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0:28

Hi everyone, I'm Anne Helen Peterson

0:31

and this is Work Appropriate. Of

0:51

all the positions you can have in a workplace, intern

0:54

is one of the most vulnerable. In part because

0:56

the position itself is often so

0:59

poorly defined. Like, what are

1:01

you supposed to do? What are you responsible

1:03

for? Who's responsible for you? Do

1:06

you have a future at the company? Do you definitely

1:08

not have a future at the company? Are

1:10

you even getting paid?

1:13

We have questions about how to navigate

1:15

those experiences today, but we also

1:17

have questions from the other side of the employment

1:19

relationship. People who work with interns

1:22

and want to know how to make the experience better

1:24

for everyone.

1:26

To answer these questions, I wanted someone who's

1:28

been an intern, obviously, but

1:31

who also thinks interns are great, and

1:33

then does exactly what I described above,

1:36

tries to make the intern

1:37

experience better for everyone.

1:43

My name is Alice Wilder. I'm a podcast producer

1:45

and I write a newsletter with Transom called

1:47

Starting Out that is for aspiring

1:49

podcasts and radio makers. So,

1:52

how did Starting Out start

1:54

out? Sorry. So,

1:57

no, absolutely fair. started

2:00

writing it in 2017 when I was an intern.

2:02

And I realized that like,

2:04

with a lot of things, you have institutional

2:06

knowledge, like at my college newspaper,

2:08

you would like sit next to, you know, the editor and

2:10

watch them edit. And then the next year, maybe you would have

2:13

that job. And there were ways to

2:15

get that institutional knowledge. But with an internship,

2:17

the person who spent the last few months getting

2:20

the lay of the land, learning all these things was gone

2:22

by the time you got hired. And

2:24

so I was like, I wish there was a way to

2:26

like, build a knowledge base of

2:29

institutional knowledge. And the other

2:31

part of the origin story is that I did not go

2:33

to journalism school. And I learned after

2:35

graduating,

2:36

the J school had an internal listserv

2:39

of like internships and job postings. And

2:42

I was like, Oh my gosh, I was hearing about

2:44

these internships after they had been announced that

2:46

like certain people got hired. And I was like, if I

2:48

had known that existed, I would have applied. But turns out

2:50

there's the secret network. I didn't

2:53

know when I was 18 that I wanted to do this, I just

2:55

didn't have access. So I was like, I wonder if I could figure

2:58

out a way to recreate that, but like anyone

3:00

could have access to it. Yeah. I mean,

3:02

this is so valuable because I

3:05

personally feel like

3:06

part of the reason I went to grad school is because

3:09

I had no idea how to like do

3:11

things like get an internship or

3:14

even get a job and was so

3:16

terrified of the prospect that I

3:19

saw grad school as like a straighter path.

3:22

Like it somehow grad school was an

3:25

easier path than getting an internship.

3:27

I also graduated in 2003 from

3:29

undergrad. And back then internships

3:32

were a

3:34

totally different game. Like it just wasn't the same sort

3:37

of like, everyone gets an internship, everyone

3:39

has internships in the summer, that sort of thing, particularly

3:42

where I went, which was a small liberal arts college.

3:44

It was more like, of course you're going to grad

3:46

school. But I

3:48

think that anything that can

3:51

make what is oftentimes privileged

3:53

institutional knowledge, like this

3:56

listserv, make that accessible to

3:58

people who don't necessarily have the

3:59

those doors open to them. That is so

4:02

fantastic. I love it, and I hope

4:04

anyone who is interested in this, even, you know,

4:06

I actually think it would be a great idea to subscribe

4:09

even if you're not interested in getting into podcasting,

4:12

because it shows you a model

4:14

of what this could look like. So if anyone in

4:16

their own industries are trying to figure out how

4:19

can we open the doors wider, it's

4:21

really awesome.

4:22

I mean, thank you so much. Each issue has

4:24

an interview with a radio

4:26

or podcast person, but then there's also a resource

4:29

guide. And there's some that are really like

4:31

applicable to anything, like, you know, how to have

4:33

a difficult conversation with your manager, or like,

4:35

what is a union? How do I start one? What

4:37

should I know about, you know, how a union might

4:39

change my job? There's

4:41

things that are like applicable outside of

4:43

just like nitty gritty podcast

4:45

kind of stuff. Totally. And a lot

4:47

of that stuff, you know, we get these questions for the podcast

4:50

a lot are,

4:51

I don't know who to ask about like,

4:54

how do I have a conversation with my manager? Especially

4:57

like maybe your peers are in very different fields.

5:00

When I

5:01

was, like my peers

5:03

were like, someone was a waiter and

5:05

someone was a ski instructor and someone was

5:07

working in a nonprofit. Like it wasn't necessarily

5:11

knowledge that could be like spread across my

5:13

friend group, but something like that would

5:15

have been really useful. An early internship

5:18

I had had something amazing, which was

5:20

an intern doc. It was a Google doc where

5:22

I think it was restricted only for the interns.

5:24

So every intern would like write their notes and observations

5:28

on like how things worked, advice,

5:31

even like here's how to deal with this person

5:33

who might be a little require some extra.

