Undeniably, internship season is upon us. All free time will henceforth be spent writing cover letters, searching on CAREERlink for summer jobs and emailing “family friends” for networking purposes. The result of all of this effort can be an enlightening job experience or a horrifying one. Scene has unfortunately experienced a bit too many of the latter, and we’re here to regale you with tales of that extreme before you finalize those summer plans.

Frat house garbageman

Noah Jodice

If you want to learn the true depths and depravities of college life, spend your summer cleaning frat houses and apartments at a large public university. This, dear reader, is how I have spent the last two summers. A family friend who manages several properties across my hometown, the location of a prominent public university, convinced several of my friends and me to do odd jobs nobody else wanted after the students had left. Why did we agree? Because he paid well. Also, he said we could keep whatever we found. I did not keep anything, but the pay was enough to sooth my trampled spirits.

While some aspects of the job, like tearing out old carpets, were simple and allowed me to release my inner rage, there was occasionally a soul-crushing, vomit-worthy, unclean frat house. This is by no means a condemnation of all fraternities or their practices. It is merely a condemnation of my hometown’s fraternities and their practices and a condemnation of trash. Trash is bad.

One such establishment was known to community members as “The White House.” The house is no longer white, because it was painted green, but rebranding is difficult. My companions and I had been charged with cleaning the entire house, including the basement. Upon reaching the basement, we found a substantial amount of what I would term loose water (because it was not in a container or the ground, where it should be).

“Basements aren’t for loose water,” we thought simultaneously. Other amenities included a mattress and comforter (floating in the water), several coolers, paint cans and various pieces of trash. We decided it would be impossible to clean and called our boss to inform him of the fact.

However, while exploring the basement we found a side room containing several bricks, a mostly empty gallon of hot sauce and several pictures posted on the wall that appeared to be from a 1950s yearbook. I don’t want to make assumptions about what happened in this room, because that would require thinking about what happened in that room for an extended period of time.

The rest of the house wasn’t much better. We removed several soggy, molding couches, a broken stereo system and a dozen or so trash bags of rusty kitchenware, refuse and moldy clothes. Of course, my personal favorite piece of trash was an expired can of smoked salmon. It definitely made me crave a nice lox and bagel. Wait, no. No it did not.

This is only one of a suite of stories in the canon that is my summer job. The moral, if there is one, is that you should get an internship. Or work at a McDonald’s. Do anything. Also, throw out your trash.

Frozen yogurt restaurant employee

Kimberly Henrickson

This past summer, I was hired for my first real job working for a local franchise of a popular frozen yogurt chain. As the restaurant was self-serve, one would assume that my job would have been relatively easy. However, some difficult customers made it not so. We kept our sample cups behind the counter so that we could control the amount that customers took, but people would often brazenly take them without actually buying yogurt.

One day, three pre-teenage boys came into the store without any money, ready to snack on samples to their hearts’ delight. When I noticed that they were having a competition to see who could make a taller sample and make a mess in the process, I pretended to clean the machines in order to scare them off. However, they soon caught on to my sneakiness.

Rather than pretending that there was nothing going on, as I had assumed they would, they instead started to blatantly whisper about me and how at least they weren’t “doing nothing with their lives except for working for a froyo store.” As this was just a one-summer job for me, I found this statement hilarious; however, it also saddened me, as I didn’t want any of my co-workers, for whom this was a full-time job, to hear such a negative comment. Unfortunately, I have to admit that I still love to try samples, although at least now I always make sure to buy if I try some.

Historical society tour guide

Maisie Heine

One summer, as an alternative to lazily hanging around my house, I decided to volunteer for my small New England town’s historical society. My logic behind this decision was that I loved my history classes, so it would reasonably follow that I would love being involved with the history of my small town. I was designated a tour guide at a historical building located in a local park for six hours a day, five times a week.

The idea was that people enjoying an amble through the park would spot the stand-out building composed of glass and redwood—that glorious representation of our town’s modern architecture—and wouldn’t be able to stop themselves from going in. That’s when I, specialist in Connecticut modern architecture, would whisk them away into my presentation on the craftsmanship of the chimney, the innovation of the ceiling-length glass windows and the history behind the pool house out back. My big finale: a modest plea for a contribution to the historical society to keep cultural centers like this one protected for all time.

My first day, I entered the building with my own set of keys, wearing a spiffy new outfit I had gotten just for the occasion, the notes for my presentation under my arm, feeling like the biggest winner alive. I stood alert, awaiting my first opportunity to enlighten. An hour went by, and no one came in. Another hour. And another. I decided that since there were couches in the building, I might as well make use of them. It was about 95 degrees outside, and despite the fact that the building was praised for being a modern innovation, I guess it wasn’t modern enough to have proper air conditioning. The large glass windows admitting every ray of severe summer sun didn’t help much either.

As the sweat trickled down my back I continued waiting for people to walk in, but no one came that first day. No matter, I thought, they’ll be coming by the flocks tomorrow…I mean, this is exciting local history we’re talking about! That was the overly optimistic perspective with which my sad, naive mind tried to comfort me. The next day, a couple came in. Jubilant, I opened my mouth to give my opening spiel, but before I could say anything, the earth-shattering question escaped from the woman’s glossy lips: “Is there a bathroom in here?” Feeling like a wrecking ball had just crashed through my soul, I quietly answered that there was one in the back.

As time went on, I got used to expecting anyone walking in to be in search of the bathroom instead of historical insight. What did I get out of that summer? A whole lot of book-reading, an oh-so-generous $100 stipend from the historical society for my pains, a newfound misanthropy and pit stains on every blouse I own.