I spent my Labor Day weekend relaxing at my mother's house in New England. On my last night, we stood on the deck and looked at the stars. I noticed that some of them were so bright I saw them as soon as I stepped outside, while others were much dimmer and didn't appear until my eyes had adjusted.
Some ghosts from my past crept up on me this weekend and I started thinking--while you're interning, you're going to make some mistakes. These mistakes may seem like a good move for your career at the time but only time will tell. And yes, I've done it too.
Last year I was approached by someone at my internship to work on a side project with them. Sitting in her office, listening to her pitch, I was extremely flattered that she thought of me, a lowly intern, to work with her on this project, and I gladly accepted. It was a lot of work, a lot of time was put into it and little rewards were reaped. I did it because I looked at it as setting myself up in a good place for the future. However, I realized the work I was doing wasn't even close to what I wanted to do, and I cut myself from the project. I thought I made a clean break. It was hard for me to leave, because I knew how much my help was needed, and I know how small this industry is. You let one person down, and the next thing you know, nobody wants to work with you. It was something I had to do, and I felt I made the right choice. Over the weekend however, I found out that confidential information my coworkers had access to was still being used, even after I left.
You will hear thousands of times that the music industry is the shadiest of them all, but I like to believe that there lies some good in people, and that those industry scum bags you hear about are all a fabrication of some disgruntled ex-employee. This is not to say that everyone you meet will be one of these sleeze balls, but be aware these people do exist and the best thing you can do is hold your head up high and do the right thing, even if its not the easiest.
This situation really made me question what I'm doing in an industry where people lie, cheat, and steal to get ahead. I'm not like that, and I never will be, even if I sometimes wish I could be just to level the playing field. But the key to surviving the game is to figure out which star you want to be, the bright one that people notice immediately, or that dimmer one that doesn't appear until your eyes adjust to the darkness.
Me? I'm gonna let it shine.
Labels: intern, internship, lessons, stars
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