Since I've only wasted about 30 minutes of my day, I think that today's entry should be a minute by minute account of what interns typically do.
Let's begin, shall we?
8:33 - arrive at work 3 minutes late.
8:40 - somehow, I killed 7 minutes. I'll attribute this to boot up time and settling in.
8:41 - check email, delete 7 of 8 emails, skim 8th which includes a list of tasks.
8:42-9 - read comics online, skim drudge, save other blogs for boredom in another 30 minutes.
9:38 - somehow, i've wasted another 38 minutes. Part of this was spent looking up plane flights to see my grandmother, the age to rent a car in texas and movie times for Oceans 13 tonight.
9:39 - entourage tells me that I have two pitches due very soon. I look at my ed cal calendar and realize that there are four due...this weekend. To-do list time. I enjoy spending (read: wasting) my time making to do lists. I feel productive without having to BE productive. Excellent.
9:43 - see, it works.
10:15 - I've printed one document and caught up on wonkette.com. I feel like I should maybe get serious soon...soonish. I have a meeting at 11 that should waste a good 20 minutes.
10:50 - I am 10 minutes away from a meeting. It took my printer 15 minutes to print a pdf document that I now discover I did not need. figures.
10:51 - Other intern stops in to talk about how original our new name is. We snicker.
10:54 - Gchat time. Thank you google gmail whoever you are.
2:11 - thank you mindless client. you've wasted several hours of my day! let's talk about conference calls, shall we? These things are useless, especially internationally. We can't understand a thing they're saying though they speak english. Worthless mexican phones. Anyway, our client emails us at 1 to say "PLEASE WAIT TO CALL. PLEASE ALLOW 15 MINUTES." No problem. We call in 15 minutes and she says "I am not ready yet. You call back in 10." She originally meant a mexican 15 minutes. We call back in 15. No answer. It is now over an hour past our meeting time that we have EVERY WEEK and no client call.
Oh well. I'm not doing anything anyway!
2:26 - no sign of call from client. i have finished my pitch that is due today but because i'm not at all important, I have to wait for my boss who is overwhelmed right now, to get it back to me.
3:56 - obnoxious client called over an hour ago. i have 34 minutes to make a fax. i make a decision that it will be my last task of the day.
4:11 - I am done with my last task of the day.
4:19 - about ten minutes til I leave. I will fill this with useless time.
Off I go. Don't bother reading the entire thing if you didn't. The obnoxious client barred my way from witicisms while bored.
Monday, June 25, 2007
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
Break up the day with breaks
I feel like a hobbit. If you've seen the first Lord of the Rings, then you'll know what I mean.
I never believed in the myth "you eat when you're bored" until I began working. Shortly after my first day at my first job, I realized the beauty of afternoon popcorn or a quick pop into the break room for bad coffee. It's now occurred to me that the three or four times that the average worker stops for a snack is probably a good hour of wasted time (you'd better take a long time on that special K bar, my friend).
For example, I have just taken midmorning feast in my hobbit hole of a cubicle. This consists of a breakfast bar and some coffee. This job has a good coffee maker. Bad coffee makers should be banned from the universe. But I digress.
I used to take a short lunch break because while it's helpful to get paid to eat lunch in a meeting...we don't get paid to eat lunch other times. Only full timers. (But they don't get paid to sit through a lunch meeting, so it evens out, I think). I figure, at the rate of 6.67 an hour (that's minimum, correct?) what is the benefit to an extra less than ten dollars versus lunch? That's right, there isn't.
I take my hour...and it take it out of this place as frequent as possible. I meet my friend who has a far more interesting job working at a doctor's office. She talks to people all day. I talk to...my computer, the printer, the binder, whatever it is that does not function correctly. I speak in four letter, monosyllabic words.
Back to food. So around 10 I have midmorning feast, which makes up for my commuter's slimfast cappaccino shake (tolerable, give it a shot). Later, around one, it's time for recess, nap time, whatever you call it. A little later, around 3, I take second lunch, better known as a popcorn and diet soda break. That's the nice one because it takes some time to prepare and lasts forever at my desk. I also get off knowing I'm making people want popcorn. The smell cannot be contained.
