NBC/The Office
Played well, a good internship can be a great way to see if a field of work you're interested in is right for you while giving you the chance to prove yourself at the very bottom of the heap and make connections with professionals who will help mentor you along the way up.
Or... they can be slow-ticking hours of absolute drudgery, doing unappreciated tasks that have nothing to do with the work you hope to do one day, while paying little money (or nothing).
Like the unwitting, shy high school boy who nearly fell into the swag-less snare set by Michael Scott at the Valley View High School job fair in last night's 'Office' episode, many of us have been smart enough to avoid a deadly dull, pointless internship at the last second. And many of us have not. Am I right?
My summer job after my first year in college was at a mortgage loan company. Why would someone who knew she wanted to write for a living do such a thing? A friend talked me into it because a few other friends were working there. Sounded like a plan, but it turned out to be the most booorrrrring job, moving different-colored papers around into different files -- all... day... looooong. I became addicted to Dunkin' Donuts coffee that summer because the fact that there was a Dunkin Donuts across the street was the highlight of the work week.
The upside of that summer mistake was that I was so motivated to find a journalism internship for the next summer. I landed at the Hearst Newspapers Washington bureau, where I continued to work until I graduated from college. So I definitely learned something that summer.
Since I did plenty of newspaper-article clipping and other clerical jobs at Hearst, I had to love Pam's description of the Dunder Mifflin internship to Justin:
"There's some filing, restocking of the supply shelves, replacing the water jug, which nobody likes to do. We, uh, eat a lot of cake. Umm, yeah, basically, you learn how an office runs."
Boy, would he. (Of course, Ryan's internship during his MBA years paid off, when he became Michael's boss. But that's not usually how it goes.)
So, give us your worst internship story -- and your best, too.
Oh, and some of the best lines from last night's episode:
Jim, on his newly found motivation to do well at Dunder Mifflin with his future with Pam in mind:
"I'm about to do something very bold in this job that I've never done before: Try."
Michael, on his failure to spark interest among high school kids in a paper company.
"Yeah, I'm trying to lure these kids into my booth, but kids are very wary of being lured these days. Thank you, Dateline!"
