Internships
Dear friend and financial partner:
The following account was written by the first alumni of the Buckbee Internship Program (BIP).
The word “intern” has a French descent, interner, meaning to confine, which itself comes from the Latin internus, which means within. We have made it policy to request from our interns a documentation of their time spent with us, both for legal/evidentiary purposes, as well as so that we may share a unique inside look at the Company with you, the shareholder. And what’s more “inside” than an “intern,” who has been “confined within.” We like to think of our office as the HQ of sadness, so Rebecca got to see sadness from the inside for the better part of two months.
The below report also served as a requirement so that Rebecca could receive credit for her time at Buckbee. In reviewing the document, it is clear that Ms. Galloway was not entirely veracious in her impressions. Whether the document is a lie or fiction or “creative” non-fiction is difficult to determine, especially in the current culture, and in a Company that prides itself in, and exploits, the blurring of boundaries.
Yours in mentorship,
Mary Dowd,
EVP of Corporate Affairs
Director, Buckbee Internship Program
My Summer Internship by Becky Galloway
The Office Environment and My Part In It
After my summer spent at Buckbee, A Writer, Inc., a very important company in the indublishing industry, I can honestly say that I have changed, grown and learned a lot. On my first day at Buckbee, I can honestly say I had no idea what to expect. I mean, I wasn’t even sure what indublishing was though I now know that it is an industry and it is involved with publishing and it is a very important industry of publishing. Lots of money trades hands in indublishing, at least that is what Mr. Chalmers told me and he has a really nice desk chair and lots of nice suits so I believe that he has a high pay scale. Mr. Chalmers, who is in charge of a lot of stuff, office social events, ordering new chairs, writing long letters, etc., and Mr. Christopher, the CEO, who is always muttering, “The buck stops here” but in a nice, not-scary, singsong tone, were very nice to me and showed me around on my first day. Mr. Hargis, another executive, seemed a little bit grumpy and really was that way through my whole internship but according to Mr. Christopher, that is because he does most of the “actual” work, in addition to Jonathan Rone, who only works at nights from home because he “doesn’t do suits” so I never got to meet him, though according to office talk, Mr. Rone has several different companies where he works under several different aliases, all with the common aim of spreading indublishment throughout the world. Also, Mr. Hargis is very sad, one of the reasons he rose so quickly in the company ranks, though Mr. Christopher, when he took away the blueberry muffins I baked to cheer Mr. Hargis up, explained to me that Mr. Hargis’s sadness was the intentional kind, that he just took his job very seriously and sadly though he had been known to grin and even chuckle one to two times when attending some of Mr. Chalmers’ more inventive social events. I have to say here that I did not know that there were different kinds of sadness and that you could choose what kind you wanted to be or even that you could choose to be sad. I can honestly say this is one of the most important things I learned during my summer internship.
Also, there was a Katie McGerrigill (not sure how to spell this) who I never saw either but she was back in the Middle East doing something with horses, which according to Mr. Christopher, was her “true destiny” and once I accidentally saw an email from her to the Board saying she was “NEVER” coming back and that indublishing wasn’t real, it was just something they had made up. I can honestly say that after spending 17 hours a month at Buckbee for two months, except for the vacation I took to Waku Beach with my three best girlfriends (you know who you are bitches!) for a late spring break in the first half of June, that indublishing is not only real, it is an important force and will change the face of indublishing, well, er, itself really, forever, once it picks up and more people in indublishing start acknowledging it, it meaning indublishing. Oh, there was one other executive, Mr. Vostola, who I got to work with who seemed very nice to me despite Mr. Christopher being kind of anxious when I was picked over the other interns to work on a special project with him and making me sign those papers each time. Mr. Vostola, or Mack as he asked me to call him, was a complete gentleman, in my opinion. Finally, my boss and “mentor” (as she asked me to call her) was Ms. Dowd, who was pretty nice but it seemed a little manufactured like she wanted us to be sisters and for me to also be exasperated with the other boys in the office and for us to have girl time based on this issue. I was a little uncomfortable with this expectation but when I told her, she explained how her job is basically to “wipe all their a*%es” and she just wanted to be friends with someone who wasn’t a boy at the office while still being professional and being my boss and telling me when my outfits were a little more casual and co-ed-y than she considered professionally appropriate, which is another thing I learned, then I told her it was okay and sounds good, let’s be friends.
