June 24th, 2013
A week or so ago, I panicked and started to apply for internships, not just jobs.
I don’t know what I was thinking.
Well, what I think I was thinking was that I wouldn’t find any one to give me any money and then I wouldn’t be able to pay my rent.
This had stemmed from that fact that at the beginning of the summer I applied for a writing gig and an editing gig.
I got to the second round of hiring. For one I had to write celebrity news stories for a blog. I wrote those up, sent them out, and was confident.
For the Editing one, I had to take a movie clip and so people would want to see the movie AND be able to tell what the movie is.
But, in the end, I didn’t get either of the jobs.
That’s basically when I decided that internships that were paid, but boring or had a stipend were going to be applied for.
An acting studio replied and asked if I wanted to come interview.
So I went, got to this tiny, weird building a few blocks from Penn station.
I got upstairs and saw this beautiful office in front of me…
Unfortunately, where I was interviewing was down the hall.
I opened the door to this tiny studio. It looked like an eccentric Broadway star turned hoarder lived there.
A girl my age or younger interviewed me… except, it really wasn’t an interview. It was a “you have the job if you’re not going to murder anyone or be annoying” kind of thing.
After seeing that I wasn’t going to murder anyone, she was asking when I could come in and told me what I’d be doing there.
Huh? I have the job already? Was this not an interview?
I intervened and mentioned the stipend that the ad talked about. I explained that I needed to work for pay because I had to make rent.
The girl said “Oh, I’m not sure. I’ll have to ask her about that.”
I left feeling like I had a job thrust upon me that I wasn’t even certain I was getting paid for.
Fast forward to today where I am standing outside of the dingy building, wondering what the hell am I doing here.
I get there 5 minutes late (probably because I wasn’t particularly interested in being there. It was like when that ok looking guy asks you on a date and no one has asked you out in a really long time so you say yes and then realize your mistake ten minutes later).
No one else is there.
I sit down on the bench and wait ten more minutes and finally someone walks in. It’s this old, hippie looking costume lady. She informs me that shoes are optional here.
A half an hour later the girl that was training me finally comes in.
And that half an hour was long enough for me to realize that everyone that worked there hated being there.
I had already decided at 10:30 in the morning, that I was never going to return to this internship that I had somehow been tricked into taking in the first place.
The girl told me how the stipend was the boss, whom I still hadn’t met or spoke too at all, paying for my monthly subway card (which I had just bought two days earlier on my own) and they needed me a minimum 3 days per week.
Then she explained how we send all the emails and make all the calls through our own phones.
I spent the rest of the day in a semi haze of not listening while I performed a bunch of tasks I would never do again.
The acting teacher was a morbidly obese, possibly insane woman. I could see why everyone hated being there. I actually felt bad not breaking out all the kids who had pay to go to this school. They seemed a little odd anyway, though.
Lucky for me I had to leave early because I had a gig (yes, a paid audience gig) at MTV that I had to get to.
Normally I would feel enormous guilt walking out of somewhere knowing I would never return to… but not this time. There was no ac, phone, computers, payment and an abundance of crazy people. I walked out with a song in my step.
Join us for Part 2 of June 24th where I help Break a World Record on a new MTV2 show.
Clawing My Way To The Top 