The Unemployment Diaries

Free Ball 11.03.10

Happy FUN-day!

That work week flew right by. Oh, right. I didn’t work. Not because I don’t have a job, but because those whose job mine depends on, Government MP’s, took the week off for Easter (if you’re new to this blog and wondering how the title relates to what I  just said, go to my first entry to see my definition of “employment”). At this point, they might as well take the 40 days Jesus took before going back to heaven and honour him proper.

Anyway, for those of you Hill(arious) fans (I know you exist!), that’s why you’ve been deprived of my twice weekly updates you rely on to stay current and in-the-know. It’s not because I’m lazy (did you even see my last photo shoot?!?). It’s because they are.

Luckily, me being chronically unemployed and sarcastic is something that never takes a vacation.

This week, I’m talking ’bout internships.  Yes, the unemployed person’s entry point into the working world. We’ve all done them or tried to do them. Though every good internship includes the line “and you won’t be getting us coffee”, more and more, even the good ones are starting to include the line “and you won’t be getting paid.” Some in the U.S. even have interns paying THEM.

Would you rather be paid to get coffee or not paid to have real responsibility? It’s a dilly of a pickle that I’ve asked my good friend Sara Thaw to defrost by way of her experience working as an unpaid intern in the big iPad.

Here it is, and thanks for sharing Sar!

Sara looks flustered. Her curly hair looks even more tightly wound than the last time I saw her a couple months ago. Maybe it’s her new technique of not washing it regularly. Maybe it’s the fact that she’s living in New York City, doing an unpaid internship and supporting herself by working under the table at a cupcake shop. Hmmmm.

Sara landed an internship at a non-profit organization that uses videos to shed light on human rights issues, after going to visit a friend in New York and staying on a whim. She has a degree in Contemporary Philosophy Studies and Anthropology from the University of King’s College, and this kind of thing is right up her alley.

When I first started interviewing Sara, she put on her rosy lenses.The first couple days seemed great. Her intern supervisor was “awesome” and she had free reign to do what she wanted.  “The learning experience paid off,” she said on the phone long-distance from Halifax. “I got professional experience and made personal connections.” She was even sympathetic about not being paid, saying the organization had “zero money” itself. But as our conversation continued, more colours started entering the picture.

Money: a thing?

Sara soon realized having an internship that’s unstructured as it is unpaid wasn’t necessarily a good thing. She was working for the newly developed North American chapter and her supervisor, who ended up gone traveling most of the time, barely knew what her own role was, much less what Sara should be doing.

She had access to everything: equipment, archives and attended the regular staff meetings. Though she was in charge of a section of the website, and worked on a PR video for a woman’s campaign, she still spent a lot of time wondering what to do. “I felt there wasn’t enough responsibility,” she says. “Or that everything was just a suggestion of what to do.” The rest of the time she spent wondering how to make money.

“I would spend two hours a day on Craig’s list trying to find a job,” she says. “I was trying to finish all these spreadsheets about human rights issues but I was constantly distracted and upset about money.” That week I bought her some book about how to live for pennies in New York. I probably should’ve just given her the twenty bucks.

The poor girl was completely over-worked and practically falling asleep in her salad (the only menu item she could afford) when we got together at a restaurant. She started working at her non-profit three days a week, and at either the cupcake shop or a coffee shop every other day. Free time was travel time between places. Soon after starting she cut down her hours at the non-profit to ease her mind. “It’s like people who pay cellphone bills and taxes at the office,” she says. “It weighs you personally.”

Sara also didn’t prioritize her internship in a way she would’ve if she was being paid.  “I would’ve showed up on time because it would have mattered,” she says. “If it was sunny outside, I wouldn’t show up at nine because they weren’t paying me.”

By the end of our conversation, Sara’s picture was more complex: She thinks free internships are fine, but they work best when the intern is given many clearly-defined responsibilities, or, is self-disciplined enough to create their own structure. Doing a free internship in New York was a physical impossibility for her. Only take one on if you can financially handle it, otherwise, you’re wasting time that could be spent making money.

Finally, an honorarium never hurts. At least to pay the subway there and back. “When time is money and freedom is both of those things an honorarium at least gives you monetary recognition you are helping them and they are helping you,” muses Sara, showing off that philosophical logic she paid good money to learn. “If not, it’s just confusing.” Kant would agree.

Then she looked at her phone, realized she had just spent 40 long-distance minutes speaking with me, and rushed off to her babysitting job. Time is still money, even when you’re living in Halifax with a job.

Author postscript: On the subject of internships, I should mention I’m in the later stages of landing one that would end this blog. It’s not at a newspaper, but another form of publication that I have decided has to qualify if I’m going to finish this blog before I die.

If all goes well, this blog is dunzo in a few weeks. I know. You can’t even use real paper to mop up those tears.

In the meantime, listen to these artists who agree money matters.

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Then, sit down and read this very depressing NY Times article on unemployment.

Stay tuned next week, for when my friend Emily Conner argues why free internships ain’t no thang.