Plug and Chug

So I got this internship, right? I’m not really sure how (frankly, I’m not really sure why) but everybody in my family is so proud of me. Nobody expected me to be working this summer and if I did, it definitely wouldn’t be at a job sitting down. But here’s the thing, everyone at this job is just so…much. Does that make sense? No… probably not. Let me explain. 

Against my own personal best judgement, I started applying for these internships in January – that’s what my advisor told me to do. And I applied for everything. I sent things to banks, local news stations, law offices, and insurance companies (bear with me here, I’m trying to keep it vague – you never know when big brother is watching and I’m hoping to be employed next summer too unfortunately). Anyway, all of that is to say that I didn’t really know what I wanted to be doing this summer. And maybe that showed in my cover letters. I thought I had it down to a science. Plug and chug, you know? 

Dear Hiring Manager, 

I am thrilled to applying to […]. For as long as I could remember, […] has been a passion of mine. With your company’s focus in […], […], and […], I hope that I could succeed in the fascinating and rewarding field of […]. 

With my experience in […]

Well, you get the idea. Plug and chug. But can you blame me? It’s not like these jobs are offering me the world on a silver platter? $9/hour and you can tell they put even less effort into the job description than I did into my cover letter. Does this count as mutually assured destruction? Probably not. Anyway, when it was all said and done, in an attempt to make my family proud, I did end up sending out around 100 applications and got about 5 callbacks. Three of those ended in interviews. And one of those an internship. 

So here we are. I get to work 15 hours a week at a small office 50 minutes away from my home town. My mom is thrilled that I’m home for the summer and my dad is thrilled that he get’s to brag about the successful man that his boy has become. But here’s the thing, right, it’s all a big racket. I go to this job to “learn”. Every single day – well three times a week. I get my tiny little paycheck and some credits. I get to sit at a desk and wear a button down shirt that my mom irons for me. I drink free coffee and talk to people who look like my parents and talk like my parents and…that’s about it. 

Is that really all there is? For the past month, I’ve had different people in the office, almost every time I’m there, make some version of the same joke: “I bet you can’t wait to go back to school, huh?” “Getting sick of working yet?” “Adult life must be killing you, bud”. 

How? Where? Please, show me the hard part? I don’t mean to be so rude or aggressive, I just don’t understand. Sure, the boredom and monotony gets old fast but isn’t that the same everywhere? 

I just keep thinking back to the hours and hours and hours that I spent applying to all of the different internships. Part of me wants to say that was the hard part. But then I think about it some more and I realize that it wasn’t. It actually wasn’t any different than this whole little exercise in futility itself. Plug and chug. 

And look, I get it. I watch a lot of TV (check out my reviews of The Wire while you’re here…I really should get back into those). They’ve made countless workplace comedies around this very idea. Apparently I just had the hubris to think that it wouldn’t happen to me.