Blog 21: Mentorship

Literal

Log is on the side of my blog.

Contact

Gene Iacono or Cody

(909) 598-1921

Interpretive

What is the most important thing you gained from this experience? Why?

From this experience, most importantly, I had received an up-close look into the workings of a retail music store. There's reading about it, and then there's actually going through the experience and procedures. It's hard to explain, but it's just a completely different feeling.

Applied

How has what you have done helped you to answer your EQ?  Please explain.

Being able to be present inside a music store on the other side (the seller side) has been an enlightening opportunity in that I was able to see the principles I have read about in my research at work. It showed me the immediate impacts of certain behaviors and actions as detailed upon by my research, which provided to me further support to my three answers for my EQ.

Blog 11: Mentorship 10 Hours Check

1.   Where are you doing your mentorship?

I am doing my mentorship at The Music Store at Walnut.

2.   Who is your contact?

Owner of the store, Gene Iacono

3.   How many total hours have you done (total hours should be reflected in your mentorship log located on the right hand side of your blog like your WB)?

30 hours and 28 minutes.

4.   Summarize the 10 hours of service you did.

I was told to simply observe, since I didn't know anything about working the store yet. I was shown the schedule binder, the cashier, the cashier software, the records software, the script for calls, etc.

5.   Email your house teacher the name of your contact and their phone number confirming who they should call to verify it.

Blog 2: Summer Mentorship

1) My Summer Mentorship Log: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?key=0At3QKup-j6vHdC1yel9RQkNPdFJTLWNJSk5CMkY2UXc&output=html
(Notes taken during the mentorship and pictures of the store: https://plus.google.com/photos/100057649066833535168/albums/5910688707107408657)

2) Contact Number: Gene Iacono - (909)-598-1921

3) Questions that were raised in the 10 hours of mentorship:

• How does the store handle rentals? (the owner has told me that rentals are lacking during the summer but booms during the school year)
• Where does the store find their music teachers? Do they put a listing in a newspaper? Perhaps ask a current teacher for suggestions?
• How does the store handle a student that hasn't paid tuition in a while?
• In the event of a rental instrument being returned absolutely broken, how do we talk to the student about it?

4) What is the most important thing you gained from this experience? Why?
Through this mentorship, I've learned that there are many aspects to operating a music store or a business, such as bookkeeping, accounting, inventory orders, product care, and customer handling. By themselves, each of these seems like small chores. But these are all key to the running the store. As the store's owner frequently said to me, the employees there make cupcakes out of crumbs, and nothing there runs by itself.

5) How did what you did help you choose a topic? Please explain.
I've decided to choose 'operating a music store' as my topic due to me finding out that there are a lot of things I can learn about instruments in this store. This opportunity to learn furthermore about instruments and how they work is appealing to me. Despite me not being a trumpet player, I found that learning about its parts, even through just cleaning it, is pretty neat. The fact that I also got to learn some guitar care as well is also very cool. Music is not a life passion of mine, but I definitely love it. I want to be near it in any way and this is one way to do that.
In addition, the store also gave me a glimpse into running a business. My mother has been interested in starting a business for a while. While it would sell different products than what the music store has, I feel that my experience in a store would still help out a bit in her venture.