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Man in Suit

30
THE INTERN

I have had many interns on my teams over the years and all of them have been great additions to the group. Except for one. Shortly after joining the team, an intern was assigned to sit in the office beside mine. I was once an intern and every other intern like me had applied for the position like normal people. This specific intern was well-connected with his close relative as a senior executive, which explains his magical internship placement. Considering that he had already gotten a summer internship by no merit of his own, I expected that he would be eager to learn and prove his skills to the team. No such luck!
He came in late every day and wanted to chat while I had work to do. He, of course, had no projects to speak of since he took days to do a simple 1-hour task, so it was too much of a headache for people to give him tasks. Instead of working, he regaled me with outlandish stories of his partying ways, wild music festivals and random adventures. The intern was completely oblivious to office norms, and would sneak up on me to rock my chair and startle me. He almost flipped my chair one day! Since he was a rich kid, he complained about having to take public transit and eat food from the cafeteria. Despite all the company firewalls, he found a way to play video games online and left the volume on loud enough for me to hear the sound effects. The shenanigans continued all summer, but my all-time favourite was the time he showed up hungover from partying and fell asleep at his desk audibly snoring. I said nothing in hopes someone would notice, but his other office neighbour showed him undeserved kindness by waking him up and encouraging him to get coffee.
By the end of the summer, he had found yet another underachieving intern to hang out with. The two geniuses decided to share their wild adventure stories together, but their best one was standing outside during a serious thunderstorm (with hailstones) to water the lawn with a garden hose. Somehow, the intern survived and completed his summer internship. Funny enough, he miraculously got another internship the following year in another office. I wonder what coworker he is torturing these days?

30 The Intern: Project

©2020 by The Coworker Stories.

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