Those kids should be hard at work maintaining blogs.
What crazy industry are you in that sleeping and surfing porn is not a typical workday?
The next time he goes to sleep in the office, perhaps you should bring a nice warm bowl of water for him to rest his hand in.
Well, how about someone wakes the kid up and gives him something to do? It's not as if puppies train themselves, analogy ban be damned.
Don't blame the victim, biohazard. We woke the kid up and he said "Ahhh, power nap."
Sounds Presidential to me. Keep on his good side. If he likes BJs, give him a few.
Someone had better use the word "bourgeois," and soon, or I'll be wanting my money back.
"very few other kids get to sit with a trader all day to see how he works, or with an equity analyst, as he explains his research process"
I thought traders didnt do jack all day.
I'd say he's already perfectly well equipped to be at the top of the class structure. Humility and gratitude are bourgeois values, dude. He was probably dreaming of running over peasants' children with his carriage.
Hardee's has excellent cheesebourgeois.
Yay! Bourgeois! I think I just saved you some money -- give it to the kid, you might as well get used to it.
Yes, privilege, yes, the kid's unappreciative, but is your office really giving him work to do, or even work that he can productively watch, most of the day? The one nepotistically awarded internship kind of job I ever had, working for an engineering firm, I did a couple of useful tasks over the summer, but most days I read the Times, and the News, and did both crosswords. They just didn't have work that I knew how to do or that they were prepared to train me to do, and people working didn't want me kibbitzing.
The experience that they're getting here, in seeing how a real company operates, and being taught simply how to behave in one, is invaluable. Not to mention that very few other kids get to sit with a trader all day to see how he works, or with an equity analyst, as he explains his research process.
Out of curiosity, exactly how much Kool-Aid do you have to drink to believe that?
Do you still call them interns? I thought that word was destroyed and now we used clerk?
"Ahhh, power nap." Okay, in that case add his name to the "Up Against The Wall" list. I will not shed a single tear as his BMW key-gadget is stomped just before the order to fire is given. I am a very binary despot-in-waiting.
I did get some interesting insight into chivalry. (Have I told this story before?) I was nineteen, and the firm was vastly predominately men in their forties and fifties. I couldn't get near a door without someone ceremoniously holding it open for me. Until the week I was moving boxes of binders down a couple of floors -- if I had my arms full of a heavy box, doors swung closed in front of me without anyone thinking about whether I could use a hand getting through.
That sounds like hazing, told that way, but it didn't feel like that. More that the ceremonious door-holding routine was a reaction to having a girl around, and if I was doing non-girl stuff, like schlepping heavy boxes, then I didn't set off the girl reaction. Whatever was going on, it was funny.
is your office really giving him work to do
Actually, yes. Before we take on an intern, everyone is asked whether they have stuff for him to do and then we come up with a list of projects, etc.
BMW key-gadget And what are those things commonly called now? For many cars they've gone well past just being alarm controls.
You realize that if some Iranian goody two-shoes rats him out at an internship which he regards as an entitlement and it results in him losing his internship (and, more to the point, that results in one less line on his resume), he'll grow up to be a hard-core right-wing Republican.
On the other hand, considering that he regards an internship which must be pretty easy to begin with as an entitlement, he's pretty much destined to be at least a moderate Republican in the first place. So you might as well have some fun with it...
So who cares if he's napping? If he's not accomplishing the work expected of him, then that's the problem.
how much Kool-Aid do you have to drink to believe that?
What?
Ogged: "He was power-napping!!!!!"
Boss: "So he knows how to do your job now."
But here's my advice to the rest of you: Take dead aim on the rich boys. Get them in the crosshairs and take them down. Just remember, they can buy anything but they can't buy backbone. Don't let them forget it. Thank you.
In general, I am all for hating on lazy interns, but really 12 is right. The best thing for all concerned is to have someone give him work. Lots of it. And expect him to do it. Surely you have something an intern can do.
I got a nepotistically awarded summer job once and they didn't have anything for me to do. I read Wolf Solent and Pierre, or the Ambiguities.
Hm. I interviewed for lots of law-firm clerkships in law school, but couldn't get a single one. Ended up clerking for a state appellate judge, and fortunately did well enough there to impress my current employer.
