Intern David

The following story was told to me by A, one of my closest college friends. I have no reason to doubt her, though the story seems made up.

A works as a theater manager for a small non-profit theater company in North Carolina. Occasionally they take on interns and when they do it is A's responsibility to train and find things for them to do. She finds this to be one of the frustrating parts of her job because it often ends up being a time suck. I completely understand as it's the same way with student aides. But everyone has to start somewhere, right?

So one summer A gets a new intern, Intern David. Trying to find an easy task for him, she gives him 10 letters to be copied and then mailed out to past donors. She gives him these at around 3 in the afternoon. When he leaves at 5 he hands a stack of papers to A's boss and says, "I'm sorry I didn't have time to finish them all. I got through 7 and I'll do the rest tomorrow." Then he leaves.

Then A and her boss look at the stack to find that Intern David has indeed been copying the letters... BY HAND. And on letter 5 when his pen ran out of ink (I find I must restate this part: HE WROTE SO MUCH BY HAND THAT HIS PEN RAN OUT OF INK) he switched to ... PENCIL. He wrote all of these on blank copy paper. What I want to know is did he go to the copier to get the paper out?

As you can assume, much laughter was to be had. A feels lucky to have had the opportunity to get it all out before having to talk to him about it the next day. "Intern David, I want you to know that it's ok to ask me questions. Especially when you are confused about something or think that something seems strange. (Or if you run out of ink in your pen and need a new one (that statement added by me))."