Interning
By emily
Grade: F
Right now I am watching a miserable-looking girl carting handtruck after handtruck full of heavy cardboard boxes around. She isn’t getting paid and, as far as I know, she isn’t doing it because she has a deep love of manual labor. She’s doing it because she’s an intern. She could be doing the exact same rote task as an office temp for $11 to $15 an hour, but she’s been sucked into this city’s bizarre intern culture, where it’s okay to lug boxes and empty garbage for free as long as someone has convinced you that it’s a learning experience. Does anyone else think that this is fucked up? I guess it’s no secret that I do, even though I have to admit that my many, many internships did indeed help get me to where I am today (never mind that 'where I am today' includes a brand-new anxiety disorder). Now that I’m on the other side of the intern divide, I’ve been thinking of posting one of those superfake craigslist ads so I can hire an unpaid intern as my personal assistant. The intern can help me to write a million dollar grant for a performance piece where I explore notions of ‘femininity’ and ‘body image’ by wearing a different fancy designer outfit every day. Also, the intern can do my laundry and scoop Raffles’s litter box so that s/he can learn more about what it’s like to be an adult. Because that’s what internships are for, right? They’re supposed to teach college kids how to be responsible and professional, isn’t that it?
Oh wait, no. Turns out, internships are a HUGE SCAM.
The scammiest is when your school insists that you need to get college credit for doing an internship so that in effect you are paying (your school) in order to work for free. But mostly internships are just a way for businesses to save money. Of course, in the best-case scenario, the intern actually learns how to do something useful, makes valuable connections, enhances her resume in a meaningful way, and goes on to a paid position in the industry or maybe even gets hired by the company she interned for. I’ve only heard of this happening once, and it seemed like one of those fanciful NY myths, like the one about your friend of a friend who only pays $500 for her roomy East Village one bedroom.
Internships have the potential to be used for good, so we can’t ban them entirely. But because slavery is illegal, we should probably ensure that interns get some sort of compensation. Minimum wage would be nice, especially for people who are stuffing envelopes all day. Or, failing that, at least a travel and lunch stipend, so that people aren’t actually losing money by going to “work.” Above all, though, we should resolve to treat interns better, and I’m not just talking about not having affairs with them “for the worst possible reason . . . because [we] could.” Whenever we are interacting with an intern, we should remember that they, unlike us, are not getting paid to be here. They are our honored guests.
And to all you interns out there: don’t ever let anyone make you feel bad about coming in late and taking a bunch of fake sick days. Enjoy your carefree youth and don’t rush to become an ambitious, driven office slave. It’ll happen before you know it anyway.