Now I meet the summer clerks, take them to lunch, etc., but can't escape a touch of resentment, hopefully well hidden. Unless they're reading Unfogged instead of working ... which is a privilege reserved to ASSOCIATES, dammit!
I got a nepotistically awarded summer job one time and dug trenches at a construction site all summer. I blame the quality of my nepotistic connections, and ultimately (as in so much else) I blame my parents.
21: I think SCMT was trying to say "you don't really believe this, do you?" in 13.
My question was why I wouldn't.
I should have known that as soon as I slagged the rich kid, you'd all become defenders of the wealthy.
While he's asleep with his feet up on the desk, tie or otherwise secure his legs/feet together. then wake him up with a phone call telling him he's needed urgently in another part of the office. Listen and enjoy.
On an unrelated note, at this time of year I end up doing informational interviews with a lot of starry-eyed new graduates who think they want to work in my field. Most of them are interesting enough, but not particularly unusual, and I can do it on autopilot.
Last night I went off for yet another one, and was rocked back on my heels by this amazing kid who has -- for no reason that I can figure out -- somehow managed to cultivate English fluency, an organizer's savvy, and an appreciation for history while working 12- or 13-hour days in a Chinese restaurant. He's already accomplished more as an advocate and activist than most college graduates I know, and he's never been to college. And he's only 22.
The kids of privilege are who they are, and some of them will be great and some will not. But every once in a while you run into the one of the bootstrap kids, and wow. Look out, world.
You should just take a picture with your balls on his forehead.
You could take the picture of the office door, for example.
The experience is hardly invaluable - they'd get it on the first month of the job if they don't have an internship. I always thought internships were just a much longer job interview. So he sleeps all day; if this is a disqualification to work at your company, you don't hire him when he graduates.
29: Beyond, "Wear a clean shirt, remember to zip up, and do your work," what exactly do you expect people to learn about the generalized "real company" experience? Is he or she supposed to be learning how to pretend to look busy?
As for learning from the equity analysts: give him a book that explains the rationale behind the decisions and let him check their work. In most cases, it isn't rocket science. But absent some knowledge of the theoretical underpinnings of their judgments, what exactly is he or she supposed to learn? Further, let's say that there is less than uniform agreement on the value offered by equity analysts.
32: And, of course, email it to the appropriate sites. The revolution will not be televised, but some of it may be posted.
I don't think I agree with that. There's a lot of demystification that happens at an internship that expands the set of things a person thinks he can do. One thing that keeps kids who don't have the same kind of background experience from pursuing certain jobs is that they don't know about them, or are afraid of them.
37 to 34. To 35 I say that you're a child of privilege. Knowing what's expected in terms of performance and self-presentation is important and a lot of poor kids don't have a clue.
One thing that keeps kids who don't have the same kind of background experience from pursuing certain jobs is that they don't know about them, or are afraid of them.
Right, but your hypothetical privileged doesn't suffer from that problem. So what's he or she supposed to be learning.
Your basic complaint seems to be that there are people who would get something out of this internship, and it would be nice if such people were employed (or whatever) as interns. I agree with that. But that, it seems to me, is a problem with the internship program, not the hypothetical kid.
One thing that keeps kids who don't have the same kind of background experience from pursuing certain jobs is that they don't know about them, or are afraid of them.
Right. Especially the parts of jobs that are unwritten. You can learn how to write a white paper more or less by yourself, or with a good editor. You can't learn how to handle the nuances of setting up a policy event with advocates, public officials, etc. etc. unless you are literally sitting there listening to your boss and your colleagues make phone calls, strategize, gossip about the attendees, and so on.
FITB for any career. If you've already got a Chet-like interpersonal skills, you can finesse the job tasks for a bit while you figure out what you're doing. If you're not Chet and didn't grow up in his class world, an internship is a really key part of acquiring that knowledge.
I think what really grates is that while probably everyone does some things not necessarily kosher on company time/dime (be it surfing the web, stealing pencils, napping, arriving late or leaving early, visiting porn sites, whatever), flaunting it like that, in front of everyone, with no fear of repercussions, evinces such a profound sense of entitlement and privelege that really the only solution is footbinding and the like.
You can learn how to write a white paper more or less by yourself, or with a good editor.