5:37

It was wild. I got it. And I was like, I'm

5:39

getting this trove of information from all these generations

5:41

of interns. And I was like, man, I wish.

5:43

I mean, of course there's potential for that to go wrong, but like

5:46

it was really cool to be like, oh, I have this

5:48

institutional knowledge of all these people who came before

5:50

me. Yeah, I would be like, okay,

5:53

how can you make this document

5:55

so that no one can tell who actually wrote, right?

5:58

Like that you can't look at the revision history.

5:59

straight as huge.

6:02

Because otherwise what it is doing is it's,

6:05

again, making accessible information that was

6:07

often spread through like whisper networks, right? Like

6:09

things in person. And

6:12

especially now that so many work

6:14

scenarios are hybrid or totally remote,

6:18

that sort of thing takes the place of like, oh,

6:21

I went to coffee with this person and they told me how things

6:23

work. Yeah, totally.

6:25

So tell me about your experience as an intern

6:27

and or your experience

6:29

working with interns. My first internship

6:32

was extremely unique. I started working

6:35

for a podcast that's based in Durham called Criminal.

6:37

At the time, it was just the host Phoebe Judge

6:39

and the producer Lawrence Bohr. And so I was

6:42

like, this is not a typical internship

6:44

experience. And it was amazing. I think they

6:47

really set like an amazing standard for me

6:49

because I at the time was like,

6:51

I'm so grateful to do this, I would do it for free. And

6:53

they were like, oh, girl, we're

6:55

paying you we're paying you $15 an hour. And

6:59

they were like interested in my

7:01

ideas or like questions that I had

7:03

about I was transcribing interviews like by hand, pre

7:06

AI transcription, and they would say like, highlight

7:08

stuff that you thought was interesting. And I was like, Oh, they

7:10

care about what I think or like, I

7:13

remember Phoebe telling me like, I have

7:15

done every single

7:16

part of this job,

7:18

like I've done like she's she's done the shit

7:20

work. She's done the like high level stuff.

7:22

And so it was a tone of like, I will never

7:25

ask you to do something that I wouldn't do and

7:27

or haven't done myself and like understand,

7:30

you know, what that means. So it really likes

7:32

that amazing baseline for me of like,

7:34

Oh, this is how this is how you treat

7:36

other people. And this is how like, what it means

7:38

to be mentored in this way. It's

7:41

so fascinating because I think sometimes you

7:43

have people in charge of interns who

7:45

have never been an intern themselves,

7:47

or who had a horrible

7:50

experience as an intern, and think,

7:52

my job is to reproduce that experience

7:55

for my intern as a sort of like hazing

7:57

experience,

7:58

instead of

8:00

How can I make this internship experience

8:02

like the best possible scenario? How

8:04

can I not give the intern the sort of work that

8:07

I personally

8:09

resented with like a fiery passion,

8:11

right? Like just such like grunt, boring

8:14

work. Or if they're

8:16

doing that sort of work, like say transcription,

8:19

which is really difficult and tedious

8:21

work. How can I make it more interesting

8:24

by saying, tell us what you find really

8:26

interesting about it? When I started working

8:28

for them, I didn't even think I wanted to be, I thought I was

8:30

gonna be a social worker. But when I

8:32

transcribing those interviews, it

8:34

was like listening to how Phoebe interviewed

8:36

that made me interested in this world

8:39

and this job. Cause I was like, oh, like I see

8:41

she asked that question three different ways until the person

8:43

kind of would answer it. Or like, I

8:46

wonder why she took the thing in this direction. It's

8:48

interesting how she approached this sensitive question. I was like,

8:50

had this idea of like, oh, whoa, I wanna

8:53

debrief and ask like, why did you put this thing

8:55

in? And they were like so down for that. So it

8:57

was a good lesson that like, definitely there's work

8:59

that's not glamorous, but yeah, you can like,

9:02

I think if you understand the reason behind it

9:04

and are really excited

9:06

about the work, which I was, it's fun.

9:09

Of course I've had intern tasks that I've just like truly

9:11

did

9:11

not wanna do and I just had to do them and like whatever.

9:14

Well, and that's like every job, right? Like

9:16

every job there are aspects of it that you really do not

9:18

wanna do. But if you can make it

9:22

into a mix of things, which is what

9:24

like an ideal job should be because being an intern

9:27

is being a worker. It is a different

9:29

introductory level of

9:32

work, but it is still like being a

9:34

worker and the more that we can try to make that

9:36

experience into something that is not exploitative,

9:39

something that is a learning process, all

9:42

those different things. So, okay, we have really

9:45

great questions from people either

9:48

who are seeking internships, trying to figure out

9:50

how to make their internship better, all sorts of things.

9:53

The first one comes from someone who is

9:55

also named Anne.

