Being an unpaid worker

Well, it's that time of year, when DC is flooded by hopeful undergraduates and graduate students all looking to improve their education. No, it's not fall and school's starting, it's summer and all the interns have come to town. I got to interview a couple of those hopeful from the Washington Center. A couple we rejected becuase they just had too high of hopes. They wanted to come to DC for ten weeks and make a new marketing plan for a museum that they hadn't even heard of, much less new our normal visitor demographic and implement the plan. Yes, all in ten weeks. Well, they're eager if not realistic. As you can read many interns come to DC and are just grateful for the unpaid position they get. At least we were going to give ours a 'modest' (read:almost non-exisitant) stipend. I love our interns and administration assistants, don't get me wrong, but I hope that interns get real about their expectations when they come to DC. If you're going to work in a large Congressional office with twenty other interns, forget about doing substantive work every day, there's just not enough to go around and most of the time you are not there long enough. Make your copies, file your papers, be happy, pad your resume and go home and tell all your friends about what fun you had in Washington, DC. That's the one thing that you can definitely do in DC over the summer, enjoy the city. Don't spend all of your time working, you can do that anywhere.