The Intern (Part Two)

So, I found my blog entry about interns to be longer than I’m sure you, poor reader, felt like reading. (need a refresher? Part One) Hence, The Intern - Part Two ... wait, I have an intern?

It feels out of sorts for me to have an intern as the 22-year-old assistant / coordinator. Long before I started here as the assistant, I was Mrs. Boss’ intern. Psycho intern who worked 60 hour weeks preparing for a national conference that went off without a hitch! But now, a year later, I have interns of my own.

It’s weird since our interns are only a year or two younger than me - if not the same age. Yet somehow, I’m supposed to know more than them, to teach them. It started to make me question - do I really need interns?

Then, I looked at the stack of inventory I have to do, or the 44 hours of transcribing that has been on my desk for months, and I remember what interns are for. While I’d like to be the place that has the “totally awesome internship” and while I’d like to stay true to the words I uttered as an intern, “when I’m in charge I’ll never make my intern ...” that isn’t what interns are for.

Interns make copies. They get coffee. They run errands and they file. I know so many interns are probably wondering “Why can’t I do something MEANINGFUL? Something that will be worthwhile and make a difference for this company?”

I realize that the copies and coffee don’t seem worthwhile. But what those copies & coffees allow is. When my intern is running to pick up lunch for the office, I’m on a conference call with our designers before they fly out to meet with a client tomorrow. While my intern is plugging material into the inventory, I’m running the agenda for tomorrows meeting in office.

So yes, what the interns are doing may seem tedious and pointless. But by taking the tedious and pointless away from people who have “worthwhile” things to do - their work is worthwhile after all.

Of course, after I read this entry I sit back and laugh. I think I just explained my job a little bit as well.