Wherein I Officially Begin Sounding Like Someone Over 30
Do some work!!! Seriously. The fact that you haven’t been given a task doesn’t require that you sit in an empty office playing video games. Apparently you impressed your unnamed employer with New Media savvy. So go on the Internets. Brainstorm ways to improve their Web site. Dream up a guerrilla marketing strategy. Find a copy of the latest PowerPoint slides left over from the presentation by the new media consultant your bosses rely on and point out the many parts that are misleading bullshit, or maybe use your writing talent to advocate for improved prose in internal communications, because lord knows that every multinational corporation could use it.
Go to a cubicle occupied by someone doing actual work and say, “Hi, I’m the new intern, is there anything I can help you with?” Set up a Google Alert for the company, search it on Twitter, and begin to form an impression of how it is perceived among the public. See if any business schools have published case studies on your employer or its major competitors. Remove the filter and used grounds from the coffee maker. Empty the dishwasher.
Do literally anything productive. It isn’t just that doing so creates opportunity, and prevents you from being a loafing parasite who takes advantage of an employer generously compensating you in the course of giving you a summer job. There’s also the irony that actually investing yourself in meaningful work, even taken up at your own initiative, makes long boring days in an office pass faster, and prevents whatever time you spend there from being an utter waste.
You’re a good writer. Were I a magazine editor, I’d read through anything you submitted. But I’d sure as hell never assign you to an enterprise story, let alone consider you for a staff position. Probably best to think twice before ever using the clip.
This from a guy who won’t even shave and put on a nice shirt for bloggingheads.
— Patrick Bateman · Jul 23, 01:58 PM · #
Thanks grandpa! Can I take my break now?
— Scrooge McDuck · Jul 23, 04:00 PM · #
His description of how he was approached by the firm is right out of the scene in “A Hard Days’ Night” where George is brought into the ad agency to tell the suits what the kids think is cool. Funny stuff.
— Steven Donegal · Jul 23, 05:31 PM · #
Some people just need structure, I guess. Being given a “young kid demographic” marketing job and a computer is all the direction you should need to do any of the stuff Conor just listed.
This is like going to your first day working at Starbucks, looking at the counter and the coffee maker and say “so what now?”
— Brian Moore · Jul 23, 07:15 PM · #
And get off my lawn!
— Erik Vanderhoff · Jul 23, 07:23 PM · #
What a doof that dude is. One thing I have noticed about young people is that they will wait for you to tell them what to do. It’s shyness with adults or passivness training from school or something. I used to do it too. THen, as I gained experience and self-confidence in the working world I became more (what those in the business biz call) “proactive.” I also became something of a “self-starter.” I would figure out better ways to do my job and after that I would find other things to do that might be useful to my employers. What I learend from this was that employers want you to do things the way they are used to doing things. They don’t really want suggestions on how to improve processes. And they don’t want you to find other things to do, becasue then they have to, what they call “manage” the other thing you are doing. THey would have to be responsible for what happened. Basically I learned that they want you to just do things their way and then go home.
I got laid off from my latest job last christmas and I am hoping to never be employed again. This is my dream.
— cw · Jul 24, 01:24 AM · #
“Turning work into a moral issue is only advantageous for employers.” Nonsense. Employers should treat their workers morally. There, that was easily disproved.
— Conor Friedersdorf · Jul 24, 08:54 AM · #
Chet,
I think he should ask his employers what they want him to do instead of just sitting in his cubicle.
— cw · Jul 24, 03:30 PM · #
Hume is calling, Chet. He wants his is/ought distinction back, since you aren’t using it.
— Adam Greenwood · Jul 25, 02:15 PM · #
It belongs to Hume? I didn’t know that.
(It’s good that somebody posted useful information in this forum.)
— The Reticulator · Jul 25, 03:57 PM · #
I thought Conor’s original point was that doing nothing at all was bad for the employee. If your employer is literally and explicitly paying you to do nothing, it’s probably in your interests to cheat your employer and start doing something. ;)
— Consumatopia · Jul 27, 04:36 AM · #
like irt
— medical equipment suppliers · Jul 27, 07:09 AM · #