Sure, now that Mallarmé's paved the way. Everyone forgets the innovators.
Timbot, I think he is getting something out of the job, my complaint is about his attitude.
Everyone, M/tch. Can't you read?
Wikipedia fails to enlighten me as to what you're talking about, Ben.
I think the real reason to object to Ogged's intern is that it's bad for colleagues' morale to see his behavior go uncriticized.
If Wikipedia lets you down, why not turn to W.H. Auden, who memorably clerihewed, "Mallarmé / Had too much to say / He couldn't quite / Leave the paper white".
Ogged is right, and so is Ben, and I'm shocked -- shocked -- at LB's position on this. If you're bored at work, the least you can do is take out a book. Napping is just insulting.
Ogged, tell the kid that he's really earning his pay today. Or, like Ben said, take a picture of your balls on his head. I think that's the kind of correction that white boys understand.
Hence 32, followed by posting on the internet. Morale improves!
earning his pay
Is my understanding that intern positions are generally non-remunerative not accurate?
Yes, get the picture. Because Wikipedia really needs a new image to replace the "artist's conception" at the teabagging entry.
Oh, whoever's in charge of him should give him what for. But I wouldn't take it as a sign of bad character, just that he's not being supervised. Chewing him out for not getting his work done is great, but the rest of it is just being a kid who doesn't know how to behave.
Is my understanding that intern positions are generally non-remunerative not accurate?
It Depends.
I suspect it would be best if any company employing interns should have a standing rule that any fulltimer finding an idle intern can give them work to do (with recourse to supervisor, of course).
Sometimes I think they just get lost in the noise. The people who are supposed to be working with them don't have time, so they get stuck in a corner somewhere and ignored.
Maybe we should have some sort of meritocracy under which smart and/or hardworking kids receive these advantages.
But I wouldn't take it as a sign of bad character
I dunno. I'm not sure I would say that a person who doesn't go looking for more work when he/she runs out has a bad character, necessarily, but it's certainly a bright red flag.
Searching Flickr for "teabagged" returns a large number of pictures of passed out people with real teabags on their heads.
55: The post specifically says the interns are people either related to the owners or children of clients. That, combined with sleeping on the job = bad character. Honestly, LB, simple manners.
58 -- I caught the reference, was just questioning its applicability in this situation.
Jesus H., people, the sleeping was one illustrative example of an attitude. An attitude you all hate, on your saner days.
BitchPhD exhibits a highly schizophrenic approach to the importance of manners.
Plus, the power nap comment? If my kid did something like that, I'd kick his butt.
"schizophrenic" s/b "inconsistent"
"They just didn't have work that I knew how to do or that they were prepared to train me to do, and people working didn't want me kibbitzing."
Obviously you should have looked for the people who were not working, so you could discover their secret to staying employed.
who doesn't know how to behave.
s/b "who hasn't learned to pretend to look busy." This is a big pet peeve of mine. If he's not doing his work, get rid of him. Otherwise, give him more work. Or at least tell him to go ask around for work.
65: Nonsense. Manners are important; formality, in and of itself, not. Unless you're going to the opera.
70: And even then, mostly only if you're in the orchestra or cast.
s/b "who hasn't learned to pretend to look busy."
Also: don't leave your cellphone to ring while you're in another part of the office, don't start requests with "hey [so-and-so]," etc. Like I say, the sleeping was one example. The problem is a lack of manners, yes, and of an appreciation for how lucky one is compared to lots of other people.
Which is where hippie child-rearing habits come in. Ahem.
72: Sure, priveleged kids are lucky compared to lots of other people (tautology). If you look at how a lot of them grow up though, they'd have to go out of their way to learn that.
What's wrong with "hey so and so, ..."? What do you prefer, "excuse me, esteemed colleague, might I trouble you for a moment of your time?"?
If you look at how a lot of them grow up though, they'd have to go out of their way to learn that.
Meh, there are plenty of decent privileged kids, including this kid's brother, who was the previous intern, worked like a dog, and was totally likable.
"Hey" is pretty damned casual, though. Would you interrupt a professor with a "hey"?
78: I prefer the more formal "Yo!"
Search google for "Hey Knight what's up" to discover the proper response to such an address.
