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My days as a mental_floss intern are over. My adoring fans may have noticed that the “Intern” has been dropped from my byline and my workload has decreased to “occasional contributor” status. Unlike these guys, though, I left my internship on my own terms and Mangesh and Jason appreciated my work enough to let me stay on. Here’s a look at four interns who didn’t do as well during their employment.
The Employer: Roseanne Barr
First off, who knew that Roseanne offered an internship? She may not anymore, though, after her experience this summer. She had to fire her intern, whose identity is still shrouded in secrecy, in early August after they posted some obscene comments on her MySpace page. The rambling posts (check out one here), which were written from Roseanne’s point of view, touched on her desire to get a shotgun and smell like urine, “like old ladies are meant to.” Roseanne responded swiftly, firing the intern and apologizing to fans, reminding them that she only posts on her official blog. Three hours, later, though, she wrote another jokey post, saying that the fired intern had also stolen her sex tape and she was offering up a reward for its return. I’ll allow time for you to get rid of the vomit taste from your mouth.
The Employer: The State of Ohio
It was a big deal earlier this summer when the news broke that a computer tape with the names, Social Security numbers and possibly bank account information for 1.1 million Ohio residents. After some investigating, the state managed to figure out who was responsible for losing the tape: Jared Ilovar, a 22-year-old intern. Turns out he had taken the tape home with him and left it in his car one night. Unfortunately, this happened to be the same night he was the victim of a random car theft. As the intern working on the new payroll and purchasing system, he was given the glamorous task of taking home one of two computer tapes, a job that really belongs to a network administrator. Ilovar was fired by governor Ted Strickland (hey, at least get fired by the big guy) after refusing to resign and still holds out hope that the state will consider taking him back. Strickland has assured that they won’t.
The employer: Wes Anderson
Matthew Gray Gubler is the rare intern who’s bumbling actually translated into a better job. Gubler described himself as “maybe the worst intern in history,” after working for director Wes Anderson. He’s related tales of trying to buy couscous without know what it was (it’s this, in case you’re ever in the same boat) and trying to deliver a large painting to Bill Murray after drinking. Still, Gubler didn’t get fired, he got a perm. And then he got a role in Anderson’s movie The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, playing, of course, a bumbling intern.
The Employer: Rep. Denny Rehberg, R Montana
As the lone representative from Montana, Rehberg must have been a little hard up for finding help, so he hired Todd Shriber, a Texas Christian University graduate with less-than-stellar grades to be a press aide. Shriber apparently wasn’t happy with his grades, so he took steps to fix them. To the embarrassment of the Congressman, those steps involved contacting attrition.org to find hackers who would break into the TCU system and change his GPA. The supposed hackers, “Lyger” and “Jericho,” led Shriber along for 22 email messages, then published the entire exchange. The last email had Lyger warning “we are SO busted.” Shriber was ultimately fired and apologized for acting so out of character. His GPA remains as low as it was before, but that probably won’t be the thing that doesn’t get him hired.
Comments (19)
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It seems to me that slandering your boss, drinking on the job, and hiring a hacker to change your grades are serious offenses that don’t quite add up to poor Jared Ilovar in Ohio’s scape-goat situation.
If the job should have been done by a network administrator, why wasn’t the person who gave Jared the job fired? Sure Jared was dumb to not guard the tape with his life, but it sounds to me like his bosses, who ultimately had responsibility for the tape, should not have let it out of a VAULT in the first place! It sounds like the public wanted heads to roll, so they chose the new guy to take the brunt of it. What a lousy way to begin a career. I hope he gets another chance.
posted by Andrea on 10-8-2007 at 4:19 pm
Actually, any “large” organization such as the “State of Ohio” should have a much more solid back-up and disaster recovery process. NO ONE should be taking tapes home. I believe that was in Information Security class 101. hahahah…hello?
posted by Brenda on 10-10-2007 at 4:54 am
i agree w/ Andrea. there’s someting else we don’t know about that story…
posted by susan on 10-10-2007 at 5:10 am
My friend and her employer qualify here! “J” was employed as an intern at a large radio station. This job isn’t nearly as glamorous as it originally sounded, and “J” soon found herself making runs halfway across the city because her boss wanted lunch from a certain hotdog stand. One of the few “real” intern tasks she was granted was preparing concert tickets to be mailed to contest winners. After spending several days preparing a few thousand dollars worth of tickets, they were ready to mail, so she took them down to the mailroom. Turns out, the “mailroom” is a corner of the lobby, secured with a piece of tape on the floor declaring it off limits to outsiders. The security guard assured her that they were safe, and she left them. Shockingly, they were stolen. The station manager accused “J” of stealing them, and promptly fired her. He also informed the university she attended of the incident, and she received a failing grade for her student internship.
posted by Maggie on 10-10-2007 at 8:32 am
And THAT’S why I love Wes Anderson.
Actually, it’s not.
I love him because I think his movies are genius and I think he’s a fantastic creative mind.
