“If you’re going to sell your soul, might as well make sure it goes at a good price.”
So, I have run into an unavoidable entity of the modern young adult experience: the internship.
I didn’t run into it, either, so to speak. I sent a kind email. I’m lucky enough it’s a paid one. I’ve been an intern before, mind you. Wrote little articles for a newspaper (Mainly deaths, really. Traffic accidents. Thefts and the occasional make-up artist), and then another internship for a website. But this…this is different.
It prompted a thought I had never thought before:
“If you’re going to sell your soul, might as well make sure it goes at a good price.”
At least with the newspaper, there was something exciting about getting mail from the police division. Imagining thefts, murders, motives, family drama and all that inheritance hidden in vaults. Then writing about it, adding that hidden story in the spaces between the words, in invisible ink. Hoping someone would read the Sunday newspaper and find that piece of imagination in the insignificant miscellaneous section.
But this internship.
One does really understand why it’s a paid internship.
Usually, interns are the company mules. Doing all the odd jobs, the tiring shifts. Fetching coffee in the hopes of catching some experience and some semblance of a network in between revolving office doors.
But this internship?
I am well-fed. Well taken care of. People constantly ask if the workload is alright. They smile back at you.
But see, I have, so far, only been using two of my brain cells. One that stores information about how to copy, and the other on how to paste. I have decided to name them. One is called Anseline and the other Clemence. Or maybe Bob and Joe.
My pride (Yes, my pride, not me.) is indignant. Me, a journalism graduate (with not much desire to become a journalisty journalist), me, who wrote about petty thefts and make-up artists! Me who…has a blog? Yes, me. Stuck at a lovely desk, copying and pasting the whole day away. It feels like sometimes I copy and paste the minutes, too. And that, accidentally, the whole work day turns into a 16 hour one instead. Imagine copy-pasting the whole day. Then being asked if it’s too hard. Like, I used to program, Susan. Respectfully, and with thanks, I can copy-paste.
And that, is why they pay you for it.
If someone has a tonne of work to do, and they hire an intern, it’s because they usually can’t afford a regular worker. So you can bet, in those situations, that you won’t get paid. And that you will do all the work, one way or the other.
But someone who has the money to pay an intern…doesn’t really need an intern. From my experience, that is. They just need a few documents on their desk every now and then. Nothing too intensive.
As I am writing this, a stack of boxes containing ‘high quality’ paperclips made in china is staring at me. They even have one of those little claw machines (like a stapler) that removes the staples from documents. Gulp.
Office supplies, everywhere. Perforators. Binders. Staples.
Why are there office supplies everywhere?!
Holy C— I’m in an office.
Note: So this, I’m not sure if it’ll become a series (Although my notebook says otherwise). But I thought maybe it was time to touch up on the ‘Young Adult’ part of this blog. Something less whimsical. The style of this is much different from what I normally write. But as I explore my writing, I uncover the desire of trying new things.
Besides, I’ve always been pretty sarcastic. And for someone who so often writes about dreamy things, I’ve got a pretty dark sense of humour. For this particular kind of writing, I might actually look at the response. Usually, even if a series is not well-received, I’ll still post it. But with this one, since the style and content are so different, it might make the blog look like it’s confused about what it wants to be. Ideally, I would argue that since both kinds of writing come from one and the same brain, that it’s not incompatible. But we’ll see.
Young Adult, Old Soul 