So the Cod saw where Gael Greene is advertising for an intern. The burgeoning culture of internships is problematic, and as internship coordinator for my dept at my day job,* the Cod's corporeal host is part of the problem. The tricky thing with internships is that they are working for no pay, so there must be some other compensation, or it's, you know, slavery. Typically what interns get instead of money is college credit. However, college credits cost money, so in addition to working for free, the student is often on the hook for summer tuition.
In these desperate times, folks will make that bargain, even after graduation -- I've had students mad I did not sign off on "custodial internships" at Disney World, and I've read horror stories about retailers hiring "merchandising interns." However, the GG internship seems to mark a slide down a slippery slope. A good bit of what an intern gets for his or her labor is a claim on an institution -- a magazine, a website, a lawfirm, etc. The idea, not surprisingly, is that this experience will create advantages on a real employment market in the future. However, being able to say one did an internship at Us, or a university press, or Eater, or something like that, seems like a tanglible Thing that an intern can draw on. Working with an individual, less so. To her credit, GG is offering $40/day for expenses. On the downside, working for an entity that is, essentially, an individual person, seems harder to leverage as employment-worthy experience. I'm sure ol' Gael would be full of stories, but I worry that individuals less famous and fabulous than Gael Greene might follow suit, and a serf from Vassar might become the next must have thing for rich folks in NYC.
*Do you need an intern? If you have a worthwhile experience, I have a line on smart young folks w/ good manners who can write the doors off your local talent.
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