Publishing is a thankless business, or so my experience this week tells me. I am writing because today I had to go to a book distributor and pick up 42 books and carry them to our office. The distributor and our office are two miles, and forty minutes apart – and I carried the books in a giant rucksack, a bit like the kind you see people use when they bum around South East Asia on a gap-year for six months.
42 books are pretty heavy – these weren’t slim little Beatrix Potter type things – so when I dragged them into the office, covered in sweat and with a back like Quasimodo’s, the least I expected was a thank you. I got concerned and shocked looks from my fellow ‘unpaids’, but nothing from my boss.
I saw the email my boss sent to the guy I was picking the books up from. He said “I’ll send someone over”. That’s the mentality of the internship-slave-driver. I don’t know if he was an only child, or abused as a kid – but there is something ingrained in certain people that means if a job needs doing they will pass the buck without thinking. I’m only the intern – but I’m here, and working unpaid, because I want to learn and get experience. This didn’t teach my anything, its abuse, and I take it because I am willing and desperate.
I was required to do something similar on a placement. Ended up with a slightly sprained wrist! Anyway, on a placement in the same company, different department, I was specifically told to not lift anything by a member of the team due to HEALTH AND SAFETY LAWS. Be sure to remember that next time… I sure will!!
P.s. I’m desperate too..am starting another work exp placement in a smaller publishing company tomorrow, and not looking forward to it because the job description listed one of my many (mundane) duties as making tea/coffee for guests. Desperate as I am, I took it for my poor, poor CV. There IS hope out there, I’m positive of it!!!!