All of this food talk reminds me of break rooms. The best break room I've ever seen was at a law office where I wanted to shoot myself. There's only so much one can ask for. Between moving files from point A to point B then back to point A, I enjoyed free soda (coke, not pepsi), coffee (decently made), a variety of teas and other random things that coworkers brought in. My guess is that the ever present food was tokens of "when I said 'I f'ing hate you,' what I meant to say was 'I'm just stressed.'" Sometimes, the paralegals ordered out and billed a client for it. Similar to getting fed and paid to sit through a meeting, but this time, the client was paying for $20/roll sushi. Clever, no?
The break room where I am now is decent. Nothing like the law office. There is a good coffee machine that makes about any coffee drink imaginable, but there's a hefty 65 cent charge for a can of soda and the snack machine usually requires two go rounds before it drops the snack.
The only thing to be said for the last place I worked was the subsidized sodas for a quarter.
My point here is that the only thing I will remember about half of these internships is whether I liked it or not and if there was a good break room.
My dad says that I should gather information about the places I work so that when I'm a grossly over-paid CEO, I will have efficient, loyal, and happy workers. So, when I run the world, I will remember these things:
- agitate the stress-cookers just enough so they bring in left overs
- subsidize sodas or make them free
- good coffee machine
- small break room (hey, stop in, but don't stay. when i'm the boss, my peons will be working.)
Looking forward to lunch,
- The Intern
I never believed in the myth "you eat when you're bored" until I began working. Shortly after my first day at my first job, I realized the beauty of afternoon popcorn or a quick pop into the break room for bad coffee. It's now occurred to me that the three or four times that the average worker stops for a snack is probably a good hour of wasted time (you'd better take a long time on that special K bar, my friend).
For example, I have just taken midmorning feast in my hobbit hole of a cubicle. This consists of a breakfast bar and some coffee. This job has a good coffee maker. Bad coffee makers should be banned from the universe. But I digress.
I used to take a short lunch break because while it's helpful to get paid to eat lunch in a meeting...we don't get paid to eat lunch other times. Only full timers. (But they don't get paid to sit through a lunch meeting, so it evens out, I think). I figure, at the rate of 6.67 an hour (that's minimum, correct?) what is the benefit to an extra less than ten dollars versus lunch? That's right, there isn't.
I take my hour...and it take it out of this place as frequent as possible. I meet my friend who has a far more interesting job working at a doctor's office. She talks to people all day. I talk to...my computer, the printer, the binder, whatever it is that does not function correctly. I speak in four letter, monosyllabic words.
Back to food. So around 10 I have midmorning feast, which makes up for my commuter's slimfast cappaccino shake (tolerable, give it a shot). Later, around one, it's time for recess, nap time, whatever you call it. A little later, around 3, I take second lunch, better known as a popcorn and diet soda break. That's the nice one because it takes some time to prepare and lasts forever at my desk. I also get off knowing I'm making people want popcorn. The smell cannot be contained.
All of this food talk reminds me of break rooms. The best break room I've ever seen was at a law office where I wanted to shoot myself. There's only so much one can ask for. Between moving files from point A to point B then back to point A, I enjoyed free soda (coke, not pepsi), coffee (decently made), a variety of teas and other random things that coworkers brought in. My guess is that the ever present food was tokens of "when I said 'I f'ing hate you,' what I meant to say was 'I'm just stressed.'" Sometimes, the paralegals ordered out and billed a client for it. Similar to getting fed and paid to sit through a meeting, but this time, the client was paying for $20/roll sushi. Clever, no?
The break room where I am now is decent. Nothing like the law office. There is a good coffee machine that makes about any coffee drink imaginable, but there's a hefty 65 cent charge for a can of soda and the snack machine usually requires two go rounds before it drops the snack.
The only thing to be said for the last place I worked was the subsidized sodas for a quarter.
My point here is that the only thing I will remember about half of these internships is whether I liked it or not and if there was a good break room.
My dad says that I should gather information about the places I work so that when I'm a grossly over-paid CEO, I will have efficient, loyal, and happy workers. So, when I run the world, I will remember these things:
- agitate the stress-cookers just enough so they bring in left overs
- subsidize sodas or make them free
- good coffee machine
- small break room (hey, stop in, but don't stay. when i'm the boss, my peons will be working.)
