My first real experience with the "real world" of tech work came from TJX Companies. I was an intern there in the summer of 2007, working in both the Desktop Services and Network Security organizations.
My time in Desktop Services was pretty typical of corporate IT. We imaged and serviced company computers, doing our best to support the TJX staff and learn about IT management. The highlight was "drive destruction day," when an industrial size shredder was brought in to demolish old hard drives.
Network Security was much more exciting. In 2006 TJX was the victim of the largest data breach in history (at the time). This breach occurred in part due to a security vulnerability in the corporate network systems. So, my night job in 2007 was working as a network security deployment team member. Primarily I was responsible for configuring and securing Cisco switches via Telnet using a command line interface. It was very cool to be part of such a historic event!