Category: Ideas

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Creativity Features Ideas

Icy (Unpaid) Internships

Back in my youth, I was a precocious and ambitious achiever who parsed the NY Times and political blogs with the enthusiasm of a child scrutinizing the back of a Fruit Loops cereal box. Maybe it was genetics, maybe it was circumstance but probably it was my poor athletic skills and the futility of a career in ping-pong that motivated my interest in politics.

Fortunately, I fell into Cornell’s School of Industrial & Labor Relations (ILR) like an icicle falls into an Ithaca gorge after it outgrows its elevated perch. I was absorbed by a Career Services department that trumpeted “Resumaniacs Resume Critiques” and “Mock Interview Madness” before it even knew my name. They say ILR is a fiercely pre-professional labor school and while I didn’t sleep with my CV under my pillow while waiting for a Recruiter Fairy to deliver me a job, I was indoctrinated into this occupation-obsessed bubble.

So during summer 2009 I did what any spoiled, ambitious achiever would; I capitalized on the generous support of my family and plunged into the icy waters of unpaid internships. Armed with an inflated resume and naïveté, I pounced on job postings and began selling myself to political organizations in Washington D.C.

With the lascivious constituent outreach that has come to define dodgy politicos, I won’t make too many explicit metaphors linking my internships to prostitution. The metaphor doesn’t hold anyway because I was selling my services for free, far below escort market value.

Ultimately, I settled into the swanky offices of the Student Association for Voter Empowerment (SAVE) housed in an abandoned nook of the World Wildlife Fund headquarters. For purposes of brevity and loyalty to the (now defunct) SAVE organization, let me explain just one section of my internship.

SAVE, a non-profit advocacy group, frequently lobbied legislators to support Gen Y economic health. By the end of the summer, I was leading hill action meetings where I would present gloomy data about youth employment and fiscal security. One of my main talking points was an impassioned critique of one of our country’s greatest acts of economic exploitation: the unpaid internship.

The irony dripped down my shoulders alongside the sweat from a swampy D.C. summer and anxiety-inducing Capitol Hill meetings.  I was an ambitious icicle swimming in a pre-professional gorge but suddenly I was melting. The system demanded proactive prostitution complete with cover letter and ironed collar but it reeked of inequity and exploitation. I reeked of privilege as I padded my resume with internships and my stomach with Pinkberry all on my parents’ dime. It was not good.

Now I sit in a job that is partly facilitated by my unpaid internships. I somehow prevented myself from melting long enough to send a polished resume and cover letter to the Governor of Illinois. I ironed the shirt and I spit out my mock interview honed answers. My brother’s an actor but it runs in our blood; I got the job.

So now I’m in a position of (slight) power and it’s time to sound the alarm from within. Unpaid internships and the terrifying thrills of “Mock Interview Madness” are not available to everyone. The new data shows the rich and poor sprinting in opposite directions. New icicles keep forming and falling into pre-professional waters. Meanwhile the unlucky icicles shatter onto neglected ground. It’s a self-propagating system that needs to be put to bed and the antidote must come from inside.

Oh and to finish my D.C. summer 2010 story, I figured if I was already sweating profusely in Capital City I might as well make a buck. I applied to be the McGruff the Crime Dog® mascot for the National Museum of Crime and Punishment. It was great and at least they gave me ice packs.

Editor’s note: While the Institute for Workplace Studies & Smithers Institute has interns, these interns are compensated with credit through ILR’s Credit Internship Program

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BLG Leadership Insights Features Ideas

25 Writing Tips from 25 Great Writers

The below presentation is a collection of writing advice from great writers (and some leaders).

Hopefully this can be a tool for writers and anyone else who has trouble organizing their thoughts and ideas.

25 Writing Tips from 25 Great Writers

View more presentations from wjbriggs

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Creativity Ideas

Easy Ratatouille

Two months ago, I received a rude awakening when I discovered my Cornell meal plan card no longer delivers an all-I-care-to-eat playground of delicious delicacies. In cafés, restaurants, bodegas, bistros, and nosheries across the world, the Cornell card nourishes me with nothing but spoiled stares. Outside of the culinary orb of campus, the card is then rendered useless and inedible (even marinated, spiced, and flambéed, the plastic card provides a poor meal replacement).

Cut off from my meal ticket, I stumble around the grocery store collecting rice cakes, cereal, peanut butter, and canned hominy. Occasionally I read the NY Times while munching on my hominy and today I stumbled upon a link to “The Minimalist: Easy Ratatouille”.

In the post, Mark Bittman explains that the intricate name translates to a simple, “tossed vegetable dish”. Unfortunately, easy ratatouille requires more than a spoon and frozen vegetables and involves a delicately choreographed sauté ballet of vegetables. Eggplant, “must be cooked until it’s very soft”; zucchini, “takes less time to cook”; tomatoes, “break apart so quickly that you have to be careful” (Bittman, 2011).

Call me old-fashioned (or malnourished), but my frozen vegetables, without stirring, occupy a stable place in my food pyramid (or Food Yin-Yang). In the 30-60 minute prep time required for the Easy Ratatouille, I could probably stage a compressed adaptation of War and Peace starring raw vegetables. Clearly, Bittman and I disagree on the culinary definition of “easy”.

While the recipe failed to produce its promised yield of 4 to 6 servings of ratatouille, it did in fact yield about 4 to 6 servings of philosophical food for thought. We toss around words like “easy” without considering their essential relativity. In conversations ranging from disability accommodations to environmental conservation, “easy” does not yield a universal translation. This challenge is acutely apparent as I work in public administration and attempt to create standardized language that can communicate to all constituencies.

