education
• What her experience was like
• What she thinks is going to happen going forward

So Hayley how is it going?

I am good, how are you?

*Full disclosure you helped me set this all up and we have been talking the entire time so this is going to be a fun conversation but hopefully you are not shy and awkward*

Tell the audience a little bit about your major and what you are going to school for and a little bit about yourself. 

I am originally from Bridgewater Massachusetts, I am a rising sophomore at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. My major is Neuroscience on a pre-PA track so I plan to go to school after I graduate and eventually be a Physicians Assistant. 

So how did you end up here in logistics? 

I am family friends with Steve Aborn and he needed help with a special project that Aborn is working on. He contacted me and asked what I was doing this summer. I was doing absolutely nothing sitting in my house much as the rest of the country is doing and I said I would love to help in any way that I can. 

You started early in marketing working with me as I am a new father and needed some help. Talk a little bit about picking up a brand new job and how that experience was. 

I was still in school when I first started here back in March. Steve said they needed some help. Their head of marketing was having a baby and needed someone to provide just a little help while he was on paternity leave. I said I would love to do it and am more than happy to help. That is when I met you (kyle) and we worked through windstream/zoom and that is how I learned to do everything. How I learned to use all the tools for marketing. We recorded all the instructions and I watched them probably over 50 times just to get the hang of everything. It was definitely difficult in the beginning, learning a new job, working in a new field that I didn’t really know and juggling school all at the same time becauseI was still in classes. But it was enlightening and definitely a great challenge that I loved to take on and it has been one of the best opportunities that I have had in my lifetime. 

To be fair it is very short 

In all my 19 years! 

When Steve came to you what did you know about logistics and transportation? 

Honestly I knew that I didn’t like to drive by trucks on the highway because they scared. That is the extent of what I knew in trucking and logistics. That was very daunting in the beginning because I thought I was going to screw everything up because of the fact that I didn’t know anything about the industry. But I asked a lot of questions as you well know and everybody here was more than supportive and more than happy to answer any questions that I did have. 

What was it like for you learning the industry and how did you learn the industry other than emailing coworkers and asking questions? 

There were definitely a lot of acronyms. I had to look up every single one, my entire search history is tracking in logistics. A big part of it was a lot of what I do for the newsletter that we have. It was looking at articles and read and read and read. The more I read the more I understood the industry and that’s how I started to understand what I was doing. Also the webinars during coronavirus, I sat through them, I said nothing but I sat through then and got a good understanding. It was different people from different parts of the industry that were speaking on what they were experiencing and that was a huge help for me to understand what I was doing. 

At the beginning what were you finding interesting? 

I came into the industry at a specifically interesting time because I can in during coronavirus. For me it was the supply chain itself, the supply and demand of goods everywhere. Such as toilet paper when you couldn’t find it in stores. It was the how things were shipped. I was always on the consumer end of things where I ordered something off of amazon and it got to my doorstep in one day that was truly crazy to me. It was interesting to me how the supply chain keeps up with all the demands and keep products in stock all the time. 

What about marketing? Did you find any of the stuff we were doing fun? What was your experience there? 

I loved everything about marketing honestly to the point where I looked into adding it as a major at my school. I loved the designing aspect of it like what we did with the website and the headers for podcasts and blogs. That was the time that just flew by because I enjoyed working on it. 

What about some of the platforms and technology we were using? Was it a barrier for you? 

I think that I have grown up in a generation that is very fortunate technology wise because we open something up and in a day we know how a program works. Just because we have grown up in a technological environment we have the upper hand in figuring everything out. The programs like can a and mailchimp came easy to me to get used to and figure out just because I have grown up with that. I can’t remember a time when I didn’t have technology. 

What surprised you about having your first big office job? 

I was really nervous to come into the office for the first time. I never had a real person job so to speak so it was a big deal to me to come in and sit down at a desk and do my work. I also loved being able to collaborate with my coworkers. 

What surprised you technology wise? 

it pretty much matched my expectations. I work through programs on my laptop and that is easy for me because I know how to use it and the programs on it. I pictured to office as far as buildings are concerned and that definitely was different than what I expected. But as far as technology goes and what we use day to day I was prepared for it which I didn’t know I would be. 

You got put into a special project that is truly logistics work so let’s talk a little bit about that. How was that like? 

It was so difficult at first, the project we work on is very data heavy. That’s what we look at all day everyday for 9 hours when we work on that project. But it gave me kind of a sense of importance because I knew what I was doing was bigger than this myself and even this company. 

Were you prepared for the data aspect of everything? 

the quantity of it all shocked me. It is such a large project that we are working on, there is so much being shipped coming in and out and to different locations. The data I worked with in school was so much smaller. I thought it was crazy the amount of product we were shipping from all over the world . 

How did you explain it to your friends? 

I think my friends still don't know what I do. I just tell them I go to the office and call myself a data analyst. 

What about the technology you were using for the new project - how difficult was it to be a data analyst all of a sudden? 

those programs were similar to programs I have used before, as far as using the program that part was not difficult for me. However translating the information was the hardest part. The sources were hard to align and find the good information and the good data amounts talk about this information. You need the good data because that is what is important and finding that was difficult. 

What is your plan when you go back to college? 

I definitely want to look into marketing possibly as a double major. As far as the supply chain goes it gave me a better appreciation and experience that I never would have had otherwise. It made me a more well rounded person to be honest. 

Convince someone your age why to get an internship in logistics and transportation. 

I think it was an experience you wouldn’t expect. It was nothing I had ever been trained for and nothing that I knew anything about. As long as you put the effort in you can learn anything. It makes you a better person and a better applicant for things you are doing in the future. It makes you stand out from other people. You get real life experience and you can meet some incredible people. That was a big part for me. I met some incredible people, truly amazing people. 

What questions do you have for me? 

- You came in here without a logistics background as well, would this be something you would stick with, marketing in logistics or is there something else you want to spend your time on in the future? 

It’s interesting because I am driven by story. The logistics industry right now is going through so much fun, different and fast changes which are so much fun to learn. You can kind of feel a little bit more connected more than you would anything else. I can form a nonprofit and there is just the differences in story. For me and a lot of what I am learning is in marketing because I came from a video background. Especially here at Aborn we are definitely growing. Now the real adventure begins because I now have opinions and points. The industry is fast moving and a ton of energy and I am excited to see where it goes.

How did you like having the interns and the teaching aspects of your field to someone who knew nothing but was eager to learn? 

You stood out because you were so eager to learn. But I have always enjoyed internships and always like it. You were extremely patient and extremely eager to learn and you asked questions which is the only thing you can really ask for. You wanted to do work which is the only thing that you can do is want to do work and listen too. Not everyone is patient enough especially when people don’t listen. But if you can’t teach something it means you don’t know what you are talking about. I try to approach it as like: be eager to teach just let them join the journey you're learning with. 

Thank you so much for being my summer intern for Coronavirus 2020!