Last week I had the opportunity to go to New York with the legal team I work with for my internship. We were there for a full workweek and had a schedule packed with fun activities, amazing food, and some work of course. 🙂 When I was interviewing for this internship I felt like I became instant friends with everyone on the team, and it turns out that was a totally accurate impression. The first time I met everyone in person was Monday morning bright and early at a Barry’s Bootcamp class. Let me tell ya, there’s no motivation like meeting the GC (my boss’s boss) for the first time by ending up next to him for the floor exercises.
Work
Since we all work remotely normally, we had several team sessions scheduled throughout the week to do things like talk about our team vision and mission statement and collaborate on company legal documents and procedures.
While we were there, our company was also hosting a launch party for its new magazine print edition. At the launch party, the COO led a discussion with several entrepreneurs talking about their experiences “pivoting” in their businesses. We also went to dinner with outside counsel we will be working with and visited a Circuit Court Judge that our GC clerked for.
Eat
A huge highlight of the trip was all the delicious food we had. I’m so happy to have coworkers who love food as much as I do. We ate at several Michelin-star and Michelin guide restaurants that were incredible. Highlights include Estela, Crown Shy, Llama San, Hwa Yuan, and Le Rock.
Because the COO and some other people on his team were also in town for the magazine launch party event, we had a nice dinner with them one night. We had a private room at Estela with our own chef preparing everything right by our table. It was so fun to have an intimate atmosphere with the food served family style so we could try everything on the menu. There were so many things I wouldn’t necessarily have ordered for myself but that I absolutely loved—I’ll be dreaming about the food at Estela for a long time!
Play
Our Legal Operations Manager is awesome and planned so many fun activities for us while we were there. On top of all the great dinners we had planned every night, we went to a comedy show, walked the High Line, and saw Six on Broadway. We happened to be there when all the smoke came down from the wildfires in Canada which made the city so eerie for a couple of days. We went into lunch one day and by the time we came out, everything looked orange and apocalyptic. It was just like when we had all the wildfires in northern California shortly after I moved here in 2020. We had initially wanted to bike in Central Park, but with the awful air quality that was a definite no-go… which was ok with us because we were so tired and happy to stay in and spend the rest of the afternoon working from our hotel rooms that day.
All in all, it was a great trip, and I feel so lucky to have had the opportunity to go and spend that time with my coworkers in person. Not only are my coworkers brilliant and good at what they do, but they’re all incredibly nice, welcoming, and fun. I loved getting to spend time getting to know them better and look forward to continuing to learn from them.
