12 True Tales of Intern Abuse
I will never forget my first internship. Wracked with nerves, desperate to make a good impression, then that feeling of dread when you completely screw up. Or that feeling of entitlement, when—dammit!—you have done a great job, you've pulled off the impossible. But your only feedback was that you didn't get it done fast enough.
Often salacious, sometimes brutal, other times embarrassing, the coming-of-adult-age stories surrounding internships will always make good dinner table fodder. To celebrate Nancy Meyers' new film, The Intern, starring Robert De Niro as a 70-year-old retired widower-turned-intern, and Anne Hathaway as his strong female boss, we asked some former interns and a few of their employers to share their own entertaining, often cringeworthy first-workplace stories.
Anonymous, photographer
I was an intern for a very well-known photographer who shot big Hollywood actresses and pop stars for advertisements. He had a great rapport with his clients, and often liked to be alone with them on set. He would build a sort of makeshift fort around himself and the subject. Under no circumstances was anyone allowed to enter, unless she asked for something specific from his first assistant. One day a big actress brought her small daughter to a shoot for a beauty brand, and my girlfriend at the time was so excited when I texted her to tell her. She asked that I get a picture of them together, and I really wanted to impress her. So when I thought the photographer wasn't looking, or was distracted, I tried to reach above the fort he'd built to get a quick snap. Unfortunately for me, the thing toppled over like dominos. I fell on my face, landing next to him with my iPhone in my outstretched hand. Needless to say, my days of photography interning were over.
Anonymous, fashion stylist
I had been interning for a prominent freelance stylist for about one month when I learned that she was pregnant. The first time I ever met her, I walked into her Chinatown loft apartment and after asking me some banal questions about myself she had me book her an appointment with her gynecologist. From then on (she had no assistants, so I was basically her unpaid personal and fashion assistant), I sourced clothes, I booked travel, I secured permits, I packed, I steamed, I dropped off her dry cleaning; I helped to plan her baby shower, pick out baby clothes, deliver packages, order flowers, schedule dinner reservations, hair appointments, all of it. At her request I even rubbed her back—and on some occasions her feet—on shoots.
Then the baby arrived two days before a big shoot for Spanish Vogue, which she had no intention of canceling. Her husband rang me and asked me to come to the hospital right away to collect something. I thought it was to do with the shoot, maybe a list of things to do. (She was very old school; she barely emailed and always called, insisting I write down all her instructions as she spoke.) But it had nothing to do with the shoot. It was, in fact, her placenta, in a cooler. I was charged with taking it back to my apartment, where someone would collect it to freeze-dry into pills. I quit the next day.
Anonymous, celebrity stylist
I interned for the fashion assistants to a very well-known celebrity stylist. She had three assistants, and those assistants had six interns. I was one of them. You can imagine how much stuff slipped through the cracks. … We had no idea what we were doing, but we really tried! We worked dogged hours, sometimes 12 hours a day, sometimes more, and pretty much always on weekends. One day we were prepping for a shoot, and I was asked to pack all the clothes. My boss's favorite was a Gucci runway dress that she wanted an Oscar-nominated actress she was styling to wear, I think at the request of the PR. But in my exhausted haze, I grabbed and packed the wrong garment bag. The next day I was with two of her assistants at the shoot. I helped to unpack everything, getting it all ready to be steamed, but didn't immediately realize the Gucci dress was missing. It was only when the stylist walked in to look over everything before the actress arrived that I heard her shriek. In obscenities, she asked where the dress was. My throat dropped to my stomach, and I timidly ventured that I think I may have left it in her apartment. It all happened in an instant. She threw her coffee and bagel at me, cup and all. Then she grabbed my arm and physically pushed me out of the trailer, in front of the photographer's assistants, calling me all sorts of names, telling me to get out and to never come back.
Anonymous, art gallery
I had a successful art gallery in Brooklyn, which I had been running by myself for about a year when I decided to hire an intern on the advice of a fellow gallerist. After a few interviews, I picked a young woman who lived in the West Village and was studying at NYU. She seemed enthusiastic, presentable, and above all else, capable. But on her third day, by 1 P.M. she still hadn't shown up. I called her to ask if she was okay, and she picked up on the second ring. Dryly, with no apology, she responded: "Look, Brooklyn is just too far. I won't be coming in anymore."
Anonymous, fashion magazine
I was interning at a magazine in the editorial department where I spent most of my days perusing PerezHilton.com. For the majority of my internship, I waited to be told to go home, or I waited for one of the junior staff (who at the time I thought was the senior staff) to compliment me on my outfit. One day, I was tasked with copy editing my boss's resume! Anyway, another day she told me that some flowers were being delivered for the magazine's editor-in-chief. Think Devil Wears Prada-level fear. She told me to get the flowers, change the vase, and put the flowers in her office. And most importantly, to make sure I did not leave a water ring on her desk. DUH! So I did it. It seemed fairly easy. I made sure there was absolutely NO RING around the new vase. But while I was in the office, the head honcho walked in and asked me who I was. I don't know what came over me, but I said my name was Sara (which is my sister's name, not mine) and that I was delivering flowers. And then I knocked the flowers over.
