Some Like it Haute

espla-nah.

i rejected my esplanade internship acceptance this afternooon.

the internship would have consisted of front-of-house work and customer service duties; five days a week for 2 weeks; weekends included; with shift option 1- 8:30am-6pm..and option 2- 12nn- 10:30pm; no pay.

i am still wondering if i made the wrong decision.. i mean it would quite cool to work at esplanade beind the scenes and all that.. of course! as an intern you will get all the dirty, not to mention dusty grimmy, behind the scenes action you have to slog for.. but still its the esplanade!

but the more i think about it, the more convinced i am of making the right decision. first there's the issue of no pay.. since they were a not-for-profit organisation -did you know that?- then there's the horrid work hours.. judging by how i would probably have to spend the next thirty years of my working life chained to a desk- bound job, i figured hey! i could do with one less month of crap office hours. moving on, there was the issue of dates, it was originally stated 5th-18th of dec but they later told me that they could only offer 19th dec- 1st jan.. and when i asked the lady if i had to work on christmas, she very reluctantly said 'maybe'. ARE YOU NUTS!? i don't mean to sound haughty-potty but they KNEW i was going on exchange next jan and there is HELL NO WAY i would sacrifice my last festive holiday, possibly in the cloak room of esplande.

i think the culture of internships in singapore is very different from that of say, the states. though i only have jie and jimmy's friends' experience to fall back on, their interships seem like an unofficial extended job interview with the firm of very possibly employing you full-time upon graduation, should they find your performance more than satisfactory of course.

but here in singapore, internship to me spells- 'free' if not 'minimal wage labour'. though it makes employers sound machiavielli-esque, i get the feeling every school holiday, companies here absolutely delight in choosing from a pool of students to perform dirty work that no current employee would do. its like after three months, all you get is "aww you are leaving, what a pity.. we were just finding you soo useful"

am i generalising? well, from what i have heard so far. i don't think so.