How Not To Lose A Job Before You Have It: Notes For Interns

This is a post that seems like it shouldn't need to be written. Alternatively titled, "Don't Piss Off Your Boss," it catalogues a set of minimum behaviors that any intern should be aware of--if not a priori, then through some aggressive childhood or early adult socialization. As I said, this post really should not be necessary, but evidently it is.

Some internships will not lead to offers of employment after graduation because that is not what they are designed to do. For example, most small and mid-sized nonprofits don't have the luxury of hiring new staff every year, so the summer interns those offices take on get some experience, an entry on their resumes, and maybe a reference, but they're backto job hunting come fall. Other positions will not lead to permanent employment because the intern sucks at their job, or are so unpersonable that their demeanors overshadow any competency they may demonstrate. I offer the following as a last ditch effort to keep you out of the latter category (although if you need this concise list it is perhaps to late for me to help you).

You do not have to like your job to act like you like your job. Yes, you will be given some boring or otherwise not compelling assignments. Your workplace will have idiosyncracies and quirks and norms all its own, some of which may seem inane to you. Your coworkers may not be people you would choose to hang out with socially. These considerations are relevant when evaluating whether you would like to work here, but they should be irrelevant to the quality of work you produce and to the attitude you present. By all means, refrain from outright disdain. You're insulting those who do choose to work here, you're nuking your likelihood of getting positive evaluations or references, and moreover you're shooting yourself in the foot--you won't be getting interesting, challenging assignments once you've made it clear that you think you're above working here.

Don't be late. Don't show up late to the office, to meetings, to lunches or presentations. If you routinely force your colleagues to wait for you, you're telling them your time is more valuable than theirs. I assure you this is not true, and you will come to be deeply resented. I am not a babysitter, I should not need to check in on you to make sure you are where you ought to be. Likewise, complete assignments in the time allotted for them. If you expect to be late, or that your work will be delayed, check in with your supervisor well in advance. They will either tell you it's not a problem, or will decide on another course of action--giving the assigment to someone else, doing the work themselves, modifying the scope of the assignment so it can be completed on time, etc. Oh, and don't ask for an extension for stupid reasons. "I have a three-hour lunch at Chez Fancypants and then an afternoon outing to a major league baseball game" will not ingratiate you to a supervisor who is working on a deadline and who has been counting on your timely delivery of a project to meet it.

Be polite, even kind. To everyone. To your supervisors, to your fellow interns, to your support staff, to the folks in the mail room, to the strangers in the elevator. In the best of all possible worlds, rudeness is unacceptable. Even if you are working in a craven environment in which rudeness is tolerated, you have not been here long enough to know who you can safely alienate without repercussions. Hint: if you piss of your secretary, you have probably also pissed off her boss, and this bodes poorly for you.

Ask questions. I greatly prefer the periodic interruption of questions about an assignment I've made to a work product that has nothing to do with what I asked for. If you're not sure what you're supposed to be doing, or if you suspect your research is going off on a tangent, check in with your supervisor to make sure you're still on the right track.

Personality is at least as important as competency. Not everyone agrees with me, but unless someone is grossly incompetent, I will be more generous in my evaluation of a pleasant person with average work than of an unpleasant person with good work. I can teach work skills to someone I enjoy being around and who seems to want to improve. I cannot teach social skills to someone who makes me want to gouge my eyeballs with spoons. Don't think your work product will excuse your temperment. First, relatively few interns produce work that is as good as they think it is. That's only natural, because an intern is by definition just starting to gain experience in a given field. But this means it's a bit risky to assume that your work product is on its own enough to warrant a job offer--you're much more attractive as a prospective hire if people are actually interested in spending time teaching and mentoring you. Second, if you're irritating enough, a good work product ain't gonna help.

I must be getting old and crotchety, as my tolerance for whippersnappery has plummeted in the last year. I've had to write bad work evaluations for a couple of interns already, and it sucks. I know I may be costing those people job offers, so I am in the unpleasant position of lying about their performance and thereby dooming myself to have to work with them in the future, or sending them back to school unemployed in the worst economic situation of recent years. Hopefully (for them) they've done good work for other people and those positive evaluations will counterbalance my negative ones and they'll be hired to work in an office that is far away from mine. But that's not my responsibility to un-screw up their screw ups. There is no blasted reason I should have to write bad evaluations. It's not actually that hard to be a mediocre intern--it's not even difficult to be a really great one.