Day 3: "Thanks, Buddy"

This post is a little later than the usual daily post because I basically passed out at my desk a little while after I got home.

Let me begin by saying...

HAIL SATAN!!!

Anyway...

Let's go through another exciting day of internship.

Once again, awkwardness took center stage for much of the day, starting with my not being aware of how to get into the building where I work for the third day in a row. As I finally know now, you show your pass to the security guard, he unlocks the turnstile, and then you go through to the elevators.

Where was I when this information was being given out, and why didn't I pick it up on Tuesday or Wednesday?

Actually, if I can go on a tangent for a second, I've had several embarrassing moments involving doors this week. Of course, there's the aforementioned security guard thing, and the fact that I got locked out of my suite twice last weekend. In addition, I wanted to talk to E the other day, but when I pushed on the door, it didn't move, so I figured it was locked and knocked. She proceeded to slide it open from the side.

Oh.

There's also the fact that I got locked out of my company's office for about half an hour this morning and had to wander around the building until someone came by.

But getting away from that...

The first couple hours of the day consisted of me sitting on a couch in the office and reading the news on my cell phone while I waited for someone to give me some sort of a job. Good times. I actually ended up taking a lunch break before there was even anything to take a break from. The afternoon, however, was another story...

You see, the office is being rearranged a bit, and a ton of stuff had to be moved around today. Naturally, the higher-ups like CO1 and DP have more important things to do, so they're relying on the interns whenever possible. The problem is that I2 weighs about 80 pounds, so anything that required physical exertion was pretty much my responsibility.

The following is a list of things I lifted and/or moved this afternoon:

- Hard drives
- TV Monitors
- Computer monitors
- Disk drives
- Film canisters
- Books
- DV tapes
- Computer speakers
- Desks
- A box of video game consoles and accessories
- A fax machine
- Printers
- A drill
- Empty cardboard boxes
- A bed

Let me elaborate on that last one. CO1 lives near the office and needed a bed moved a little because he's having company over or something, so he actually brought me and DP over to his apartment after work to help him out. I also had to carry the aforementioned box of video game stuff all the way out there.

I can't believe I'm not getting paid for this.*

My other major task today was making copies of a bunch of documents. This eventually led to...

Wait for it...

...An awkward moment! WOOOOOOO!

The copier had two methods of copying: The normal "lay the paper down on a pane of glass" version, and a fax machine type option where the paper goes through and a copy comes out the side. Of course, I only knew about the second one until I was shown how to open up the top of the machine after I tried to feed a folded, multi-page document through it.

I hate living with the feeling that everyone around me secretly thinks I'm retarded and is only being nice to me because they feel sorry for me.

Now, let's talk about idiosyncrasies. As a writer, one thing I consider myself pretty good at doing is noticing certain phrases that people repeat, whether they realize it or not.

Almost everyone has their own go-to word/phrase, and especially in recent months, I seem to have developed a talent for focusing on them. For example, mine is "seriously." I use it on the blog, I use it in real life, and I use it way more than I should. I've also recently become fond of the phrase "or some shit." It's very versatile.

The classic example of this tendency is Quentin Tarantino and his stupefying overuse of "okay" and "all right." David Blaine is another great example: "Watch. Watch. Look. Look."

You see this tendency a lot in sports, since athletes give so many interviews. For example, Ty Conklin, backup goaltender for the Pittsburgh Penguins Detroit Red Wings, says "certainly" all the time. Marian Hossa, right winger for the Penguins fuck free agency fuck Ritch Winter Red Wings, constantly says "to tell you the truth" (which, thanks to his accent, sounds like "t'tell you de troo"). And, as the fine folks at WDVE have pointed out, Mario Lemieux is a fan of "obviously" and "especially."

Another example: I remember watching a show on MSNBC a while back where some Middle-Eastern diplomat was being interviewed, and he used the phrase "as a matter of fact" in just about every sentence. The host even referenced something the diplomat had said and displayed the quote on the screen, and it included "as a matter of fact." Kind of funny.

Even in literature, this can happen. I read a lot of Nelson DeMille books in the last year, and I noticed that, especially in his earlier works, characters who observe someone or something always "regard [him/her/it] a moment." It got to the point where I had to stop reading and put the book down for a second every time I came across that phrase because it made every narrator sound the same.

Everyone has a go-to word/phrase. Today, I found out that CO1's is the phrase that I used for this post's title. I must have heard that three dozen times today. Late in the day, for example, he gave me a script to read, but I never got past the first page...

CD: (sits down to read script)
CO1: Hey, before you get too far into that, could you do me a favor?
CD: Sure.
CO1: Could you [insert request here]?
CD: No problem.
CO1: Thanks, buddy.
CD: (does the requested task, goes to sit down again)
CO1: Actually, could you do me another favor?
CD: Sure.
CO1: Thanks, buddy.

Repeat ad nauseum until 4:30.

After a while, I wanted to answer with "no problem, chief," but I also want to finish this internship at the time it's scheduled to end, so...yeah.

That was a really long explanation of something that could've been boiled down to "this guy says this thing a lot" or some shit.

Seriously.

*NOTE: I do not dislike this internship; I am simply trying to make light of the less interesting parts of it. Thank you.*

Posted by CD on July 3, 2008 10:44 PM | TrackBack
Category: The Intern Chronicles