Looking forward to lunch,
- The Intern
Monday, June 18, 2007
Universal Intern Eval
Let's talk about job evals, shall we?
This is the first company out of the six I've graced with my presences that has decided to include me in the job evaluation cycle.
See, the company I work for just did a little eval of themselves, found themselves unsatisfactory and went through a name change. Ah, change is in the air...I smell a reorg. These are fun to watch, especially when you're only tangentially involved. Sometimes, like my last job that I'll call "publishing" from now on, I move from one cube to another to make way for the poor bastards who had to move from the headquarters office (two blocks away) to my office (shared with many people, all of whom were far more important than us--our keycards often failed and we were last on the upgrade li$t). Other times, I'm either doing more or less, depending on how much...or little...my boss was doing prior to the eval.
In this case, they called us into a lunch meeting. It's clever, really, these lunch meetings. They get you to work for another hour by paying for your lunch that you didn't want anyway. I guess that's what creative people do--they create new ways to keep their employees working longer hours for the same amount of money. Everyone froze when HR walked in.
They assured everyone, they were only doing a survey, that they were indeed curious as to what we did on the other side of the office. Someone got brave and asked what happens when you have the same title as someone else--but do different things. The response was a clever demotion/promotion: "We'll probably reassign titles." I thought of business cards...but they were thinking salary.
That's one of the few perks of being an intern--that we're paid by the hour....but that's for another day. (Don't forget, interns are usually paid around minimum wage. They can't really demote us, we're the bottom).
Anyway, the entire point of this is that I failed to sign up for a job eval because I thought, as most people do, that interns are basically redundant universally. I was wrong. I got a perky email from my recently-engaged, former model, HR assistant (she enjoys volunteering all this information) asking me when I could meet for a job eval. She was slightly snubbed that I'd failed to sign up earlier.
Today was my eval. We chit chatted, then she preceeded to tape record everything I said because she types slower than Helen Keller.
The questions were beyond redundant:
Q: What does your job entail:
A: Writing press releases, pitches, putting together media lists, making portfolios
Q: What skills does your job require:
A: Writing ability and organization.
Q: Describe your typical day:
A: (I'll spare you)
Q: Who do you report to:
A: *names of my two bosses*
Q: How do you decide what to do during the day:
A: Talk to my two bosses
Q: If there is a problem, how do you solve it?
A: I talk to my bosses.
Q: Do you report to anyone:
A: ...are you serious?
Let's face it folks. If there are 5 interns over here in the PR department, it stands to figure that at least one of us could give you all of the information you'll ever need about our job description and if you don't want to talk to any of us, then hell, just remember your days as an intern...since you interned here.
Since when are the questions: "How do you make your decisions" and "Does anyone report to you" ever applicable to interns? I love even more than HR asks us so seriously if there is anyone who reports to us. Of course not! We're babied with copy work until suddenly, they realize that we're capable...and move onto portfolio creation.
Interns of the world, I ask you this--does anyone ever report to you? No.
Perhaps we should be running the office if the people who are about to restructure us are asking us these kinds of questions.
Eval'ed,
The Intern
This is the first company out of the six I've graced with my presences that has decided to include me in the job evaluation cycle.
See, the company I work for just did a little eval of themselves, found themselves unsatisfactory and went through a name change. Ah, change is in the air...I smell a reorg. These are fun to watch, especially when you're only tangentially involved. Sometimes, like my last job that I'll call "publishing" from now on, I move from one cube to another to make way for the poor bastards who had to move from the headquarters office (two blocks away) to my office (shared with many people, all of whom were far more important than us--our keycards often failed and we were last on the upgrade li$t). Other times, I'm either doing more or less, depending on how much...or little...my boss was doing prior to the eval.
In this case, they called us into a lunch meeting. It's clever, really, these lunch meetings. They get you to work for another hour by paying for your lunch that you didn't want anyway. I guess that's what creative people do--they create new ways to keep their employees working longer hours for the same amount of money. Everyone froze when HR walked in.
