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I had the interview for that summer internship today.
=====================================================

A big consulting firm runs a summer internship every year.

I remember how I poured my heart into the application.  There were
questions like "what do you know about our company's mission" and "how
does your background and education prepare you for working with us."

I spent several days in the library studying the firm, reading recent
news, and then writing and rewriting my reply.

I read a bunch of stock analyst opinions of the firm.

It dawned on me at one point how I was probably going too far.

Then a few weeks ago at the career center, I went to an overview of the
program, led by a few people that had gone through it, then finished
their degrees, and now work there full-time.  They said the program is a
lot of hard work, but it was also a really fun time, and they made a lot
of friends.

And today was screening interviews.  I got to the career center almost
an hour early.

Finally they called me in.

Everything went well at first.  We talked about what the consulting firm
does, and why they hire interns every summer.  It sounds like there's a
huge pile of data entry work that needs to be done, but they don't want
to call it data entry.  He said a few times how interns often get job
offers after they graduate, and the salary he mentioned made my eyes bug
out.  It would be a life-changing amount of money at that point.  I
could afford a car.

He implied that normally they don't hire graduates from this school.  He
said he went to some shool I had never heard of, but the way he said it,
sounded expensive.

But he and I had both read the same econometrics textbook.

We even swapped war stories about the glitchy and very confusing
software package we use in the statistics class to figure out
mathematical relationships between variables.  He described a shortcut
to check for correlations that I hadn't heard about.

I asked him to repeat it and I wrote it down in my notebook.  What he
described seemed wrong, but I wasn't going to argue about it.

Or maybe he knew something I didn't know.  Both were possible.  This guy
and I seemed to have a rapport.  And maybe he was right about the
shortcut.  I'd go to the computer lab and check it out, because I was
curious.

Anyhow, I was fucking soaring at this point.  I could see a path up and
out.  I was already imagining the moment when I would tell the other
waiters they could have my aprons, because I'm done.  Maybe I'd buy the
crew a round of shots just to be nice.  Yes.  Definitely will do that.

He asked if I had any questions.  I said I wanted to know how frequently
we get paid.  Was it every two weeks?

He looked at me, and kinda looked confused, maybe disappointed in me,
and said, "well, it's an internship."  As if that meant something.  I
said I didn't understand what that meant.

He said the firm doesn't pay interns.  It's a learning opportunity for
young people interested in careers in financial analysis.  He said it
like the firm was doing this as a favor, as some kind of charitable
outreach.

I wouldn't be able to wait tables if I was working this job.  The guy
had mentioned how there were a lot of late nights.  If I don't wait
tables, I don't make money, so I can't pay my rent, so... what can I do?
Save up by picking up every shift possible?  Maybe, but I can't do that
and go to school.  I already see a difference in what my grades could be
and what they are because I just don't have enough time to study as much
as I want.

I felt like I was trapped in a room and the walls were closing in on me.

I said without thinking first that I didn't think I could work all
summer for free, and I realized as I was saying it that I sounded angry.
I WAS angry after all.  This is just another example of how difficult it
is to move up from one tier to the next.  Once you get mixed up in the
criminal justice system, it's so hard to ever get

And the thing happened where I stopped being able to act normal.
Stopped being able to fake that I'm a happy, well-adjusted sane person.

I felt the smile go off my face.  I looked at this guy and I could tell
that deep down, he could read the hate I was feeling toward him.  He's
just a representative though.  I don't hate him.  I hate that he
participates in this scam and doesn't question it.

I was smart enough to realize that I shouldn't burn any bridges.  I just
stopped talking much.  The feeling in the room went from being friendly
to really cold.  Before, I had played up how much I liked what I read
about the firm, and how it sounded like a great opportunity, and a
wonderful way to apply what I was learning.

But he saw my mask fall off, so to speak, and I wasn't going to try to
keep pretending.

I counted the panes of glass in the windows, and then I counted the
acoustic tiles on the ceiling while he kept talking.  But I could barely
follow what he said any more because I was so lost inside.

I got up, shook his hand, and left, but my vision was getting blurry.
Fuck this was disappointing.

I went to the computer lab.

I wanted to find out if this fucker's shortcut really worked.  I've been
working really hard to learn everything about this statistics program
and what he described didn't feel right.  If it was right, it meant that
I'm not any good at this stuff, because I overlooked something so
simple.  I need to find something else to study.

He mentioned a particular function by name that quickly checks two time
series to see if they are related.  I knew the function.  I started the
online help program, searched for the function name, and read the
documentation.

It specifically said not to use it in the way this guy described.  I
remembered this conversation I had with my professor in a new way at
that moment.  She had described a famous paper that showed how solar
flares coming off the sun correlate with economic boom and busts.