Here, Bittman deserves a pass. For the culinary connoisseurs perusing his post, this recipe probably reads like a Ratatouille-for-Dummies guide. Yet for the average Cocoa Pebbles connoisseur like me, it looks like a federal grant proposal accidentally translated to Esperanto. Let’s at least agree this is an easy, or convenient, opportunity to reevaluate our approach to language and audience. And if someone wants to cook me ratatouille that would be nice too.

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Creativity Ideas

Chat & Cut

Last month on Curb Your Enthusiasm, Larry David dissected the sly social exercise, the Chat & Cut. Clearly a Machiavellian maneuver in line dynamics, David describes the Chat & Cut as, “feigning familiarity with someone [you] vaguely know for the sole purpose of cutting in line” (Curb, 8/7/11). Whether you are seeking entrance into an Indian Buffet or a Leonard Cohen concert, the Chat & Cut means you can end up in the front of the line while potentially forging a new friendship.

In full disclosure, I come from a frantic family with an allergy to gluten and waiting. From my 5-week premature birth to my parents’ entrance onto various domestic  and international flights, we find innovative ways to bypass lines. As this queue queasiness springs from my short statured maternal lineage, we usually opt for the low road to the front rather than the more perilous Chat & Cut. Even when we fail in our pursuit, it always delivers fodder for sociological and therapeutic analysis.

On Sunday, I had the privilege of witnessing an amateur Chat & Cut performed in broad daylight during Chicago’s What’s Happening!! Outdoor Dance Party & Pig Roast featuring The Windy City Soul Club. The C&C unfolded after my own line-cutting efforts were stymied by the critical gaze of my companions and the soulful sounds emanating from the DJ booth.

A woman wobbled up to me as I was about to receive my smorgasbord and gaped inquisitively at the display.

“I don’t understand–is this where you order your food and drink?”

I replied in the affirmative.

“So you order food here but you also can get drinks? That’s very interesting.”

As I started moving forward and the woman casually tucked into the line behind me, I realized what was happening. Like Larry David, I accused her of a C&C but then encouraged her to stay in line.

I think it is important to recognize these micro social maneuvers. We are quick to discuss those macro manipulations when a president spars with a speaker over speech timing or a company uses a beta label to boost interest and “appeal to digerati”. Yet these high profile maneuvers are often slight adaptations of schoolyard counterparts. A playground quarrel can lead to classroom snub just as a cafeteria may offer Turbo vegetables to appeal to finicky children.

So who knows? Maybe Larry David provides the tools we need to analyze meaty global politics; at minimum, he helps expose a Chat & Cut at a pig roast.

Categories
Features Ideas Social Media

Bidding Alone

In Bowling Alone, Sociologist Robert Putnam investigates a trend of declining civic and social engagement in the United States and blames, in part, “the effect of electronic entertainment…in privatizing our leisure time” (Putnam, 2001, 283). While Putnam identifies television as the primary mechanism of electronic isolation, the internet is certainly a potently secluding drug. In fact, right now I sit at my desk and hungrily knock back shots of .coms and .govs (with a rare .net on special occasions) as a substitute for social participation. If my office had a TV, I might even extricate myself from this web sarcophagus and join my coworkers in an animated Judge Judy viewing. With no TV, though, I happily seclude myself behind URLs like JudgeJudy.com.

Last week as I tried to spelunk down into the nether regions of my internet cave, I regrettably encountered a pocket of rampant social activity. Now, despite what my internet usage may indicate, I am not a habitual hermit. Unfortunately, though, on this particular spelunk I craved social isolation like I crave an episode of Judge Joe Brown. On the prowl for North Coast Music Festival tickets on eBay, I had somehow stumbled on a submerged auction offering 3-day passes for $20, over $100 below face value. It was like discovering a diamond in a rough store selling celebrities’ tweezers and Jesus-embedded mango peels. With only 20 minutes remaining on the auction, I cancelled my lunch appointment with George Foreman(‘s Grill) and set up camp next to this isolated treasure.

As minutes melted off the eBay timer, I celebrated my fortune and Putnam’s thesis on civic disengagement.  Previous generations would have to assemble as competitors outside a box office window. Sure, they could discuss their shared interest in the music festival and their favorite acts. They might exchange stories of raucous Rusko dance parties or smooth evenings spent with Thievery Corporation. Some might even make plans to meet-up at the festival.

Not me, though. I had the fortune of internet anonymity and a clock ticking toward payday. As 15 minutes became 10 and then 5, I ignored the sizzling grilled cheese rumbling in the jungle of my George Foreman. With 60 seconds remaining, I proudly entered my bid of $21. At 50 seconds I was outbid at $30. Ok, so there was someone else in this cave. Not surprising but no match for my online dexterity.

I fired back successive bids of $40 and then $50 as the cave walls began cracking. With 33 seconds remaining more online pests left their shadowy alcoves with bids of $56 and $64. Clambering up the walls, I tossed down $68 and $73 at these masked rivals. At 8 seconds (and approximately 8 minutes after my bid for a delicious sandwich expired), my fingers frantically tumbled onto the keyboard. The cave was compromised, though, and my digits could not compete with the faceless masses. With a whimper the auction expired with 35 eleventh hour bids inflating the sale price to $121.01. While I later scalped a ticket outside the festival, I spent that afternoon alone munching on burnt gluten free bread and watching Judge Joe Brown.

So Putnam was correct; an electronic forum foiled social engagement. I lost my ticket to more adept, online recluses and evaded social attachment in the process. Even as I struggled against potential friends, I preserved complete social isolation. Of course, anonymity is the foundation of these online recesses and is especially important in online markets. Yet, I wonder if there is a way to illuminate some of these shadowy internet caves and turn competitors into concert mates. And who knows, maybe I would like watching the People’s Court with other people.