This summer I, like many of my peers, interned in New York. I learned many things, but most importantly I learned what others neglected to mention: ALERT! Internships are awesomely aaaawkwarrrd.
My friends and I had many misadventures in office awkwardness this summer. The funny thing about internships is that somewhere between June and August, interns devolve. The specter of responsibility shakes our core and makes us fraught with anxiety about the most menial tasks, office blunders, and social situations.
One day at my internship, the phone at my desk rang and I nearly peed my pants in terror. The phone never rang! Had I somehow been warped into a parallel universe where someone wanted to talk to me in a professional capacity? Confused and bewildered by this loud-sounding object, I answered the phone in French: "Allo! Les poissons ne sont pas ici!" and pretended they had the wrong number only to realize it was a co-worker two cubicles down. Not only was he certain he had the right number, but he could hear me from his desk.
However, a friend of mine experienced total office mortification the day she accidentally flicked a rubber band at her boss's head during a meeting. (Can you even remember the last time you were involved in a rubber band accident?!) As her coworkers exploded into pointing and laughing, she transformed into a robot. She apologized in a robotic voice with the words, "THIS - IS - AWK-WARD," confusing the entire office even more. Across town, another friend's boss caught her reading a celebrity blog containing pictures of Barbra Streisand's vaginal surgery. She had to explain to her boss that Ms. Streisand's surgery was national news and part of an ongoing research project another advisor had asked her to undertake.
Luckily, many employers understand that interns are actually the assistant's assistant's part-time assistant and let these bouts of awkwardness go unchecked. Always remember, bosses have better things to do, like actual work. So next time you get caught looking at celebrity pornography in the office, don't fret. You'll still have your job. Because only career obsessed pre-professionals like us are dumb enough to work unpaid. And every intern is awkward, non?
