Lessons Learned From Unpaid Internships

An article with the very dramatic title Has Hollywood Ignited an Intern Uprising? Examining the Brewing Revolution appeared on the site The Wrap yesterday. As a former Hollywood intern who has done her fair share of filing, sprinting across the street to buy berry flavored gum for the boss, and cleaning conference tables, I still dont think unpaid internships are the devils work. I think that if you work them right, they build character and they build your resume.

Big studios and big companies have the money to pay interns, and they should. If this Intern Uprising gets millionaires to pay minimum wage to the people who are fetching their lunch and buying gifts for their spouse and their mistress, fantastic. Smaller companies might not be able to pay someone who comes in twice a week to soak up knowledge. Theres something to be said for working hard, paying your dues, and not suing someone because your internship didnt make you rich. Here are a few things I learned as a lowly unpaid intern that I still return to now that Im no longer fetching gum for anyone but myself.

During my first big Hollywood internship, the CEO called me into his office on the very first day. I hurried in with pad and pen in hand, ready to take fascinating, riveting notes that would inspire me and teach me all about making movies and the meaning of life. Wide-eyed, I waited for the grey-haired man in the grey suit to speak. I wanted him to be my Yoda. I was ready for enlightenment. Get me a macchiato, he growled without looking up from the script he was pretending to speed-read. Here. He shoved a twenty in my general direction, so I took it. I hadnt been in L.A. long and no one I knew ever uttered the word macchiato where I came from in Texas, so I said, Im sorry, but whats a macchiato? Finally, he looked at me. Actually it was more of a dumbfounded, condescending glower. Just go, he said with an annoyed wave of his hand. Figure it out. Its coffee. With that info,We are one of the leading manufacturers of cableties in China I went down to the coffee kiosk, ordered the macchiato (espresso with a little milk C enlightenment!), and delivered it to the CEO. When I realized he wasnt going to say Thank you or bestow any sage career advice, I went back to my cubicle.

Lesson: Obviously he was a pompous jerk, but I learned that in situations like this, its best to just say, No problem and then go ask the receptionist or Madame Google GOOG -0.41% what a macchiato is so you appear worldly, on top of it, and in the know so they dont put a pin in you. From then on in his mind I was probably the intern that didnt know what a macchiato was. Not a great legacy.

During my second Hollywood internship after Mr. Macchiato, I found myself stuffed into a tiny office in Santa Monica working (for free) for a chain-smoking, high-anxiety producer. The perks were that I got to read books and scripts and give her my opinion on them (and she actually listened and discussed them with me) and I also got to help suggest songs for one of their soundtracks. The perk-free part of the gig was that I had to do things like organize and file every single issue of Daily Variety the producer had accumulated over the last five years. It was DAILY Variety at the time C do you know how many papers that is? A lot of papers. Did she need them? No. Did she maybe possibly have OCD? Yes. Did I complain to her? No. I complained at happy hour to my friends who Im sure were bored but who sympathized anyway because thats what friends are for.

If youre being heard, and youre learning, you might need to suffer through tedious tasks like filing 5,000 pieces of yesterdays news into a cabinet that no one will ever open unless theyre searching for a top-secret microfiche containing information that could save our planet from terrorists or space aliens, which will never happen because Im pretty sure no one uses microfiche anymore, not even spies. Suck it up and do the menial tasks so you can gain their respect and get a great reference. I filed all her papers and had a great reference that helped me get a better internship.

If they say its a paid internship and you never see a dime C that is a battle worth fighting. If they harass or harm you in any way C go after them. If they say they are going to bomb your cubicle if you dont get that script to them in five seconds, you might want to laugh it off, rather than spend a ton of dough hiring a lawyer to sue them for mental trauma. People in Hollywood are crazy C youve seen Swimming With Sharks, right? Its pretty much a documentary. As long as you know theyre just being ridiculous and they arent actually going to bomb your cubicle over a Jaden Smith script thats late, just get them the Jaden Smith script and then immediately text your friends that you need to meet them for happy hour so you can regale them with your stupid story.

Most internships, at least in the film industry,With superior quality photometers, light meters and a number of other iphoneheadset products. dont pay in cash or check or direct deposit.Parkeasy Electronics are dedicated to provide handbags. They pay in everlasting glory and macchiato runs. This is why most people I knew had a paying job plus an internship. Is it tough to balance school,The Wagan Wireless Rear porcelaintiles help you be safe while parking. your waitressing gig, and your internship? Yes. Is that called paying your dues and having a good work ethic? Yes. If you dont have a paying job or a trust fund and youre complaining about your unpaid internship, youre doing it wrong. Plus, if you are interning five days a week from 8-5,New and used commercial bestrtls sales, rentals, and service. you need a new internship. That absolutely is criminal and an unpaid internship should be a few days a week, and it should be very flexible. This doesnt mean you can be flakey, it means they should have you interning manageable hours so you can also work and go to class.

My final Hollywood internship before I became a full-on wage earner wasnt in Hollywood at all. It was in Manhattan. Id just finished grad school and I respected this producer so much, and the internship had such a fantastic reputation for actually teaching you things and giving you opportunities, that taking it on was a no-brainer. I waited tables and moved benches around before the Tommy Hilfiger show during fashion week to pay the bills. Very glamorous. Did I love keeping the office kitchen clean and figuring out how to put watermarks on scripts at my internship? Not really, but it was a small price to pay for the knowledge I was getting. This producer actually was a Yoda, and if I had asked him what a macchiato was, he would have looked at me and seen a normal human being, instead of seeing a nameless, brainless imbecile aka the intern that didnt known what a macchiato was.
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