Why I am done with internships

DISCLAIMER: This is a 350 word rant and may be found offensive to some parties.

I have started to feel like Katherine Heigl from 27 Dresses- but a free- service offering version of her. During one of my internships, I remember choosing to spend my lunch breaks googling “I hate work memes” on one tab since I was working on the other tab- it was always a working lunch break. Every time I chose to intern in the ever-consuming fashion industry, I went in expecting the The Devil Wears Prada concocted with more tears, but it really sucked when the negative bits ended up outweighing the experience itself.

Let me be honest, not all my internships have left a bitter taste in my mouth, but they’ve all compounded and played a role in making me want to NEVER work for free. When you’re an intern, you're disposable and temporary and hence you’re obviously not treated the same as employees even though you spend the same hours doing the same work. As an intern, you want to be a sponge and learn as much as you can, so you overcompensate for the short amount of time with a lot of effort, but when the people you work with don't acknowledge this, the drive to learn backfires. Also, it baffles me how so many people and brands I’ve interacted with feel no need to offer an intern a stipend of any sort, convincing themselves that they are in fact doing the student a favour. Well, no matter how passionate the student may be, the brand should be mindful that they would have had to pay a lump sum amount to get the work done, which is why they are always open to outsourcing work to students. It is a win-win situation no doubt, but a stipend to cover transportation and food doesn’t seem like an unfair bargain. It’s not about the money, it’s about incentivising the process. This can even be in a non-tangible form like conversations to get to know the student better, reasonable working hours, or even being invited to the monthly outing. These efforts can really make for a happy intern and cost nothing.

Stay tuned. Stay inspired.

#interships #fashionindustry #howtosayno