Scenes From An Internship

Author's Note: I'm working two internships this summer, this one three days a week and the other two. This one is for a documentary production company that most recently completed a film on a gay performance artist/film-maker/pothead who some consider influential. It has otherwisedistinguished itself by being located in a giant, insect-infested loft, having tarp instead of walls [even in the bathroom], having been working on an absolutely retarded printer problem for three straight days, and generally being ridiculous in the vein of my summer 2004 job.

DAY 1
10:04 A.M.
I wake up. I am to be 5.1 miles from my house in 56 minutes.

10:17
I enter taxi-cab.

10:39
I exit taxi-cab, a disgusting 21 minutes early.

10:42
I discover the disgusting, roach-infested Chinese bodega around the corner. I vow never to return.

10:59
I enter. I am greeted by the PRODUCER. He is a close talker. If this entry were presented in Smell-o-Vision, it would be time for you to leave the room.

PRODUCER: Hey! Is it Laura or Lauren?
ME: Laura.
PRODUCER: Okay, Lauren. Hey, do you like webcams?
ME: lying Sure.
PRODUCER: Great! Okay, I need a list of, like, the best ones for a project. Did you bring a laptop? No? Okay, well, here's a computer you can use.

I go to the computer. It is from 1995.

11:39
PRODUCER: So, have you got a list?
ME: Yup!
It is a beautiful list, with ratings from PCMag.com and Macworld.com, specs from the website, and both list and third-party retailer prices.
PRODUCER: Great! Do any of them run on, like, Mac OS 9?
ME: (not in so many words) Well, no, because new products ceased to be developed for that system in March 2001, when OS X was released.
PRODUCER: Um, maybe you can make a list of old ones from, like, ebay?

12:24 P.M.
ASSISTANT enters. She does not smell.

ASSISTANT: Hey, Laura, when you're done with that, I have something for you.
ME: I'm done.
ASSISTANT: Great! So, here is a 4" binder of licenses, release forms, and general legal documents. Unfortunately. the indexes don't match the contents. If you could make a new table of contents, including random legal terms you've never heard before despite both your parents being lawyers, that would be great.
ME: ... sure.

1:45
I kill myself.

2:10
I realize their lunch policy is "go out whenever." Nonetheless, I do not leave.

3:15
How long do they need me, again?

3:45
ME: Um, I'm not quite done, but... I have to go. To a doctor's appointment.
ASSISTANT: Oh, okay. Well, you can finish tomorrow. But, just so you know, we need you like, from 10-6 most days.

DAY 2
8:45 A.M.
I am awoken by a pack of gazelles.

8:47
The pack of gazelles begins to blast "Jesus Walks" in my ear from my own laptop computer.

8:48
I threaten to eat the pack of gazelles. She continues to bounce around like a 16-year-old idiot.

9:15
I repeat the process of getting a taxi-cab, somehow managing to have been late again.

9:50
I am again early. I decide to have a candy bar from that godforsaken bodega.

10:01
PRODUCER: So, you have, what, an hour on that legal thing, right?
ME: Sure.

10:04
The transfer from the PowerMac 6200 to my PowerBook G4 has caused the document to drastically reformat itself. I kill myself.

12:39 P.M.
I finish the fucking legal thing.

1:25
I return from lunch, which I took at the nice pizza place across the street.

1:39
PRODUCER: Okay, I have a SLJ for you.
ME: What?
PRODUCER: Shitty Little Job. Anyway, here's my e-mail password. I need you to go through and see all the e-mails that have gotten bounced back to me in the past while, and then delete them from my address book.

1:50
PRODUCER: Oh, hey, do you like mailing lists?
ME: Sure.
PRODUCER: Okay, we need some, like, software that can make a mailing list easy to join from online or whatever.

2:35
I finish the mailbox thing.

3:21
I start the mailing list thing.

3:45
ASSISTANT: Hey, Laura? I have a contract here for you... what name would you like if you do any credited work on a film?
ME: Laura's good.
ASSISTANT: Okay. And, you're 3 days a week? How bout Tuesday Wednesday Thursday? Can I put that down?
ME: Since I can't tell you that I have to check with my other job, I'll just tell you Sure.

4:37
PRODUCER: Hmm, all that software looks kind of expensive. Do you like BitTorrent?

