Internship?

I'm still in a medicated fog of sorts, drifting to the end of this stubborn storm of blahness that has beleagured me for nearly two weeks...

Yesterday, I received an email from a college senior asking for permission to intern in my office. I've never gotten such a request before.

It seems a mixed bag of possibilities. On the one hand, I am so swamped in this place, I could desperately use the assistance of someone else to do some of the research and creation of news releases and such. On the other hand, I am so swamped in this place that I know I don't have time, worst case scenario, to babysit; best case scenario, to try to explain my organizational system and modus operandi. The work I do goes directly to the public and therefore has to be as damn near perfect as possible.

I'm not the kind of jerk that would make this kid run the photocopier either. If She is going to intern here, She is going to be provided with useful experiences.

I am remembering now my college internship days, helping out on the staff of a suburban magazine. I was so green, so naive, it makes me cringe. The work I knew how to do. The problem was, no college course that I know of teaches a young person about office politics and how to deal with them. And where I went fairly screamed with office politics. I had no clue. I struggled. I tried to stay above the fray but in the end, I was lucky to get out of there with my internship credit intact.

This intern won't have to go through all that.