Prior to accepting this position when I interviewed with the office manager I thought I had agreed to something else. I thought I had accepted to work at their very small and extremely quiet mid-town office in return to work on post production. My goal was to learn Final Cut Pro and actually edit using this software in some capacity. I agreed to work and provide them with free labor if these were the terms of the deal. After working a third of the internship, the office manager made it clear to me that the terms were not negotiable, and the menial office office support help I likened to a Bounty paper towel job would be all I would be doing for them. Talk about a bait and switch.
This was my third choice of the internships I was considering. I took it somewhat reluctantly for reasons that are as follows:
1. The size of the office.
2. The presentation or apperience of the Office Manager. He looked frazzled, as if he had just emerged from the cellar right after a tornado strike or near miss.
3. It was unpaid.
4. I was unsure that I would be doing post-production work but I was given an assurance that this would be more than a mere possibility.
In the end I choose to pull the plug on the internship and study for the GRE's I took later in the week (I have applied to the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism since then). After working in Education and at a State Park for the past decade this experience, and another, has been an eye opener. Always look after your own interests.
Basically, I was working at cost to myself for office experience. The tasks I were issued came from Steven haphazardly. Either while I was working on another project or while I was waiting for something to do. I have come to believe that Steven had unwittingly violated Federal Labor Laws.
In a recent NY Times article titled, "The Unpaid Intern, Legal or Not," Steven Greenhouse reports that, "many employers failed to pay even though their internships did not comply with the six federal legal criteria that must be satisfied for internships to be unpaid..." http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/03/business/03intern.html
These federal criteria are listed below:
1. The training, even though it includes actual operation of the facilities of the employer, is similar to what would be given in a vocational school or academic educational instruction;
2. The training is for the benefit of the trainees;
3. The trainees do not displace regular employees, but work under their close observation;
4. The employer that provides the training derives no immediate advantage from the activities of the trainees, and on occasion the employer’s operations may actually be impeded;
5. The trainees are not necessarily entitled to a job at the conclusion of the training period;
6. The employer and the trainees understand that the trainees are not entitled to wages for the time spent in training.
Example of a violation given by the DOL:
A worker who participates in a program at a retail store or restaurant and who assists customers or operates a cash register with little supervision may be an employee because the employer derives tangible benefit (i.e., productive work) from the worker’s activities).
Every three months new interns cycle into this and other production companies for various industries in New York City. What constitutes a proper internship is illustrated by the six points and example provided above. If these are not satisfied then the company is in violation of federal labor laws.
Ill chock this up to a learning experience. Always know your rights and trust your gut if you feel like you are getting a raw deal.
Recent CNNMoney.com/Fortune article on the subject, "Unpaid Jobs:The New Normal?"
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