Hey there! So this summer, something kind of wild happened, I became someone’s actual employer. Like, with paperwork and everything. Through the Canada Summer Jobs wage subsidy program, we brought on William Ramsay from SFU to work with Over the Edge, and suddenly I went from “editor who occasionally remembers to check their email” to “person responsible for another human’s professional development.”
No pressure, right?
The Part Where I Pretend I Know What I’m Doing
Here’s the thing nobody tells you about managing someone when you’re still a student yourself: it’s deeply, profoundly weird. William and I are basically peers, we’re both students, we both understand the struggle of trying to sound professional in emails while eating instant ramen at 2 AM. But suddenly I had to figure out how to be… what? A boss? A mentor? That person who sets expectations and follows up on tasks? (Spoiler: following up was my absolute weakest point. I’d assign something and then three days later be like “oh right, I should probably check on that.”)
The strangest part was realizing my job wasn’t just doing the work anymore, it was figuring out where to point William’s energy and skills. It’s like being handed a really talented person and going “okay, now what?” I had to learn the difference between what I wanted done and what would actually help them grow. Sometimes those things aligned. Sometimes they… didn’t.
What We Actually Built (Besides Character)
We spent the summer bouncing ideas around and building some genuinely cool stuff for the paper. If you’re curious about the technical side, you can check out our GitHub (github.com/Over-the-Edge-Newspaper-Society) and see what happens when you give two students too much caffeine and repository access.
But beyond the code and projects, we built something else, a whole new calendar system on our website that’s honestly kind of amazing. Not to be that person who promotes their own stuff, but we now have ALL the Timberwolves events, plus basically every event happening in Prince George (we’ve gotten pretty good at… let’s say “aggregating” that information). Want to know what clubs are doing? It’s there. Need a complete list of every club on campus because you forgot which ones you signed up for at orientation? We’ve got you covered. It’s basically the answer to “wait, what’s happening this weekend?” that doesn’t involve scrolling through seventeen different Instagram accounts.
The Learning Curve Was More Like a Learning Cliff
Setting expectations turned out to be this whole thing I wasn’t prepared for. How do you tell someone what you need when you’re still figuring it out yourself? How do you balance giving them interesting work with getting the necessary-but-boring stuff done? How do you create growth opportunities when you’re still growing yourself?
I think (hopefully) William got as much out of this experience as I did. We had genuinely fun brainstorming sessions where we’d throw around increasingly ridiculous ideas until we landed on something actually workable. There’s something special about that collaborative energy when you’re both invested in making something better.
The Weird Wisdom I Gained From This
If you ever find yourself in a position where you’re suddenly managing someone (and given how many student organizations need help, you might), here’s what I learned the hard way:
You’re going to feel like you’re making it up as you go because you literally are, and that’s okay
The power dynamic is weird when you’re both students, lean into the weirdness rather than pretending it doesn’t exist
Following up on tasks is harder than it sounds when you can barely keep track of your own deadlines
Sometimes the best thing you can do is admit you don’t know something and figure it out together
The whole experience taught me that leadership (ugh, I hate that word but I can’t think of a better one) isn’t about knowing everything or being the most qualified person in the room. Sometimes it’s just about being willing to take responsibility for pointing things in a direction and hoping it’s the right one.
Would I do it again? Absolutely. Did I mess up a bunch? Also absolutely. But that’s kind of the whole point of these opportunities – we get to practice being semi-functional professionals while we’re still in an environment where eating cereal for dinner three nights in a row is socially acceptable.
If you’re thinking about applying for summer positions or taking on management roles in student organizations, just know that everyone else is also secretly panicking and googling “how to be a good manager” at midnight. We’re all just figuring it out together, one awkward team meeting at a time.
