Being an intern is a lowly, menial type of work, and this is commonly accepted pretty much anywhere you look. The very word "intern" suggests a sort of timeliness, and its primary definition on dictionary.com is "to restrict to or confine within prescribed limits, as prisoners of war, enemy aliens, or combat troops ... in a neutral country..."
So I guess it makes sense that my first 6 weeks as an intern in Los Angeles were spent running errands and doing tasks solely to make other peoples' lives a little bit easier. At first this fact was pretty depressing; I mean, how often do you hope to God that somebody will send you to buy them a pack of Parliament lights? But over time I guess I've just adjusted...and it seems like most of the other interns have too.
After 6 weeks of working my ass off doing all the worst jobs in "The Biz," I have essentially earned the respect of my superiors to be given, yet again, another set of (what I hate to say are) menial tasks.
This week I've been given the dreaded tasks of covering phones, documenting receipts, and updating contact lists. Now, I say that these are dreaded, because these are the big, important things on the proverbial "production assistants' list of things to do..."
COVERING PHONES
When an executive assistant needs to take a break or calls in sick, an intern is the one who has to "cover" the assistant's desk. Though this may seem like an easy thing to do, it isn't...at all.
First off, the phone system is a confusing, illogical system that takes months of practice to be comfortable with.
Secondly, when working the phones, you're commonly dealing with important people. And when I say important, I mean that these are names which you have definitely heard, at least if you're conscious of the movie industry.
On my first go of covering phones, I was told that the "WORST CASE SCENARIO" would be for Harvey or Bob (Weinstein) to call. My boss, Derek, explained all the ins and outs of the phones--which I pretty much immediately forgot--then left for lunch. Within 2 minutes the phone rang and the caller ID read "HARVEY." After calming myself I answered the phone and was asked where Derek was. Harvey's assistant then began berating me in order to get in touch with Derek. I told the assistant that I'd call Derek. After Derek told me to tell Harvey that he was at lunch, the phone rang again, and this time it was Harvey and his assistant, demanding to know where Derek was. I calmly explained that he was out to lunch, and before too long I was off the phones and recovering...
DOCUMENTING RECEIPTS:
When an exec. takes a client out to lunch, this is technically something that the company compensates you for. So the executives give their assistants all of their corporate receipts, and the assistants give them to the interns to deal with.
The first task is organizing the receipts chronologically. Though this is extremely easy to do, it takes an hour to organize just one month of receipts. After organizing 4 months of receipts, the second task was to log the receipts into a computer, then finally to scan the receipts into the database.
UPDATING CONTACT LISTS:
The Weinstein Company and its executives have literally thousands of names in their "roladex." And each adds over 60 names to that list per year. At Cannes this year, the executives got over 100 business cards--all of which I had to log into the system.
The philosophical implications of the fact that we have to work and adjust to please others are dense, and I dont really want to go into them here. But what I will say is that there's alot to be said for menial tasks, in a training kind of way. These tasks are an easy way to gauge a person's reliability, and let the assistants know how hard one is able or willing to work.
We have yet to hear back about the Sopranos articles...but I guess that'll be in the next post...
1 comment:
You're breaking my heart! And taking me back! What a slew of emotions coming from this post for me!
In short, I hear ya. Having had several entry level jobs in various media positions including office intern, I can relate to all of what you're saying.
What I am sure you are asking yourself now, and what you really cannot know until you have gone further down the line, is whether all this use and abuse of your talents is ultimately beneficial to you.
At some level, the level my own father would surely see it at, the answer is "of course its beneficial--you're learning how the world really works and what it takes to make it." Our old friend Nietsche would knowingly chuckle something about not killing you and making you stronger.
But there is another level at which the question is much harder to answer, and that has to do with whether this is the right path for your own career and development. Since so much of what you've been doing this summer is so similar to any other fast-paced industry's menial work, its hard to know whether its really helping you or not.
The shortest answer is to say that what its really telling you is whether you're willing to be a subordinate in an industry in which shit rolls down hill because everyone above you is stressed out all the time. Not all industries are like that, but big-budget movie business is (and so is much of the independent movie world as well, unfortunately).
As such, what you're really testing this summer is whether you have the guts to hang in there when people are treating you poorly because that's the only way they know how to treat people and because they think that's the way to win respect. It's like an entire business full of Bobby Knight's, and each one of them has a folding chair with your name on it (but few of them have his track record).
From your post, it sounds like you're keeping a level head and taking the challenges with aplomb, which is the best anyone could hope to do. And who knows--perhaps the blog entries are actually helping you to collect and organize your thoughts; if so, all the better.
Keep it up--maybe next they'll let you pick up their trash! ;)
Post a Comment