I have an internship this semester. And it's unpaid and it's 35 minutes away and it's not AT ALL what I had in mind doing this year. It's a PR agency, for freak's sake. I did not picture myself in a business-casual coffee-in-the-break-room kind of place. But hey, they wanted me. So, what the hey.
Here is the way my day looks on Mondays, this past Monday specifically, which was a particularly Mondayish Monday as far as Mondays go.
Without further ado, my life!
7am - stumble and flop out of a lofted bed, eat stale oatmeal, put some normal clothes and makeup on, make coffee, grab the first thing I find in my fridge for lunch, walk in the frigid cold to my car that won’t start on the first attempt.
7:16am - try to keep my eyes open while shivering, squinting at the sun and weaving through heavy traffic to Burnsville.
8am - arrive at the office! take the elevator up to the third floor, close my eyes while in alone in the elevator to steal a micro-nap, walk through the office to my desk, smile at people arriving, no smiles back.
8:12am - check email, pretend to be busy while I’m actually just staring blankly ahead trying to wake up, make myself warmer by holding my coffee with both hands close to my face, discreetly read the news on my phone until people walk by, pretend to be busy again.
8:35am - go to the bathroom for something to do, make sure I did my makeup okay in the dark this morning.
8:40am - respond to emails that people have sent me from two cubicles over. do small jobs for them.
9:56 am - “Can you come take notes in a client meeting that starts in 4 minutes?”
11:45am - walk back to my desk after the meeting, sad that the social interaction is probably done for the day. transcribe meeting notes, create project overview while listening to musical theater pandora in my headphones, dream about belting the high notes on stage, accidentally mouth the words dramatically, get some weird looks.
12:02pm - phone rings, heart rate goes up to four hundred, stare at the phone until it stops ringing.
12:45pm - everyone is gone to lunch? think about how hungry I am.
12:54pm - everyone starts coming back, I discreetly grab my things and duck out for lunch so nobody gives me something boring or completely confusing to do.
1pm - drive to Caribou, sneak in the side so I don’t have to buy a drink to sit there, crunch on my salad loudly while I read the news, probably gaining weird looks, quietly eat my lunch and people watch.
1:35pm - “I can take, like, an hour for lunch. They won’t know how long I’ve been gone for. Then when I get back there will only be two and a half hours left!”
2:02pm - walk back into the office, up to the third floor, smile at people as I walk through the office, no smiles back.
2:27pm - CEO walks by, heart rate goes up to a million, sit up straight quickly, wipe salad off my lip, pull up a webpage that looks important.
3:17pm - doodle on post it notes, check email, read the news, check email, stare blankly at someone in the office until they give me a weird look, check email, discover a rack of magazines, read some of them, someone walks by, quickly drop magazine and check email.
3:36pm - “only 54 minutes left! Which means only 10 minutes 5 and a half more times, only one eighth of the time I’ve already been here!”
3:41pm - walk to the break room to get more coffee. 49 more minutes.
3:43pm - AN EMAIL! ... junk.
4:11pm - stretch break, last check to see if my supervisor is around with a job for me, she’s still in a conference call… has been for the last four hours.
4:14pm - do I really have to go to the bathroom again? Or is my body just as bored as I am?
4:29pm - close enough. I’m out of here.
7:16am - try to keep my eyes open while shivering, squinting at the sun and weaving through heavy traffic to Burnsville.
8am - arrive at the office! take the elevator up to the third floor, close my eyes while in alone in the elevator to steal a micro-nap, walk through the office to my desk, smile at people arriving, no smiles back.
8:12am - check email, pretend to be busy while I’m actually just staring blankly ahead trying to wake up, make myself warmer by holding my coffee with both hands close to my face, discreetly read the news on my phone until people walk by, pretend to be busy again.
8:35am - go to the bathroom for something to do, make sure I did my makeup okay in the dark this morning.
8:40am - respond to emails that people have sent me from two cubicles over. do small jobs for them.
9:56 am - “Can you come take notes in a client meeting that starts in 4 minutes?”
11:45am - walk back to my desk after the meeting, sad that the social interaction is probably done for the day. transcribe meeting notes, create project overview while listening to musical theater pandora in my headphones, dream about belting the high notes on stage, accidentally mouth the words dramatically, get some weird looks.
12:02pm - phone rings, heart rate goes up to four hundred, stare at the phone until it stops ringing.
12:45pm - everyone is gone to lunch? think about how hungry I am.
12:54pm - everyone starts coming back, I discreetly grab my things and duck out for lunch so nobody gives me something boring or completely confusing to do.
1pm - drive to Caribou, sneak in the side so I don’t have to buy a drink to sit there, crunch on my salad loudly while I read the news, probably gaining weird looks, quietly eat my lunch and people watch.
1:35pm - “I can take, like, an hour for lunch. They won’t know how long I’ve been gone for. Then when I get back there will only be two and a half hours left!”
2:02pm - walk back into the office, up to the third floor, smile at people as I walk through the office, no smiles back.
2:27pm - CEO walks by, heart rate goes up to a million, sit up straight quickly, wipe salad off my lip, pull up a webpage that looks important.
3:17pm - doodle on post it notes, check email, read the news, check email, stare blankly at someone in the office until they give me a weird look, check email, discover a rack of magazines, read some of them, someone walks by, quickly drop magazine and check email.
3:36pm - “only 54 minutes left! Which means only 10 minutes 5 and a half more times, only one eighth of the time I’ve already been here!”
3:41pm - walk to the break room to get more coffee. 49 more minutes.
3:43pm - AN EMAIL! ... junk.
4:11pm - stretch break, last check to see if my supervisor is around with a job for me, she’s still in a conference call… has been for the last four hours.
4:14pm - do I really have to go to the bathroom again? Or is my body just as bored as I am?
4:29pm - close enough. I’m out of here.
Hope some of you resonated with this. Unpaid slave laborers, unite!
(kidding.)