Tasks I Did
My days at Buckbee consisted of lots of different kinds of tasks, which was one of my favorite things about working there, second only to Mr. Chalmers’ social events, which, when I finally got to attend one toward the end of my internship, really lived up to its reputation. Unfortunately, I signed the confidentiality clause requisite to attendance at any one of these events and can’t talk about the theme, the earring, or the celebrity presence. One of my most important tasks was to spend one to two hours every morning looking at all the newspapers for sad stories (Ms. Dowd asked me to also look for happy ones but I was again uncomfortable with this and told her so – she told me it was okay, I didn’t have to do it but if I did happen to see something, well, what was the harm? I did forward her one piece on narwhals because Mr. Christopher and Mr. Hargis had told her this favorite animal of hers was extinct, in order to make her sadder, which it did for many months, until my article cheered her right up again. I never got caught but felt guilty as Mr. Christopher and Mr. Hargis looked a bit dismayed when she would go whistling and smiling around the office). The good thing about my newspaper duties was there is a lot of sad stuff out there so I never felt like I wasn’t doing a good job. Another good thing is that I read the newspaper every day and now understand some conversations I didn’t used to understand at school. Another fun task Mr. Christopher gave me was Movie Review Friday. Every Friday, I compiled a list of the movies playing locally with showtimes, theater locations, plot synopsis, starring actresses, and Sadness Quotient (SQ) for each movie included in my report. On alternate Fridays, I would order, at Mr. Christopher’s request, extra popcorn bags with a special, butter-resistant lip, and a pound of peanut butter M&Ms.
Skills I Got
I improved my reading skills in this internship through reading the newspaper. Also, I improved my typing skills as I was often required to type in-house memos from Mr. Chalmers, special projects from Mr. Vostola, and a continuous pile of indublishing “definitions” from the desk of Mr. Christopher. I told him not to worry because obviously if people didn’t know what indublishing is, it’s because they don’t “get it” and that indublishing is too complex and cool for definitions to cover all of it. I think the most important skill I got from this job is my ability to think about big issues, big things in life like sadness and not just say, “that’s bad” but really to think, maybe it’s not bad, maybe it’s good? And I do have a new respect for sadness and the people who are brave enough to take it on, like all of (or most of) the executives at Buckbee who everyday “don the mantle of sadness” as Mr. Hargis refers to it and really avoid being happy. I mean, I can honestly say I really think that sacrifice means something and in the future, I might try to be a little sad or at least not so happy and give something back, you know, to the world around me.
What I’ll Take Away
I never saw him, Buckbee, the one who started it all, but I did dream about him, vividly, every night for the two months (minus 2 weeks for a late spring break with my girls). I worked there and it kind of creeped me out but the dreams weren’t scary, they were just him in a little room, typing away and the noise in my dreams would turn into a woodpecker or a lawnmower or a woman tapping her red heel or her red fingernails so that the typing was everywhere during the day too. I guess this job really affected me and the idea of Buckbee, him as an idea not just as a man (who I think is probably pretty hot, at least he was in my dreams though he was sort of in shadow so he could be sort of tortured hot like John Turturro or Aidan Quinn so not really hot at all) was really important to my motivation for getting up one or two days a week and going down and working for one to two straight hours and writing those movie reviews the best I possibly could. Because, as Mr. Christopher told me, every little bit counts, every clack of the keys is just one step toward the great sad greatness of the Buckbee that is and the Buckbee that will be.