"Hey" is pretty damned casual, though. Would you interrupt a professor with a "hey"?
Probably I already have.
As an overworked new father I am indifferent to the office nap qua nap but the "power nap" comment (with stretch!) deserves the sternest punishment available. I don't think throwing him out on his ass is out of the question. Internships are usually just soft padding for future resumes, and everyone knows that; being fired from one is a rarity that leaves a clear stain. In this case, one richly deserved.
You know, I'd probably hate this kid for being a privileged snot generally, but isn't there some confusion here between "being ill-mannered" and "not faking being properly cowed"? Pretending to look busy when you aren't is standard, normal, on the job behavior that you probably need to learn, but you don't learn it because you're polite, you learn it because you're afraid of being fired. (Not getting your work done when you do have work to do is something different, but Ogged hasn't actually said that that's a problem with this kid.)
This kid isn't afraid of being fired because he got the job through connections and no one bothers to fire interns, but the fact that he's not faking a normal level of fear isn't inconsiderate, exactly. It might be a good idea to fire him, but I don't see why you'd think ill of him on these grounds.
LB needs to get out of biglaw, and fast. She's been defending power and privilege for so long now it's clearly starting to warp her sensibilities.
84 has it right.
I also don't see what's wrong with 'Hey' but it all depends on the tone with which it's used. I can see how it could either be i) polite but informal or ii) snotty.
We're not going to fire him, geez. He does his work, as far as I can tell. It's really about the attitude. Do none of you, other than hippie B, know any well-mannered kids? This thread has been a little bizarre.
...off to swim...
What do you mean "other than hippie B"? Wasn't I against him from the beginning? I know some extremely well-mannered kids.
He, and other interns, should be fired just to put the fear of god into them.
Well-mannered is perfectly compatible with an informal attitude.
But I suspect this is one of those 'had to be there' things. I know people who can be incredibly formal (even obsequious) in their use of language but come over as snotty shits and other people who use casual vernacular and come over as polite and willing.
I think the breakdown for interns should be 25% interesting work that helps them learn about the profession and 75% boring tedious work (not busywork, but the non-glamorous part of the job) so they understand that not everything is fun and excitement and that you have to earn your way to the fun stuff. And if they blow off the 75%, you kick their ass and/or don't let them do the 25%.
I'll never forget calling my college boyfriend when when both got our first computer programming internships. He'd never worked in his life before and I'd spent all of my previous summers working as a secretary. I was so excited because the company where I was interning let me fix bugs! In a real computer program! That was going to clients!
He, OTOH, was totally and completely pissed because the company where he was interning was making him fix bugs! When they should be letting him designing software! Don't those foools realize they're wasting his talents?
75: No, it's not an excuse, it's an explaination of why you have to make this clear to them.
Keegan is extraordinarily well-mannered (toward everybody except me), and always has been. Noah is a work in progress.
She's been defending power and privilege for so long now it's clearly starting to warp her sensibilities.
No, I'm defending a kid who isn't showing the proper deference to power and privilege. In this circumstance, it's probably because he thinks of himself as just as powerful and privileged as his bosses, so the meaning is ambiguous, but I'm not going to get upset about a kid who doesn't kowtow to authority with the proper obsequiousness. If you want me to get excited, show me someone being rude to a peer or subordinate.
(Again, if he's not doing the work he's being told to do, that's different. Insufficiently respectful attitude? He probably needs to learn it for self protection, but not something that bothers me.)
Noah is a work in progress.
He's the pudding kid, though, right? And I think the real effect of LB working to defend power and privilege is that she can no longer recognize needling.
Humorless, remember? I've got a reputation to maintain.
He's the pudding kid, though, right?
Yes. And the crotch-smasher.
LB's right though that respect for superiors isn't really a concern ... I thought from ogged description that this guy was just slacking
91 -- fixing bugs can be pretty fun; it is the attempting to reproduce them under controlled conditions that drives me batty.
94: But isn't flaunting your power and privilege, by for example ostentatiously napping in front of colleagues who have to work, obnoxious and disrespectful to them?
It's not about kowtowing to authority, it's about showing off how you don't have to do work to the people who do.
If you want me to get excited, show me someone being rude to a peer or subordinate.
