May 28, 2008
How Not To Be That Intern
Hordes of summer interns have once again descended on Washington, leaving many of us rolling our collective eyes and bitching to friends about the latest thong sighting, overheard "I was sooo drunk" story, or just being stuck with training someone who appears to lack the ability to function in an office. But let's say you're one of those rare interns who has actually come to D.C. to learn something, or are planning on using the connections you're here to make to get a real job. For you, DCist asked Glamocracy blogger and soulless former lobbyist Megan Carpentier put together a list of ways not to be that guy or girl that the people you're going to need recommendations from complain about.
Photo by LOOKING S I D E W A Y S
- Your underwear is no one else's business. Seriously, no one wants to see the top of your thong or your boxers or, God forbid, your be-pantied crotch. Invest in a belt, learn to keep your knees together in a skirt and master the art of exiting a cab with your legs together. The day your boss sees your underwear is the day your recommendation gets less effusive.
- You are never going to out-drink a Hill staffer or a lobbyist Yes, we're sure you're hot shit on campus in your flip cup league, and you can throw back a dozen shots and a couple of beers, boot and then rally and come back for more. Everyone drinks in D.C., and they drink for a living, which means that they, in many cases, can drink to excess and still work (hell, I'm drinking right now). So not only should you not try to keep up because you likely can't, but, additionally, no one is going to care about your drunk tales or your hangovers.
- Don't hook up with co-workers or fellow interns We all understand that, in college, you have sex with your classmates and the people on your dormitory floor and the people you're in clubs with, and it's cool. But, do not be boinking the other interns in your office. Hang out, meet their other friends, meet other interns, but don't screw the girl or boy in the next cube. Everyone's going to know, and you never know on whose side the opprobrium will fall.
- Shut up Everyone here is smart, and probably smarter than you. If you keep your mouth shut, you won't be able to make the fatal error of bragging about how great your Hah-vard education is to someone that went to the JFK School and had a dual-degree with the law school.
- Avoid gawking Yeah, you've probably seen that guy on TV. So has everyone else, and you're the only one looking.
- Get out of my way If I'm on the street, I'm trying to get somewhere, and so is everyone else. There are, like, actual places to get to here, and some of us are trying to get to them and you are getting in our way so stop standing in the middle of the sidewalk.
- Khakis make you look like a kid Throw away the pleated pants and the navy blazers, please. There's a Marshall's in Pentagon City. Call your mom. Look into a real suit.
- Use a condom We're not kidding, definitely use them. Look at the stats. This is not a small college town and you don't know everyone else that person has slept with, so stock up.
- Don't attend Senator Coburn's sex ed lecture No, seriously. Just don't.
- Don't sleep with anyone important I hear that power is an aphrodisiac, though I've never felt its effects myself. But, seriously, don't be the next Monica, Jessica or Julia. You might find infamy, but the sex will probably suck and you'll never get a job here again.
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"You exchange nods with governors of sovereign States; you elbow illustrious men, and tread on the toes of generals; you hear statesmen and orators speaking in their familiar tones. You are mixed up with office-seekers, wire-pullers, inventors, artists, poets, prosers, (including editors, army-correspondents, attachés of foreign journals, and long-winded talkers,) clerks, diplomatists, mail contractors, railway-directors, until your own identity is lost among them. Occasionally you talk with a man whom you have never before heard of, and are struck by the brightness of a thought, and fancy that there is more wisdom hidden among the obscure than is anywhere revealed among the famous. You adopt the universal habit of the place, and call for a mint-julep, a whisky-skin, a gin-cocktail, a brandy-smash, or a glass of pure Old Rye; for the conviviality of Washington sets in at an early hour, and, so far as I had an opportunity of observing, never terminates at any hour, and all these drinks are continually in request by almost all these people."
- Nathaniel Hawthorne, 1862
Yeah, drunk a**hole office toadies in DC are a totally new invention.
Yeah, but at least then they weren't drinking Bud lite, Miller lite, Lite lite, etc.
Many a party is ruined at the House office bldgs by the locust-like hordes of fresh-faced youth snarfing up the buffet. Wait till they get the special initiation of the Ex Lax baited food....sweet smell of success....
