I started in this company as an intern while I was finishing my master's degree in law. I was exploited (I was considered as a writing machine, in a hurry, at the expense of my lunch break, finding myself working on weekends because of the unbearable deadlines imposed on me) and I kept the same attitude throughout my internship: please everyone, ask for nothing in return, cry in silence, hold on to my position just for the fame of the firm. They didn't teach me anything in this internship: from the first day, I wrote the drafts by myself that they then used in memos, emails, powerpoint presentations, calls with clients,…
My internship ended shortly before my June exams started: I attended very few classes because of my full-time internship (the hours went way beyond the classic 9AM – 5PM), my university “friends” were envious of my internship and never passed me any course notes (though they were willing to ask me for money in exchange for their notes, which I didn't lower myself to).
I failed two of my exams in the end and did not graduate this year. I signed on to be a paralegal at the same company (before knowing my exam results), working with the same arrogant, poor communicators, not at all interested in what happened to me academically (before my internship I was sure I would graduate with a distinction, I had no grade below 14/20).
In real life, I wouldn't even give these kinds of people the time of day, but here I am, handing out fake smiles and hating them and hating the naive girl I was when I started this completely useless internship that made me lose my sanity, my self-esteem and my academic success.
If you want to laugh: one of the seniors I work for is sleeping with a young paralegal, another senior is juggling between her two boyfriends (I thought she was coming into the office late because she was working until very late lol), the big Partner is making so little money for the company that the company called the former Partner back to be a Counsel while keeping the partner…and financially they're doing a lot better now that he's here.
I hope they read this and understand that I understood how pathetic they are and that I was even more pathetic for believing that working for them was worth it. These next 6 months are going to be long.