Everyone Doesn’t Get to Live the Dream
It’s timely for me that The Cut would broach the topic of how interns are treated. My latest one, my third, started on Monday. With her arrival, I’d been thinking about writing an essay called something like “How to Train and Treat Your Intern”. I planned to solicit stories from all my friends – anonymous, of course—about their experiences and how bosses could improve. I thought is necessary since most who have help are not given formal training on what to do—or not. Interns get treated pretty much however the person they are working for was— good, bad, and at times, super ugly.
But then Kayleen Schaefer wrote a fascinating story about former Harper’s Bazaar intern Diana Wang who is suing the Bazaar parent company, Hearst Corporation, for violating federal and state labor laws since they did not pay her for her work. Her attorneys want Hearst to pay its former interns “back wages, overtime, and other damages.” Her suit, has become a class action one. My idea, went to the back burner.
Wang described her four-month internship as a “horrible” and “outrageous” experience. She worked five days a week from 9AM to 8PM and her pretty standard duties were to “track the thousands of purses, shoes, and pieces of jewelry lent to the magazine for photo shoots. She managed as many as eight other interns, sending them on 30 to 40 errands a day, and helping them file expense reports. She answered the accessories director’s phone, writing the caller’s name and holding it up, so her boss could decide whether or not to take the call.”
Her tales of woe include the night she stayed late at the office after everyone left to unpack “a trunk full of accessories, tissue-wrapped piece by tissue-wrapped piece, to dig out a single misplaced necklace. Or the practical agony of getting through a subway turnstile with seven shopping bags in her hands. She chafed at tasks unrelated to the magazine’s operations, like hand-delivering new outfits to editors between Fashion Week shows.”
Despite her “E” for effort, Wang was not offered a job at the end of her internship, and her editor declined to write a recommendation, which means Wang wasn’t so great at her duties or her editor was straight up evil. Both are possible. Hearst has derided the lawsuit as “without merit.”
Why? Probably because what Wang describes is a walk in the @#$%ing park.
This is the part where I’m supposed to go an old folks-like rant. You know how they describe how hard things were “way back when” and how kids “nowadays” don’t understand struggle or hard work. I’ll pass. Let’s just say Wang wouldn’t have lasted a day at Vibe or Oneworld or Time Out New York, all magazines where I interned and where working long hours for free, completing mind-numbingly frustrating (but necessary) tasks—you don’t know hell until you’re tasked with, on deadline, transcribing a two-hour interview with multiple speakers and all of them sound like they’re whispering — and catering to every editor’s competing whim was par for the course.
Let’s focus instead on what Wang missed, but will never realize because she gave up and didn’t make it far enough in The Industry to have an intern of her own. Interning – the long hours for little or no pay, the meager duties, the swallowing of pride (it is impossible not to be humble when as a college student or graduate, one of your duties requires you to stand at a copier for 3 hours)—is a necessary rite of passage.
At the beginning of each season, loads of bright –eyed students cross magazine thresholds, dreaming of getting a byline and turning their government name into a brand. What most don’t know until they arrive is all that glitters is not proverbial gold. There is an extraordinary amount of work and personal sacrifice and humility that goes into filling the glossy pages of your favorite magazines. As an editor, there’s the 2500 feature that was assigned at the last-minute that you researched and interviewed all those people for, then dutifully wrote, and then suddenly its cut. You’re lucky if it runs as a 300-word blurb in the front of the book. There’s the dressing down by a celebrity publicist, who represents near every A-lister and holds so much leverage, who is ticked at an image you ran of their client and threatens not to let others appear in your pages, much less that particular celebrity ever again. Whether it’s your fault or not, imagine explaining that to your boss when you know everyone likes to shoot the messenger. There are the never-ending meetings where you’re expected to pull ideas out your @ss because your higher up, who can shoot the side-eye of death, won’t let you leave until you produce a worthy idea, which means the ones that you’ve spent the last two weeks thinking of was time wasted. You can experience all this before Wednesday.
