UNPAID INTERNSHIPS

Unpaid Internships
A note on this piece. My son has applied for an internship with a politician. There is much competition for it as the position has some prestige. It entails working all day for free, but it will look good on his resume. A woman in her fifties I met the other day has applied for an internship at a well known museum. It entails working all day for no pay. She doesn't have the energy to do it and as a result, cannot further her career. These kinds of internships are increasingly common as any college or soon to be college graduate will tell you.

Dear Pacific Gas and Electric,
Congratulations! After lengthy consideration we have decided to award you, Pacific Gas and Electric, the 2012 Harvey Nutley Internship, re-instituted just this year at our house. Be assured, the competition for the prize was stiff and we spent many hours pouring over the resumes of countless excellent and highly qualified candidates. In the final hours however, we concluded that your qualifications, with your superior ability to deliver not just natural gas, but electricity to residential customers, were superior to all other competitors.
Unfortunately, due to budget constraints at this time, the internship is unpaid. However we can personally guarantee that your experience in delivering free utility services to our household will be far from trivial. The character building and gold star credit this time spent will provide in your future endeavors will hold you in good stead as future, more financially lucrative opportunities arise, which they surely will!
Again, congratulations Pacific Gas and Electric. We look forward to working with you in the coming year and have little doubt that your performance will remain at the same high quality is has been during all the years in which paid our bills.
Sincerely,
Harvey Nutley and his dog, “Rhomboid.”

Dear Time Warner Cable,
Our heartiest congratulations! After much consideration we have chosen you among the legions of too many qualified candidates to count, to receive the Harvey Nutley Cable Delivery Service Internship 2012.
This highly regarded prize has been awarded to many fine cable delivery services going on to illustrious successful careers including Comcast 2011, AT&T 2010, and Blitzkrieg (Munich) 2009. All have ventured forth to make vast and significant contributions to the world of delivering excellent landline, cell phone, Internet, and Cable Television services including all sports channels and free HBO. We have little doubt that after your experience with our staff, (myself, my assistant Rhomboid and my 37 year old daughter forced to move back home due to loss of employment and her husband taking the name of his upper body clothing of choice popularly called the “wifebeater tee-shirt” a tad too seriously) you will agree that your time with us has been well spent.
Unlike previous years, due to budgetary constraints this will be an unpaid internship. Rest assured however, that your experience will be both unparalleled and invaluable in your later quests for successful employment.
Again, congratulations. You have our sincerest regards, Harvey Nutley and Staff.
PS, the Soap Opera Network is not coming in at all well. Intermittently fuzzy, audio and video out of sync. Please remedy this problem forthwith to avoid problems with the start date of your internship.

Dear State Farm Insurance Company,
It is with great relish and a warm heart that we write to inform you of triumph in the stiff competition this year to insure our car. The Harvey Nutley Internship 2012 received more applicants this year than in any previous, most of them fine and well qualified candidates. However in the end, your qualifications outshone them all. You may toot your horn, albeit not too loudly—hubris being an unappealing quality—for the grace notes and special touches your unique and outstanding application provided. A free calendar at years end? Sparkling. Discounts on oil changes at Manny’s down on 12th? Sublime. And the piece de résistance, if I may be so bold, “Support your Local Police” bumper sticker vouchers. All of these special touches rendered State Farm the uncontestable Harvey Nutley Internship awardee this year.

In previous years the Harvey Nutley Internship has included a stipend in the form of a monthly check, however internships 2012 will be unpaid. Still, rest assured the experience of providing the Harvey Nutley Foundation including “Rhomboid,” daughter Faye and her husband Biff, recently out of rehab having renounced domestic violence forever, (God willing since she claims to love the bastard), with comprehensive auto insurance, will be a fulfilling and life changing one. Again, congratulations and you may take pride in your accomplishments, they are hallmarks of a bright future.

By the way, could you throw in roadside assistance with that? Biff’s got a cracked distributor cap and you know how fussy spark plugs can be especially when it rains.
Sincerely, all of us here… (Rhomboid! Get the fuck off the couch!) At the Harvey Nutley Foundation.