Yeah, I have the almost overwhelming desire to punch people like that into bloody pulp.
Luckily, in 20 years of working, I've only ever worked for, I think two or three bosses who were like that. I'm sure I'd cope really badly in an industry where that sort of management culture was rife.
100: but you don't. you're an intern, which means in practice almost useless. You can be realistic about this without attempting to lord it over people.
I thought ogged was taking about a guy who had nothing to do. I've known several people who ended up in co-op positions (not the same as interns, and paid, but not completely different) where they literally didn't have anythign to do, and didn't know enough to go find it. It's not a great reflection on them, but it's also not that bad.
100: If that's what's going on, sure, that's obnoxious, but that goes with not getting his actual work done (swanning in late, saying things like "Please, like Daddy's going to let you fire me, it's a wonder I bother showing up at all.") If ogged is bitching about the kid being literally slack about working, then that's bad; if it's about not fearfully concealing the fact that he's underworked, less so.
100: Again, was I being obnoxious and disrespectful to the people who worked at that engineering firm by doing crosswords? I would rather have been working, but there wasn't anything I could figure out to do.
102: But ogged specifically said that they have things for the intern to do. Plus, the "power nap" comment speaks to me of someone not at all concerned that he doesn't have to worry about staying awake like all the peons around him.
Ogged also said "We're not going to fire him, geez. He does his work, as far as I can tell. It's really about the attitude. "
Sorry, LB. I'm with M/tch and ogged. I'd want to smack that kid.
I would rather have been working . . .
This is the key that makes it non-obnoxious.
There's a fair chance I might as well. I'm just trying to generalize here, and point out that failing to properly defer to your bosses is a very different sin from being rude to your subordinates or peers.
I've worked with people who slacked on the job, hell, at times I've been someone who slacked on the job, but there's a world of difference between actual slacking on the one hand, and not being clever enough to give the impression you are working when you've actually done all the work you've got to do.
105: yeah, the story developed. It's all pretty speculative without meeting the kid, I guess.
Yes, it's about the attitude. But there's also "The experience that they're getting here, in seeing how a real company operates, and being taught simply how to behave in one, is invaluable." Having an attitude like that is not learning how to behave in one. So they should stick him in a hot, unventilated room to do filing until his fingers bleed and he learns a proper attitude.
I think the best bet would be to send priveleged kids to dig ditches or farm labour etc. in the summer and send underpriveleged kids to corporate offices, etc. Do both sets a world of good to see the alternatives to exist.
Do try to keep up, Brock.
114: But you were claiming you're connections weren't good enough. Different story. Unless it was intentional on the part of whoever, in which case, laudable.
failing to properly defer to your bosses is a very different sin from being rude to your subordinates or peers.
True, but I'm assuming ogged is not a boss with respect to this kid, and neither are most if not all of the other people who have seen him sleeping and heard him snoring. I'm filling in a lot of the details in my head, of course, but to me this kid just reeks of "I don't give a fuck, I don't have to."
Sure, but there's nothing about sleeping that's directed at Ogged more than my crossword puzzles were directed at my coworkers.
118: See what happens if we don't all agree to wildly speculate in the wrong direction.
If it really is all just about attitude, tear this kid a new hole. If you can't manage to break through to a soft kid, find someone who can.
120: erm, `wrong' should be `same'. editing on the fly.
I do think there's a good chance that this kid is an awful tool. I just want to quibble about what it is about his conduct that should be condemned. Flaunting his privilege in front of people who need to work for a living would be bad, if that's what he's doing. Failing to properly fear those in authority -- eh, he needs to learn it at some point for his own sake, but I'm not going to hate him for it.
119: It's the shoes on the desk (probably very expensive shoes too!) , pointed like a prideful cannon at the very heart of the self-worth of ogged and his co-workers, that should clue you in, LB.
120, 121: Yeah, I really wish you and LB would get your shit together and follow along with me.
The kid's name is Chet, right Ogged? Let's set him on fire.
53: Clownaesthesiologist, my internship at HP paid 60k a year. But then again I was an "Intern level 5" so nya nya nya...
LB seems persuasive, but there's one thing: the snoring. That adds a dimension to it I hadn't thought of at first, but seems more and more relevant. He's not just failing to be either polite or obsequious, however you see it, he's also being at least a bit disruptive to the people who actually are working.
