[Mr Mustache]

Mine seems very nice.

Initially, I was worried, as she is significantly older than I am and quite professional. Luckily, we seem to get along, and I think this will prove to be a mostly valuable exchange for both of us. Worrying about whether or not this would be a poor experience for her has actually forced me to be more proactive and take things a bit more seriously around here. Definitely a good thing.

The other day we went to "House of Vegetarian" for wheat gluten. Very tasty!

This is a general thread for intern related discussion and for sharing charming stories about our time with them.
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The people are like wool to me

[Hot Stott Bot]

I'm not sure if I'm doing a very good job at dealing with my intern. I find myself either having trouble trusting him to do a good job, or giving him stuff to do that's too difficult or broad for his skill level. I am trying to strike a balance. I think I am getting better at this, but it is hard. >_<

[Mr Mustache]

Yeah, it can be pretty stressful. Honestly, I have no idea what I'm going to have her do tomorrow, as certain things didn't pan out the way I would have liked.

I like giving them long term projects that are important, but not so vital that it matters if they fuck things up. This way, they don't have to come to me every five minutes to ask for new things to do, they feel somewhat invested in the organization, and if they do it well, it is a feather in my cap.
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The people are like wool to me

[Hot Stott Bot]

See I tried to give my intern a good long-term task to do last week but I think the scope was just too big and I needed to find something simpler and more easily broken down for him, and it ended up reverting to me giving him small tasks again. >:|

Then worst of all, this and that made it so that the longer term thing wasn't actually that relevant anymore this week. >:|

I think I'm getting to a point though where I will get in the groove better this week.

Mustache, given the timing of this post, is your intern also a college student on a workstudy program?

[Mr Mustache]

No, I think she's thirty, but she's changing fields, and we offer free classes to interns, so it's not so strange.
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The people are like wool to me

[Hot Stott Bot]

Ah, I see.

Mustache, I will update this thread later if I have any charming intern stories.

Mustache, this thread lacks other people.

[Mr Mustache]

I know :(

Don't be shy guys, I'm sure your interns won't read this thread.
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The people are like wool to me

[taidan]

Man internships.

They drove me nuts in college. Too many people with paid internships where they did nothing all day and still got job offers. The only one I manged to nab had me drive to and live in Colorado for the summer, and my work was essentially the same as a normal developer. Couldn't get a job offer since it was so far away and they weren't quite sure what they were doing with the program.

Experience wise I won out, and it helped me a lot in my now permanent job. But others earned so much more oppurtunity from theirs.

All in who you know I guess.

[sawtooth]

[Pavement]

[Kappuru]

I am an intern, and it sucks.
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[internisus]

hey

[km]

I have a co-op (internship where you skip school to work for (a) semester(s)!) with a telecomm equipment company. Right now I'm running a whole lot of voice quality tests on some of our equipment. Pretty boring, but it pays well, and my co-workers are really cool. I should be learning a whole lot more here soon, too, which I'm really excited about.

Next semester I will probably be doing some kind of embedded programming. I am pretty pumped guys.
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vi) RPGs (Role-Playing Games)
For adolescents; half-formed personalities roaming (in packs) in search of identity.

[Focus]

I might have a writing internship next year. I'm not really sure how internships for studio practice goes, either.

It will probably be fun either way!(?)
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[sync-swim]

The dinky local magazine I interned at went under in the same week I completed my tenure. Whenever I tell this to anyone at school they cringe, so I'm guessing it's really really bad.

[IIOIOOIOO]

Best thing to do with an intern that will a) identify if they're a good "players club candidate for your company and b) earn you some magic.

- Go look at your list of "things that I thought were good ideas but I never really had the energy to pursue because I was too busy... working."

- Find one that you think is a no-brainer.

- Go sit in a room with the guy, pitch it as the opportunity of a lifetime.

- Spend an hour with him doing that "breaking it down into smaller pieces stuff.

- Tell him you want him to come back to you tomorrow with the following information:
+ Who will he need to work with to complete each piece.
+ When will he try to have it done by?
... Fill in any of the blank names for him.

- Let him rip, ride him like a dog if he starts slipping. When he does, focus on "what's in your way, how can I help?"

Trust me. It's like alchemy for underpaid bitchboys.

[Hot Stott Bot]

What about purchasing him a baseball cap that says "Underpaid Bitchboy". Do you think that would be a good move?

[internisus]

[Mr Mustache]

I work in digital video. My intern is currently running an errand in Brooklyn, regarding some broken Arri lights

I try to be pretty open with my interns. Find out what they are interested in, what they would like to get out of the experience and so on. Basically, I don't like taking advantage of people, and in the fairly casual context of my workplace, it really isn't necessary. Most of the people coming through our internship program are genuinely interesting, enthusiastic individuals.

Interacting with different people every few months is actually pretty fun.
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The people are like wool to me

[internisus]

i just remembered the 2 very hot 17-year-old interns i trained back at unitedhealthcare. i had blocked that period from my memory until this moment. they were both named kelly, but they looked too different for a twin fantasy.

[Maztorre]

[internisus]

[Mr Mustache]

You guys are doing the right thing by posting in this thread.
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The people are like wool to me

[kael]

I had an internship once at a web design firm. During my first week they had me reformat a machine that a previous employee had loaded up with spyware and warez and then try and finish a website he had been assigned to develop. It turned out he had saved every file to C:\ with randomly selected names like 'toaster' and 'image37', and hadn't kept any of the PSD files for his design, so I had to redo it from scratch in a day.

Then next week the company went out of business!

Educational!

Mustache: That sounds like the right approach to take for both of you to get value out of the internship. Do you feel like you're getting legitimate value out of the interns? It sounds like they're getting something out of it, at least. I've always been curious about how much value people actually get out of internships.

[Mr Mustache]

Well, it depends how much I've got going. Having an intern is really great when there is tons of work to do, and you don't want to do it all.

But it can be a real drag if things are slow. So, I try to make it work, but, you know, it's tricky...I'm pretty new at this.

In terms of value, I think it depends on the internship. In my situation, some of the pressure is taken off of me, as interns are granted free access to classes and equipment, so regardless of how well I do, they will be getting something out of it.
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The people are like wool to me

[dhex]

we've had tremendously good luck with interns here, but we do sort of put them through the ringer. in a good way - no one's getting coffee or anything like that - in the sense that they can come out of their junior year internship saying "i've done event planning and media relations and some graphic design and marketing and special events work" etc etc. which is good for them if only to figure out what they do and don't like about the field, the type of institution, what they dig and what they don't, and so on.

but yeah when things are slow i kinda feel like a dick. i can't even have them move boxes, since they're all female (pr is easily 80/20, especially in the nonprof/healthcare fields) and can't really deadlift 50 lb boxes in skirts.
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[Hot Stott Bot]

Guys today was pretty good with the intern. I got him working with the guy who is implimenting part of one of my current projects and he was going to offload some work onto him but mostly the intern just watched him work, but I think he is learning and hopefully next week he'll be able to actually offload that guy.

I have a bunch of meetings next week, maybe I will invite him just to hang around even though he probably won't have anything to say. I mean, I don't think he's been in "An Official Meeting" yet.

Also:

Having lots of work to do and nothing to give the intern is a lot worse than having very little work to do and nothing to give the intern!

It has been the worst this week because I've been feeling like a big dick because several things are picking up but I still don't have much to give him just because of the nature of the work there hasn't really been a good place for him to work that he wouldn't be more in the way than helping, but I think we're past that point now and I'm hoping next week will be a plus for awesome.

[Mr Mustache]

Ugh, this week...

I am really happy to have Columbus day off.
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The people are like wool to me