9:57

My manager asked me to handle the intern

9:59

program. at our large nonprofit,

10:01

where I work in a small research department. Previously

10:04

to this role, I've supervised many an

10:06

intern in several different jobs I've had, so

10:08

I was very excited to take it on. However,

10:11

it soon became clear to me that she didn't want

10:13

to give them meaningful work or invest even

10:15

in a weekly group meeting where we discussed journal

10:18

articles, what I called Journal Club. I

10:20

didn't ask her to join us. I offered

10:23

that she could, but she made it clear that she thought

10:25

it was a waste of my time

10:26

and her time. There seems to be

10:28

nothing substantial beyond small menial

10:31

tasks for the interns, and we don't

10:33

even need that much help with those things. If

10:35

we're not going to have a robust experience for

10:38

them, what is the point of having interns? I

10:40

should mention it's a 100% remote workplace,

10:43

and we don't pay them, yet we still

10:45

get many inquiries about interning for our

10:47

organization. Am I wrong to

10:49

assume we don't have need for interns and

10:52

can't appropriately support them? And

10:54

how can I convince my boss that interns

10:57

need more?

10:57

All right, so before we get into answering

11:00

this question, I want to ask you, what are your

11:03

criteria for a good internship?

11:06

Oh, that's a great question. It does

11:08

need to be paid.

11:09

Absolutely. The point

11:11

of having an intern is not having someone to do the

11:13

work that you don't want to do. I don't want this

11:15

to sound condescending because I don't mean it that way, but

11:17

I think that interns are your future coworkers.

11:20

And so you should think of it as an opportunity to be like,

11:22

how can I support and

11:25

teach people who may

11:27

one day be my coworkers or my bosses or something

11:29

like that? They should be getting something out of the experience

11:32

concretely that isn't just a line on

11:34

a resume. They should be able to

11:37

actually gain something from that experience.

11:39

I think a lot about the fact

11:41

that the internship has

11:44

gradually replaced what

11:46

was, at least in fields like

11:48

ours, like journalism and other, quote

11:51

unquote, knowledge type jobs,

11:53

it has replaced the apprenticeship. Right.

11:56

Like you still have apprenticeships in so many other fields.

11:59

And also you have.

11:59

companies that understand if

12:02

we want people to come work for us, we have to invest

12:04

in their education and we're gonna like pay them while they're

12:06

learning and all that sort of thing.

12:08

But companies, especially like nonprofits,

12:11

anything that's like a passion job, they're like, oh,

12:13

well, we don't have to pay these people to come work here. We

12:16

have an abundance of people who

12:18

will come work here. So what if we call

12:20

it an internship, pay

12:22

them less or nothing at all.

12:24

And then in that process, I

12:27

think it oftentimes these positions have

12:29

shed that identity of like, these are your

12:32

future coworkers. Yeah. And like the fact

12:34

that there are oftentimes, not always,

12:36

but oftentimes attached to

12:38

college

12:38

credit and that sort of thing, right? Like that

12:41

makes it so sometimes people are taking

12:43

them without the intention

12:45

of

12:46

aspirationally becoming someone's future

12:48

coworker. Yeah. So it's on both sides.

12:50

We have this like alienation from the original

12:53

purpose. And

12:55

I can just see the scenario that this question

12:57

asker is in where like probably

13:00

this nonprofit that they work for is

13:02

prominent in some way, nationally

13:04

or locally.

13:05

Like people know it. And so when they think

13:08

of, oh,

13:09

I should like ask around to see if there are

13:11

internships, that's one of the places

13:13

where they send an inquiry. And

13:15

then this organization doesn't

13:18

have any of the infrastructure to

13:21

support or pay these people.

13:24

And they say, yes. So why

13:26

is this organization saying yes? Like why are they taking

13:28

on these interns? I don't know. This is

13:30

okay. I like I wrote up notes when I was looking at

13:32

these questions. And one of the questions I had is like,

13:34

what is the origin of this internship program?

13:36

Right. Did someone just like was there

13:38

a meeting with execs where one of them said we should have interns

13:41

and then like they just did that or like what

13:43

is their goal behind this? Are they trying to foster

13:46

new talent or do they just want to have

13:48

interns? I have a totally

13:50

unsubstantiated theory, but I think oftentimes

13:53

these programs get

13:54

started because someone's

13:56

relative wants an internship.

14:00

And then so high up, right? And

14:02

then they're like, oh, we should have interns

14:05

so that this person can have an internship. And

14:07

then especially if this person's in a place of power, then

14:11

maybe they also have the sort of privileges that

14:13

make it possible so that they do not need to

14:15

be paid for that internship. And

14:18

then you get this legacy internship program

14:21

that has no purpose, no

14:23

intention, no structure, and

14:25

no pay.

14:26

Yeah. Not

14:30

something I would recommend applying for. Right.

14:33

And then you have someone else who's handling it too,

14:36

who may like this person seems like they're really trying

14:38

to make this into something that's meaningful.

14:41

I have like concrete ideas for this person,

14:43

which is like, could you have

14:46

it be a monthly meeting? Like

14:48

if the person above you thinks weekly, is there

14:50

a problem that it's too frequent? Or

14:53

is the problem that you're discussing journal articles? Like

14:55

could you do a monthly meeting where maybe the thing

14:57

that's

14:57

being discussed is more like closely linked to the mission

14:59

of the organization? Like I know that

15:03

marketplace where I work, interns do like a regular

15:05

brown bag where they get to like meet people from different

15:07

parts of the organization, learn how

15:09

different parts of the organization work. And there's like a concrete

15:12

mission related thing that's

15:14

happening where

15:14

like someone will come away understanding like

15:17

how we do a membership drive, for example.

