I been meaning to mention the whole internship thing for days now, but I got all caught up in sleep and trying to find another internship (or job) in production, to summarize the two days (and counting) of hell in Connecticut.
A couple of months ago I read a collection of essays called 'I Was Told There'd Be Cake' by a 20 something year old New Yorker, Sloane Crosley. The essays are sort of funny, and the fact that she is from Westchester intrigued me but for the most part I wasn't completely in love with the book(like I was am Miranda July's short stories. You.Must.Read.Them). Where some essays were really funny, others were skippable and during my time spent reading her book I felt she got very lucky because she is sort of pretty and fairly young. Publishers love that shit.
The point is, one of her essays I enjoyed the most chronicled her first real job at a publishing house. She talked about how during the interview process she and the editor hit it off. She saw the editor as someone who could mentor her and help her further her career. But when she was actually hired and the falseness of interview repertoire fell apart, the editor turned out to be a complete and utter psycho. The person who interviewed her and the person she worked for turned out to be two different people.
At the time, the essay was so funny to me because I all I could think about was "I hope that never happens to me". Well it has folks and I don't know how much longer I can stand it. I knew from my interview in May that the publishing house was a small division of a much bigger (though independent) company. Literally outside of myself there are three people in the whole company. The Editor, the Associate Editor and the Editorial Assistant (the job I applied for Thank God I didn't get it). During the interview process I was the one doing most of the talking because I wanted to make a good impression. The editor loved my personality even though my inexperience killed it. Hence why I am an intern .
From what I can remember, the Editor didn't seem that crazy on the day of the interview. She was a little scatter brained, and her associate editor did most of the talking. But on Tuesday when I started the internship I sort of noticed her craziness right away. She still it completely scatter brained but even worse she is sort of a bitch. They got a new editorial assistant in May and lets just say she isn't adjusting well. She is a 35 year old romance writer who works part time there to support her writing ( I also, never want to be her) . Her name is Bethany and she is super nice, but she is also the punching bag for these two women.
With an office of only 3 people you'd think the women would get along with one another like a nice chick flick, but the editor is snappish, the associate editor is cold and Bethany seems caught in the middle. On Tuesday when there wasn't total and utter silence in the office Bethany kept getting yelled at for stupid things, which in turn made me less than inclined to ask any questions. When I get the nerve to ask a question in regards to a particular author I wasn't sure their division published, the editor gave me a tongue lashing preview "get your facts straight we don't publish that author. I don't care how much you like her work, I don't need you walking around this office thinking we publish her when we don't"
O.K. This did not stop me from trying to get a sense of what kind of books they DO publish, so I asked another question. I don't read romance books that much, and the books they publish definitely don't interest me. They are targeted towards a much older audience and are sort of lame. I wanted to know what the editor looks for in submissions to which she applied "you would know,if you read our website".
I told her, politely, that I did read the website but that since she is the editor I wanted to know what she wanted from her own mouth. Instead she said 'why don't you tell me, it's your job to know'. So i tried to remember what the website said, but by then I was too tongue tied to remember. I fumbled with how it was worded and she didn't take long to correct me "that's not what the website says. You have to pay attention. You aren't paying attention to anything"
After that I was done asking questions for the day. Bethany gets it the worse though. The verbal beatings are almost too much to handle and I wonder why someone her age would put up with that. I guess she noticed my discomfort after she was yelled at for something that didn't seem like a big deal because she whispered to me, "don't worry she's always like this. It has nothing to do with you, it's just the way she is". If that doesn't sound like something a battered child would say, I don't know...
Besides the fear of being yelled at for something stupid, there is something so sterile about being there. Though I have talked about wanting my own desk, and a computer for a very long time I am struck by how much contempt I have for those things now as I sit in an office for 8 hours trying not to fall asleep. There is no teamwork, everyone is sort of doing there own thing quietly and to themselves. The associate editor is typing at her computer, Bethany is typing at hers, and when she tries to bring up a conversation she is told to "shut up"creating more awkwardness in the already stilled silence. There are no windows, no radio playing to drown out the sound of the AC, and I feel like I am not doing anything even though I have stuff to do.
It's dreadful, and I have never wanted to get out of something as much as I do this. I realized when I was in that office, reading over some lame manuscript, that I do not want this to be my career. I have no interest in editing someone else's story for publication. The life of a book takes FOREVER and it doesn't seem worth it. Not if at the end of the day all I have to look forward too is a crazy editor who may one day throw something at me while I am editing a sentence where bosoms don't even heave but instead just flutter. I'm giving it a week, and then I have decisions to make.
No comments:
Post a Comment