The Unemployment Diaries

Free Ball part 2 (18.04.10)

Happy Sunday frenemies (you’re both my friend and enemy if you have a job. I need your help, but I hate you)!

To continue last week’s conversation about internships: to pay or not to pay, I’ve enlisted the help of Emily Conner, a good friend who dropped out of school after getting a job from her summer internship.

Her story is a contrast to last week’s tale of Sara Thaw, who almost died from exhaustion trying to pay the bills and juggle a free internship. Both stories take place in New York City, the city where you make it or get broken.

Thanks for sharing Em, and remember this little piece of promotion (I mean, fairly-balanced journalism) when you’re hanging out with the rich and the famous (read on: she actually does this!).

“I’ve actually never done an unpaid internship,” admits Emily, when I call her to talk about the subject. “I’ve always been paid at least $100 a week or something.”

One hundred bucks, which turns out was really $250 a week, still isn’t much to survive on in New York City, where typical rent is $1,000/month.

Money?

Emily loves a good internship. By the time she was 20, she’d done three. Now, at 23, Emily has worked at a publishing house, for a literary agent and an off-Broadway theatre company; all jobs she credits to one word: INTERNSHIP.

Emily and I met at King’s College, and at that time were equals: consuming the same amount of wine and philosophy. The summer after our third year of University, things started to become less even. I was waiting tables in Ottawa and Emily had traded in her sweatpants for high heels which she wore to her internship at Samuel French Publishing house in New York City.

It must be noted that Emily’s American, and therefore has the mentality that New York is just the place young people go to “make it” rather than as a place that’s really expensive, really cool, but virtually impossible to legally get work. It’s Canada’s Toronto, people. No B.D. for her.

When I called Emily during this period, it was like talking to someone in a fantasy land (apparently New Yorkers at the time thought Halifax was a fantasy land because of the recent popularity of Ellen Page). New York was always in the background: its wind blowing, horns beeping and people yelling. Everything is louder there, and I pictured Em constantly darting through traffic to a martini bar to meet sexy strangers. I don’t think I was that far off…

Though Em’s internship didn’t pay exceptionally well, she was given a lot of responsibility. She was always seeing off-Broadway plays, writing reviews, and

Ain't a thang.

deciding which scripts should be included in the company’s catalogue. I was grating parmesan onto tortellini. She never felt gyped throughout her experience, in fact, Em sees low-paid or unpaid internships as being a completely necessary part of the job-finding process (she sent me this article last week that also makes the case).

“It’s important to pay your dues and be humbled,” says Em, in her faint Boston-accent from her Brooklyn apartment. “In a job you’re paid based on skills and as an intern you don’t have those skills yet so it makes no sense to be paid.”

She admits to being lucky. Upon being hired for her internship, Em’s boss asked her about living arrangements. When she answered with a shrug, one of the girl’s working for the company took her in for cheap rent. She also admits to having been financially dependent on her parents and because of that not having to get a second job.

Still, Em doesn’t think that for people without financial support, an unpaid internship is any more unfair than having to pay tuition.

“You can make that argument about education in general,” she says. “Where expenses are exorbitant and people who are financially incapable could have more trouble succeeding.” In other words: tough balls. Make it work. Not the company’s problem.

She does say the company has a responsibility to provide interns with structured responsibilities and ample learning opportunities. They do not, however, need to provide a guarantee of hiring you after the internship is over.

“There should always be a suggestion of the possibility of getting a job,” she says. “But you have to make yourself stand out and show you’re capable. It’s not something you’re entitled to.”

She says with unpaid internships there are “abstract benefits” to take into consideration, like making connections, going to events, and getting recommendations.

After working at French for a summer, Em was hired full-time, and she never came back to Halifax to finish her degree. The next year, she was hired at William Morris Agency, a talent and literary agent in New York that represents people like David Byrne, Whoopi Goldberg, and productions like the Bronx Tale and River Dance. One time, Leo DiCaprio came in to bitch about how Sam Mendes gave Kate too much control in Revolutionary Road. Just another day at the office.

Em says without her Samuel French internship and job, she wouldn’t have ended up at William Morris. From there, after realizing she wasn’t interested in agency work, she landed a job at the Flea, an off-Broadway theatre company where she worked until last winter producing plays. There, her home-boy Leo was replaced by her home-girl Sigourney Weaver, who was involved in one of the theatre’s productions.

Now, things have come full circle and Em’s back at school taking an MFA in playwriting at Brooklyn College. She says if she ever achieves the “grand scale dream of being a successful playwright,” she’ll use her experience developing contracts for playrights at her Samuel French internship to make sure she’s raking in on the proper royalties. That’s experience you can’t buy.

Here are some songs inspired by Emily’s attitude on money:

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Stay tuned next week for a special guest contributor’s views on finding a job…