Welcome to Intern Horrors, the weekly feature where interns tell their saddest and most embarrassing tales of incompetence or incontinence. Today: the perils of campaign canvassing, wrecking the "Country Cruiser," and The Great Poop Duel Of Several Years Ago. Misdirecting Headline Warning!
Anonymous:
After getting out of college I interned with my state's Republican Party during the 2004 Presidential Election. One of the shitty things that all political jobs make the interns and stupid volunteers do is go door-to-door campaigning for candidates. I can't begin to describe to you how much I hated this. We always went from 4-7 on weekdays and like most normal people 60% of the folks we go to are eating and already pissed off you interrupted their dinner. We also went on Saturdays which most of them occurred in the Fall and put a serious damper on college football watching (which is tantamount to stringing my balls up on gallows). Nevermind this job was in the South and the heat is fucking miserable.
Anyway, fast forward to around August 2004. We're told we're going door-to-door for a candidate starting Saturday morning at 8:30am. Unfortunately I had a bachelor party that weekend and I decided that I could easily knock the work out in a few hours and resume the festivities. I was dead fucking wrong. Friday night I meet my out of town friends at the hotel and commence festivities. After a lot booze we decide to go to the titty bar. We ended up staying at said titty bar until 4:15am, I finally take a cab home and somehow wake up to my alarm at 8:00am and throw on clothes and make the 20min drive to the location we were meeting at. The group in my car was a buddy of mine that worked with me and some dork bastard from one of the local College Republican chapters. I offer to buy Chick-Fil-A biscuits for everyone if they don't make me get out of the car and they agree when they see what I look like.
So we're driving in a nice upper class subdivision and I immediately starting getting the cold sweats, both my partners are knocking on doors and I'm the only one in the car so I open my driver door (while still going 5mph or so) and yack my brains out right in front of some poor bastard that was mowing his lawn. Needless to say, my friend laughed his ass off and College Republican dork was horrified. But that wasn't all, we go to the next neighborhood and I'm parked in front of this townhouse with a glass front door. My buddy goes up to knock and he immediately hears a dog rumbling down the steps. The dog, a big fucking Rottweiler, proceeds to tear across the foyer and knock over a bust that this guy had on a pedestal near the door, shattering it to pieces. Seconds later a guy comes running down the steps butt ass naked screaming at both of us. My buddy runs for the car and we haul ass away. I'm pretty sure we never got his vote.
Matt:
My story comes from my time as a Radio intern back in the summer of 1998. I started as a Promotions intern at a Country station, glad-handing at events and what not, but soon was able to get some time helping out in the studio as well. Eventually the hosts of the station's morning show (#1 in town at the time) took a liking to me and began having me join them as a goof off "stunt guy".
I quickly learned to enjoy my quasi-local-celebrity status. Free drinks at the big Honky Tonk Bar where we hosted events, backstage passes to concerts and the affection of local female country fans. (at a mere 21 years old I had no scruples about using my minuscule bit of cred as currency). Then it literally came to a crashing halt.
I had been working overnight for a full week, babysitting a new nationally syndicated show that had been malfunctioning. Basically I had to sit in a studio all night and make sure the broadcast magically stop at 3am, leaving us with dead air.
As it turns out I had an event to be at on early Saturday morning of that week. In my brilliant young mind I decided I would work straight through the night and then travel to said event.
So now, after being up all night and on no sleep whatsoever, I hopped in the "Country Cruiser" (a 1994 Dodge Minivan with the station logo and Country stars of the day painted all over it) and headed out.
Now I have never been able to figure out if I nodded off at the wheel or the sun got in my eyes or both, but the next thing I knew BOOOM!. The rolling billboard I was at the whell of had been viciously t-boned as I blew through a red light. The truck that hit me went over a grassy knoll and ended up in a shop parking lot. The "Country Cruiser" was absolute toast.
To add insult to injury a woman ran to my driver side window, having seen the smash-up, and the first words out of her mouth were, "Hey aren't you Matt from the Morning Show?" I politely rolled up my window.
The station was nice enough to let me finish out the summer, but I may have been better off if they canned me. I couldn't drive the other station vehicle for my last month, which was humiliating enough, but to make things worse any disc jockey doing an event I worked at couldn't drive thier own car but rather had to be my chauffeur. This of course made them all hate me, and I was a bit of a pariah until my time with them was through.
Sufficed to say, I DID NOT get offered a job at the end of the summer.
Finally, Aaron and his—dubious—poop duel:
This isn't an intern horror and much as it is an intern honor, but I think you'll enjoy it nonetheless.
I once interned at a small PR firm in Washington, DC. It was a pretty good gig, and since most of the work they did was for labor unions, they had to suck it up and pay me (slightly above minimum wage, but not a bad way to make beer money).
One day they brought in pizza for someone's going away party. After shoving down a few slices of pepperoni and sausage Pizza Hut, I started to feel an urgent, sloppy poop coming on. So, I quietly excused myself from the conference room where everyone was gathered and headed for the bathroom. No problem, right?
Well I wasn't alone. Following me directly to the bathroom was none other than the president of the fuckin' firm. Now, granted, it's a small company so it's not like we're talkin about Warren Buffet or anything. But still, I'm just an intern, and I'm going to take a massive, earthshattering dump next to the guy who runs the entire damn company. So you can understand that it can be intimidating.
The bathroom on our floor is small, so I step into one stall and he steps into the other. I drop my pants and take a seat. I know my bowels and I know that the only thing that will be worse than the repulsive sound eminating from my buttocks will be the horrid stench. So, in a moment of flustered judgment, I decide to give my boss's boss's boss a heads up:
"Hey, ummm, just so you know... it might get a little funky over here."
Without missing a beat the President answers back, "What, you mean like this?" And he proceeds to blast off one of the most rancid, swamp-bubbling, toxic shits that I had ever heard in my 21 year-old life. I mean we're talking an atomic dump for the ages... and I couldn't just let it pass without a proper response.
"No, I was thinking a little more like this." And I let loose a thunderous fart followed by a wet sloppy continuous splash that would have beach villagers of Thailand running for the hills (too soon?)
"Not bad," the President says. "But maybe you were hoping for something like this..."
And that, my friends, is how on one glorious afternoon a lowly college intern engaged in a game of Battleshits with the president of his firm.
That's it for this week. If you have an intern horror story of your own—poop or car wreck related or not—send 'em in. Subject line: Intern Horrors.