I was welcomed with open arms to work for the company featured in this article http://vault.sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1153364/index.htm My boss told everyone about me - Emmitt Smith & his wife Pat, Winfred Tubbs, Peter Berg. The expectations were super high, and I thought I could shoulder them. For those who don't know me, I'm a 20 year old college student. I have already had more than 10 jobs in my life. I have gotten 5 other people full-time jobs this year alone. I have been a radio producer for more than a year now, and that has stabilized, meaning I'm getting a steady salary and can do the job on my own schedule. Back to my internship. I packed my stuff up and decided to live in Dallas for five weeks to work during the day and cohost my radio show after. My boss had me working for him and two of his partners. One partner was a PR firm. The other was this motivational speaker. The first week was busy but productive. After a series of meetings, I learned the philosophies of Modern Portfolio Theory and wrote the content for my boss' new venture, Investment Forensics (http://www.investmentforensics.com). All the content you see on there is from me. The second week is when things turned bad. I developed bags under my eyes. I saw I was losing hair on my head. My main task was to get my boss and his partners and their clients national publicity. They wanted to be on CNN, Rush Limbaugh, FOX, CNBC, etc. Clients varied, from a counselor to plastic surgeon to financial expert. They basically gave me a phone and computer and said "make things happen." Well, after the second week, two of the partners came into my office (I was treated like a king - got my own office, was the only paid intern on staff, could work around my own schedule) and said they were disappointed with how much time they were spending teaching me the business. Well, I told everyone from the start, I am a 20 year old intern who has worked on the other side of the business. PR is brand new to me. I don't know anyone, so it's going to take some time. To keep a long story short, the pressure built up. I wasn't getting any responses from any producers or journalists. My boss had me call every NFL team to see if he could give speaking engagements/financial literacy classes to organizations. Other than a lead from the NY Giants and rejection from the Texans, nothing. Nada. I became desperate and called/emailed almost everyone I knew at the Rockets, Astros, communications schools, etc. Awful, awful feeling. I was at the point I was going to beg people for things. But I didn't do that. I texted my boss (who was on vacation) and said we had to talk. We had two phone meetings and a conference call with all his partners while he was on a boat in Colorado and I quit. The partners said they thought I was a media guru and knew everyone in the business. They said they were hoping I could help them turn around their PR business. My boss said he expected more of me. I told them all, if you want publicity for your clients, don't depend on a 20 year old kid. Call MediaLink or a major PR firm, dole out 10 grand, and see the results. At the end, I told them, I don't want to waste your time, energy and money. They all agreed that even though they were paying me intern money, they didn't have the "resources" to continue paying me. If there's one thing I can take away from this, it's make sure you love what you do. The worst feeling in the world is to wake up every morning and dread going to work. And the PR profession is tough stuff. If you don't know anybody, and you don't have the proper training or software to aid your work, you're going to find yourself going nowhere. Turns out I was the first intern to ever quit Chapwood. They never pay any of their interns, yet I was. My boss hasn't talked to me since I quit a couple days ago. It sucks, but I did what was best for everyone. I could have finished my term there, gotten no results, and made an extra thousand bucks. But I felt that wasn't even worth it.
Lol. How, in any way, as an intern were you a "producer" of the show? Cold-calling is a tough racket, and since kids out of high school see radio and TV as glamorous, they can get people to work for nothing. My advice is to go wait tables until you figure out what you want to do.
I'm still a producer of a show and I am about to start a media-related business. I have this job and get paid well. During the day, I was interning at a portfolio-management company. This is where the problem was.
Weird my former boss just emailed me and sent me this article http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/24/sports/football/24rhoden.html).?_r=1
sounds like they expected too much of an inexperienced rookie maybe the whole story is not there, but you must have buttered them up pretty well to get paid good luck
If you didn't feel you could handle the job, you were right to quit. But you probably made a mistake burning bridges with the best job and references a 20 year old could possibly get. It might be a little tricky convincing your next employer that a 20 year old accomplished everything you have; especially without a good, friendly, credible reference to back it up. Keep your grades up.
But you will be when someone dumber and lazier than you has your dream job, cause he showed up and made the right friends.
Know how much this will matter to you (the OP) in two years? Nada. It's a college internship. Walk it off.
I can't believe you lost hair and developed bags under your eyes in only 2 weeks of a stressful gig. Damn, if you have kids, you're just going to keel over and die after a weekend. Seriously, get into Yoga or meditation or maybe even mediCATION if this happens again. How's your BP?
For real. I want the OP to share some interview tips with me so I can land a job that I don't have the qualifications for.
That sucks. I had a Finance internship that I wanted to quit as well simply because I was also taking so many classes at the time, but I stuck it out for the school term so my resume can look better shrug
Tough to read the situation unless we were there. From what you wrote, sounds like you oversold and they expected too much. I probably would've stuck it out in any case. You only had 5 weeks total right? No matter what job, you will be stuck doing crap you hate from time to time and high pressure situations will arise sooner or later. Good luck in your future ventures.
Being an intern sucks. I've been there. You were used. They brought you on hoping for a quick score, and didn't care if you couldn't deliver because you were getting paid peanuts. Here's the only good news. Even if you did deliver, odds are they wouldn't have given you a job anyway. Nobody hires the 20 year old miracle worker. They're too afraid that you'll replace them someday.
