HEAD.BANG.WALL

I just wanted to take a moment to say thank you for all of your support and comments on the blog. It really has been overwhelming, especially as this is quite a niche subject. I've been a little quiet over the past few days trying to get all my freelance work done before I started my newest internship today, so if I haven't replied to your message or comment yet I will be doing so asap.

So many of you have been asking for help and advice on getting internships so I'll be doing a post about my experiences, and tips about what has worked for me.

So often internships can feel like you're banging your head against a brick wall. The past two weeks have been especially challenging for me and made me question my approach in the way I operate.

I mentioned in my first post that the magazine I had been working for had a paid position going that I had applied for, I was told that it was likely they would want to see me to discuss it and that I was in with a pretty good shot. The optimism of an intern is easily built. Could it be? Was I about to finally get paid? ...errrrm, not exactly.

Never underestimate your rivals.

Mine was a 24 year old gay guy with a degree in graphic design. When we first started working together everything I said was eye wateringly hilarious, everything I wore was stunning and beautiful, I could not shake him off at lunch times, he actually stood outside the toilet on one of my attempts to lose him for an hour. How quickly these things change when you are both going for the same job. Overnight I wasn't so funny, or pretty, or well dressed, and my hair was no longer that interesting, the rest of the fashion department, however were all of these things. All I could do was look on aghast as he managed to seduce every member of the staff with a shower of bullshit compliments. Now here is the rub, I am a 23 year old girl, and if I walked into an office and behaved like a bunch of strangers were my bestest friends they'd be gossiping behind my back like I was some obsessive psycho who was probably lezzing out on them. In short, they would want me out. How do you fight that fire? Well surely the fact your hugely overqualified for the position and your experience massively outstrips his should help, right? You're up against a man with no prior fashion experience, and one other internship relating to his degree subject. This is a man who needed you to sit him down and teach him what Fashion Monitor was, and when you ask him why the sudden desire for a career in fashion he replies,

"Cuz graphics is kinda boring innit, and fashion is, well, it's more exciting, innit?"

They might like you but they love him.

And it's at that point you bang your head against that wall.

HARD LIFE

- So somedays as an intern are better then others.
Monday was spent basking in the beautiful spring sunshine assisting on a fashion shoot for a UK weekly magazine at a 1950's diner by the side of the river.
It's not all bad.

I AM AN INTERN

"We've all been there." // "Everyone has to do it" // "Once you're 'in', you're 'in'."

Sound familiar?

And though we all know these things are true they hardly prepare you for the ups and downs of interning. I've been an intern for a while now, since I graduated in July 2010, and still have no idea about my future, which is why I have decided to write this blog. I needed somewhere to bounce out my frustrations, my exhaustion and my optimism. I am choosing to remain anonymous to allow me to be completely honest about my experiences, I won't be naming names, I won't be divulging specific details, but I will be your fly on the wall.

Currently I can be found in magazine offices and fashion cupboards across London desperately trying to carve out my career. Let me just take this opportunity to say I am not some little rich girl, typing this in a dingy flat in East London, moaning about how unfair life is, then phoning my Dad for some more money before going out tonight and getting shitfaced. I am extremely lucky that my parents live in London, and let me live with them rent free while I'm trying to 'make it'. I am constantly broke, and when I say broke I mean it. I haven't had a paid job since September 2010 when I quit my summer retail job to become a full-time intern. Never in those heady money-to-burn-student-loan-days did I imagine that the Big Issue bloke would one day have more dosh then me. If I want to go out and buy some new clothes I have to sell the old ones on eBay. Occasionally I do get handouts from my parents when they can no longer bare to hear me moaning about how long the queue in the post office was but that's as good as it gets. Nights out are dependant on PR invites and plus 1s.

Currently I am between placements. I finished at my last publication just over a week ago, but like a bad boyfriend, they keep calling, and I keep going back. Why? Because there is a PAID position going there, but the truth is, even if the paid position didn't exist I'd still keep going back in the hope someone there might pluck me from beneath a pile of returns.

Internships are the same as bad boyfriends, they never call you when they say they will, then they screw other girls behind your back while you make excuses for them.

What I'm having the most trouble with at the moment is managing the expectations of family and friends. Nothing like industry outsiders to wipe out your excitement about that new placement, no matter how prestigious.
"That's amazing! How much are they paying?!"
 ........ermmmmm
Excitement is zapped away as you explain for the millionth time that paid positions are currently non-existent in this 'economic climate' and that this is your life for the foreseeable future. It's hard not to punch them in their well-meaning faces as you scream
"HOW MANY TIMES?! WHY CAN'T YOU JUST BE PLEASED FOR ME?!"

- Phew, I'm feeling better already.