Armchair Musings #1 – Internship Is Just Volunteer Slavery

Armchair Musings #1 – Internship Is Just Volunteer Slavery 

“So how was today?”

Lisa didn’t answer me outright. She dropped her purse, her keys (house keys, she hadn’t gotten a car yet), took off her shoes, raised her left leg up, and let out a long, drawn out fart. Relationship goals, I thought to myself with a smile.

“That bad, huh?” I put my laptop away and reached across the bed, trying to hide the horror on my face when I smelt the fart, and open the window, all at once.

“Worse”, she said.

“Well, that’s what you get when you volunteer for slavery.”

“What?”

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Yup. Volunteering for slavery. You don’t get paid, you’re overworked, and you often don’t get much in the way of ACTUAL life skills (unless fetching coffee will get you a promotion ten years from now). The only major difference is the fact that you’re not being forced to do it; hence the term volunteer.

But I’m not just talking out my ass (though that in itself would be impressive).

Heaven knows I've been trying...

 Now, let’s look at the facts (because you have to have all the facts *winks).

Forced labour (an off shoot of modern day slavery) is defined by the US Department of State as anything that “encompasses the range of activities—recruiting, harboring, transporting, providing, or obtaining—involved when a person uses force or physical threats, psychological coercion, abuse of the legal process, deception, or other coercive means to compel someone to work.”

Seems a little far-fetched to link the two, I know. But stay with me here. Let’s take it step by step. The recruiting or obtaining part is kind of obvious, so let’s skip that part, and move on to…

The Facts

Everywhere you go, everywhere you look, every decent job wants experience. If this happens to be the job you want, where will you get this experience? Interning. Most top offices don’t even take applicants who didn’t intern with them. Thus, if you want this job, you gotta intern. Otherwise, your future might be screwed. Hence, psychological coercion. 

Funny... I don't see an Xbox logo...

This leads to you applying for the internship, getting it, and thus being compelled to work, because Lord knows you can’t back out now; you’ll be painting yourself as a chump who can’t even handle internship, and that’s a stain that can go with you for life.

You're the blue. Loser.

And there you have it ladies and gents (and cats, for those of you who have ‘em on you right now). Volunteer slavery. So rise up, resteem, and inform the masses to turn down all internships! While I low key apply for all those delicious empty slots all over the world… 

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Hey guys, I decided to start a series! I’ll be updating every couple of days, if all goes well. Heck, I might even update even quicker than that (I sit on a lot of armchairs).

I guess that’s it then.

Buh bye!  

All images are credited to the awesome folks at Pixabay