The Office-Wide Email You Want to Send After a Three-Month Unpaid Internship
By Sujay Kumar
Dear Staff,
As you may have heard, today is my last day as an intern here at [name redacted]. Consider this my sign-off as your indentured servant.
For those who just became aware of my existence last week, I’d like to point out that I’m not a member of the custodial staff. Get your own damn half and half. While I’m aware that the world we work in is incestuous, unlike the sycophantic 20-somethings that usually fill my position, I really don’t care.
At today’s end, I will walk through the revolving door for the last time. And chances are, before I hit “send” on this email, I’ll already be forgotten.
So, uh, fyi.
Looping in the interns to a chain of several unnecessary emails doesn’t mean we understand a word of the 17 plus exchanges of masturbatory gibberish and failed attempts at wit. This isn’t Facebook. Use some restraint.
If I want to click “reply all” to an email with an innocuous joke, I should be able to do so without getting blacklisted by the entire office. I get it. I’m nobody. You, with the salary and inflated ego, are somebody.
No one knew my name. Yet, hot intern [name redacted]—she with the low cut shirts and giggles—is well known. On many occasions, men in the office entertained her with idle chit chat and a smidgen of abuse of power.
Every time I said “sure” to do an eight-hour transcription, I sold my soul on eBay.
Just because your emails open with “hey interns!” does not free your request from being an enormous waste of time. I am not five years old.
Interns eat. If you invited us to lunch, you’d understand this.
To the men ascending father time’s ladder faster than their career’s, yes your attractive co-worker, who you’ve been “workin’ on” for 13 months, did linger for just a second too long.
I’m pretty sure vague statements like, “Remember, we may be hiring,” qualify as blackmail.
It really has been a blast working FOR all of you for the last three months. The sheer ineptitude at nearly every level of management here has both been a source of incredible annoyance and inspiration. If this is telling of the real world, then oh, the places this little intern may go!
I sincerely hope we cross paths in the future. At this meeting, I will swallow my pride and wave. You, employed and sophisticated, fighter for the weekend, owner of hundreds of unused business cards, the universe in your palm, hollow eyes glued to a four-inch screen, will snub me. And I’ll yell something like, “Is not an intern a human being?”
No one will listen.
Thanks,
Intern