One of the purposes of an internship, from the intern’s perspective, should be to see the dream up close and decide if what’s behind the Wizard’s curtain is actually what you want. And if it’s not, that’s fine. Understand that your supervisor, in any stressful and fast-paced career, is evaluating you as much on your ability to do the work (if you got the internship, you’ve proven you can produce something of quality) as your ability to handle all the bullsh@#! that comes with the hard-won glitz. Your supervisor wants to see if you’re there for the “flashing lights” or if you’re willing and able to grind for the few and far between grandiose moments. You don’t get the privilege of being “[insert your name here] from [insert publication here]” and all the perks that can come with it without proving you can handle the headaches of being on the masthead. That’s actually what your internship is for. And your editor can’t know if you can handle the pressure if you’re there for the right reasons if you haven’t demonstrated the ability.
Those humbling, mediocre tasks that screw with your ego are actually necessary for the job. It doesn’t feel like it at the time, but they are teaching you something if you’re smart enough to open your eyes and observe what’s going on around you.
In between standing at the copier for hours at Vibe, I figured out how to pitch a story and get my first national byline. At Oneworld, where I was once tasked with, in teen-degree weather, of running around to various record stores to find an obscure, limited edition CD so that the photo editor could use the art in a story, I learned that writing well is more than a good hook and flipping a witty sentence, but actually having substance—a trait that a surprising number of published writers haven’t yet mastered. At Time Out New York, where my main duty was The Most Boring Job on Earth, ie, sorting through the mail and the hundreds of faxes they received daily, I learned how to decipher what was relevant to the audience. No one ever explained to me the purpose of my presence, I figured it out, and I realized long after the internship was over the priceless value of what I’d picked up just by being present.
An internship—even unpaid– is the opportunity of a lifetime for a person just starting out. Whether the tasks are endlessly Google-ing obscure facts or tissue wrapping precious baubles or giving your boss a head’s up of who’s on the phone, it’s still a front row seat at the How We Run This Operation show. You see the key players in action and if you are smart and/or borderline observant, you pick up the traits of how to get ahead in and stay in the game. It’s not about getting a job in the end, it’s about learning the ropes and getting a mentor who will connect you and advocate for you for the rest of your professional life. If you get the priceless chance to have and you can’t learn anything from it, that’s on you. Perhaps one of the hundreds of other applicants who applied for the spot and didn’t get it may have made more use of the experience.
Unfortunately, everyone doesn’t get to live the dream. If you are privileged and squander the opportunity, or worse, like Wang, don’t even realize when one has been handed to you, you don’t deserve entry into the world you thought you belonged in.
Demetria L. Lucas the author of A Belle in Brooklyn: The Go-to Girl for Advice on Living Your Best Single Life. ABIB is available to download and now in paperback. Follow her on Twitter at @abelleinbk
Image Credits: The Cut/Glamazons Blog
Back in the day an internship was a foot in the door to a career or job. Now it’s just a way for companies to get free labor. I’ve had internships that were really entry level positions that I or someone should have been getting paid for. Most of it is one big scam. Like how all these magazines or online sites want writers to write for “experience” and “recognition”. It’s bull. Also, internships just keep the rich rich, and the poor poorer. What adult do you know who can afford to work full time for free?? Rich white(or of color) people that is who. I had some internships in college and I was able to work just a few days a week, cause you know, I’m grown and had bills to pay. But I had to let a whole lot of other opps pass me by because I simply could not afford to work full-time for free. Between paying bills AND paying for college now I have to work for free for the POSSIBILITY of a letter of rec or connection. Man, I’m telling you, owning your own business is where it is at.
I agree 100%. Companies take advantage of and even prey on interns. I don’t know many people who can afford to work those slave hours and still be able to take care of themselves and have a roof over their heads and food on the table. I think some internships are a joke. Not all, but a lot of them. I want my own business and I am currently researching to get it going.
