Confession Twelve: When I say MY Interns I am Right Because They Lived in MY Office

Its funny how things work out.

A little over a year ago I was working as a post-grad intern at a BCS school, then got a call to return to my alma mater for a full-time job where oddly enough I took over control of the undergrads. For those keeping track Brett Favre’s retirement lasted longer than my gig at that BCS school; in my defense, I did come back here to work with the winningest coach of his respective sport in school history so its not like the decision was 100% stupid on my part.

Within the same year of my return, my department was moved from one large office to four individual offices – the Director has the office the size of my freshman dorm room, while each of us Assistant Directors have our own four walls and the graduate assistants share a space (see left- I took that earlier today. True story!). Located in my office are the two most important items our department could have 1. The printer - which lures the occasional person in to visit. 2. The candy dish - which lures more people in than the printer and usually makes Rm. 247 the place to be in the morning. Oh yeah, I usually have baked goods of some sort too. Come to think of it, I am not sure why those I work with are not 600 lbs. ... maybe its all that running we do between each others offices five feet away from one another. I do enjoy the "intercom system" though, i.e. screaming while still seated at my desk.

Yet, the prized article in my office are not the post-bowl plaques of former football coaches with the misspelling in the schedules, nor the autographed photo of one of my former little babies from PA, but is actually the “student desk”. – If you ask the GA’s, at some point I wanted to be a teacher and their smaller desk is living proof of this notion when in all actuality I knew we needed a place to put the undergrads during their office hours so why not with me?

Have I mentioned that I am the mom of my office?

This summer we had plans of hosting three undergrads who, depending upon the day, would have a morning or afternoon shift. Ok, sounds easy enough. There might have been one or two days where they would overlap by a minute or so, but we never planned on creating an additional act for the circus that we perform in on a daily basis.

Then two were given a ”group” project …

K-squared, as we liked to call the girls, turned out to get along so well that they not only began coming in on the same day at the same times, but they also worked their butts off in unison. We never once had a girl fight. Great! What more could a boss ask for?

Then, one day, one … snorted. No joke. Hilarious. By the end of Week Three one would get the other going and before you knew it, the estrogen ocean that became my little work sanctuary was loudly spilling into the hallway.

Today was their last day and I am honestly saddened by this – these two rocked! The third intern does too, BUT he is around straight through August until the end of the year. We can’t miss him because he isn’t going anywhere!

In loving memory of my ass-kickers I would like to share the lessons they taught me this summer:

1. Toledo spelled backwards is Odelot and pronounced O-DE-LOT.
2. In the event someone does not respond to an email, you can threaten to kick them off your team. (Ok maybe I got to teach them how wrong this is.)
3. Justin Timberlake is actually a very nice guy, but like a dog can sense fear – or maybe he has 20/20 vision and picks-up on girls shaking. I bet he has a lot of practice with that sort of thing!
4. The “younger generation” does not know who the American Gladiators are.
5. You can be 14 and snuck in places in our college town – Yes, this one forced me to leave the office because I was afraid to hear the rest of the story.
6. Bees do not survive in a basement.
7. Someone in the room will always be wearing heels and will be willing to give them up in the event a co-worker needs kicked in the butt, regardless if all parties involved know each other or not. In the event they have yet to be introduced, this is a great time to do it.
8. It’s not worth it to learn Spanish to graduate.

Now, if this was a real blog that more than two people read this would be the spot where I would ask for those out there cruising the information super highway to leave me comments on what their best/worst internship lessons were ... I bet someone would have some golden nugget - right?