My little personal corner of hell, i.e. work, has just gotten much happier with the arrival of a summer intern. God bless interns! I can’t even begin to tell you what a difference it has made in just a week’s time. I actually worked a 40-hour week this week, occasionally made it to the gym, ate actual healthy home-cooked food and as soon as I get the bathroom clean, my house is reasonably in order. Imagine that!
It’s almost a normal life!
Our intern had an awesome first week. She learns fast. She needs very little supervision. She’s eager to do anything you ask. She doesn’t complain. She’s organized and efficient. I’m in heaven!
She’s been able to do a lot of the things that just bog me down. For example, as much as I love daily news, it isn’t always terribly compatible with putting out a magazine. No matter what stage of production we’re in, I spend half my day running down news briefs. While our intern doesn’t know the industry, and doesn’t have the contacts to figure out what’s news that day, I am able to find something and hand it off to her with a little guidance on what to ask etc. and suddenly I’ve gained back half my day!
She also did our People page, which is another irritating task that sucks away my time. There’s nothing to it – basically so-and-so has joined such-an-such a company and will be doing such-and-such. But, each entry must have a color photo, phone number and e-mail address (our readers like to network) – and that takes, believe it or not, an average of three phone calls per entry. We usually get 15 to 20 on a page.
Perhaps ironically, our intern is hearing impaired. I’m worried she thinks she’s been stuck with EXPO because I’m the “disabled employee” but actually that had nothing to do with it. We’re really the ones that needed her most in the company, so we got the intern slot. As she’s asking me questions about job hunting etc. there’s a part of me that would love to send our next issue to every professor or potential employer that ever gave me hell about being visually impaired and wanting to be in journalism. The majority of our next issue will have been produced by people with disabilities – and it isn’t even a disability-related publication. Take that!
It’s almost a normal life!
Our intern had an awesome first week. She learns fast. She needs very little supervision. She’s eager to do anything you ask. She doesn’t complain. She’s organized and efficient. I’m in heaven!
She’s been able to do a lot of the things that just bog me down. For example, as much as I love daily news, it isn’t always terribly compatible with putting out a magazine. No matter what stage of production we’re in, I spend half my day running down news briefs. While our intern doesn’t know the industry, and doesn’t have the contacts to figure out what’s news that day, I am able to find something and hand it off to her with a little guidance on what to ask etc. and suddenly I’ve gained back half my day!
She also did our People page, which is another irritating task that sucks away my time. There’s nothing to it – basically so-and-so has joined such-an-such a company and will be doing such-and-such. But, each entry must have a color photo, phone number and e-mail address (our readers like to network) – and that takes, believe it or not, an average of three phone calls per entry. We usually get 15 to 20 on a page.
Perhaps ironically, our intern is hearing impaired. I’m worried she thinks she’s been stuck with EXPO because I’m the “disabled employee” but actually that had nothing to do with it. We’re really the ones that needed her most in the company, so we got the intern slot. As she’s asking me questions about job hunting etc. there’s a part of me that would love to send our next issue to every professor or potential employer that ever gave me hell about being visually impaired and wanting to be in journalism. The majority of our next issue will have been produced by people with disabilities – and it isn’t even a disability-related publication. Take that!
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