4:40
I download BitTorrent.

4:55
I have searched every single popular and comprehensive torrent search site. None of them have any mailing list software, thought I do contemplate dling Photoshop.

5:05
I turn to freeware sites.

5:10
I get scared of all the coding language (I don't speak Perl) and procrastinate.

5:50
I realize I can leave in 10 minutes. I buckle down.

5:59
ME: I found the perfect software! it's even free! Should I e-mail you the link?
PRODUCER: Actually, could you try to set it up, like a trial run, and then show me?

6:34
ME: Okay, I made you a detailed How To Install document and e-mailed it to you. I tried it on my computer, and it worked fine. Please let me go.
PRODUCER: Okay. Oh, wow, it's 6:30.

7:15
I realize that I've walked so far in the wrong direction that I'm two subway stations away from the one near work.

9:30
I fall asleep on the couch. Not for a nap, like I did a bunch in college, but for reals.

DAY 3
9:40 A.M
The gazelles enter, telling me that I've been asleep for 13 hours and that I'm late.

10:34
I arrive at work, having stopped at the disgusting bodega for breakfast.

10:45
ASSISTANT: Okay, so, here's a 3" binder of inane press clippings, mostly from art magazines. Now, anything from before 2001 goes in a new binder, except for stuff about Executive Producer, who likes to see his name in print. We need a whole Excel file for this, too.

11:04
One of the "press clippings" is a picture of Britney Spears naked. I am puzzled, then realize that perhaps Assistant is as gay as Producer. N.B. both gay as in homosexual and gay as in tarded.)

11:30
PRODUCER: Hey, do you like dogs?
ME: Sure.
PRODUCER: Okay, can you walk the director's puppy? It's not raining too hard, so you could even take him to the park and like throw the stick around.

11:34
The dog poos. Luckily, I have a tissue in my pocket, so I don't break the law.

11:40
The dog drags me to a park way in the middle of Chinatown.

11:50
I drag the dog back.

12:45 P.M.
I have been done with the excel document for 30 minutes. I decide to compulsively reformat it.

1:00
The guys behind me (who have spent the past 3 days working reallllly hard on fixing the printer) come back from lunch.
GUY A: So, you like hops?
GUY B: I like all kinds. I'm like a beer connoisseur. I didn't like it in high-school, but in college I went to this German beer garden, and it was just amazing.
GUY A: Cool. ... so you like Heinken?
GUY B: A little too watery for my tastes.
GUY A: Oh, no, man, someone told me once that when they make beers for importing to America, they make 'em less than they make for their own countries.
GUY B: That makes sense.

1:05
I go to lunch.

2:12
I create a wikipedia page for the documentary. I neglect to include that it is being sued by the Village Voice guy, because I am so sick of his name (fucking legal documents binder.)

3:30
Nobody is giving me anything else to do. Of course, that may be related to the way I still have the binder of stuff open and Cmd-Tab to the Excel document every time someone passes.

4:00
I start writing this.

4:30
Either blogger is down or their printer problems have spread to their wireless internet.

4:53
They fixed the printer! Nobody, however, has fixed blogger.

5:19
Blogger comes back! Unfortunately, it comes back at the very SECOND that Assistant picks up the phone that's on the same frequency as AirPort. I consider eating my own hand.

5:28
This "old stuff" binder has their pitches, which come in Film, Gay, Fashion, Music, Theater, and Urban Culture. An excerpt from each.
FILM: "[Artist] was also among the first filmmakers to practice guerilla filmmaking. He filmed whenever and wherever he could, and made the baroque [famous movie of his] on a budget of $300 dollars."
GAY: "Ever fabulous, [Artist] inspired the glam rock movement of the 80s, chronicled in Todd Haynes's recent film Velvet Goldmine."
FASHION: "[Artist] was the originator of thrift-shop glam and glitter rock. The bold, theatrical, and glitter-infused sense of style that informed his art inspired the glam-rock movement of the 70s."
MUSIC: "[Artist]'s innovative intertwining of sound and image on stage quickly became one of the true eminent artists of the avant-garde."
THEATER: "By fusing art and theater, [Artist] predicted performance art as a genre."
URBAN CULTURE: "[Artist]'s work has come back into the spotlight, 15 years after his death of complications from AIDS."