15:20

Could they propose something like that? This

15:23

isn't solving the core problem of like, I don't

15:25

think you should have interns probably if you can't

15:27

pay them, but like as a stopgap,

15:29

like maybe that is something that that person could implement

15:32

to like add a little bit of value for the interns.

15:35

I think my advice for this person who

15:37

seems like if she's previously supervised

15:39

many an intern in several different jobs,

15:42

she's probably middle, maybe

15:44

like slightly senior, right? Like she's been there

15:46

for a while. She has a modal come of power. I

15:48

think it might merit a conversation as

15:50

to whether or not this is a program that we want to sustain.

15:53

And you can really say manager. I'm not saying

15:56

you need to take this on, but if we want to keep having

15:58

these interns,

15:59

it seems like

15:59

like we should for the benefit

16:02

of our organization and potential

16:04

future co-workers or potential future

16:06

workers in the field

16:08

at large, if we're not paying

16:10

them, we should at least pay them in knowledge.

16:12

Yeah. We should at least pay them in some sort of

16:14

experience. And if we can't do that,

16:17

then I think that it is a disservice

16:20

to both the people who apply for these internships

16:23

and to this person who's the supervisor.

16:25

Yeah. To have this program at all. And

16:28

I know that's a much harder conversation than

16:31

how do I convince my

16:33

boss that this is serious. I think

16:35

having the actual, do we need

16:37

to have this conversation is a

16:40

higher level thing, but also seems necessary

16:42

in this scenario. Yeah. If

16:45

you can't afford to pay interns, you can't afford to have interns, is

16:47

my opinion. Yes. This

16:49

is okay. I wrote

16:52

a piece a while ago that's like, if you can't pay

16:54

your workers a living wage, then

16:57

maybe your business model is broken.

16:59

My house is kind of a mess right now. And I

17:01

would love to hire a cleaning service

17:03

to come do a deep clean. I can't

17:05

afford that right now. So my

17:08

house is a little messy and I'm dealing with it. It's

17:10

all labor. What makes this really

17:12

different on a concrete level? Yeah. Since

17:15

we're talking about a nonprofit too, there's this understanding

17:17

that if you work at a nonprofit, then you

17:19

have a partner who's making the quote unquote real

17:21

money. And if you have a non-paying internship,

17:24

you're also setting up that expectation

17:26

that like this person has

17:29

to come

17:29

from privilege in some capacity to work

17:32

in this nonprofit.

17:33

And so if that's what your organization

17:35

stands for, it's

17:38

worth taking a stand against that

17:40

in some capacity. So our

17:43

concrete advice is I think have the hard conversation.

17:47

Do you have any other concrete advice here?

17:49

If for whatever reason they want to

17:51

continue to have interns and

17:54

that hard conversation doesn't work out, then like

17:56

figure out a way that you can

17:58

whatever is in your power.

17:59

to

18:01

give something of benefit to the interns, whether

18:04

that is like networking opportunities, exposure

18:06

to other parts of the program. Like the idea

18:08

of discussing journal articles isn't bad, but I

18:10

think that connecting it to something that will like actively

18:12

help them get their next job is

18:14

like the most helpful thing.

18:16

If the manager is like, this is a waste of your

18:18

time, but you've decided that it isn't a waste of your

18:20

time, like you've decided this is a way to mentor

18:23

people who are not getting paid

18:25

anyway, then

18:26

screw the manager, right? Like who cares

18:28

what she thinks about this? It's

18:31

like she gave you the job, she delegated you the job. Now

18:33

do what you want with it. So those are the two

18:35

options.

18:36

I think. ["The

18:55

["It's human nature to be comfortable."

19:12

["It's human nature to be comfortable." ["Think about

19:14

it." ["After a long day of tasks and to-do

19:17

lists, ["what's better than shutting off ["and

19:19

entering your comfort zone?" ["Whatever comfort

19:21

looks like for you, ["Canada Dry can help

19:23

take you there." ["With its refreshing ginger taste,

19:26

["reperiv is just a sip away." ["Whether

19:28

you're sinking into your favorite chair, ["putting

19:30

on your comfiest pants ["or silencing

19:32

the group chat." ["With Canada Dry by your side,

19:35

["comfort just feels better."

19:38

["Sip into your comfort zone with Canada Dry."

19:43

["It's human nature to be comfortable."

19:49

["All right, our next question comes from an actual

19:51

intern ["who wants to make the most of her experience.

19:53

["This is from Aaron, and our producer Melody is

19:55

going to read it.] ["I'm an intern and am wanting

19:57

my boss to take me more seriously.

19:59

What's a good way to have this conversation?

20:02

I want them to see me more as a prospective

20:04

employee and not a recent college graduate.

20:07

All right, so practically, how

20:10

common is the intern

20:12

to employee pipeline?

