The Intern

The intern on my team is leaving. With the end of summer comes the start of the school semester. So he’ll go back to the college he attends, out of state. He’s a rising senior, a college athlete. Perhaps I’ll see him in the office again next year, since I heard he got a return offer, but it’s too hard to predict. Maybe he’ll get a better offer elsewhere. When asked how his experience in our office this summer was, he chuckles and says he really enjoyed his time here and other canned polite and corporate phrases. He’s slick, I observe, when I watch his final internship presentation. He dodges potential sticky situations when difficult questions are thrown at him by upper management. The sharp planes of his face shift, I watch the barely perceptible scrunch of his eyebrows before they smooth out back to their usual unbothered state. I idly wonder if I could manage to do the same, as I read the logo of his vest that lays atop his pressed dress shirt while he talks at the front of the conference room, his Power Point presentation casted on the screen behind him.

Our team meets in what they call the cubicle “bullpen” 15 minutes before 5 PM. We shuffle to the elevator once the last laptops are shut and monitors turned off. We engage in small talk, the women unconsciously shifting towards one another to discuss painful shoes and commute times, and the men congregating to the other side of the elevator to talk sports. The German bar is crowded when we get there, football fans crammed inside to watch the game. So we seat ourselves at a picnic table outside, next to the sidewalk. The air is cool but not unpleasantly so, and the grumble in my stomach sits low and deep. I fidget in the uncomfortable silence as the guys select their beers on the most senior member’s phone, after scanning the QR code menu. He’ll be able to expense it later, he assures us. Our manager isn't present, under the false pretense of having a relaxed environment to chat and enjoy ourselves. 

The boisterous 20 something year old in my team eggs the poor intern to join him in getting a huge beer. 2 liters? It sounds unreasonable, but what do I know about beer or drinking culture? We are here to send the intern off after all, but it feels somewhat uncomfortable to witness getting the intern drunk. I swallow when the phone comes to me and it's my turn to select a drink for myself, and try to remember the descriptions of each cocktail from the online menu I pored over on my work laptop earlier in the day. I knew I’d be expected to order without much fanfare, and I like to know exactly what I’m ordering. I surreptitiously googled it while I was supposed to be working. I choose one with orange in the name. It has mezcal in it, since I really can’t stand vodka. Everyone else orders a beer and I wonder if I'll be seen as fussy or "girly" for ordering a cocktail. I'm not as comfortable with casual drinking in professional settings, having just started here right out of college a few weeks earlier. In fact, I might even be the same age as the intern.

The deep fried appetizers for our table come, the enormous beers too, in a boot shaped glass of all things. I grab a tater tot after tater tot after another in my discomfort. I just joined the team, so I’m still in the unspoken probationary period where you’re supposed to exhibit zero personality. Regardless, I still have nothing to add to the conversation, it veers towards sports, golf, work. I dip my tots lengthwise into the mayo and ketchup provided in little cups alongside the tater tots. I learn after a few that dipping one circle side down led to an over-sauced first bite, and a plain last bite. I don’t want to be that coworker who double dips. I try not to make my uncomfortable glances at our surroundings too obvious. Pretending everything around me is suddenly interesting is a nervous tic of mine when I have nothing else to do. To compensate for my lack of input, I try to keep my pleasant smile pasted onto my face. Then I wonder if I have food stuck in my teeth. I spin my straw around my diminishing drink and poked at the dried orange slice floating atop the ice cubes. 

There’s only one other woman on my team. She reminds me of Pam from the office: pleasant, a little awkward, good hearted. I dread when the conversation will eventually flip towards me, when they pin me to the table like a bug under observation. 

Finally, my female coworker asks me the dreaded question, “So what do you like to do for fun?” I realize that no one has asked me this question in the past month of me working at this firm. I don’t have a rehearsed answer. When people ask me for a fun fact, a generic but easy question to answer, I tell them that I can cut hair, or I went to Singapore recently. 

I’ve never thought of myself as an awkward person. Yet in this moment, I freeze and am at a loss for words. I don’t know what to say. I don’t know why I don’t say I like to read and write. Maybe it’s because their interests lie more with motorcycles and golf and rugby and their cats and college days and frat houses. I’ve barely just left my college days and feel woefully young and inexperienced compared to these people. I don’t know what I’m doing, I don’t belong here, and I don’t know these people, who aren’t my friends, and I worry about what they will think of me, I don’t want them to think anything of me at all, so I freeze and say nothing. The seconds stretch as though they are minutes and they awkwardly laugh. The conversation shifts back to them, and I desperately ask questions to keep it there. Luckily, the now red faced intern asks me how I liked Singapore, impressively remembering my fun fact from earlier in the summer, and I grasp it like a lifeline, going on a tangent about the mall I went to and the joys of traveling. Safe topics. 

 August 14, 2024