But still.
posted by Ashley Williams on 10-13-2007 at 5:49 pm
Knowing Roseanne’s track record, she probably abused and pissed off the intern, not that it’s an excuse for posing as some one and posting info on the internet. But, Roseanne had another switch to one of her alternate personalities and humiliated herself even more with the sex tape joke. Of course.
posted by AllyV on 10-14-2007 at 12:57 pm
Crap, I think the girl’s stuff was great! If I was Roseanne, I’d have hired her in a minute as a writer!
posted by JR on 11-5-2007 at 10:47 am
“Matthew Gray Gubler is the rare intern who’s bumbling actually translated into…”
who’s –> whose
posted by Bob on 12-4-2007 at 3:05 pm
# Bob Says:
December 4th, 2007 at 3:05 pm
“Matthew Gray Gubler is the rare intern who’s bumbling actually translated into…”
who’s –> whose
who’s –> whose
who’s –> whose
who’s –> whose
bob shut your pie hole u lame english teacher, jeez i hate people like you.
no wait im gonna be a jerk jusyt like you,
who’s –> whose
“that arrow makes that not a sentence at all, im so snooty, you should have wrote 10 words instead of using that arrow, oh dear i will drink my uptight tea now. jeez i wonder if i will ever find what is up my bum.”
posted by oh come on please on 12-8-2007 at 5:21 pm
wrote -> written
posted by Shoe on 12-9-2007 at 1:01 pm
That comment thread between Bob, oh come on please and Shoe is one of the funniest exchanges I have ever read.
No seriously Shoe – That was PURE GENIUS!
Thanks for the laugh.
posted by jeffcomedy on 12-11-2007 at 2:54 am
I think Jared Ilovar was a scapegoat — his bosses told him to do something and as far as he knew everything was hunkeydory and above board, then he’s the victim of a robbery and somehow he’s to blame for it all?
That’s just not right.
posted by Banaticus on 2-13-2008 at 11:34 pm
> I think Jared Ilovar was a scapegoat — his bosses told him to do something and as far as he knew everything was hunkeydory and above board …
Agreed. Dispersing backup media among different employees (*cough* interns) is a time-honored means of risk mitigation for availability of backed-up data – as practiced by “mom’n'pop” IT shops that can’t afford backup warehousing or any other business recovery (BR) option. Does the state of Ohio run such a shop, on the cheap?
Working in a professional IT shop is like being in the military: It’s all about procedures, good or bad, no matter how useful or insane. The part we haven’t heard about is whether this “risk mitigation” procedure for data backups was actually official procedure for the state of Ohio. (FoIA request, anyone?)
As in the military, ultimate responsibility lies with the CO – in this case, the CIO for the state of Ohio, R. Steve Edmonson, since Feb 2007. He owns the authority (responsibility) to set BR procedures; thus, he owns the blame if they are later shown to be lacking.
Publically blaming+firing a clueless 22-yo was simply a political expediency for the Gov. of Ohio. (I wish Jared well on his upcoming “second act” in American life, given the age of Googlian omniscience.)
posted by Schroedingers_cat on 5-9-2008 at 7:07 pm
MGG is a hot. And a complete brilliant spaz. Thanks for reminding me that he exists! Since Criminal Minds kind of sucks.
posted by Maria on 6-4-2008 at 9:45 am
This made me giggle.
I had a terrible internship about 10 years ago with a Broadway theatre director who was guest directing at our regional theatre company.
Here’s a couple of the highlights of the 8 weeks of hell I endured:
She would call me at 1am regularly because she was hungry and wanted cream cheese and lox bagels from an upscale restaurant next to the theatre. She seemed oblivious to the fact that it was 1am and hence this request was impossible.
During the dress-runs and previews I took notes for the actors for her. She insisted that they all be written on seperate pieces of paper and color coded, but refused to give me any time to do this – so as soon as the curtain fell she would scream at me to get the actors their notes.
She would send me to the city’s one 5 star restaurant to get her lunch. Generally, 5 star restaurants aren’t accustomed to doing take-out – no matter how important you think you are. I regularly had to beg them to please please please fill her order.
She got fired from the show after it opened and the reviewers bombed it. A new director was brought in to fix all her screw-ups.
I got a permenant job as a stage manager after that.
posted by Jen on 6-18-2008 at 1:31 pm
The Ohio intern complains that he wasn’t told of what to do with the backup tapes which he had to take home with him. Fine. But I wouldn’t hire a Devry grad who doesn’t know the backseat/trunk of his car probably isn’t the best place for backup tapes.
posted by FR on 9-26-2008 at 1:58 am
of all interns everybody seems to have forgottent the most famous one of all…Monica Lewinsky, her “bumbling” mishaps and cigar “acts” almost cost a presidency and country to fall.
posted by Dana on 11-11-2008 at 12:57 pm
Fantastic, and yet very simple.
posted by Backup Tapes on 12-11-2008 at 6:38 am
Oh I LOOOVE MGG on Criminal Minds! I’ve honestly considered naming my first born son “Reed” after him (yes I realize that’s his last name).
posted by Bri on 3-27-2009 at 9:15 am