20:14

I can only speak to my

20:17

industry and it definitely

20:19

happens, but I don't think it's a guarantee

20:22

anywhere. Like I've met plenty of

20:24

people who are currently working

20:26

at a place where they had an internship, but

20:29

I never take it as a given that you're gonna

20:31

get hired. And I know people who've worked

20:33

for,

20:34

they get an incredibly prestigious fellowship

20:37

because that's what you call it when it's prestigious. It's

20:39

not an internship, it's a fellowship. Don't

20:41

get me started. Anyway,

20:44

at publications that I

20:46

won't name here, but there's not a guarantee,

20:48

right? Maybe one or two people

20:51

get hired out of a class of 30 or 40 interns.

20:55

And so I think instead of trying to turn

20:57

this into like Lord of the Flies, like you have to think

20:59

of it as in a slightly different way. Okay,

21:02

but that's just big picture talking.

21:05

I think it's worthwhile to think about

21:07

how an intern can

21:09

shift that thinking or

21:11

work to influence that thinking with

21:14

people who are senior to them. So do you have some advice

21:16

here? Yes, I have two pieces

21:18

of advice. One of them is to just talk

21:21

to your manager and tell them what you want. I

21:23

think that this is a super underrated tool in

21:25

the workplace, which is just direct communication. And

21:29

I learned this when I was

21:31

an associate producer and a contractor,

21:33

because I was like, oh, how do I get, how do

21:35

I stay in the building is the term that people used

21:37

for like getting hired. And it turns

21:39

out the answer is just tell people, I want to

21:41

stay here.

21:42

Do you have any friends at work who are hiring?

21:45

I really love working here, I'd like to stay

21:47

here. Like say that, they

21:49

might not know. They might think that you have a bunch of other

21:52

stuff lined up or you're going to grad school or anything

21:54

else. So just tell them what you want. And

21:56

then the other piece of advice I got from Tobin

21:58

Lowe, who's like an incredible. like podcast,

22:01

host, editor, producer, everything.

22:04

And his advice is just to like on the

22:06

small tasks that you get, the like work

22:08

that you don't relish doing, do

22:11

a really good job at it, turn it in on time.

22:13

And like, if you can consistently show that

22:15

you are doing like an excellent job at your work, you

22:17

will be given more responsibility over

22:20

time. I understand the frustration

22:22

of like, I don't want to do this thing on

22:24

WordPress. I wanna be like reporting and

22:26

investigating or doing, organizing

22:29

this big event and XYZ. But like the reality

22:31

is the way that you build trust with your manager

22:34

is by just being consistent, which doesn't

22:36

mean like not asking for help or that you can't

22:38

make a mistake, but like being reliable

22:40

and consistent, I think it was a really, really long

22:42

way. Also as an intern,

22:45

maybe have a little bit of empathy for

22:47

your supervisor who has had a lot of other interns,

22:50

right, and maybe who has had

22:52

an experience in the past where they have

22:55

delegated a responsibility and it has not gone

22:58

well. Maybe because the person just wasn't

23:00

in the place to do that work,

23:02

didn't have enough experience, like all sorts of things,

23:04

right? So maybe their understanding

23:06

of like the way I get to this place of trust

23:09

where I will give this person more

23:11

work, like the sort of work that is more like a coworker

23:14

is gradually. And so

23:17

long as it's not like insulting, I

23:19

think that your point is such an excellent

23:21

one that

23:23

if you can do the work that you are given in

23:25

a really excellent manner, that is the way that you

23:27

gradually expand the amount of trust. It's

23:30

almost like, I don't mean this to

23:32

sound like infantilizing, but I think about

23:34

when my mom would let me stay home alone and

23:37

it was like, oh, you didn't burn down the house

23:39

for a half an hour. You didn't burn down

23:41

the house for two hours, right? Or

23:43

like you didn't get in a massive fight with your brother

23:46

and like throw food at each other for

23:48

three hours and that expands

23:50

the amount of trust and responsibility that you're given.

23:53

Yeah,

23:54

totally. It's really frustrating when you're

23:56

like super hungry and you just wanna be doing

23:58

more stuff. And I think.

23:59

saying like, here are my

24:02

goals for this internship. I'd really like to do

24:04

XYZ, letting people know this

24:06

is what I'm working towards and like what are tasks that

24:08

I can take on that will get me towards this goal, whether

24:11

it's getting hired or like anything else in your job.

24:13

And I also think that we can empathize

24:17

with that feeling of being out of college

24:19

and like maybe in college, like you were

24:22

such an over-achiever and you killed it

24:24

and you were given so many opportunities to

24:26

excel and then you graduate and

24:28

you're just at the bottom,

24:29

right? And everyone is- You're just describing to

24:32

you right now, this is real. Everyone is treating

24:34

you like you have the skills of

24:36

a middle schooler and you're like, but

24:39

I was Magna Cumore, like how dare

24:41

you? And

24:44

that's hard, it is really hard, but also

24:46

I think it's hard to hear this advice,

24:49

but I think it's a useful

24:51

experience to remember how

24:54

to go back to basics and do things with

24:56

skill and precision and confidence. It's

24:58

so humbling, I really, I had

25:00

a tough time with that.

