Recently, a blog about DC Interns has surfaced, whereby people submit stories about interns being annoying. While I am sure the blog is just meant to be good-humored, and some of it is funny, I am moreso amused at those who actually have animosity against DC interns.
Now, I may be biased because I was a Capitol Hill intern in 2004, but interns are not all as bad as people make them out to be. Are there interns who think they are self-important? Sure. But c'mon, we are in DC. Half the people working here, government or not, take themselves too seriously. Even outside DC, there are always those people we work or went to school with, who are annoying and/or think they are God's gift to earth. There always the few in any population that give the rest of the group a bad name.Most interns that I worked with or met were nice people, often away from home for the first time, and willing to do the grunt-work no one else wanted to do. Get your coffee, check. Open letters from crazy constituents, check. Walk 5 blocks through the thick layer of humidity in your suit to deliver a twenty pound UPS package, check. If thinking that you are saving the world gets them through their day, so be it. Interns are young, immature, and allowed to be idealistic. What is everyone else's excuse?
As for tourists, aren't most of us pretty much long-term tourists in DC? Very few of us, especially in Northwest DC, are actually native, so why are we so territorial? I really think that if we labeled escalators so that everyone knew that you stand on the right, walk on the left, we could really cut down on 97% of the hostility. Until then, maybe people should take a breath and not roll their eyes at families blocking the metro because they are looking at a map and are excited about their first visit to DC . . . because by doing that, DCers just look like the bigheaded interns they just complained about.
[Picture of me at my lowly intern desk 5 years ago, man was my hair long]
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