11. Upon boarding, please move to the center of the car.
If nothing else, follow number six. Don't be like the guy in front of me on the escalator this morning standing in the middle of the freaking escalator and then giving me an affronted look when I brushed past. Oh, and three and ten are pretty sage advice, too.
i whole heartedly disagree with 1, 2, 8 and 10. are you trying to destroy my life?
by the way, can anyone recommend some places to pick up easy, drunk interns? i have a pad of paper and pencil ready. go.
dchater:
12. If I push you aside because you don't move from your position straddling the one middle pole on both sides, you forego all right to give me any sort of dirty look.
13. Never forget to utter those small words that can make a difference: Is that your baaaag?
So I take that the advice to interns is: To be on guard because the people here before you are ex-interns who are more obnoxious, less interesting, and all in all the biggest a-holes ever birthed by their bespectacled demon-mothers. Add that to the delusion-of-grandeur, and toss in their apparent “cardiologist-on-call” need to get from point A to point B (when in fact nobody really cares if they show up in their meeting on time, thus the escalator rush is a sort of self inflicted urgency to adjourn the depression of that realization)- add on top of that still, some ugly clothes and people who are even pastier and less attractive than your college roommates and you get an idea of what your first summer here will be like. So drink, and slut it up little children! It is your only hope at leaving intact.
13. Don't turn a popular political blog into your personal soapbox At some point you're going to be appointed an editor of a popular poltical blog known for its irreverent take on Hill life. Resist the urge to use this opportunity to launch into humorless rants, 'cause you'll probably end up getting fired after just a few months.
But, seriously, don't be the next Monica, Jessica or Julia.
It could be worse: you could be Chandra.
Bad sex and never getting hired again are not the worst things that can happen to you.
seriously Bethesdaist
Id say the best place to pick these kids up is Hawk-N-Dove and the other bars located on that srip on The Hill. Another good one is Sign of the Whale, Mad Hatters, Rumors and that general vicinty. None of the children have cars so optimal watering holes located off the Metro are your best option.
They are generally distinguished by their wide eyed glare. During the first few weeks look for the younger ones dressed a little over the top. Their styles might be a little out of place of it might reek of trying to hard. They'll probably be with a crowd of others as they tend to travel in small herds.
I happened to bag quite a few last summer, with a prize catch that still hangs on the mantle.
Happy Hunting!
I must say, it is entertaining to watch all the intern dweeps at Union Station each morning. Never before has our democracy owed its continued survival to pimply faced geeks running around in brand new dark suits with their laminated ID badges swinging around their necks.
#4 is a piece of advice that never goes out of style, here or anywhere else.
And why all the hate for khakis? It's the first step up from jeans and a natural progression for college students working their first professional job. The Summer I had my first internship I wore khakis almost everyday because I only had one suit, but three pairs of khakis. Let the kids look like kids before they become humorless Hill staffers in rumpled suits.
Addendum to #7: Leave your croakies with your blazers.
Yep, the younger ones are overdressed, and they wear their id tags out to the bars and various happy hours. If they have dry cleaning from the Hill cleaners, they carry it with them like a badge of honor. The young men usually need haircuts, and their cheeks get splotchy when they get trashed (they never just drink - they always get trashed.) They're so darn sincere, it amuses my icy cougar heart no end.
Can I hear an amen? If I never see another pair of pleated khakis, blue oxford shirt, navy blazer, and polyester rep tie uniform, it'll be too soon. Y'all forgot an important tidbit; get an iron, and learn how to use it. Or try something called a dry cleaner--once a month at least.
Let us not forget showering. Living in your own funky stew may work in the petri dish of college. Yes, your devil-may-care attitude may highlight your disdain for the bourgeious mores of corporate-dictated culture. Guess what, you're in the middle of the bourgeious mores of corporate-dictated culture. Isn't that why you're here?
In DC, when it's 98 degrees and %110 humid, and your poor liver is still processing the alcohol from the week before, you stink. You stink like a cocktail onion. No. Patchouli will not cover that funk. Take a freakin' shower. With soap.
And remember, just because you're unique doesn't mean you're useful.
Do hang out in Adams Morgan and park illegally, preferably on a weekday after 7.
Do go to brightestyoungthings.com and talk about how great anything is. The response to your unironic support and positivity will get you written up here.
Do post on your personal blog (or the political blog your 3 wks as an intern for the junior staff assistant to the junior congresscritter from St. Elsewhere) about how the drained swamp that is DC is too humid, and that that leads to lethargic DC residents with bad moods impeding your segway progress down the sidewalks of H street ("and why are the doors of the Macy's so short, anyway--how can you drive through them?")
Please do these things, because the comment threads on DCist aren't going to populate themselves.
#10 smells more like an airing of missed opportunities than handy advice.