25:02

And I think that another key to that is having

25:04

friends who are also interns or who are in a similar

25:06

place in their career because in the

25:08

workplace, obviously you have to be

25:11

professional, quote unquote and all this other stuff,

25:13

but it's also important to have a group chat or community

25:15

where you can be like,

25:16

I feel like I messed every single thing up today, a

25:19

place to like allow that disappointment

25:22

or insecurity and a space where

25:24

you can discuss

25:24

that, that feels safe is like

25:26

life changing.

25:28

So sometimes people that have a lot

25:30

of other interns at their organization, but

25:32

like, do you have any advice for if you're one

25:34

of just a handful of interns or maybe the only intern,

25:37

how people can find that larger intern

25:39

community?

25:40

Yeah, if you know one person, think

25:42

a bit like,

25:44

I guess this is a little bit journalism specific,

25:46

but I would think about it, like you're reporting

25:48

something out. So like every time I interview someone, I

25:50

end the call with like, is there anyone else who I should

25:52

talk to about this? And you can like kind

25:55

of do that socially too. Be like, do you have any

25:57

other, like who else should I meet? Who else should I connect

25:59

with? or ask your manager, are there any

26:01

former interns you think I should talk to? Think

26:04

about it like you're building a little

26:06

web and

26:07

each person can connect you to something else.

26:10

That is so smart, former

26:12

interns that I should talk to. That is so smart.

26:15

You get the name of one person and then that opens

26:17

up a whole window

26:20

too. Also search on LinkedIn to see if you can find

26:22

someone who's in the internship. Yes, that's a great tip. Our

26:26

next question is about who can afford

26:28

to take an unpaid internship. This is

26:30

from Lisa. I work in a large behavioral

26:32

health nonprofit and I'm interested in

26:35

the ethics of paying interns. Generally,

26:38

we invest a lot of time into their training

26:40

and supervision and

26:41

they aren't producing much work that benefits

26:43

the organization until maybe the last few

26:45

months of their tenure. But I'm

26:48

also aware that many folks can't

26:50

afford to engage in 15 or 20 hours per week of

26:53

unpaid work, so it limits who even

26:55

applies. This certainly has some

26:57

systemic components in terms of what school

26:59

programs, some of whom are

27:01

for profit, pass on to the community

27:03

sector. How can we support

27:05

a diverse intern program while being responsible

27:08

stewards of limited resources? Oof,

27:11

duh.

27:11

All right. One

27:15

of the things you do in your newsletter is to post-enternship

27:17

opportunities but only paid ones.

27:20

Yes. Why do you have that policy?

27:22

I don't think anyone should work

27:24

for free. I also think that when

27:27

you have a system where people work for free, like

27:29

this question-asker asked, it either limits

27:31

it to people who can

27:33

afford to do that or it makes people

27:35

do additional

27:36

jobs on top of maybe school

27:39

and the internship that they're doing, which is

27:41

like burnout. It's exhausting. It

27:43

is not a way that

27:45

people should really have to live in order

27:48

to afford to work for free. Yeah.

27:51

There are programs that

27:53

essentially pay you in terms

27:55

of you get college credit for it. You

27:58

can take out student loans to take out student loans.

27:59

take the class

28:01

and then the class is an internship. I

28:04

had a lot of students who had these sorts of scenarios

28:06

when I was at University of Texas.

28:09

And it always struck me as like an ad

28:11

hoc solution to this problem. It

28:13

was like, oh, well, how do we get these organizations

28:16

to participate in the program? We

28:18

make it so that they don't have to pay their interns.

28:20

And how do we make it so that our

28:22

students can work there? We

28:25

set it up as a class so

28:27

that they can take out student loans to be able to do it.

28:30

So yeah, what do you think of that, Sarah? It

28:32

makes me queasy. I mean,

28:34

I did one of those when I was in college. I

28:36

did social media for our rape

28:39

crisis center. I will say

28:41

I went to a big state

28:42

public school and was lucky

28:44

enough, privileged enough to not have student

28:46

loans. But the way that that was set

28:49

up was it was the, I'm pretty sure the

28:51

class was like once a week. And then the rest of

28:53

the class hours were like the internship. So

28:55

it had the benefit of not

28:57

being on top of however

29:00

many hours a week of class. But I think

29:02

I approached it at the time as like, well, this is just

29:04

what I have to do to get my degree. I'm

29:06

not a fan, but I also understand that

29:08

if you need to graduate and get a degree,

29:11

like you don't really have much of a choice than to

29:13

take an internship like that. So

29:15

she mentions in the question that

29:17

she works for a large behavioral

29:19

health nonprofit. What

29:22

do you think about if they can't

29:24

afford to pay the number of interns that they

29:26

have

29:27

and that maybe they have fewer interns

29:30

and they pay those interns? I think sometimes

29:32

there's like this question of, well,

29:34

we want more people to have access to our internship

29:37

program, but we can't pay all of them. So

29:39

we're just gonna make it unpaid.

29:41

But then you're reproducing those same inequalities

29:44

because it's probably, you get a lot of applicants, but it's

29:46

like all white and or privileged

29:48

applicants.

