My hands were clammy. I pulled on the sweater i was wearing with my anxiety filled hands as i sat in the waiting room of BizTimes Media. I was here for my first Job Shadow for my Inroads Field Study class and to say the least I was scared out of my mind. I had no idea what to expect and I had never been in a professional setting like this. I walked in, greeting the woman at the front desk.

“Hello, how can I help you?” Her warm smile eased my mind, her calm voice making me feel less out of my element.

“Uh, my name’s Samantha, i’m here to see Andrew Wielandl.” My voice was high pitched as I tried my hardest to sound professional, and not doing a very good job.

“Sure take a seat he should be in any minute.”

I nervously took a seat in one of the two available chairs. The office was quiet, the only recognizable sounds being the coffee maker and a distant printer emitting paper after paper. I heard the jingling of the door handle directly next to me and my heart jumped with anticipation. An older white male walked in, his suitcase in one hand and his phone in the other. He instantly made eye contact with me and smiled. The woman behind the front desk immediately stands up.

“Mr. Wieland, this is Samantha, she’s here  to see you.” He hand gestured towards me a smile upon her lips. Mr. Wieland turned to me, his now empty hand outstretched to shake my nervous one.

“Well it’s very nice to meet you Samantha, why don’t you hold tight right here for a minute and i'll go get my office cleaned up and ready.” He waited for my nod of agreement before he disappeared around the corner into the rows of cubicle desks. I patiently awaited Mr. Wieland as I tried containing my nerves. He appeared from around the corner and led me towards his large off. The walls were lined with awards and plaques, pictures of his family hung above and around his desk. His desk was littered with magazines and notepads with indecisive scribbles all over them.

“So Samantha, why do you want to be a writer?” He questioned me with a low gaze as he took a seat behind his desk and directed me towards the chair directly in front of him. My brain was racked with a million scattered answers, trying to sound the most professional.

“I think it's just the only job I can envision myself being passionate about, I don't want to sit behind a desk and do the same thing everyday for the rest of my life, I hate routine.” He looked at me and nodded a look of contentedness on his face. His black ball point pen weaved in and out of his fingers as he leaned back in his chair, holding eye contact with me as he wrote a few words down on his notepad.

“I was told by Ms. Fredericks that you are currently in a lot of engineering classes, why have you pursued that if you seemingly have no interest?” The pen twirled, around one, two, three fingers. I sighed.

“I think i'm just very scared of not knowing what i'm going to do after high school, my parents want me to be financially stable with engineering, but I want to be happy and creative with writing, I guess i'm just torn between taking a risk or making my parents proud.” He nodded, once, maybe twice, his pen still twirling. He pointed to a plaque on the wall that looked to be a diploma from the University of Wisconsin Whitewater.

“ I went to Whitewater all four years and it wasn't until my last that I decided what profession I actually wanted get into.” The pen stopped whirling as he leaned forward off his chair, towards me. “ We don’t get a lot of students in this building who are actually working towards their career interests before college, so if it consoles you at all, I think you are a lot farther than I was in high school.” He smile reassured me, I sat back in my chair suddenly feeling much more relaxed than I was twenty minutes ago when I first arrived.

The office was warm, maybe it was the smell of coffee or maybe it was the smiles I got as Mr. Weiland took me around the office, showing me to all of his colleagues.As we assembled back into his office he called a few people in for a meeting. He handed me a pen and a blank notepad. In walked five people, all buzzing with coffee in their hands a bright smiles on their faces despite the early monday morning hours that dawned upon us. I was slowly introduced to each person. We sat in our seats around the cozy office space and sat in silence until the conversation started.

“So as you know we have a student joining us today, I hope we can teach her a few things and show her the ropes of our business.” He smiled at me and nodded,” So why don't we have Molly start us off.” The young woman sitting closest to me began rambling about potential news story after another. She spoke with such elegance, never stuttering or missing a beat. After Molly spoke the rest began adding on with their ideas and the whole time Mr. Weiland just sat there and nodded occasionally picking up his pen and pad and writing a few things down. It really made me think, all these people do this every day. They get up and go to work, make calls and send out hundreds of emails. I was still in high school , my mom still did my laundry and in five years im going to be an adult, who has to go to work everyday and that terrified me.

“So Samantha, while your here I wanted to ask you if you would be comfortable writing a piece for us to post on our website,” He guided me into his office one last time and handed me a printed out article on a healthcare service moving into wisconsin. “From what I can tell you are very intelligent and I just wanted to see how well you can write.”

“Sure, i’d love to! I don't know much about healthcare but i’m ready to write whatever I can.” My mind raced, I had no background information on healthcare nor have I ever professionally written an actual article. Mr. Weiland guided me to an empty cubicle in the middle of the office. The desk was wiped clean, there were two monitors and a pen.

“Here’s where you will be working, Molly will be over in a bit to check on how your doing and hopefully be able to read whatever you have written!” He smiled and rested a reassuring hand on my shoulder, as if he knew I would be able to somehow write this entire article in 30 minutes. As soon as he left my mind raced with the possibilities. I quickly read over the article I was given and started doing research, I wrote down every piece of information i could find. I started typing and for some reason everything just felt right, all the information was going onto the paper so smoothly and I wondered why I couldn't write like this all the time, I was almost done when Molly, who is one of two executive editors in the company, paid me a visit. She read my paper and instantly gave me feedback, some was good but she also gave me a few pointers on how I could make my writing better. This made me think, usually in school we have to follow a rubric or a prompts, but in the real world all I had to do was write and use my own creativity to fuel my writing, and to say the least I loved it. Unfortunately it was time for me to leave, but Molly had reassured me that she would revise my article for any last minute mistakes and email me the link to the finished product (which is currently posted on the BizTimes Media page, for anybody to see).

I was on my way out, I had bid my goodbyes to everybody in the building. A couple congratulating me on my soon-to-be published piece, and a few just offering a small smile. My hand grasped the small silver door handle but before I could open it Mr. Weiland called my name, he advanced towards me and offered one last handshake.

“You are the first high school student we have ever had actually visit the company, and I just wanted to thank you for putting so much effort into being here, I just wanted to let you know that in the future our doors will always be open to anything you might need.” He handed me a business card and my pen and pad for me to keep.

“Thank you so much, I think this experience has opened my eyes to the things I can do with writing and I loved everybody here, you all helped me learn so much about myself.” We bid our final goodbyes as I walked out the door. As I walked out everything really settled in, I was going to be an adult soon and it was absolutely terrifying but also extremely exhilarating and I couldn't wait to be working for something I am so passionate about.