My internship was different but I definitely learned a lot from it. My boss was a man who sexually harassed me and had me working late hours and doing tasks that weren’t in my job description. It was a up and coming magazine and I was bright eyed and bushy tailed just like most interns. I had dreams of making that internship my own and impressing my boss. Wrong. I wanted the opportunity but not while being sexually harassed. Needless to say, I quit. The entire experience made me feel as though I would never be anyone’s intern again. I learned a great deal from the experience but I hate that so many employers ruin young people’s dreams. No dream is ever how we truly imagine it but damn.
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This article comes off as very condescending. Demetria repeats numerously how she “figured it out” and was “smart enough” to “get the lesson” so is she implying that every other intern who fails is not smart?? furthermore i pretty much agree with everyone else, even if they are interns and there are long hours there are LABOR LAWS for this sort of thing, just because you are an intern doesnt mean all sense of the law goes out of the window. I say law because the extremely long hours are egregious especially w/o compensation and IF they were a paid employee it would not go down like that. folks who want “free” Interns should in the least get a little wage as waiters and waitress or at best minimum wage . Also as many others stated, they use interns for free menial labor and teach them nothing that will be useful for future employment in that chosen industry. I do believe we all should be observant of our surrounding and soak in information but that is not and should not be the ONLY way to learn as an intern. Finally I would like to say, not everyone comes from a “decent” (for lack of a better word) background. if you come from a poorer family that lacks education adn grew up in the hood, when was the last time those people were ever in a corporate or industry environment to even know “the game” being played in this industries, which seems to be and Demetria seems to agree “suck it up, do everything your told ,work 15 hours a day for free, do everything they ask while you are humiliated and demeaned oh and dont forget to be “smart enough” to observe everyone who is treating you crappy so you can be like them someday”
oh and to add to my statements about the law because im reading the law and other article after i wrote my comment, i didnt even know that the labor department had guidelines that state “unpaid internships must be for educational benefits”… i would like to ask Demetria and others who share that mentality if during their time in school ….During a math lesson, did the teacher have them sorting books all day and all the students watched the teacher do math problems. the students then according to her have to “figure it out” on there own that they are also suppose to be watching the teacher do math because thats how they learn …this is essentially what she is saying about her time as an intern. you may do menial tasks but you are suppose to be smart enough to be observant to watch the masters and learn. Last time I checked education [benefit] included actual teaching, not watching
Great article. I think what people fail to realize is that internships are what YOU make of them. If you are at an organization that is only giving you what you consider mindnumbing tasks, then you have to search out your own opportunities for growth. And despite the tasks an internship is a place to meet, network, and make good impressions with people who have influence. So yes you may not get hired there, but these people will make good references. We may not understand the process or see the value in it as we are going through it, but lots of times there is hidden value. Which is what I think the author was trying to express.
Also as someone who now hires interns (paid ones). I stress to them to seek out opportunities. Take the opportunity not to just edit papers for mistakes but to read and understand the subject matter. Learn and grow as much as you can while here.
This is a generation of entitlement and right now results. Everybody wants to start out on top and getting paid. The level of entitlement just doesn’t make sense.
The point isn’t starting at the bottom and rising to the top the point is starting the bottom and staying there . Wake up
Only on clutch would this get a negative comment! I agree with you 100%. An internship is an opportunity. The benefits that stem from that opportunity are completely up to you.
It goes both ways. Maybe the reason you aren’t seeking out opportunities is because all your time is spent running errands, or sorting through millions of pieces of jeweler.
WTF is that supposed to help you learn exactly?
And I’d be pissed too. She did not have to do that. She was being used as a disposable slave. Period. And just because she wasn’t being beaten or sexually harassed that doesn’t make it right.
Also, entitlement is expecting the free labor in my opinion. Nobody deserves shit for free. You want my work? Pay me then. I’m not a slave.
And as bad as the economy is a magazine like Harper’s, would be helping if they gave some unemployed people jobs. They can afford to.
This kind of attitude, people will start being treated like they’re slaves the way that labor laws are being abused and ignored.