This question involving opportunism actually could not have
come at a better time. I personally passed on a great opportunity for an
internship that met all of the criteria I was looking for in a job after
school, let alone an internship. On top of this internship, this particular
company actually hired a lot of their interns fresh out of their internship.
Before I go forward with the details of the internship opportunity that I
somewhat regretfully passed up, I need to rewind a bit.
Being a tennis player here on campus is not like playing
other sports. Our season is all year round. In fact, our most competitive and
match-filled time of the year is actually summer. However, last dual season,
which is in the spring, I had planter fasciitis in both of my feet. This injury
kept getting progressively worse as I played each dual match. By the last month
of our dual season, I talked over my summer schedule with my coaches. We
eventually decided that I was going to take at least the first part of the
summer off and try to rehabilitate my feet. This opened up the doors for some
business opportunities that I had yet to experience.
Due to the fact that tennis is an all-year-round sport, I
had never been able to gain any business experience besides a product
development project in high school. It was because of this reason that I
decided to do some research and look around for internship opportunities.
Before looking for the internship, I did have some criteria
I would have like to been met. I was not going to accept the first boring desk
job that was offered to me. My dream job would be to either work in a sports management
position at sports retailers such as Nike or Wilson or work for a sports
organization such as the Green Bay Packers. Within either of these two jobs, I
would want to work closely with my co-workers as well as be big contributing factor
to the organization’s success.
I knew I entered the search extremely late since most
internship openings fill up well before the last few weeks of school. Therefore,
I decided to focus my search on close family friends with internships or
employment opportunities as well as contacts I had made personally either
through my parents or through the University of Illinois.
After reaching out to a few individuals and going through a
few interviews, I was offered an internship meeting all of my criteria for my
idea of the perfect job. I was given an opportunity to intern for a company that
worked close with professional athletic organizations to customize certain
textile products and sell them both online and in their respective areas. I
would have been helping with the cold calls in the Denver Broncos area as well
as commute back and forth to Denver to help coordinate some of the sales
meetings. Upper management allowed middle and lower level employees take the
reigns on a lot of these meeting and their individual cold calls meaning that
this specific organization was decentralized.
I got in contact with my potential future boss and he
immediately signed me up for an encouraged job information seminar the
following week. Being a transaction cost, as I was not required to go, was not
going work out since I had a doctor’s appointment for my feet in Chicago during
the time of the seminar.
Once I really realized how much time was needed to be
successful at this job each week (at least 30 hours), it hit me how big and
time-consuming this responsibility really was. Once I recovered from my injury,
I would not be able to practice as much as I’d want, rehab as much as I want,
possibly take summer courses if I wanted. The opportunity costs of this
internship made me realize that it was unrealistic and not the right time.
I ended up passing on this internship opportunity. I used my
summer to travel, rehab my feet, and take a couple online summer courses.
It turns out, that my injury actually took longer to heal
that the doctors originally thought. I took the entire summer off from tennis,
which to me was the biggest reason I did not take the internship in the first
place. It is because of this reason that I feel like a substantial opportunity
was missed and I have to hope that it doesn’t effect my future all too much.
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ReplyDeleteThis is an interesting story. But I don't see the opportunism to begin with so I don't see that you were refraining from the opportunism by not taking the internship.
The only part of the story that is unclear to me, and perhaps this would impact whether your behavior might have been opportunistic or not, is whether you informed your potential employer about your injury and if they understood that were you healthy you had a preference to continue with the tennis. Did you disclose your injury during your interview with them? And did you lay the rest of your cards out on the table?
Now as to some of the other things you said, I didn't understand your comment about the job taking 30 hours a week. Wasn't it full time during the summer? Aren't most internships full time work during the summer months? That part I just didn't get. You seemed to expect it to be a part time job only. Is that right?
Switching gears, I have a friend who had plantar fascitis and she had to wear a boot for about two months, maybe longer. Did you have to do that? What other things did you have to do to recover? Is there something like redshirting for tennis players, so you can take the time to recover from your injury and preserve your eligibility. Or does an injury like this simply cut into your season?
Finally I would ask whether this idea that the sport is year round, including during the summer, makes it harder to get players who are good but not intending to play tennis professionally, so need to find a job after graduation. Others must somehow finesse this to get an internship while still being a player and/or to drop off the team to better manage one's career prospects. How do the other players do this?
It seems in this situation, the opportunistic decision was not as clear as in many other situations. With sports injuries, it can often be difficult to create an accurate timeline, as you well know, and mainly depends on the individual. At the time, the decision you made to not take the internship appeared opportunistic because of your tennis goals and development in that area. In the long-run the decision turned out to be in-opportunistic, but this was due to false information involving the timeline of you injury. Many organizations incur this dilemma, of making the opportunistic decision in the short term that ends up being in-opportunistic in the long run, and is many time unavoidable.
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