Well, well, well look at these interns getting all uppity. Suing Saturday Night Live, suing Black Swan, suing MSNBC, suing Gawker, suing Conde Nast, suing the Hearst Corporation, seems like they may have been better off interning at a law firm instead, no? Honestly, who do these members of the Great Intern Rebellion think they are? Wanting to get paid for working. Give me a break. And then go get me a coffee so I can enjoy it. Interns wanting to be compensated. Have you lost your damn minds? You're not doctors. You work at a damn magazine. Now finish the rest of this free piece for me stat.
Do you know how many people would pay anything to get paid nothing and do all my work for me? It's disgusting. And to think how unappreciative you are. That I allow you the right do all my shit work, and this is how you treat me. By holding out your hand and demanding more than a stack of papers that I need you to sort. You are so selfish. I can't believe I ever hired you to do everything for free in the first place.
I will give you credit though. No, literally. That's all I'll give you. Some credit. Not enough to play an arcade game, but enough to allow you to pass a college semester so you can have one more year of debilitating debt before you graduate. Isn't that worth something? Because once you're out of college you'll see how tough the job market really is. And you'll be begging for an internship. And I'll just say I told you so. You should've taken that unpaid position when I offered it to you at the beginning of this paragraph.
What a privileged society we live in where everyone who works thinks they should get paid. Feudalism called, they said fuck you. Ooh, I did a job, now I want money. It's only fair. That I should be rewarded for contributing to a profit-making company. Boo hoo. You knew what you were signing up for. No one pulled your dentures. You opted to enter in to servitude. And no way you're now getting a dental plan.
They're trying to fundamentally change what an intern even means. You do all my work that I don't want to, and intern, you get absolutely nothing. That's how they came up with the idea. Whoever they geniuses may have been. You're an intern, intern. A lowly, dirty, filthy, super helpful, extremely efficient, very effective intern. I don't know how I'd do my high-paying job without you. And good news we were able to stay way below budget this quarter.
I mean there's no way you could get this experience of working for free working for money. And that experience is invaluable. Literally. And the relationships you can form are priceless. Literally. That's why only certain people can afford the unpaid opportunity to make them. How do you put a monetary amount on getting your foot in the door? You can't. Unless of course it gets stuck in there like you are with the medical bill. Plus the rewarding possibility that your job can turn into a job. If that's not jobbing the system, what is?
I scoff at this intern-al struggle. This intern-national movement. This intern-ship of fools. How about you go ahead and book me a plane ticket so I can fly to some place that cares. Maybe like Sub-Saharan Africa. You think they feel bad for the college kids who worked at Saturday Night Live for a semester and didn't get paid a cent? You think they believe that's a grave injustice? I'll ask them. But can you make sure you get me an aisle seat?
This great country was built on the back of unpaid interns, and we're not about to turn our back on them just yet. Not without a fight. Because first you give them a little stipend and next thing you know you're paying them a living wage. And before you know it, they're full-fledged citizens of our economy. And what do we do then? Allow them to climb the ladder of success. Not so fast. Not when the property values are recovering so nicely at the top.
A great private sector is measured not by how it treats those at the top, but those at the bottom. And how they then treat interns. And that is why for so long we've treated them just as they deserve. As free labor. Grateful for the education of going to the dry-cleaners to pick up my laundry. And pick up my spread sheets. And organize my drawers. And fill out my expense reports. And answer my phones. And figure out my schedule. And greet my visitors. And do whatever is asked for them. And do an excellent job of it. For free.
In the end, the real issue is that these interns want to act like they didn't know the deal in the first place. Come on, how stupid could they have initially been? Agreeing to do work for no wages. Who would ever fall for that? Now proofread and revise this unpaid piece for me so I can submit. And make it good.