Dear Amy,
It’s my third year here and I have almost nothing going for me. My grades are average, but I’m not in any clubs, I don’t volunteer, and I don’t have a job. The only thing working in my favor is a cool summer internship I managed to land in Kingston, Jamaica. However, the more I talk to other people about the emotionally intensive interview process and the cryptic letters I had to decipher to get the job, the more I think I signed up to work for an international criminal syndicate. What should I do?
Desperately,
International Internship Incident
Dear International Internship Incident,
I will go ahead and take this moment to remind you that this is a student-run college humor magazine. Your cry for help, while moving, is probably better directed at the police or some sort of elite international taskforce. However, you know the general shtick, I’ll answer any question asked in a desperate attempt to gain increased readership. And who are you to judge? I’m out here living my oddly specific childhood dreams. And what do you have, huh? A terrifying new future in international crime. Speaking of which, here’s a few suggestions for dealing with your deadly new bosses.
- Study the art of vanishing. Here’s the first, and most obvious, choice. Does your five-year plan not include becoming a high stakes crime boss? The best thing to do is just burn it all down and start over. Here’s what you’ll need: a pile of all of your important life documents (think birth certificate, passport, social security card, etc.); any and all photos including you or the idea of you; a six-gallon tank of gasoline; and an entire book of matches. Optional items include: the old band t-shirts you collected during your sophomore year emo phase and your sad collection of valentines from when Sarah still loved you. After the fire you’ll need a total rebranding, but like the phoenix, you won’t be murdered by the mob. And I’m a big fan of not being murdered by the mob.
- Study the art of disappointment. If you can’t disappear, then you can do the next best thing: make them regret hiring you. Forget the coffee order. Break the copier. Accidentally leak highly classified information to the CIA. I will warn you, this trick for getting fired works for minimum wage fast food jobs, but a mob boss might decide to utilize their firing squad instead.
- Study the art of the blade. Hey, if you passed the syndicate’s tests then you must be a qualified candidate. You might as well double down and use the time between now and the start of the summer to pick up a few new assassin skills. Forget learning to program in C++. You’ll need to program your body to resist harmful toxins in case you’re ever forced to poison an enemy but need to poison yourself to convince them there’s nothing wrong with the coffee they’re drinking. In fact, you won’t need most of the skills currently prioritized on your resume. Except Excel, even international crime syndicates need to know their way around a spreadsheet. Bonus points if you can do fancy equations or 3D graphs.
Anyway International Internship Incident, I certainly hope this advice helps you to live your best life, whether that’s crime in Jamaica or hiding in Guadalajara. Either way, this internship is going to change your life. And hey, if they’re looking for any terrible crime advice, feel free to pass my inbox along. Or, on second thought. Maybe just forget I exist.
Best,
An anonymous Sundial member whose name definitely won’t be in the byline
Written by Hannah Wagner, Senior Staff Member