29:49

Maybe they could get creative and say like,

29:52

okay, we can put

29:54

aside this much money towards paying interns. Is there

29:56

another source for funding? I

29:58

know some universities will have a fund. people can apply

30:00

for if they want to do an unpaid internship

30:03

they can't afford to, they can get funding

30:05

from some type of endowment or a donor

30:07

or something like that that can say, I want

30:10

to support this program, I want to train more

30:12

people to do this work, and so let's

30:15

build a pot of

30:15

money that can go towards supporting

30:17

these interns. The thing

30:19

that really jumped out at me in this question

30:22

is the idea of are the interns producing

30:24

something of value to the organization? Yeah,

30:27

right.

30:28

I just feel like

30:30

the purpose of an internship isn't for

30:32

the intern to produce labor

30:34

for

30:35

the organization. I think that it should

30:37

be a mutual exchange. This

30:39

comes back to the thing of you're training your future

30:42

coworkers. It should be a two-way

30:44

street, and I also think it's worth examining how

30:46

do you define producing something of value?

30:49

Because I think there's a lot of

30:51

quote-unquote soft skills that

30:53

someone could get from an internship that are actually extremely

30:56

valuable. I

30:58

wouldn't devalue that saying that

31:01

maybe the report that they're writing up doesn't come until two-thirds

31:04

of the way through, but I

31:05

don't think that that's the end of the story in terms of

31:07

is it worth having interns. Right.

31:10

Also, she does mention that they are producing

31:12

work that benefits the organization in

31:14

the last few months of their tenure, so they

31:16

are actually producing work that benefits

31:19

the organization and not getting paid

31:21

for that work.

31:22

When you start a new job, for

31:24

the first few months of your new job, you are also

31:27

not producing work that is necessarily benefiting

31:30

your organization for some time. It makes

31:32

sense that this isn't the case for these interns. I

31:35

think that this person is really thinking,

31:38

is contemplating what are the ethics

31:40

of all of this. This is something that sticks

31:43

in the back of my head, and I think about it

31:45

from time to time, but I also feel like

31:48

some ambivalence about it. I think

31:50

what we're here to say is that if

31:52

it's unpaid, it's reproducing inequalities. Yes. Full

31:55

stop. Yes. And so

31:57

either you want to address that or...

32:00

that's something that you decide

32:03

as an organization, like we are okay with producing

32:05

those inequalities. We are okay

32:07

with being party to that.

32:09

And that sounds bleak or

32:12

harsh, but it's the reality.

32:15

And so either you figure out a

32:17

solution to that, regardless

32:19

of what the interns

32:20

produce and

32:22

how it contributes to the bottom line, or

32:24

you live with the reality.

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33:18

Our last question is from Tabitha, and our colleague

33:20

Ashley is going to read it. I work

33:22

in an art museum, an industry

33:24

that has had a long history of unpaid

33:27

internships and requires a lot of

33:29

experience, connections, and often

33:31

expensive graduate degrees, even

33:34

for entry-level positions. Lately,

33:36

I have been asked to meet with interns to discuss

33:39

my own career trajectory and share advice.

33:41

How do I support current unpaid interns

33:44

and advocate for changes in my workplace

33:46

that will move away from unpaid internships

33:49

while also acknowledging the ways my own

33:51

career has benefited from being in the privileged

33:53

position to accept unpaid and underpaid

33:56

internship and fellowship positions as a college

33:59

and graduate student?

34:00

It feels hypocritical to tell student interns

34:03

not to accept these positions, but at the same

34:05

time, I firmly believe everyone

34:08

should be fairly compensated for their work.

34:10

All right, so part of me wants

34:12

to say like, tell these people how

34:14

conflicted you feel. Yep. Tell

34:17

them how

34:18

weird and horrible it is to like

34:20

understand that the way that you got there

34:23

was by taking a path that you think is inequitable.

34:26

This person is not being a hypocrite. I think that this

34:28

person is like reflecting on what they've learned over the

34:30

past however many years, which is good. It's

34:32

another endorsement of like direct communication

34:35

in the workplace. That's what I'm endorsing

34:37

that like, tell those interns what you

34:39

just told us. Here's what my experience

34:41

was. Here are the issues I see with it.

34:43

Now at the end of the day, I got to where

34:46

I am.

34:47

And I would really like to see things change and

34:49

like be honest with them and then

34:51

do as much as you can to advocate for them. That's

34:53

like all you can really do. Well, and this is the second

34:56

part of the situation, right? It's like you can say,

34:58

I would really like things to change.

35:00

Now what is she doing to make this

35:02

change happen? Which is really hard

35:04

because the entire business model

35:08

in this world is predicated

35:10

on this unpaid labor.

35:12

There's a couple of things that I would do.

35:14

One just like have a conversation with your

35:16

manager, but also like if

35:19

your workplace has expressed some interest

35:21

in diversity efforts, you

35:23

can leverage that and say like, I'm so excited

35:26

that we have this new DEI initiative. I thought of an amazing

35:29

thing that we could do that will contribute to that. And

35:32

I looked at the data and it looks like

35:34

most of our past interns were white

35:36

and went to these Ivy league schools, et cetera.

