Disclaimer:
I am no more qualified to give advice than Doctor Phil is to give
weight-loss tips, Kimora Lee is to doling out fashion direction, or
anyone at Cosmo
is to providing tips to pleasing a man. But they do it. Granted, they
have lawyers and shit-piles of money. But I don't. So remember, that
anything you read here might be horribly, horribly wrong. Or it may be
horribly, horribly right.
My guess is as good as yours, just better.
Ask me: mo [at] manhattanoffender [dot] com
Dear Add Vice -
How do I refrain from murdering the intern who speaks loudly, inanely and at length with her mother on the phone each day (2-3 a week) she's in the office? I'm not sure if it's the noise itself, or that she's 20-something and still chats with "mommy" ad-nauseating, but I want to harm her and I know I technically shouldn't. In theory, I could use the excuse that I'm tapering off Effexor and my brain is semi-addled, but I also don't want to hurt my hands pummeling this young lady.
Is it my problem, her problem, or society's?
Love,
Kitty With A Whippet
I'm distracted. See, you signed off with "love". I'm all about love. But you're making love out of nothing at all. Whether it's love in the first degree or endless love, it's sort of got me wondering about you. If you're throwing your love around, maybe you're throwing your hate around too. On the other hand, you read me. And as someone known to be a sucker for knowing that someone reads his words, well, KWAW, I love you back.
Let's think about interns for a moment. More specifically, let's think about New York City interns. This is no longer the city where you can start with nothing and make something of yourself. There is now an economic limbo bar set up for passage. If you make little enough to pass under the bar, one of the ibankers holding the bar will trip you on the way under. No, to start off here you have to be able to jump over the bar. For a college student to have enough money to do an internship means they are able to take a no- to low-paying position, pay for their city living expenses and have enough put away to pay for the coming year of tuition, board, and expenses as well.
In other words, interns have parents with money. As such the "job"
they have is just for fun money; their primary source of income is
Mommy or Daddy. When your intern is on the phone with her parental
unit, it isn't that she is ignoring the job that puts caviar on her
cracker. Actually, she is securing her primary source of cash. If she
exhibits poor performance on the internship, all that is really needed
for her to do is simply not mention the experience when she is
job-hunting after graduation. To circumvent this impulse, every
unimportant job in the office should be piled on the intern from day
one, with minimal praise given to any effort. Once the self-esteem is
lowered, the intern can be relied upon to either quit or slave away.
Either result is better than an intern with enough time on her hands to
be making long personal calls.
This, however, does not answer the real question of avoiding your
homicidal tendencies toward the intern. As noted, you seem to have
strong feelings. You "love" me and "want to hurt" the intern. This
swinging of emotions is not healthy, but it isn't unsurmountable. To
level off these conflicting states, try a mantra.
Find a spot in your office, away from your squeaky-toy intern and thus quiet. Then dim the lights, sit in a half-lotus position (Ardha Padmasana or Ardha Kamalasana), close your eyes and repeat the following:
She is already wealthier than me. She will always be wealthier than me. She will probably leave school and, after a year abroad to really find herself, be my boss one day. I must be kind to my future overlord.
After five minutes of repetition, the resulting calm you feel will be the sweet harmonic lull of depression. While not ideal, it is preferable to homicidal thoughts.
