#publishing internship

I had to email the other intern to discover this. And then conveniently soon after, I finally get an email back from the intern supervisor. Was this just a coincidence? Like, if I hadn’t emailed the other intern, would they have even bothered getting back with me at all? If so, how long would it have taken, because I sent multiple emails, begging for work, offering to do all sorts of things. I frequently let them know that I was still committed and ready to get down to work on anything they needed. And the frustrating thing is, I find they’ve been giving work to this other intern for…how many weeks? While I’ve been twiddling my thumbs, craving to do some work.

All that time, I could’ve been productive. I could’ve been reading submissions during my breaks at work, and some more during my train ride home, and even more once I got home. You damn well better believe I will make time for reading wherever I can manage, especially if it’s professionally. And I could’ve been doing it all this time, but instead they give it all to this other intern and virtually neglect me, the other intern on the team. Like, that’s just so unprofessional, not to mention a huge slowdown on productivity.

I mean, I sort of might get where they’re coming from. I made the decision to take a job offer and switch to interning remotely. I’m not as reachable by phone anymore. I get that. But they also reassured me that interning remotely was 100% an option for me, yet they completely failed to be hands-on with me. And then the shitty thing: the guy emails me the instructions on how to reply to submissions, and then drops this sort of, “It’d be easier to discuss this all by phone” dig to make me feel guilty or something? But you know what? That’s utter bullshit. It is easily within the realm of possibility to explain everything to me via email. Remote publishing internships are definitely a common thing, and there are even tasks that other interns do remotely that are more complex than what you’re asking me to do, yet it easily gets done. You can blame it on me not being reachable by phone, but that is literally such a weak-ass excuse. You could write clear instructions for me. You can even use screenshot to make the instructions more visual. And honestly, it’s not even that hard. It’s seriously not rocket science what they want me to do. Part of it includes writing reader reports, which is basically all I did for the entirety of my six month internship with Inklings, and I’m willing to bet the reader’s reports I did were ten times more detailed than what they’re asking me to do. You can blame it on phones, but that in no way should be an obstacle for being a hands-on remote intern supervisor. The previous agent I worked with was based out of Virginia and she was so incredibly hands-on with me. She was incredible: never dropped the ball, always replied promptly, immediately willing to help me out if I had questions or wanted advice, and continues to be hands-on with me today as a supportive and helpful publishing contact. And like, if she can do all that, and explain to me how to conduct editor research via Publishers Marketplace, while outlining very detailed expectations—all without picking up a phone—you can damn well explain how to reply to submissions without completely dropping the ball and coming up with petty excuses.