Diary Of An Entry-Level Employee That’s Trying Too Hard: Hazing The Interns

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Gil Humplestead is a 23-year-old recent college graduate who finally got his first real job as a Junior Marketing Assistant Coordinator with Incorporated Partners & Co. Today, he chronicles his dealings with his company’s interns.

Monday, November 4, 2013

They say the cream rises to the top. In Gil Humplestead’s world, there’s cream everywhere. That statement was proven to be 100% true last week, Diary. It finally happened. My hard work and sticktoitiveness finally paid off. Gil Humplestead’s day had come. I had the interns put under my command. It was the kind of day where the clouds parted and the stars aligned. It was the day I had been dreaming of ever since I was hired.

I guess you could say that I’m a natural born leader. When you exude confidence and machismo like Gil Humplestead, the people are sure to fall in line and follow you into battle. The brass obviously saw it in me and knew that they had to put some people under my command.

It all started when Barry from sales called in sick on Thursday. Food poisoning. Barry is usually in charge of the interns, but since he took down some bad skillet queso at Longhorn Steakhouse, he was out of the game. Ordering skill-que at a steakhouse is a power move. My heart goes out to Barry. He’s a good man. He’s also going through his second divorce. Guy can’t catch a break.

So with Barry on IR, the interns would usually fall under the umbrella of the office manager, Cathy, but Cathy was also out of commission. Vericose veins surgery. Gross. I can’t believe our health benefits package covers that. Cath can get her gross old people veins removed, but our bennies don’t cover calf implants? What kind of BS is that?

Next in the line of succession was Phil, who is a part-time, $15/hour “media” consultant, who really just sets up the weekly webinars with corporate whenever we need them. Phil was on vacation in Branson with his roommate and couldn’t be reached. So, who was next in line? You’re damn right. It was me.

I got an email from the bossman around 10:15 letting me know what would be going on that day. I could tell he was really excited to give me some additional responsibilities around the office.

Gil,

Barry, Cathy and Phil are all out of the office today. You’ll be in charge of assigning intern tasks FOR TODAY ONLY. This will not be a permanent responsibility of yours. Please sign their timesheets at the end of the day and be prepared to help them if they have any issues.

Jeff Tumbleholt, Senior VP of Sales, Incorporated Partners & Co.

Oh yeah, baby. Gil’s in charge now. These intern scum would be mine for a full 2-4 hours. The path to your graduation runs through Hump City and there’s a new sheriff in town. You don’t just walk into my office and think you run the place. I’m the captain of this ship and I will not tolerate any shenanigans under my watch. If I smell one shred of mutiny, I’ll wreck these plebian rats.

The interns usually show up around 11 in the morning, and I noticed that the auxiliary conference room would be open. So I penciled in “Intern rap sesh” in the conference room rezzie sheet for 11:15a-12:30p. Should be a nice little way to bridge the gap to lunch for your boy. A couple of minutes after reserving the conference room, I got another email from my boss:

Gil,

It is not necessary for you to reserve the aux conf rm 4 intern task assignments. I don’t know what you were planning on doing for an hour and 15 min with the interns, but I can assure you that it isnt necessary to hold the conf rm 4 that long.

Please advise,

Jeff

Tumbleholt was gonna play hardball with me. No big. I’d make due. I put a note up on the bulletin board for the interns to meet at my desk when they showed up. Sure enough, an hour later, they were all gathered around my desk. I told them that I was a “no nonsense kind of guy” and would be “expecting nothing but the best” from them. One of them sneezed right in the middle of my General Norman Schwarzkopf quote and I made them do a wall sit for two minutes while we all sat in silence. I delegated further tasks at my discretion and left for lunch.

I was feeling pretty “executive,” so I decided to hit up Twin Peaks to treat myself to a lunch worthy of a wheeling and dealing business cowboy like Gil Humplestead. I sat at the bar like a badass. Went with the ribeye pot roast. I was a little bit lonely, but the bartender seemed to really be into me. It’s probably not a common occurrence for dudes in three-piece suits to eat lunch at Twin Peaks. No one from the office ever wants to go to lunch with me. I think they’re all intimidated by me. I wouldn’t let that stop me from enjoying high end slabs of meat covered in beef gravy.

I had a few errands to run during lunch too. Just normal stuff. Went and got fitted for a suit at Jos. A. Bank, signed up for a Target credit card and stopped by the BMW dealership next to the office park to test drive an M-series. I asked them if I could have it for the afternoon just to “see how she looks” in my parking space. I don’t really have my own parking space, but I park in pretty much the same spot everyday.

I got back from lunch around 2:15 and thankfully, the interns were still there. The two chick ones were looking at a Pinterest wedding board and the guy intern was snacking on a Clif bar in the corner of the break room. This was the perfect time to set an example, what they call a “teaching moment” in the NFL. I stormed into the break room and shouted, “Put that Clif bar down! Clif bars are for closers!” and then I smacked the half-eaten white chocolate macadamia nut bar right out of his hand. I did an about face out of the break room and tried my best to hide my smirk of pride as I strode back to the power cube.

I continued delegating tasks to the interns, which were mostly just them filling out all of my Excel spreadsheets, which were as I put it, “high priority action items.” I sat back in my cube, enjoying my view of the break room and allowed myself to daydream a little bit about the day where I wouldn’t have intern scum under my command, but real, full-time, adult employees.

That day will soon come, Diary. Once I’m promoted to CEO in 2015, I’ll run this company with an iron fist of diligence and moxie. I can see it now. Cover stories in Forbes, Fortune, The Economist and Fast Company. Which reminds me, I need to renew my subscriptions for all of those. Yeah, I can get those articles for free online, but what else would I put on my desk besides biz mags?

That was just a glimpse into my future. I can sense my star is on the rise. I’m a wunderkind, headed straight for the top. The game is about to change and Gil Humplestead is on the front lines.

Welcome to the revolution.

Gil “The Hump” Humplestead

More Gil:
–Buying Work Clothes
–First Day
–Training Seminar
–First Sales Call
–The Office Party

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Brian McGannon

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