Yesterday, I went to Sheboygan to drop off the volunteer poster I had made in Eng 439 to my Eng 449 internship's Director. I'm not going to name the place, but anyone who knows me will know the placement I'm talking about. This semester, I was signed up to do a one credit placement, which is about five hours or less per week. He was happy with the poster, and delighted to have something for recruitment fairs. In the course of talking with him, however, this sentence came from him: "yeah, she didn't really work out, either." The context of the sentence is this. I had asked him if he would be interested in keeping me on for the summer, at a two credit level. That would have been five to 10 hours a week. He declined, saying he wasn't sure he had enough work, and that he wasn't sure he'd take on another intern. I asked about a project that he had wanted written at the beginning of the semester, and he stated that the other intern working on the research found some good research, but not enough for the study. Then, he made that comment.
I asked him what he meant by that, the word "either." He looked a bit shocked that I had picked up on that, and he said that he thought if he ever did this again, he'd make sure the intern came to the office once a week to "rub shoulders." Now, I offered to the point of almost being obnoxious about meeting once a week at the beginning just because of this very situation. He INSISTED that we didn't need to do that, this could all be done online, and that there was no need for me to come up to Sheboygan once a week. I told him repeatedly that I didn't mind doing that, it was part of the class, and I usually run to Sheboygan for errands anyway. But, nope, he said it wasn't necessary.
Well, apparently I am a disappointment. This is what I did in the way of projects: I wrote a goal and background statement for an Economic Impact Study. I combined, revised, reformatted, and made a table of contents for their Employee Handbook. I made two, large-format posters (22"x28") on recruitment, and I wrote the rough drafts of two grants. For the last project for them I will design two flyers, a postcard sized hand-out, and a door hanger for advertisement of their retail store. Through this whole semester, never did they say, "we want more, or we want it this way..." I had to pester them at times for things to do, and did most of the suggestions when they weren't sure what they needed done. But, I'm the disappointment.
His disappointment with the other intern (English is not her first language, so research was almost non-existent) is spilling over to me. I'm irritated at that because I worked my ass off this semester to include this internship in with my other two classes. I'm not used to being a disappointment to people because if I'm going to agree to something, I give it my all. I don't do stuff "half-way". If I don't want to do something, I will tell you. Now I know it could be said I didn't want to do the internship or document design, but in knowing I need these classes for graduation, I still gave both of them my full commitment, attention, and my "best." But, that makes me a disappointment. I'm not sure why he didn't have the guts to change the assignments and have me do the research. I'm guessing that if one of your interns is not doing what they are supposed to do, there needs to be a change.
So, I'm looking for placement for the summer. That will be two credits, and I need to find a place that will let me do a few hours after work for a couple of days per week, or one day on the weekend. Anyone need an English intern?
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