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Antiwork

Pressure to work free hours: I´m an intern and already sick of the job

So, early this year i got my first job as an intern in a communication consulting firm. It´s been 6 months and I really like the work and my coworkers. They are quite nice and we have a good time together. Unfortunately, I can´t say the same about my coordinator. Since the first day she has treated me with an arrogant demeanor. She says I´m a child – I´m 24 – and doesn´t listen to what I have to say. The reason is always on her side. 4 months in, she told me, giggling, that if it was her choice, I wouldn´t have gotten the job. Likewise, she talks to me in a superior way, as if I know nothing and even rolls her eyes when I enter her room to ask a question on work. This really gets me sad, but there is another thing that really – really…


So, early this year i got my first job as an intern in a communication consulting firm. It´s been 6 months and I really like the work and my coworkers. They are quite nice and we have a good time together.

Unfortunately, I can´t say the same about my coordinator. Since the first day she has treated me with an arrogant demeanor. She says I´m a child – I´m 24 – and doesn´t listen to what I have to say. The reason is always on her side. 4 months in, she told me, giggling, that if it was her choice, I wouldn´t have gotten the job. Likewise, she talks to me in a superior way, as if I know nothing and even rolls her eyes when I enter her room to ask a question on work.

This really gets me sad, but there is another thing that really – really – gets me in the nerves. She is every time bragging about the work she does outside work hours and ends with the phrase “you see, our work is not a 9 to 6pm work”. One day she ordered me to go to a client's event after my scheduled time. The hours were never paid. Today she even screamed with me because she says I have to filtrate the news about clients in the weekends.

My coworkers leave always one hour – at least – before the working time. They all have stories about that night they stayed 'till 2am doing a project for a client.

There is this unconscious pressure to do more hours than contratualized – my contract specifies 8 hours a day. I don't want to do it, as I value my free hours – to read, to write, to master an instrument. But I really question myself if I'm just not ambitious enough. I really can't understand what makes a person work so much. I'm too cynic for it. Maybe it's a generational thing.

Sorry for the rant, but it is really bugging my mind. Today I came home and cried, because I really don't want to be like my coworkers in the future and work so much time. My contract will be renewed and I really can't grasp if that's great or really bad. Seriously. What do you think of all this?

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