Obvious counterpoint: he doesn't know he snores. It's entirely possible that someone wouldn't know that about himself. So that gets him off the hook for being insufficiently considerate to his neighbors. But still, this isn't just a case of Ogged and co-workers being busybodies.
113. Summer jobs. I worked as a ranch hand in Waxahatchie TX in high school and have been greatfull forr my cushy office ever since. In college I did a summer intership at a risk arbitrage firm where the office manager went out of her way to keep me in my place. She tried to talk me out of wearing a suit to the office, because I wasn't a trader. I don't know if she were threatened or jealous or what, but she really bugged me.
fixing bugs can be pretty fun; it is the attempting to reproduce them under controlled conditions that drives me batty.
This is exactly right.
125 -- ugggh, way to cheer me up about my job.
128: It's not that unusual. You'd hate to hear what my current roomie is making during her IP law internship with one of the top firms in the US. Most of my undergrad friends were making similar numbers as investment bank interns, and that was even without whatever XP ukko required to level up like that. It's the NGO and media internships that pay nothing.
Ogged, I agree the boy sounds like a tool, but unless you're working for a major hedge fund that I haven't heard of, or for a certain company whose initials are D & C, I agree with SCMT's 13 on the usefulness of the "experiences" he's supposedly getting.
Well, except for sitting with traders. There's something very useful about learning that playing the most boring video game ever while annoying people yell at you can prepare you for a very enriching career that lasts about as long as your luck.
Hardee's has excellent cheesebourgeois
Someone so needs to start "iwuzbeacheesebourgeois."
When my current employer hired me, the policy manual I was asked to read warned me that sleeping on the job twice was grounds for immediate dismissal. There was nothing in there about the waking dead, though.
This kid. Tool. #32 gets it right.
I think that in high-tech interns are greatly valued, because often they've been trained in the latest stuff. Some schools key their programs on what the industry looks like they're going to need, so that students are on the job while they're in school and step right into good jobs. I had a friend who went from intern to employee with Intel at a time when experienced (obsolete) workers were being laid off.
Didn't the last round of salary chicken push biglaw summer jobs over $3k per week? Of course, they plan to make it all back and then some in your first year on the job, but damn that's a lot of money.
Ogged could also just give the guy stuff to do, even if it's perusing youtube for swimming videos that he can post here.
132: Particularly if you come from a top (real technical merit, tech corps don't care about `tier') program. Google is paying somthing like $75k/year for co-ops. But they can pick and choose. It isn't like the existence of some of these position means much over all internships/co-ops. The only people who have a shot at them are good, and can walk into a well paid job after their done with or without the internships.
although he doesn't, thankfully, surf porn sites like his predecessor did
Is that the same predecessor as "this kid's brother, who was the previous intern, worked like a dog, and was totally likable"?
I think we all probably agree that the world would be a much better place if interns everywhere began their mornings by ritually rimming ogged, just as we all agree that it would be much cooler if unicorns roamed the earth. In each case, I don't see a solution absent legislation that addresses the politically dicey issue of cloning.
It sounds like the underlying problem is that the intern's real job is to be related to an important client or boss, and that the secondary problem is that the intern isn't doing enough to obscure that fact. I'm willing to concede that's a problem, and I can, with surprisingly little effort, see it fitting under the rubric of "well mannered." Comity!
125: Jesus. I don't think I'll ever make that much money.
Anyone have any idea how much a paid internship at a US Attorney's office or the Justice Department is worth in between 2L and 3L?
135: You should have seen how diligently that kid tracked down Ogged's porn.
Jesus. I don't think I'll ever make that much money.
$60k? That doesn't seem unreasonable for an editing/publishing position once you get some seniority, does it?
I agree with LB, the kid's main crime seems to be insufficient deference to his elders and betters like ogged which doesn't seem like a capital offense to me.
And I have my doubts that this job is really so great that the kid should be eternally grateful for it.
I love that I am in a career that allows for naps in my office. Of course, that's after being up all night grading papers and prepping, so I guess it evens out somewhere.