They assured everyone, they were only doing a survey, that they were indeed curious as to what we did on the other side of the office. Someone got brave and asked what happens when you have the same title as someone else--but do different things. The response was a clever demotion/promotion: "We'll probably reassign titles." I thought of business cards...but they were thinking salary.
That's one of the few perks of being an intern--that we're paid by the hour....but that's for another day. (Don't forget, interns are usually paid around minimum wage. They can't really demote us, we're the bottom).
Anyway, the entire point of this is that I failed to sign up for a job eval because I thought, as most people do, that interns are basically redundant universally. I was wrong. I got a perky email from my recently-engaged, former model, HR assistant (she enjoys volunteering all this information) asking me when I could meet for a job eval. She was slightly snubbed that I'd failed to sign up earlier.
Today was my eval. We chit chatted, then she preceeded to tape record everything I said because she types slower than Helen Keller.
The questions were beyond redundant:
Q: What does your job entail:
A: Writing press releases, pitches, putting together media lists, making portfolios
Q: What skills does your job require:
A: Writing ability and organization.
Q: Describe your typical day:
A: (I'll spare you)
Q: Who do you report to:
A: *names of my two bosses*
Q: How do you decide what to do during the day:
A: Talk to my two bosses
Q: If there is a problem, how do you solve it?
A: I talk to my bosses.
Q: Do you report to anyone:
A: ...are you serious?
Let's face it folks. If there are 5 interns over here in the PR department, it stands to figure that at least one of us could give you all of the information you'll ever need about our job description and if you don't want to talk to any of us, then hell, just remember your days as an intern...since you interned here.
Since when are the questions: "How do you make your decisions" and "Does anyone report to you" ever applicable to interns? I love even more than HR asks us so seriously if there is anyone who reports to us. Of course not! We're babied with copy work until suddenly, they realize that we're capable...and move onto portfolio creation.
Interns of the world, I ask you this--does anyone ever report to you? No.
Perhaps we should be running the office if the people who are about to restructure us are asking us these kinds of questions.
Eval'ed,
The Intern
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Day One
Is it typical to have a preference for a font? If so, why is that? One of my "team members" (read: co worker who has more authority than me) prefers the generic Times New Roman. I am partial to Georgia, but then there are those strange people from accounting who type everything in that obnoxious Courier. Don't you want to look like you've progressed from typewriters?
Either way.
In my second week at my fourth place of internship employment, I've come to the conclusion that every industry has a preferred font. For public relations, it happens to be Arial, size 11. That's actually quoted in my useless "welcome packet" for interns. It's recently updated to tell me absolutely nothing.
The EVP, who in any other world would be called a Manager, told me on my first day that if I had any questions, I shouldn't hesitate to look in the guide. I skimmed through it.
The contents:
- 5 Big Do's and Don'ts (things a 5 year old knows)
- Introduction to said PR Agency (rules before the introduction, clever.)
- Intern Responsibilities and Opportunities (how many hours I must work and who I report to, good to know)
Skimming down, there are things like "how to address a letter" (do people who read that page actually get hired here?), and "sexual harassment policy." Perfect, all my questions have been answered.
"Remember," he says, walking out of my cubicle (I have a cubicle here, I'm imbibed with a false sense of importance), "there are no stupid questions--only stupid people."
Excellent.
- The Intern
Either way.
In my second week at my fourth place of internship employment, I've come to the conclusion that every industry has a preferred font. For public relations, it happens to be Arial, size 11. That's actually quoted in my useless "welcome packet" for interns. It's recently updated to tell me absolutely nothing.
The EVP, who in any other world would be called a Manager, told me on my first day that if I had any questions, I shouldn't hesitate to look in the guide. I skimmed through it.
The contents:
- 5 Big Do's and Don'ts (things a 5 year old knows)
- Introduction to said PR Agency (rules before the introduction, clever.)
- Intern Responsibilities and Opportunities (how many hours I must work and who I report to, good to know)
Skimming down, there are things like "how to address a letter" (do people who read that page actually get hired here?), and "sexual harassment policy." Perfect, all my questions have been answered.
"Remember," he says, walking out of my cubicle (I have a cubicle here, I'm imbibed with a false sense of importance), "there are no stupid questions--only stupid people."
Excellent.
- The Intern
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