Rishire Writes

Ignoring the presumptions of the title, this post will have nothing to do with race. Slavery as defined by the Internet is the state of being a slave, a slave being defined as a person who works very hard without proper remuneration. I don’t know about you, but that sounds a whole lot like unpaid internships. Having just graduated from college this year, I feel like a foremost authority on the subject. Oftentimes when I bring it up to people, they seem shocked that my internships weren’t paid. Well, I am shocked that anyone got a paid internship. As far as I knew, the whole point of an internship was to gain experience, earn college credit, and network. When I first started interning, I never thought of it as free labor, that is until the work became boring. There’s an old saying that goes something along the lines of do what you love so it doesn’t feel like work, something like that. A majority of the internships I had in college taught me exactly what I didn’t want to do because it was work. I learned a lot from my internships, and I don’t begrudge the companies I worked for. Now as a recent graduate, you would think I would be out of the internship game. Leave that stuff to the youngins who are still learning right from left. Sadly the economy is such that I, a recent NYU graduate, have an internship, more specifically an unpaid internship. I may not begrudge the companies I worked for in college, but boy do I begrudge the one I work for now.

Yes, it’s my fault that I accepted an unpaid internship. Do I really have the right to complain about something that I chose willingly? Yes, yes I do. I believe we all have a right to complain about whatever we want to complain about, including this hot-as-the-deepest-pits-of-hell summer we’re having, which, granted, is no different from any other summer. You will still see me complaining (and sweating). Anyway, coming out of college I thought finding a job would be relatively easy. I had a great resume filled with large companies. I didn’t think the fact that I didn’t get paid while working there would be an issue. I was still doing what the paid employees did, just for free (does that even make sense?!). I would say I was wrong about the ease with which a recent grad can find a job, but honestly I wasn’t looking that hard. I want to be an actress, and I can’t very well have a full time job doing something else and expect to go on auditions and take classes now can I? The only problem is that I wasn’t being paid to wait for my big break. How does money not grow from trees? What’s it made of if not paper? Anyway, I was in constant fear that my well will go dry. Let’s be honest, i’m still in constant fear; I am an unpaid intern after all.

I know what you’re thinking. Why don’t I get a part-time job like other aspiring actors? Why don’t I wait tables or make coffee? Let me tell you why – because those jobs suck. I worked as a barista at a Greek yogurt store for a little less than a week, and it sucked. (Side note: I was fired because I didn’t know how to make coffee, not because I”m not awesome. I am awesome. Coffee is the one that’s not awesome.) I hated the job mainly because I had to wake up super early to open the shop and because the other employees treated me like an idiot just because I couldn’t steam milk to save my life. I was amazing with the customers. I quickly learned how to work the cash register and the dish washer. I was practically the perfect employee if my title hadn’t been “barista”. That experience taught me that I hate those typical part-time jobs. I don’t want to be a waitress or a barista or a retail girl. I want to be an actress, although I wouldn’t mind being a bartender (Tips tips tips! Dranks dranks dranks!).

That’s getting me off subject – internships. Using the word “slavery” may be a bit too harsh, but when you state the facts plainly, it sounds kind of similar. As an unpaid internship right now, being out of college, I get neither college credit nor money. I work three days a week – Monday and Wednesday from 11am-5pm and Friday from 11am-3pm. Those are basic part-time hours without the part-time pay. As far as I can tell, I’m doing what everyone else in the office is doing, the paid employees and other interns alike. The employees, my quote-on-quote supervisors, email me and the other interns at the same email address with requests for tasks and we do them, much like I assume their boss emails them with assignments that they in turn do. The only real difference between the paid employees and us interns, other than the general workload and clear job description, is that they get paid and we don’t. I don’t want to harp on this too much, but it’s something that has been bugging me for a few years and is grinding my gears even more now that I actually need a job. To top it all off, I’m trying to get a new apartment, and no one will even consider me because I don’t have a job! Give a grad a break!