35:39

If you have the resources to like survey past

35:41

interns, you could do that. But like pitching

35:43

it as like, here's this amazing opportunity

35:46

that we have versus like

35:49

we're doing some fucked up things here in this workplace

35:51

and we need to change them because I feel like people respond

35:53

better to the first, even if the second is how you actually

35:56

feel. Yeah. And it actually, it

35:58

makes me think about even like the.

35:59

publishing industry, which like post 2020

36:02

and post the murder of George Floyd, like we're

36:04

very much invested in like, oh, like publishing

36:07

so white, how do we remedy this? Some

36:10

of that involved hiring people

36:12

in higher positions to acquire and publish

36:14

books. But also so many people

36:17

have pointed directly at the unpaid

36:19

internship funnel as

36:21

like the source of the lack of diversity

36:23

in publishing. And that's a straightforward

36:26

fix if they want to actually address

36:29

the problem. Now, the problem

36:31

in a workplace might be that

36:33

the people in leadership do not authentically

36:36

want to address

36:36

the problem, which is more

36:39

difficult. And this is where the question

36:41

asker, if they're serious about wanting to change the

36:43

industry, I think this is where, and specifically

36:47

it's your own industry, like in your own institution,

36:50

you can do what you suggested earlier,

36:53

which is look for grants,

36:55

foundations that are interested

36:59

in changing

37:01

some of the dynamics around the art

37:03

world. But maybe it's around like, there's just so

37:05

many different places you can look for this money. And maybe

37:08

you do the hard work of applying for this grant

37:11

that funds an internship and

37:14

take that as part of like

37:16

the work that you're trying to do to change. If

37:19

you have some of that privilege that resulted

37:22

from being able to take these unpaid internships,

37:24

you have institutional power that maybe can be

37:27

used to

37:28

access this money, apply for this money, advocate

37:31

for this money so that other

37:32

people won't have to do it as well. That's the

37:34

harder part, right? Like that is a big ask, but

37:37

it's a worthy ask. And like another

37:39

thing that they could do in the interim is just

37:41

figure out like, how can I be as

37:43

generous with my network as possible with

37:45

these current interns? Like today

37:48

or tomorrow, you're probably not gonna be able to get

37:50

them paid. But what you can do is say, like,

37:52

what are you interested in? What are your goals? What's

37:54

your dream job? What kind of stuff are you interested in? And

37:57

then like use the network that you've been able to build

37:59

and say

38:00

send an email introduction, set people up for coffee,

38:03

really share your network so that those people can at least

38:06

have a better chance of getting a job after that internship.

38:09

And figure out what are the, I think it's

38:11

a good idea to think of what are the short-term things, what

38:14

are the long-term things. And one of

38:16

the short-term things you can do is just if you

38:18

have a network

38:19

in the industry, be very, very generous

38:21

with that. Yeah, you have social capital.

38:24

This question asker has social capital. They

38:26

should spend it like crazy.

38:29

In order to benefit other people. And

38:32

that can manifest in so many different ways.

38:34

And one of them is sharing the network and then another one

38:37

is trying to figure out how other people don't have to take

38:39

that same path.

38:40

That's how change happens.

38:43

This has been an incredible episode.

38:46

Where can people find you if they want to hear more

38:48

from you? The newsletter is startingout.substack.com.

38:52

And I also produce, one

38:54

of the producers for a podcast at Marketplace

38:56

called This is Uncomfortable. So if you want to listen

38:58

to some podcast work, that's where you can find it. Thank

39:01

you so much. This has been a pleasure.

39:03

Thank you.

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Gotta tell you about some fun merch at the

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39:38

Thanks for listening to Work Appropriate. If you

39:40

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39:43

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40:16

Appropriate is a Crooked Media production. I'm

40:19

Anne Helen Peterson, your host. Our

40:21

executive producer is Kendra James. Melody

40:24

Rowell is our producer and editor. Alison

40:26

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40:28

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40:31

production support from Ari Schwartz

40:33

and special thanks to Katie Long and Sarah

40:35

Geismar.

40:42

Finding the music you love shouldn't be hard. That's

40:45

why Pandora makes it easy to explore all your

40:47

favorites and discover new artists and genres

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you'll love.

40:50

Enjoy a personalized listening experience

40:52

simply by selecting any song or album and

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we'll make a station crafted just for you.

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Best of all, you can listen for free.

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Download Pandora on the Apple App Store or Google

41:01

Play and start hearing the soundtrack to your life.

41:05

It's human nature to be comfortable. Think about

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it. After a long day of tasks and to-do

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lists, what's better than shutting off and

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entering your comfort zone? Whatever comfort

41:14

looks like for you, Canada Dry can help

41:16

take you there. With its refreshing ginger taste,

41:18

reprieve is just a sip away. Whether you're

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sinking into your favorite chair, putting on

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your comfiest pants or silencing

41:25

the group chat, with Canada Dry by your side,

41:28

comfort just feels better.

41:30

Sip into your comfort zone with Canada

41:32

Dry.