6 Dream-Crushing Things You’ll Realize Upon Completing Your Summer Internship
By Lance Pauker
As summer internships come to a close, it’s time to loosen up those starched-out ties, make Facebook statuses with an irrational amount of caps, and tweet out a pic of your now-empty NYU summer dorm room, ultimately a failed attempt to manufacture ridiculously forced and underserved nostalgia.
While your 9+ hours of daily white-collar slavery wasn’t always fun and games (despite the company-wide internship photo making it appear that way), there is no doubt each and every intern has learned a wealth of valuable lessons this summer:
1. The Dry Cleaning Industry Needs To Seriously Re-evaluate Itself
Other than stay-at-home moms, college kids, and everyone in their 20s, the world works for a living. Generally, this “work”–often a euphemism for reading those odd articles on Yahoo! News–is conducted between the hours of 8am and 7pm.
Logic would assume that if a dry cleaners wanted to attract customers, they should be open when people are able to go to their establishment. While this is a paradox unresolved for decades, it is one that college interns are often confronted with for the very first time. .
2. Your (Gchat) Skills Have Dramatically Increased
Among the various skills you have acquired this summer (how to milk assignments for as long as possible, how to order sandwiches for people who don’t want tomatoes on them), there is likely none greater than your mastery of AIM 2.0. Whether its intentionally not clicking on a previously read conversation to make it seem like you have a new message (thus, giving you an excuse to click out of your excel spreadsheet), or simply juggling three conversations at once, there is no denying how far you’ve come here.
3. You Definitely Overdressed
Are we going to your little cousin’s communion, or are we sitting in a backroom sorting boxes and making copies of things that neither of us understand? Workaholics makes so much sense now.
4. Real World People Take The Weekend Way Too Seriously
Because “how was your weekend?” is essentially the working world’s way of saying “so do you completely suck, or are you someone who I can send Onion articles to?”, it is always crucial to make your personal life seem as interesting as possible.
While your manager doesn’t really give a sh*t that you spent a solid day at the beach that was followed up by going to a restaurant owned by Bruce Willis (“Nah, he wasn’t there. Could you imagine though?”) it is these sorts of things that will enable your office superiors to brag about the diverse and lively “culture” of your firm. SEE! WE DON’T JUST ROLL OUR SLEEVES UP AND DOWN ALL DAY! **
At the same time though, it is important not to seem too cool. Being too cool = risking being as sh*tty as the Brandt Borthers. Unpaid interns hitting up bottle service is unsightly. Know your role, and play the part accordingly.
**The irony here is that half the time, this is said to attract prospective interns. And the world turns.
5. Your Ideas Don’t Matter, Mostly Because They Probably Suck
Many a kid walks into his or her internship, and within a week thinks the company’s business plan sucks, and what the f*ck are they doing, and I’m the biggest genius ever but “they don’t give me a chance.”
Maybe your “not getting a chance” has something to do with you being there a week, and everyone else being there seven years? I know it sounds crazy, but that just might be it.
6. If Your Life Hasn’t Peaked Already, It Will Very Soon
After realizing that about 75% of the working world spends the majority of their day disliking the majority of their day, you will begin to realize that DOOM is inevitable, and the end is near. For about 99% of us, the employed world offers only three possibilities – we can either hate ourselves, secretly hate ourselves, or act like a martyr and never go out to dinner.
Choosing wisely is important, but its perhaps more important to convince yourself that you’ll be in college forever. Getting sh*tfaced 5 nights a week may get a little old by the end of senior year, except that it doesn’t, especially compared to what’s on the other side. Make sure to go big, because its only a matter of time until you’ll have to start rushing home to pick up your dry cleaning.