Intern Musings

There has been a long line of predecessors that have walked the intern line, I don't know if it is a straight line, but a pathway nonetheless. There has been the famous temp from The Office who rose to the heights of management, there have been interns on boats performing various labors as depicted in The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, and there have been countless of real interns all over the world getting that oh so precious on the job training. As an intern I have made some observations. 1. If you do an internship in HK everyone will assume you are British. As far as I can tell, out of the 3,000 employees at my place of work I am the only young American boy. In fact, I have been accused of being the famous Prince William on more than one occasion. I have endeavored to learn British to cover for my Western drawl. Words such as peckish, lift, rubbish, brilliant, and cheers have entered my word arsenal throughout the day to assimilate me into the British role I am assumed to be playing. 2. Interns can ask any question and do anything. In the short period that I have been here I have asked every stupid question that you could possibly think of and will only continue to do so. "So, do you like work?"; "Those guys fly the planes, right?"; "What time do we leave?" Most of these questions are followed by me smiling and the other person laughing. Brilliant! I really am getting the hang of this. 3. Interns get special privileges. So in this week I have been to airplane simulations, watched flight attendant trainings and briefings, witnessed where the meals and items are prepared before the flights, and many other things. I know what ISM, FP, and Y3 stand for. I know protocol and procedures, safety and service standards. It has all been a wonderful opportunity. 4. Interns sometimes go a long time without talking to other humans. Finishing work at six and heading home leaves me with few options. I get to my flat at a retirement/wealthy community and my options become limited. I could take an hour bus into the city, read, run, or write blogs. All enticing options, but monotonous after a few days. I think I regularly go 10-12 hours without talking to anyone. Dreadful, but it opens up a lot of time to reflect and ponder. All is well. Those are some of the intern scrutinies and joys that I have found in this first week. Cheers!

Driving Me Crazy

Today I found that I have a fear that I had never previously considered. A fear that is plausible, but never considered feasible. While driving to my new flat on th gold coast, courtesy of one of the many lovely buses of HK, I became intent on the actions of the driver. The man could not go more than 10 seconds without rubbing his eyes are hitting himself on the back of the head. I found the bus drifting out of the lane on several occasions while this went on. I had never seen a man fight o hard to keep his focus and stay out of delirium, other than witnessing various students attempting the same feat in tedious poly sci classes at the Y. My curiousness into the matter elevated as my dear old friend led our entourage into a torrent of rain. The veerings into other lanes got worse, and as he endeavored to pass a truck I thought for sure that we were going to collide. To my astonishment we arrived unscathed at our destination and the driver embarked to his next destination with a prayer from me that he arrive safely there. Perhaps I underestimated the prowess of this man and his keen sense of the dimensions of his vehicle, however, when it comes to avoiding collisions with other vehicles, I prefer a sober, coherent driver.