Anonymous, literary nonprofit
I started an internship for a New York nonprofit after a move, a recent graduation, and a mega breakup. In the search for some stability, I started dating my much older boss. It was stable in the sense that I felt appreciated and had something to do on the weekends. Then, gradually, little quirks would crop up that made me wonder if I even liked this guy. Because we were sneaking around, I didn't immediately realize he was an embarrassingly bad dancer (the kind who thinks he's very good) and that he had a habit of talking down to interns after a few drinks. The real horror came after I put on Otis Redding one morning. "Try a Little Tenderness" came on, and he paused the music, saying it sounded "familiar." Then he put on whatever song it was that Jay Z and Kanye used as a sample of Otis' "na-na-na." He started subtly bobbing his head. The image still makes shudder. His bad dance moves and indiscriminate love of "hip" things (including me) was an attempt to remain relevant. Unfortunately, I wasn't young or free enough. And he wasn't stable or insightful enough.
Anonymous, fashion PR agency
My boss was obsessed with her dog so much that she treated it like her firstborn child. It would come to work every day and always received more attention than most of our clients. One of my first duties as an intern was to bring back two slices of gluten-free toast with avocado from the artisan coffee shop downstairs. I assumed this breakfast request was for my boss, but no, the request was for the (apparently very picky) pooch.
Tamara Abraham, stylist's assistant
I was the assistant to a top interiors stylist in London about 10 years ago when we had an intern "donated" from the magazine's fashion department for a big shoot. The location was the photographer's own house—a stunning open-plan living room and kitchen with glossy wooden floors. About an hour in, I realized the intern's spiky heels were creating deep pockmarks in the wood. The photographer—who ended up having to redo his floors—was horrified, my boss was mortified, and the intern was asked to work the rest of the day in a borrowed pair of socks. Who comes to work a shoot in towering heels? I think the intern had no idea she'd be packing and unpacking boxes all day.
Anonymous, fashion magazine
I'm now studying nursing because I was so scared by my fashion industry experience. I interned in the fashion closet of a prominent high-fashion magazine in the late 2000s, and was mostly ordered to run around all day dropping off and picking up bags of clothes, like a glorified bike messenger without the bike. By the end of my first week, my feet were blistered so badly they were covered in blood. I politely asked the then–fashion assistant if she knew where the Band-Aids were, but she dismissed me with: "Your feet are not my problem. Figure it out yourself."
Anonymous, fashion magazine
At the end of my internship, which I was just really grateful to have, I gave the fashion assistant I reported to a mix CD as a way to say thanks. This was when Twitter was about a year into being somewhat popular, maybe 2008. She pretty much instantly tweeted about the "embarrassing" gift she had just received from her intern (me), along with a picture of it, to further rub salt into my handbag-size wound.
Iris Smyles, 'The New Yorker'
I interned in The New Yorker's cartoon department in 1999, which I wrote about in my book Iris Has Free Time. I guess the major consequence of my internship is that I had dated three or four guys in the office and carried on in such a fashion that I didn't even dream of applying there for a job when it was time. It was sort of like when Cortes burned the ships. I had no choice but to move on. But one memory does stick out. After discovering I had locked myself out of my apartment in the middle of winter, I tried to crash in the lobby of a nearby Holiday Inn, and then a 24-hour-diner, but was kicked out of both. I decided to make my way to 4 Times Square, to the new Condé Nast building in Times Square, for which I had been given my own electronic key. Wandering into the cartoon lounge—where Bob Mankoff, the cartoon editor, met with the magazine's regular contributors every Tuesday—I slipped off my shoes, stretched out on the sofa, and settled in for a brief nap. Responsible to a fault, I first left a note on Jed's desk (he was editorial assistant to the photo editor), requesting he wake me in time for work. And in case Jed came in late, I also left a note for Emily. Emily was the assistant to Bob Mankoff, and I was the assistant to Emily, who seemed to like me despite my poor work performance. Thankfully, she woke me up a few hours later.
Anonymous, advertising agency
I had been interning at a really big ad agency, with very chic and intimidating female bosses, for about two weeks. After admiring all the outfits that the executives were wearing, the towering heels that they seemed to walk in with such powerful ease, I thought it would be a really great idea to buy a new pair of high-heel sandals, which I wanted to wear with these new white trousers. I thought they were so Bianca Jagger. At some point during my new-outfit day, while striding across the office, the hem came loose and my heel, of course, became entangled in the fabric. It all happened so fast, I flew what seemed like halfway across the room, landing on the senior art director, who was carrying a hot cup of coffee, which in turn ended up all over her pristine Celine blouse.
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