Accepting an internship always feels like a little bit of a gamble.
On one hand, you could be signing onto a valuable experience where you'll learn directly from those in charge and build a strong network of professional contacts. On the other hand, you may have to deal with crazy requests you could have never anticipated, ones that definitely weren't listed in the job description.
If you happen to find yourself in the middle of a less-than-stellar internship, take a look at these terrible tales and take solace in the fact that you are most certainly not alone.
Picture perfect
"I interned for a small European magazine once and had to help with distribution. I was instructed to hang out around metro stations and take pictures of random people while we handed them magazines.
It turns out random people are not thrilled to have their pictures taken.
One guy cussed me out in French after I took his photo, and since my French is terrible, I just said ‘désolée' and then cried over a baguette in the park like a much more fragile Anne Hathaway. Intern advice: Carbs make everything better."— Julia, 22
Super Soaker
"One of my most intense internship experiences was the semester I spent at a major news agency in Belgium, where my boss was known for making interns cry.
One day, I was covering a protest in Brussels with one of my favorite cameramen and the situation on the ground was getting pretty rough. Shortly after getting back, my boss told me to go back out and find my cameraman again because she wanted more footage. By that time, the protest had gotten even worse, half the trains in the city were shut down, and the police had started using water cannons and tear gas on the angry protesters.
I luckily managed to catch a metro to the right stop. However, I got off the train right as the protesters were getting really violent. Someone hurled a brick at the police officers who were forming sort of a perimeter wall around us. They immediately responded by spraying the crowd with tear gas and, as we all staggered backwards, hitting us with a hard blast from one of their water cannons.
By that point, I was pretty angry. My eyes and throat were burning, I was completely soaked, and I had no idea where my cameraman was, and had no way of getting around the police line to find him. I finally decided to just give up and go back to the office. When I got back, my boss threw a cursory glance in my direction and asked, "What took you so long? Did you not get the film?"
I spent the rest of the day shamed, in soaking wet clothes, editing footage and trying not to be noticed."— Kate, 22
Ruff day
"When I was interning at a women's magazine, a very particular editor-in-chief gave me a list of things I needed to do that day. Most of them were errands. I had to go replenish the office ‘drug store' supply, which meant buying Aspirin and tampons (they HAD to be Playtex — no Tampax allowed).
I remember standing in front of the tampon aisle and marveling at how many types there were. Would it be offensive if I got ‘super'? (I got a variety pack to be safe.) After I did her errands, the last thing on the list was to go to her house and feed her dog. It went fine — I just filled up the bowl and took the dog outside, but, then again, that isn't really something an office intern should be doing!"— Allison, 23
Knock out
"One morning, my supervisor mentioned that he had to go the hospital later that afternoon for a scheduled surgery. The surgery required him to be unconscious, so his dad was coming to pick him and take him there. But in a crazy turn of events, the president ended up being in town, resulting in all the major roads being blocked off and rerouted.
My boss awkwardly approached me after getting off the phone with his dad and asked if I could take him to the hospital. I agreed, and then had to wait at the hospital until his dad got there because someone had to be present in the case that anything went wrong! When his dad arrived, my boss introduced us.
Feeling incredibly awkward about the whole situation, I turned to my boss and said ‘Don't die!' before bolting out of there. Hopefully the anesthesia blocked that memory out of his mind, but the image of his face dropping, already pale in fear, as I said the one thing you're not supposed to say to someone about to go into surgery, will live forever in my mind."— Jacqueline, 20
Clean crew
"When I applied and interviewed for my internship, I was told that I would be working in the resort's Food and Beverage department for a 12-week period, learning how to manage and supervise while interacting with guests. Since the resort was just opening that summer, we would be expected to help out wherever we could to get everything up and running. Little did I know what we would actually be doing.
For the first four weeks of my internship, the interns were on their hands and knees scrubbing toilets, bathtubs, showers, and the entirety of the 465 rooms of this new resort — without running water. Every scuff mark and speck of dirt needed to be removed, and they checked each room we cleaned. Before we were allowed to move onto the next room, it had to be approved. Otherwise we had to reclean it!" — Machaela, 20
In high demand
"At this one place I worked, my boss used to make me order his groceries for him. Usually he'd just ask me to call a delivery service, but one time, he sent me on an errand to buy things for an event and added his own personal shopping list to it — and it was a LOT of stuff.
I didn't have a car and the company wouldn't reimburse cab fares, so it was a nightmare carrying over $250 worth of stuff using public transportation. He was also super passive-aggressive and would assign work to me at all hours of the day and night and expect me to get it done immediately.
At my high school graduation, which I had taken the day off for, I got a text from him telling me to get a lengthy errand done by that afternoon. By the way, this was not a personal assistant job — it was a regular internship. Needless to say, I wasn't at that job long."— Anne, 21
SEE ALSO: 8 Interview Horror Stories
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