I R WRITER: internships

Showing posts with label internships. Show all posts

at 11/15/2011

What. Am. I. Doing.

What. Are. YOU. doing?

A few years ago I was sleeping on a mattress in my brothers' room - because I was in between switching rooms in the house - so my old/current room was a shit hole and the room I was due to move in to was covered in Newspaper. At the time my mum and siblings were living in Brunei and my dad doesn't mind about things like that, so I was free to be a hobo in my own home.

I started to write a book detailing the life of a recently graduated girl who was in the middle of a shit internship and had grand GRAND ideas of doing more. I got up to the part where she quit her internship with the intention of inventing some new form of social media, before she had a quarter life crisis. And died.

Slightly dramatic, I started writing it while I was in my final year of university so it's funny how I’ve indirectly predicted my current situation. Before I get the positivity brigade swinging from my balls let I n I vent.

I don't know if you've noticed but every fucking person is the next big thing? Everyone's horizon is bright. If you don't have that frame of mind then get a twitter, you'll log on and at any given time someone is making #bigmovements someone just had an AMAZING MEETING, someone has just "created magic" with someone in the studio. Another is telling the year 2012 to get ready to bite the pillows because it is THEIR time. Anyway.

I don't know if I’m just surrounded by soaring Eagles, which would be good - or if everyone is just a delusional clipped wing chicken. But it's getting harder to tell the difference.

It is... 11 in the night and I had the idea to hassle all the places I have done work experience to see if they have any vacancies. I went through my CV to get names and started to think A) I NEED MOAR! B) What is the FUCKING point?? How many other people are trying to get the same shit right now, what do I have to offer that is any different? And what's to say I’m any good ANYWAY.

I love writing so much, I love reading, I love paper, I love notebooks, I will caress some stationary until I get the paper cuts, but if I had followed through with my Psychology degree would I be in a different situation right now?

All of us are getting told the moon in the 4th dimension is our limit; I am having a crisis of faith.
I have friends who are saving up for mortgages and awaiting kids and marriage, while I do internships with recently graduated NeWbZ. On the flipside what's the point in a mortgage? It is not even a decent investment anymore, but we're all so intent on carrying on in the same way our parents did, even though everything about the economy they grew up in has changed compared to what we now have.
The more I apply to jobs that I could do with my eyes closed, and the more I get replies that favor a fancy long winded fart (equipped with treble clef and bass), combined with the more FREQUENT reply I get from fancy long winded farts' COUSIN: Tumbleweed.

I just start to think (you have to really).

I am clearly inside something and what's more I don't think I am the only one inside of it. I'm 23 trying so hard to fit the mould that is expected of me, but these bitches don't want me.

I'm starting to view my coveted job working for a magazine as a pair of handcuffs. These handcuffs will connect me to a train calling at all stations to death via mortgage, husband, big litre car and keedz.

THEN I THINK OF ground-breaking things that have happened before me and I don't feel like they could possibly have been on the same route as me and have created that shit. I think a lot of us are living like clipped wing chickens, meanwhile being fed an image back of ourselves to validate our lifestyles to make us feel like eagles.

I met up with a friend for drinks last week who told me Leonardo di Vinci conceptualised a helicopter and a computer and so much more at a time when those things would be unfathomable. Underneath one of his many ideas he apparently wrote something along the lines of "For this to work a hard type of material will need to have been invented" and he was describing plastic, how many years before we even had it. I'm not saying we're all Leonardo di Vinci's but even if we all do have that potential, living the way we are right now we cannot even be half way to being anything like that. His thought processes must have been mind -blowing and here I am waiting for my handcuffs so I can begin my zombie walk through life. The zombie walk probably isn’t even that unenjoyable.

But while the zombie walk is not being handed to me on a platter as it was for previous generations, I feel like I should take the opportunity to do an unbeaten path. That's probably a flaw in itself because the world is not made to be Leonardo di Vinci anymore. More like Katie Price.

I'm just letting my Debbie downer breathe tonight.

What. Am. I. Doing. What. Are. YOU. doing? A few years ago I was sleeping on a mattress in my brothers' room - because I was...

at 7/24/2011

I thought I would give you a little insight into one section of my world right now. The world of le internships. Also known as work experience, also whispered as slavery.

It's widely accepted that you must graft before you get to where you want to be, if you don't you have to either be extremely lucky or have a daddy who plays golf with the CEO of your chosen company. So far I'm not confident in my luck, I haven't ever won the lottery and my dad thinks golf is boring. But I guess if those fatties from Scotland who won £161 million on the euro millions applied for a job at Elle Magazine they'd get it, because currently that shit is just elusive to me.

[I'm writing this while listening to my So Solid Crew play list and I can't concentrate properly. Can one of you trendies put on an old skool garage night? Tankyoupliz]

I don't particularly have any horror stories to tell you. Only mild stuff like being sent to John Lewis to get specific bin bags for one of the features writers. I've been sent to someones house to pick up their suitcase, I've had BORING times where I've ended up hiding in the fashion cupboard, doing Roley poly's in there (I will never be a lady of the world with her pinky out).

The stereotypes of the majority of internships going to the Hettie's, Lexie's and Molly's of the world is not a lie. Last year I took on a week internship at a really big magazine (it's pinky is always out). I won't say the name because I'm paranoid but just know they called me up about 2 days before I was due to start so I had to clear my entire schedule (Judge Judy re-runs. No I did actually have shit to do that week).

It also meant I would start the internship on my 22nd BIRTHDAY but I still ran forward to the opportunity with open arms. So basically it was that badman magazine on roads.

And let me tell you

I was surrounded by them SW "My names Binty yaaah" type London girls. They were nice enough, HOWEVER we all started off in the fashion cupboard but it turned out that I had been placed there by accident, I was actually supposed to be at a desk so already I was segregated, everyday Jim Crow. Then on one of the days I walked into the cupboard and heard the tail end of "it's just we don't have much in common with her" ...maybe it wasn't about me but I also know they used to go for drinks after work and I was not invited #FOREVERALONE. Anyway that place, as fancy pants as it was, ducked and dodged my queries about the expenses they said they would cover and in the end they didn't pay me. This is where the slavery part comes in.

We are apparently in a 'recession' most places do not have the budget to take on new staff, most places are letting people go so in turn a lot of places seem to have this constant 'intern' role. It's usually a role where you do the job of someone who would actually get paid a salary except they just don't pay you or they have the right to pay you some meagre wage. The long term placements usually entice you in under the pretence of a mythical job being offered later on.... next thing your last day comes ... and the day after you're unemployed. Because in actual fact these places probably knew they wouldn't take you on from the day you walked in. Interns seem to be a lot more easier than keeping someone on. Especially if it's in an industry where people are constantly willing to work for free. Don't hate le playa hate le game I guess.

So right now I'm stuck in limbo. Or purgatory but I don't even know anymore if I would consider this idolised office job at 'MatNags' as my heaven. The placement I'm at right now it seems a lot of fun but the staff on the mags that have been around for a while seem to be brain dead. More and more I don't associate these magazines with writing and having my dream job, in my mind I start to smell stale coffee, tea, and microwave meals (because no one actually leaves their desks for lunch). Small talk about gym visits before they came to work. And I don't think they would let me put my So Solid Crew play list on the communal radio.

I have dreams to go and work abroad, maybe my brain thinks I'll be able to escape the mundanity I'm currently witnessing but truthfully it's all probably the same thing but with a different accent.

But that's enough of my 21st century woes.

I thought I would give you a little insight into one section of my world right now. The world of le internships. Also known as work ex...