Great Small Company - Event Intern SourFish Events Employee Review

The CEOs/full-time staff were very fun to work with and the office was a great environment. Very casual and everyone felt more like a friend than a coworker. Hours were also quite lenient and you got to choose when you came in as long as you worked the full eight hours. The experience was also pretty good for an internship. I learned a lot about the industry and the CEOs allow you to try a lot of things if you ask. The CEOs also were very dedicated to listening and taking feedback so that they can correct issues for the future. They have individual meetings with every employee often so that we can express our opinions on things. I imagine (and hope) a lot of the cons I'm going to mention won't apply for future applicants for this reason.

Events and management were often really disorganized, partly because of Sour Fish but mostly because of a third party company called Race Day Events that they work with. Race Day was (aside from a handful of employees) THE ABSOLUTE WORST to work with. They often had no idea what they were doing or slacked off while Sour Fish did everything. I understand Sour Fish can't do everything to setup, run, and tear down the events, but they need to find a more competent company or tell Race Day to get their stuff together. There were a couple events that management didn't attend and let the full-time employee and Race Day handle, which I believe was a huge mistake and usually led to a disastrous and stressful time. They gave too much credit to everyone and definitely should have been at every event. They usually create a schedule for who's going to do what to set up and run the events but never stick to them. This was not only stressful but led to more disorganization. On top of this, they claimed they would assign you to do something different or new each event from the previous one but more often than not just had you do the same thing repeatedly. In my case I had to set up the course for a majority of the races which was a very grueling task. Another thing to keep in mind is that there are no opportunities of moving forward with Sour Fish after the internship. It's way more cost effective to just hire new interns each year since it's a seasonal job. I don't blame them for this at all, but it's just something to keep in mind if you're expecting to work full-time after.

My intern group and the staff that was full time while we traveled were really fun, helpful, and created the culture that I originally fell in love with when I interviewed. Traveling was fun and there were many nights where we hung out as a group and bonded both on and off site. They definitely made us feel welcomed and were there as a support system when times got tough during the season. Growth wise, they helped us gain experience as an Event Coordinator at each race. They tried to give us in office work as well during the season even though opportunities were short, as we spent a majority of our time at the storage unit packing around 15,000 packages to send out to Virtual and Mail My Packet participants.

Although the full time staff was there for us and tried their hardest to make a positive environment I felt like we were not getting the full support from the company that was described to us in the interview process. The CEO's were very attentive in the beginning of the season and then became absent as the season progressed. The small onsite team made it difficult to staff the crucial positions for a successful event. At the time, hiring additional help at our events was not an option; Unfortunately, we had to rely heavily on volunteers who for most of the time (if we had any sign up) backed out last minute. If you decide to apply to Sour Fish Events, expect long hours both on and off site, driving long distances to and from events, and getting minimal support from CEO's. I believe the absence of the CEO's was the reason I was not hired full time. I wish I was acknowledged for the hard work that I put into the Great Pumpkin Run season.