When I worked in more, uh, by-the-hour jobs, laziness infuriated me. And because I get really bored in a by-the-hour job unless I'm actually doing stuff at every moment, I accidentally enable the lazies, who laugh at my Protestant get-to-it-iveness.
Make this guy right your corporate wiki.
141: I was exaggerating a bit for effect; $60K-100K is pretty typical for the high-level positions, I think. Still, no way I'll be making that kind of money in the next ten years or so.
So we've learned that LB loves unions and the ill-mannered rich. Clearly she intends to run for office. You've got my vote, LB, as long as you can show me you care.
Make this guy right your corporate wiki.
Has it fallen over?
Would someone who didn't care link to this kitty?
I'll bet that kitty naps in front of his peers.
150. I volunteer to punch that kitty.
Re: the 60K intern gig. At HP, a Level 5 intern has to have at least an M.S. and be working on a Ph.D. It was not a making coffee internship either, it was a git yer ass to work and be productive internship.
It was not all roses though, since this was how I dealt with the situation of "OMFG I am a father (again) and now have to support 2 kids on my 17K graduate research salary!" Answering the siren call of filthy lucre is part of the reason I am not Dr. ukko, just a lowly ABD. (With a 10x cooler job than my advisor has, so insert something about the best revenge is living well.)
Damn, people, haven't we all learned to trust ogged's judgments of human behavior by now? If he says the kid's a tool, that's good enough for me.
He's actually not a bad kid, but there is this part of his personality.
155: by comparison, that 75k/year figure I was batting about is really done term-wise, i.e. 4 months co-op term. The guy I knew doing this recently was getting 25k/4 months as a 3rd year undergrad. Which does make the odd grad student pause and think....
158: Assuming my info is correct, that is .. but it seemed pretty broadly known. It's not like I've seen the W2's .
Power napping is real. I would be much more productive during your 2-4:30 part of the day if I could take a 15-20 minute nap somewhere in there. Instead, I just surf unfogged.
My youthful nepotism job was as a night janitor at a courthouse. You had to mop floors and stuff but it offered perhaps the finest napping possibilities of any job. Except perhaps for night janitor at a mattress factory.
My first summer job in college was up at the local big lab. I had dutifully sent in my resume and a cover letter, and was thrilled when I got a job there. What I did not know until that summer is that my Dad was actually a much bigger deal than I had ever realized, and had much stronger ties to that lab than I had known; once my name was recognized I was waved in with a number of other nepotistic hires, nary a glance at my resume. (My Dad hadn't said a word.) Several 50-60 hour over-enthusiastic weeks later someone said to me, "gosh, why didn't you apply through the front door? we would have come up with a better project for you." I was kind of crushed, actually. While my background is super-privileged from an education point of view, we were and had been totally broke for years and years. In general I handled most of my affairs for myself, even though I was still a teenager. I had been really proud of myself for getting such a great summer job. Since every job I've had since has built on that first one in some way, it still annoys me slightly.
Curoius, Ogged---was the other brother older or younger?
For perhaps the first time in recorded history, I agree with B. You should not sleep in front of co-workers on a job you scored through nepotistic connections. It is, indeed, rude. If the job means so little to you, the decent thing would be to let someone else have it who gives a damn.
Ogged, with all the talk of traders and analysts, do you work at an I-bank? I had no idea what you did, but for some reason, I always imagined you working at some trendy Internet startup.
142 and 160: LB, look at who's on your side.
142 and 160: LB, look at who's on your side.
I don't really like these comments. Insult people to their face, if you're going to insult them.
GB, I feel like I've said too much already. Aren't traders and analysts crawling everywhere nowadays?
Ile, the other brother is older.
165: Dammit! I was really hoping to find out that you work for mostly-unnamed-but-implied D&C, since that's one of the few places I would really love to work after graduation and I know it's in San Fran.
You know, JAC, there's this thing called e-mail...
165: I don't get it. Tell me who I'm supposed to be insulting underhandedly, and I'll gladly do it to their face.
Also, I don't necessarily defend the kid. I'm a strong believer in power naps, but one should try to hide them so they are not too obvious. This is an important workplace skill too, suitable for learning during the internship phase of a career. As is deference to elders.
167: I just never felt like part of the in-crowd in that way, but you've made me feel awfully stupid now.
