Summer Internship: Part 2

Social Relationships within the Office

Today an administrator came and critiqued the other intern quite harshly in front of me and another full-time employee. He gave Aymeric a “percentage” of how motivated he seemed and compared him to me and other workers. He also said that he preferred to be frank in order to help Aymeric to better in his presentation when talking with visitors. Audrey, my boss and a paid employee, was there the entire time and afterwards we discussed that his frankness was just a lot of critique without any positive instruction. I felt bad for him after, as did Audrey, even though that it is agreed amongst everyone in the office that Aymeric needs to work on some things.

There is an age difference between the paid employees and the older administrators/volunteers, as well as a view on the events, organization and people hired in the office. Unfortunately there have been tense moments due to projects and planning. Many administrators desire the authority and I think that is why they seem so aggressive or demanding at times. I am only here for the summer, but it must be frustrating for those who work all year round. The more I observe both groups, the more I realize how frustrating it must be. There are some administrators that do not even know how to send an email for the office, yet they always seem to be criticizing those who do so much more. I have been told by the other paid employees that I work well and they have told my host family that they are happy I am there, which is encouraging. However, it is hard sometimes to know how to react to the president and other administrators (and even the other intern who sometimes seems critical in the same way). I stay polite and say hello and try to, as I mentioned in my field notes, “stay neutral”. However, it’s not always easy when I feel as if I too am being criticized by those who do not do the same type or amount of work. For example, instead of saying hello today the president came in an tapped me on the head rather hard and ordered Audrey to open a file on the computer for him. This was just after Aymeric corrected me on the spelling of a word for a file that I had to save for him (because we were shutting down and he had left his poster unsaved the entire day) and then proceeded to tell me in a rather conceded manner that his education of language and literature made him much more conscientious of errors compared to other people. I reminded him that I study two languages and literature in those languages in addition to International Studies, and that he and I studied at the same institution in Paris. I explained to him that the way he corrected me was similar to the way the administrator had spoken to him earlier that same day – more of a “put-down” than a helpful correction.