Wow. So we had a couple of people inquire about internships here at the office this summer, and apparently they were vetted and culled down to a few likely candidates. I heard yesterday that all of them have withdrawn, which isn’t all that surprising, but the story that gave me pause was the candidate who found out the internship wasn’t paid, and thus dropped out.

At the risk of sounding ancient, internships during my college years were always unpaid, and usually somewhere distant, which meant we had to drive to D.C. on our own dime (or catch a ride in someone else’s rattletrap car) to reorganize someone’s flat files or clean out a utility closet and find a way to eat Ramen noodles quietly in the back room without messing up one of two good dress shirts. Nobody I knew was actually designing anything. The whole point was to make connections and get a foot in the door somewhere, anywhere.

We’re in the middle of a recession, you dumbass. You’re not getting paid to be here.

Now get off my lawn.