#14 Blogging about being sodomized by Congressmen is not the sure-fire road to riches it once was. However, uploading the sex tape to redtube.com is always a good idea and remains America's best entertainment value.
Viz #8, use that juicy chess club brain of yours and learn how to turn a condom into a dental dam in three E-Z-2-READ steps. Remember: when you're munching carpet, you're munching everyone who's ever walked on that carpet.
Damn, people hate some khakis around here. You should work with old engineers like I do. A good day is when I don't have to see half of someone's hairy shins because their green pants from 1995 are 4 sizes too small.
#15 Just get away from the whole Hill area once in awhile. See what else the city has to offer. Maybe you can delay your transformation into a jaded, overworked, self-important Staffer. And maybe you can find out some of the truly great things that DC has to offer. Even though many people forget it (dc residents included), there is a whole vibrant part of this area that doesn't revolve around Capitol Hill.
#16 Go for a midnight jog through Anacostia, preferrably with Ziplog bags full of money. Ignore the comments of the locals. They're just jealous.
#17. Make eliest remarks while in Anacostia specifcally while in conveinence stores about how hard you have it
@Reid:
Layne, is that you?
18. earnestly tell people how you've learned an interesting fact about DC like you're the first person to know this fact.
oh wait, i do that all the time. damn, i'm jaded...
@rptrcub: I see what you did there.
From this "old" DCer: I don't mind seeing thongs.
Broes before Hoes.
...and I'll officially close this orgy of stereotypes and self-loathing.....now.
the JFK School
19. Get out now, before you turn into the type of person who can't tell the difference between "smart" and "bloated with academic distinction."
Sorry, but I totally disagree with rule #1. A little free metro porn is the one thing those kids are good for.
Also regarding: "Never before has our democracy owed its continued survival to pimply faced geeks running around in brand new dark suits." Let's not forget that Congress, like Peace Corps and Teach for America, is fueled entirely on youthful idealism, wringing every drop of hope out of wide-eyed overachievers until all that's left is the sort of bitter husk who comments on blogs.
So to sum up the article and related comments:
Don't have sex with Tom Coburn.
Good advice that.
Really would have helped me avoid certain mistakes back when I first moved to DC.
Like so many in DC, I loathe/love the interns. Particularly the hardcore conservative ones that somehow avoided all the 'DC is for blacks and fags' brochures they must surely get when signing up. It's truly hilarious when one actually ends up living in DC and has to live amongst all us undesireables. It's even funnier when they find out DC has things like laws against the anti-gay bullshit they take for granted back home.
Correction. I should have said 'right-wing' instead of 'conservative'.
A true conservative would have no problem respecting the basic privacy and right of homos.
For the love of god, don't wear flip flops to work.
This morning on my bus, 3 of them boarded, the female kind, all wearing flip-flops. One was eating yogurt on the bus too, and I did hear "back home" and either Pottstown (or Pottsville) PA thrown out. What is it with the state of Pennsylvania anyway? Only Ohio is more annoying.
Then I get to work, and A GUY intern is wearing them.
With his khakis. I'm not lying about this.
Really? I'll take 10 Pennsylvanians or Ohioans over two Alabamans or Georgians.
You clearly have never met anyone from Seattle.
pennsylvanians? ohioans? i'll take illinois FTW, wink.
SIMPSONS QUOTE! ding! ding! ding!
And the prize (lifetime supply of Rice-a-Roni, the San Francisco Treat)goes to the Monk for his use of "juicy chess club brain" from an earlier "Treehouse of Horror" halloween special.
Interns...yuck. "You're going to make sure he sees this, right?" "Oh...uh huh...yeah"
scum.
#4 is the best lesson any of them can learn. It's also the hardest the the one that I'll probably cause an intern to cry about.
19. just because you're living at gw or georgetown for the summer does not mean that you're a washingtonian. but you can pretend and then we'll all laugh at you. :)
Can number 4 be highlighted?
Don't talk for the sake of talking. The things that come out of your mouth are not intelligent or funny. Just shut up and do your work. Nuff said!
So, I saw this list and thought, "Great. Maybe this will help me to not feel like such a plague on society when I go to DC to work this summer."
Unfortunately, after reading it and the comments, it sounds like I'm going to annoy the hell out of everyone I meet just by breathing. I apologize in advance.
Oh, and before you make fun of my obviously overly-excited, trying-to-fit-in username, it's just my first name and last two initials. It's my username for everything.