The Intern Grapevine

Over at The Momoro Hoax,* Phillip argues that most interns are worthless time sucks not worth the time or their meager compensation. In an effort to squeeze juice from these raisins, he suggests some time-saving techniques to improve productivity.

A sure fire way is that any time you have an issue that you want to discuss with your boss, make sure you come in with a question or explanation that only requires a yes/no answer or multiple choice selection from your boss. By the way, you’ll also end up finding when you do this that you grow as an asset to the company because you start putting your small actions in the context of the organization and understand why you do what you do.

First: I am so glad I was never one of Phillip's interns, and vice versa! My varied, frequent, and nebulous questions would have driven him to the breaking point. Nevermind that I kicked ass.

Phillip's suggestion for tweaking workplace communication in an environment in which work is clearly defined, speed is paramount, and you're surrounded by people with robust skillsets is reasonable enough to try. In fact, I don't see why he shouldn't expand the idea to include the entire development team, not just interns? If it's an effective tweak and it's needed, go for it. After all, it sounds like this boss sure is busy and shouldn't be bothered for much - he's got so much shit to do!

But that's my rub: when I have interns working with me, they become a big part of the shit I have to do. It is not a nuisance. They become one of the most important aspects of my work.

here's one intern every tech guy would hire, even if she asked a lot of questions - photo by coba (cc)Why? Because I am getting an incredible price on the opportunity to examine if this intern through my own unique, particular lens. If I want to see how they handle pressures, I can up the ante. If I want to see how quickly they can learn new things, I can assign something new. Or, if I'm like Phillip, maybe I want to test their independence. I can observe that continuously. When I'm interested in building for the future, this is a privilege!

Similarly, I'm paying this intern to examine my company as a place that she wants to be. The best way I can shape that experience is with my own behavior. Cultivating an environment in which she feels valued is of paramount importance. Finding opportunities to create meaningful work and accomplishments is big, too. Lastly, knowing how much I value an open, frequent line of communication with my boss, I would seek to always provide the same. With someone talented, I am laying the foundation of an important and mutually beneficial partnership.

As for the intern that sucks: so what? Three months and a couple G's set afire and we're all finished, vaya con dios, and so on. Perhaps this attitude is wasteful, a sign of corporate luxury; admittedly, a startup would be looking for a much more impactful contribution (which you might be able to get equally inexpensively elsewhere).** But, for talent development, the economics clearly work out in my company's favor. I've spent less than a couple of cheap computers to ensure that we don't invest a compounding amount of both time and money into someone who will be content to grind out decades of suck. But better still, I've had the opportunity to make a massive, positive impression on a kid that can make a massive, positive difference to our bottom line on an continuous basis. For these workhorses, when the employment offers come rolling in, mine has a better chance to float to the top of the stack.

I think Phillip's argument reduces simply to trying to maximize ROI, in this case by imploring interns to do more work instead of bothering the boss. He wants these raisins to hydrate and be juicy grapes, at the risk of potentially devouring them in the process. I contend that the level of juice that we can squeeze out these raisins or grapes over a summer is meaningful in just a singular way: I am interested only in growing vineyards. Can you help?

* Note that a much shorter version of this post would have appeared as a comment at Momoro, but since Mischa is a raging, comment-disabling autocrat, it winds up here.

** It should be pretty obvious that almost all decisions are much more significant in a tiny company looking to grow than a mature corporation.