A blog about interns in DC:
(Talking about the recent pirate troubles off the coast of Africa)
Intern #1 So do these pirates look like pirates?
Intern #2: What do you mean?
Intern #1: Well, what do they look like?
Intern #2: They’re people with normal clothes . . .and guns.
Intern #1 So they’re not like real pirates?
Intern #2: ?
Intern #1: When I think of pirates I think of Pirates of Caribbean. Do they look like that?
Intern #2: Pirates back then dressed like that because that was the clothes of the day. Pirates today dress in today’s clothes.
Intern #1: Well they should at least still have eye patches.
And then there’s this:
Four interns sit down in my section and order four Bud Lights.
Me: I’m sorry, fellas, we don’t have Bud Light. We have PBR on draft, though.
Intern #1: (sighs) Fine, four of those.
Me: No problem. I just need to see your ID’s.
Intern #2: You don’t need to see our ID’s. We work for Congressman _______ from ________. (Flashes his red badge)
Me: Sorry, dude, but unless the Distinguished Gentleman from _______ is willing to use his oversight authority to make the $10,000 fine that we’d get slapped with for serving you without ID’s go away, and give me a paying job when I get fired anyway, I’m still going to have to see them.
Intern #1: Wow, “oversight authority.” That’s more knowledge than I’d expect from someone with your job.
Me: And that’s about as much ignorance as I’d expect from someone who agreed to lick envelopes for free.
Every customer within earshot starts laughing. The interns pitch a royal fit, call my manager over, and get kicked out anyway. The best part? Not only did I get a $20 bonus from my manager for doing my job right, all of my other customers tipped me at least double.
Thanks for buying me a the new iPhone, boys. Y’all come back anytime.
[Via Jonah]
These are our future political leaders.
Suddenly Joe Biden doesn’t seem so inexplicable.
I lived on Capitol Hill for a few years. While in line for a crab cake sandwich at Market Lunch or dining at La Lomita, or shopping at the local book store, I heard many conversations like the above. The attitudes and assumptions haven’t much changed, I see.
Weren’t eye patches common on 18th-century sailors?
In 1991 I worked for a non-profit behind the supreme court building on Maryland Ave., NE. Just for fun at parties when interns would ask me where I worked I always replied, “On the Hill”. Invariably they would always laugh after I told them I did not work for a congressperson. They felt I was silly and should have known better than to say such a thing!
Oh oh, I have a good one.
once I was in line for Sushi Taro, when I overheard two young ladies talking about Bethesda. The first mentioned going there for some event. The second then said: “isn’t that all the way in the suburbs?”.
Yes, an 8 mile, metro accessible location is the //suburbs//.
I’ll never forget walking into the Capitol for the first time and thinking “My God, the country is being run by children!”
Hey Blue, don’t forget about the interns ;).
I always love seeing the interns about a year or so after the internship is over. During the internship, they proudly inform others that they are working for so and so as if we should all be so impressed that they were chosen by such an important person to do their bidding. Same with the overseas internships where feel important to have been chosen to pay their own way to another country to work for free. Not that it isn’t great that they landed an opportunity to get a leg up in life and to beef up their resume, mind you. I think internships are a great way to get a running start.
But then one or two years later they always seem a bit embarrassed that they have a real job, paying real money because their job title and pay is a harsh reality check that lets them know they are just another working stiff and not the rocketing star they were able to delude themselves into believing as long as their merit was not rewarded with real promotions and pay.
I suspect the idea that it is unfair because only the rich kids can afford it will just be fixed by another trillion dollar program that will make about 1/1000th of that amount available to pay a small number of interns a below the livign wage and the businesses will pay about 10X more in taxes than they would have to just pay the interns in the first place.
The IRS was going to tax NGO’s for the value of the free services interns provide, until they realized there was no value added – except by those named Monica.
Mythbusters looked into the myth that pirates wore eyepatches to keep one eye dark-adapted, so that if they had to go below decks during a fight (ostensibly to retrieve powder or cannonballs) they wouldn’t have to bumble around for five minutes waiting to be able to see. MB concluded that the eyepatches did function that way and branded the myth “plausible”….
In re intern stupidity, ISTR my college buds and I regularly engaged in spontaneous improv that resembled at least the first conversation above. Of course, one should always keep in mind the sage advice of Alice Cooper: “It’s cool to ACT stupid, not to BE stupid.”
BBB
Well, that begs for a study to determine whether the advantage of being able to adjust to the dark quickly outweighs the benefit of having three-D vision in a swordfight…
My guess is that lots of 18th century sailors wore eyepatches because they’d fried one of their retinas using a spyglass or a sextant snf accidentally looked into the sun.
Or ran afoul of splinters in a fight or a bad flashback from a flintlock pan.
Weren’t eye patches common on 18th-century sailors?
Yes! They were worn then much like Revo’s or Ray-Ban’s are worn today. And they also went around grimacing and saying cools things like Arrrrrgh! Matey!
Do we really need to raise kids to be politicians? Can’t they go and do something useful for at least a few years before they descend into hell and return to prey upon the living?
RE: Pirates. Some may also have worn eyepatches so that they could keep one eye dark-adapted for use belowdecks. Mythbusters tried this and found it plausible. Though I wonder if compromised depth-perception would have caused other problems with regular sailor-type duties.
I wonder if one of the reasons present day politicians tend to be awful (both parties) are that so many of them start off in government, having done nothing else.