Intern Anonymous

There is a website which is essentially a forum for moaning in which unpaid and undervalued interns can vent about their torrid work conditions: Interns Anonymous.

Half way into my six week placement, I would not have counted myself among these unfortunate students and recent graduates. In my workplace, the atmosphere is welcoming, the pay is more than fair and, let's face it, I love the novelty of business dress. Indeed, I love sharp tailoring to such an extent that I have not begrudged the crazy early starts, the fact that no-one ever seems to know I'm due to work with them on any given day or that I have to be consistently proactive in order to find tasks for myself.

However, I love to work hard and my pet peeve is not feeling needed. Yet today, I walked into a department in which the staff talked over my head and failed to help me organise my day. It beggars belief that, in a somewhat overstretched organisation, an able 21 year old could not be put to some viable use. I am essentially an extra pair of hands and am willing, if not downright eager, to get on with any task available, grass-roots or otherwise. I felt like I was banging my head against a brick wall all day as every person I met looked over me and questioned someone else about why I was there and what they were supposed to do with me, without even being considerate enough to acknowledge me.

I suppose part of my irritation stems from the fact that only now am I truly realising that work will be testing. For years, I have had the pleasure and privilege of intellectual stimulation on a daily basis. Only now can I appreciate that work is filled with mundane, repetitive tasks. Hopefully, with determination and as one ascends within a company, the work becomes more varied and decisions more consequential but it is a key reminder that one's work cannot be one's all.

Assessed.

Happy Easter Sunday! Hurrah for afternoons filled with paltry English sunshine. I am currently waiting for papa to set up the barbecue and can think of no better use of my time (apart from revision, packing for university, stuffing my face with chocolate etc. etc.) than writing un petit blog post on my day out at the shops last week, though this was no ordinary retail therapy.

Last week, I was assessed -- though to be quite honest, by what criteria I'm not entirely sure. I applied to a well known department store for an internship way back when (well, November). The folks down at HR seem to have enjoyed toying with my feelings, stringing out the application for a full six months. For an internship. Yeah. I completed reams of tests which ranged from the mundane (what's your name and where do you come from) to the insane. A firm favourite was the test of your reactions to hypothetical scenarios likely to occur in retail management - such as if a customer came down and complaining that one of your bibs had stained her baby's face would you
a) pour a bucket of water on the baby to see if it remedied the condition
b) call the CEO of the company down for advice
c) take her to court to sue for libel
Fine. I may  be exaggerating the teeniest, tiniest  bit but some of the situations did seem rather unlikely!

Still, I made it to the gazillionth stage (stage 6) and was invited to a London store for the assessment day. Having spent days deciding upon my outfit, I took great pleasure sashaying up to London in my newly cobbled shoes with the other commuters with all my documents in their colour coded folders. Stunning though my shoes were, they were clearly not actually designed for walking so I was much relieved to find a lift up to the seventh floor where we met with the assessors and other candidates. The exercises, I assume, designed to test general team work and leadership skills, hardly differentiated the candidates from one another. We all seemed fairly on a par so I cannot help but feel resigned about the outcome and am worried I'll be upset.

However, I shall take solace that I was whittled down from around 3,000 applicants and also by the fact that I got to head up to the amazing roof garden (which I had no idea existed!) and soak up some rays whilst gazing at the city scape of the best city in the world. Always a silver-lining, non?

Still, everybody keep your fingers and toes crossed until Tuesday, s.v.p.!!

Tidings of comfort and joy

Yes, dear reader, I am bringing you tidings of comfort and joy of my lovely Christmas period which is now being completely sullied by horrid collections (as you can see, I'm revising hard).

The nightmare before Christmas:
Having rushed round the shops in near blizzard-esque conditions (sc. light dusting) I dashed over to Best Friend's dragging an oversized suitcase with me since I was staying the night before we headed off to Dublin for a couple of days with the girls. At least, this was the plan before RyanAir and snow conspired against us. We packed all our clothes into our liquid-free hand luggage and combined all the rest of our belongings into a giant suitcase of
a) make-up
b) alcohol
SO CHRISTMASSSYYY! But, alas and alack, we returned from a celebratory dinner to find that our marvellous plans had been ruined by the dastardly Ryanair who only deigned to inform us that flight was cancelled two hours after scheduled to arrive and even had the cheek to label their message 'urgent.' So, we slept a lot, exchanged birthday presents and trumped off back home again. NYE is definitely the new Dubs.

All I want for Christmas:
Is an internship. Seriously. Before Christmas, I almost landed the DREAM internship - charity+arts+glamourous location+big celebrity laden party to organise = a very excited bunny. I spent the entire day before hand trying on multiple corporate outfits before tottering off to the interview only to be told that our dates clashed. I couldn't have felt more disappointed (I think the word I'm actually looking for is bleugh) but have come to realise that not only was it a great experience but I also managed to sneak in a casual bit of networking. Score.

Joyeux Noel:
Lots of enjoyable little events made up my Christmas this year: going to see the Winter's Tale with the cousins, lovely carolling in the chapel, the big day before our very own version of a Winter's Tale: going to see our other cousins on boxing day who (almost a year and a half after moving in) still have no heating! Then more family and more bored games (sorry, I meant board games, honestly) before the FEAR set in. For those of your unaccustomed with the concept of the FEAR, it's what you need to get in the ZONE, which is where you want to be if you have high hopes for exams...Yeahhno, I'm not 100% on these buzz words either.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!