Should Interns Be Allowed to Telecommute?

Aug.06, 2007 in A Special Guest

In the wake of Room Tone closing, the Blog of Hilarity is now home to several of the former site’s writers. Today’s guest writer is Edgar aka EP, an Intern in NYC with something to say.

It’s 11:09 a.m. Having gotten up at 6:45 this morning to make it in to work on time, I have been here, in my neatly pressed shirt and tie, for two hours and no work has been done. The one fifth of remaining tea in my paper cup has gone cold. It sits next to a retired Bic pen that has been laid to rest on a blank pad. I should be doing something productive; after all, I have been an employee here for two months. Now, of course, if I were to mention that I am an intern, this scenario would become justified. Such is the unwritten code of the intern: you have the right to be lazy. Naturally, it would seem that I have tossed myself into this category – just another lazy school kid daydreaming about his next kegstand, right?

I wish that were true, yet the sad fact is that I am a dork and I want work to do. But lately, there have only been a few tasks here and there. As a result, I spend at least five of my eight hours at work a day reading news on websites, allowing my eyes to inch ever so gently towards blindness (Gmail is blocked, so consequently, I can’t gchat the day away with my homies). Even more disheartening, I sit at an open cubicle, which means, as I have embarrassingly learned, I can’t make personal – though they may be quiet and non-offending – phone calls without people griping to my boss about my unprofessional behavior. It almost makes me wish that I had been on the phone loudly talking about scoring drugs and flagrantly throwing money at strippers. At least then we they complained with details, I could’ve made a counter claim about my co-workers infringing on my privacy.

In any case, no matter how you slice it, offices suck. Yes, I am aware that this is a joke that continues to be beat into the ground, but that does not make it any less true. Something about the environment steals a piece of your soul: conference calls you pretend to listen to and care about while you draw hearts and/or your name in bubble letters, outlook accounts that get full with notices from other departments about Team spirit or about how your work needs clarification, windfalls of paper clips. I like to imagine that there’s an office king with a Scrooge McDuck-like money vault and instead of diving and swimming in money, he’s swimming in paper clips and highlighters.

I realize that this is supposed to a valuable experience. I’m getting a chance to lay the foundation for when I get out into the “real world.” Network young man, network! All the same, part of me feels like I can get this work done from home – f*ck networking. And if I got to telecommute, then I could catch those episodes of Maury where they do the paternity testing (“Yes!! I’m not the father! Face!”). I could walk around in my PJ’s, eat cereal at 11:09 a.m. (see where I’m going with this?) and still get the same sh*t done. The only difference is that I would enjoy it more, and I wouldn’t have to stand – not sit – on a train for an hour each morning amid hobos and absentee fathers in order to get that quality job experience.

In my city – NYC – Mayor Bloomberg has made it a priority to encourage more people to telecommute. Well, I salute you Mr. Mayor for your efforts. Just be sure to keep interns in the loop. – EP.