Interns Anonymous » Debate

Typical…

internsanonymous — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 11:56:13 +0000

Thanks to Kim for posting this!

Good experience at Shortlist magazine

internsanonymous — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 19:11:35 +0000

We’re pretty sure this is written by a real person who interned at Shortlist, rather than their marketing team being sneaky…we’ve learnt to recognise the tone of those emails

A two-week placement from heaven. For starters upon arrival on the first day, the editorial assistant immediately came to meet me. And I wasn’t just sitting around twiddling my thumbs. Once they had set me a story and I proved that I could write, I was literally sourced out to other members of the team and actually got to write things that were published. And everything I wrote was assessed and critiqued by either the editorial assistant or the news editor, so you knew where you were going right or wrong.

Yes, some days there simply wasn’t much to do, as a lot of the features were done in advance. But the people in the office were friendly. The most menial task I had to do was sort out the mail once a day. But to be fair, it helped me to learn everyone’s name and where they sat. And this placement involves putting you in the heart of things. Surreally enough, tea-making duties are shared out. So at one point, the editor made me a cup of tea! When the news team had a meeting for story ideas you were expected to not only attend, but to actually contribute and have ideas. And I was reimbursed for my expenses like travel and lunch.

Towards the end of my placement they put me into contact with another magazine that offered me a two-week placement on the basis of their recommendation. All in all, a good place to work for. And more freebies than you can carry, if you make friends with the reviews editor and the senior writer

Having read through all the things that people have said, yes, internships can be shit. They expect a lot of you, and some don’t even have the decency to reimburse you for your travel, let alone your lunch (cough cough, Wonderland). But for every shit one out there, there are a few good ones, where you will make good contacts. Keep on trying!!!

Making a complaint against your employer

internsanonymous — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 22:13:14 +0000

HMRC and Interns Anonymous have teamed up and prepared guidance for any interns who think they might be entitled to claim back the National Minimum Wage.

HMRC are responsible for enforcing the National Minimum Wage. Recently they have launched a ‘dynamic response unit’ (they are like a SWAT team of tax inspectors) to ensure that interns are paid the National Minimum Wage.

The guidance takes you through the whole process of claiming back any due wages. You can claim wages up to six years after you completed the internship. So even if you have moved on to a new job, you can still claim back wages.

If you have completed or are presently undertaking an internship and think you may be entitled to the National Minimum Wage, you can speak confidentially to the pay and rights helpline on 0800 917 2368.

Read it here.

Unspeak

internsanonymous — Sun, 13 Nov 2011 00:14:22 +0000

Ok sorry we haven’t posted much up blah blah, we haven’t even linked properly to our Guardian front page (oh by the way did I mention we were mentioned on the front page of the Guardian?)…in the meantime here is a link to a post we missed on a great blog ‘unspeak’, which unpicks the meanings implied and constructed by political language or articles in the press. The post in question beats the hell out of an article in the Economist, which was published in September- we really should have seen this sooner and for that we are truly sorry.

Battle of Ideas

internsanonymous — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 12:27:50 +0000

Yesterday I, Rosy, took part in what people call a ‘lively’ round table discussion. I was looking forward to the table actually being round like in King Arthur but unfortunately it was a regular oblong shape. The debate was entitled ‘Interns or Slave Labour’ although I like to think that none of the people who basically represented the ‘anti-exploitation/pro-social mobility’ side of things (Susan Nash of Young Labour, Owen Jones of ’Chavs: the demonization of the working class’ also that newsnight with Starkey) would compare unpaid internships to slavery. Because that would be wrong and also highly offensive to the memory of slavery (and indeed to slaves today).

The debate basically split along the following lines:

Rob Killick, CEO of cScape, was pro unpaid internships as a way for businesses to get free labour and interns to get a foot up into the job market. He also suggested that young people have been trained for the wrong businesses and that, more controversially, they are to some extent, spoilt, lazy and unwilling to work hard.

Stephanie Lis works for The Freedom Association, which is kind of like grass roots Thatcherism, basically promoting freedom of choice and small government. Her point was that if people want to intern unpaid, they should be allowed to.

Susan Nash, chair of Young Labour, stood against unpaid internships because they shut those from poorer backgrounds out of certain professions and she wanted to see the enforcement of NMW regulations

Owen Jones was the same, coming down harder against the ways in which internships reduce social mobility and setting this phenomena against the wider context of the change in employment practice in industries like journalism (ie. of the 100 top journos in the country, over half are privately educated- a big change from the 50s, when traineeships etc meant that more journos came from working class backgrounds)

And me, I wanted to add something to the debate by bringing in the anecdotal evidence we receive everyday- and basically confirming that the notion of free choice will only ever extend to those who can afford to take that choice.

Owen and Rob had a few heated exchanges about the class system in the UK and whether or not we should live with it or strive to change it; Rob blamed young people’s poor life chances variously on the economy, their own laziness and the work ethic of eastern european migrant workers and the Chinese; and the rest of us responded as the above synopsis of our views would suggest.

The audience, as always, were the most interesting element of the debate. And this is where y’all should comment- questions like…

What can young people do to create jobs?

Isn’t being young and trying to get a job supposed to be hard?

How can we compete in a global economy?

Were my parents wrong to work hard and pay for my University education, given its in the Arts and in many ways now appears to be ‘useless’?

If there are, let’s say, 10 internships and 5 are paid, 5 unpaid- and then the unpaid ones have to go because of a crackdown in the law, what’s the point of that? Isn’t that restricting opportunities?

Thoughts on postcards please…