It was just a coincidence though -- they both on average repeat every
eleven years -- but there's no link between them.

Yeah, fuck that guy.  He didn't know shit about anything.  I realized
how much shame I had felt when he implied how I should have known that
internship meant I wasn't getting paid.  I had imagined him thinking how
I was wasting his time, and this is why poor kids from small towns need
to stay in their lanes.

I printed out the documentation for the function because it went on for
pages about a bunch of stuff that I didn't really understand, but I was
going to read it until I did.

Then I searched the name of the university online.  Holy hell.  I looked
up the average SAT score.  It was below mine.  Then I looked at the
tuition.  Nearly ten times what this 2nd tier state college costs.

I got up and walked to the printer and watched the pages slide out.  I
imagined walking back over there, kick in the door and fucking show him
that he doesn't know shit, and his whole consulting firm is probably
full of mediocre assholes like him.  I imagined shouting "fuck YOU!" as
loud as possible and then smashing him through that window.

I was completely out of my mind.  Seething.

I looked around the computer lab.  Lots of students.  At least half were
just playing computer games or writing messages.  Everybody looked
relaxed.  They weren't taking everything so seriously.

I needed to eat something.  I hadn't eaten since last night and I
realized it was already two in the afternoon.  The career center where
the interview was had free coffee and of course I had like three or four
or five cups because I got there two hours early.  I got there two hours
early because I ride the bus and it's unreliable.

Yeah.  When I'm like this, I need to eat.

So I went to the cafeteria.  There's a place that sells a big plate of
pasta, tomato sauce, and garlic bread for three bucks, and they let you
serve yourself the parmesan cheese.  I cover it with way too much
parmesan cheese and red pepper flakes and it tastes pretty good even
though the cooks boil the noodles for way too long.

It's by far the best deal in the cafeteria in terms of calories for
price.

I ate and studied the printout.  I knew this stuff.  That guy was
completely wrong.

I felt so much better after getting some food and after reassuring
myself that I'm not an idiot.  He's the one that has it wrong.

I went into the bathroom, got out my travel toothbrush from my bag,
stared into my own eyes while brushing my teeth.  I looked OK.  I like
this suit and I'm wearing my favorite tie and the little metal tie clip.
In fact I look amazing.  This suit fits perfectly.

I remember how I found this suit at the charity shop.  It was in nearly
perfect condition, but just a little too big for me.

I took it to the dry cleaner where I get my aprons and shirts cleaned
and starched for work.

The old Asian lady knows me there.  I asked if she could alter it to fit
me better.  I barely understand her when she talks, but she seems to
understand me.  She said it was a really nice suit.

I remember standing in the back of her store, up on a stool, in my
socks, while she used pins and a little piece of chalk to plan out her
attack.

She always talks to me in whatever language she speaks.  Maybe it's
Vietnamese.  Not sure.  But then I'll hear something that I understand.

This time, embedded in the stream of stuff I couldn't understand, I
heard her say "I need two weeks."  And then later, I hear her ask where
I got this suit.  I ask if she knows the bluebird thrift store and then
gesture in the vague direction where it is, a few miles away.

It was an intimate thing.  Not in a sleazy way.  Just in that we spent
like half an hour together, me standing in my boxers and t-shirt while
she measured me and then later had me wear the suit, while she orbited
around me, using her pins to secure folks, or her chalk to mark little
lines.

I've been going to her little dry cleaning store for more than a year
now, and I always try to be friendly.  Heck, she has sold me several
shirts left behind by people and never picked up.  Nice shirts, too.
There's a sign on the wall that says shirts left for more than 30 days
will be sold, and now some of those shirts are mine.

Waiting tables means getting a lot of stains on your clothes, and sooner
or later, either the stains won't come out, or the chemicals used to get
them out eat a hole right through the fabric.

So I go through shirts.

And now maybe I was going up a notch.  Up from service work to a job
where I'd need a suit.  I like to think she was happy for me.  Even
proud of me.

I realized later how me asking for her to alter it was like an external
marker of how slowly I'm climbing up out of the swamp.  Something
visible to somebody else watching my life from a distance.

I've been taking in my aprons and shirts for work to this lady's dry
cleaner.  She recognizes me.  She gets the tomato sauce and wine stains
out of my clothes.

But this time, we spent like an hour together in the back half of her
shop.  She had me stand on a step stool in my boxers and a t-shirt
while she measured me.  Then she had me put on the pants, so she could
pin parts and  draw lines with chalk.

Anyhow, a few weeks later, she called and left a message on my machine.
I listened to it.  She said something like "Hello Mr. Marlowe" in the
recording.  I wondered how she knew my name until I remembered how I
wrote down my name and number for her.

