The current employment-themed issue of The Onion has an article with a dateline — Boston — and an employer — Beacon Press. Clearly not the Boston-based Beacon Press that’s a part of the Unitarian Universalist Association.
But it’s funny all the same.
“Summer Intern Already Forgotten” (The Onion)
The dark humor of all this, is that I’ve known people like the fictional Dan Klein. They’ve poured their hearts out for unpaid internships where much has been promised, nothing was delivered, and they were promptly forgotten at the end of the Summer. Remember that employers tend to pay for what they value. Too many unpaid internships are window dressing, designed to make the employer look good to some outside constituency.
If your internship is unpaid, ask yourself if there is something else you are getting out of it? Perhaps certification in some skill? A unit of clinical pastoral education? Make sure that your internship has some concrete educational value for your future, and it is not simply a seasonal public relations ritual.