What does it mean about my life that I'm feeling some weird sense of
friendship because my dry cleaner knows my name and saw me in my
underwear?  I know what it means.  I'm fuggin lonely.  I'm too isolated.

I was so fucking hopeful that this internship was going to work.

I remember when I came back and picked up the suit, she had me try it
on.  I looked at my reflection in the mirror.  This was the beginning of
a new phase in my life.  First, I was a gloomy, quiet kid.  Then I
became a drug-obsessed atheist suicidal maniac poet.  But now, I've been
rehabilitated.  I'm adjusting to society rather than defying it.  I'm
going to be a productive worker.

Except it wasn't the start of anything new.  That's the illusion that
keeps us all striving.

There's a fucking invisible barrier.

That seamstress for example.  She's gotta be in her sixties maybe, and
for her whole life, she's been altering beautiful clothes for other
people, while she wears their castoffs.  She will literally never get
to experience what it feels like to be them.

Christ, this is the stuff I used to rant about when I used to get high.
And while brushing my teeth, staring at my eyes in the reflection, I
couldn't find any flaw in the logic.

In the end, I might struggle, I might work really hard, but there are
doors that are locked and I don't have the key.

I realized my gums were bleeding again because I brush my teeth too
hard.  This wasn't good for my peace of mind.  I can't work myself up
into a class warfare frenzy.

I walked over to my statistics professors office.  I wanted to talk
about the function that the guy had mentioned.  I stood in a line
outside her office.  She had her door closed so I waited.

A few other students were nearby and I listened to them talk.  We were
about the same age, but they were so unfamiliar.  I listened to them
talk about some party they were at, how silly somebody was.  They talked
about what they were going to do for fun that night.

I looked at them.  Two women, early twenties.  Both really cute.

They kept talking.  One mentioned how she had to write an essay in
Spanish about what she did for fun and she said she likes going to
movies and reading but really none of that's true, she never does any of
that stuff.  She goes to parties, works out, shops, spends time with her
friends.

I watched.  They were both cute.  One was striking.  She had copper hair
with white streaks in it.  She had maybe just come from the gym, or was
going to the gym, wearing leggings and a sports bra.  She was beautiful
and she knew it.

It was alienating.  Is this what I should be doing?  How?  I can't bear
being around people socially.  What do I do for fun?  I daydream about a
life where I have some free time.  Where I don't need to beg for an
opportunity to prove myself.

Why is it that they get to have such a fucking easy life, but me and the
old seamstress work like seven days a week?  How is this the way the
world works?

She glanced at me for a second and it was obvious that she was not
inviting me to join their conversation.  I dug out the printed
documentation on the function and read it over again.  Making sure I
understood it the best I could.  I saw a few drops of spaghetti sauce on
the printout because I had been reading it while I ate lunch.

My professor called out, "next", and I went in.

I said I had a question about the function.  She rolled her eyes and
said "We covered that in class... it doesn't work!"

And then I realized that she thought I was coming in here and acting
like I believed in it.  I explained how I didn't, and I explained how it
came up in the job interview I was just on.

I showed her the printed out docs, and talked through how I thought
about it all in my head, and she nodded a bunch.  She said "you've got
it right.  That guy in the interview ... he's an analyst at where again?
Yeah, don't tell me.  But it doesn't surprise me.  The whole industry is
notorious for shoddy work.  Big firms hire them to vet their financials
and verify their projections so they can go out to Wall Street and raise
money, but there's a huge conflict of interest when you get paid by the
industry you are reviewing."

I said it sounds like a food critic getting paid by a restaurant.  My
heart swelled when I saw her grin and nod at the analogy.

She asked if I was going to take the job.  I had been standing this
whole time, near the door.  I never want to overstay.  I'm kinda crazy
about this professor.  Again, not in a sleazy way.  But I want her to
like me.

I sighed.  She waved at a chair near me.  I took the stack of papers and
books off it and put them on the floor and sat down.  I said how I can't
afford to take the job because they don't pay and I need to work.  She
nodded.

I waited.  I expected her to express some kind of sympathy.   Maybe she
had leads on other paid jobs out there and she could introduce me.
After all, she had written me a recommendation for the job.

Maybe she could give me something that would help me get a career
started.  But nothing like that happened.  It was quiet for a few
seconds.

She said "So, don't look for shortcuts when you're doing your work.
There aren't any."  I realized she was telling me it was time for me to
leave.  I thanked her for the time, and walked out, and heard her call
out to the next student in the hall.

The two women were gone too.  I walked back to the bus stop and waited
to catch it back home.  I was due on the floor at work at 6 PM.