Connor’s first day was, well… it was something. It wasn’t what he’d dreamed of, nor what he’d hoped for. It wasn’t even what he’d feared. It wasn’t dazzling and it wasn’t magical. 

Nobody asked his opinion on the latest editorial piece or praised his insight and relevant knowledge. They also didn’t call him out for small mistakes and fire him on the spot.

He’d thoroughly imagined both scenarios, depending on his mood. 

What he hadn’t pictured was being shoved into a dark corner desk with an old laptop and assigned data entry. The person that was supposed to onboard him was sick that week. Nobody else was available to train him so he’d been given work that only someone with zero knowledge could do. 

He sighed and took a swig of office coffee that tasted like brown water and copy pasted some links into an excel document. 

This was just…

“Not what you imagined, huh?”

Connor jumped, startled to hear his thoughts voiced out loud, then quickly plastered on a professional smile. “Not at all, I’m just happy to be here.” A redheaded man in his mid-thirties with wireframe glasses and a not ugly smattering of freckles was leaning on in the doorframe a few feet to Connor’s left. He hadn’t heard him walk up.

“I’m Brody.” The man offered a firm handshake, then perched lightly on the edge of Connor’s desk. “I remember my own internships back in the day. It was always like ninety percent doing coffee runs for the office, and ten percent stressing about how to pay rent when I was working for free.” He shook his head in faux nostalgia. “Those were the days.” He turned a teasing grin on Connor, then whispered behind his hand. “We’re paying you right?”

“Yeah,” Connor nodded weakly. “Yeah. This is a paid placement.”

“Oh good.” The man nodded, still smiling as if they shared a secret. “Anyway, I’m a graphic designer, so we won’t crossover much, but if you need any help, feel free to ask. And, here,” he grabbed a sticky note off Connor’s dusty desk and pulled a pen from his chest pocket, “I’ll give you my number for emergencies.” 

Connor looked at the bright yellow piece of paper and frowned “What kind of emergencies? What kind of emergencies does a magazine have?”

“Hey, you never know.” Brody leaned over Connor’s shoulder to stick the note to the top of his laptop screen. “Better safe than sorry! Catch you later.” And with a jovial wink, he was gone.

Was he flirting with me? Connor wondered. He'd had a wedding ring on… Not my problem either way.

His musings were interrupted by another unsolicited visitor. The head editor this time, a white woman with an enormous mass of curly blonde hair. He recognized her from the magazine itself. “You’re the intern right?” she asked. 

Connor pushed back his chair to stand and smiled brightly to greet her, she had a nice suit on– menswear but perfectly tailored to her body. It made him want to wear a suit to work, he instantly liked her. “Yes, hello, I’m Connor. It’s so nice to meet you!”

“Alright, listen, my assistant is out, and I need someone to take minutes in a meeting. Grab  your laptop and come with me.”

“Yes, ma’am!” Connor grabbed what he needed and scrambled after her. A real editorial meeting already! This was exciting!

It wasn’t exciting. It was long and boring, and they all talked too fast for him to type. There were six people in the room. Himself, the head editor, Brody from design, and three people he didn’t know. They were discussing some marketing campaign, and advertising budgets and they all seemed to hate each other from what he could tell. Connor also wasn’t totally sure what meeting minutes were, but he assumed it was some sort of record of what was being said. He was a pretty good student, who took pretty good notes, so it would probably be okay he comforted himself, chewing on the edge of his thumbnail.

“We need to get on Tiktok,” a petite Asian woman said, she was maybe the social media person. “Our growth with gen Z is stalling, we should do some paid promotions there.”

“Yes. That sounds good. It’s, ugh… video right?” Marie the head editor agreed. “We hired that guy with the video production company last time right? His prices were alright, can you reach out?” 

The other woman nodded. 

“Does anyone here use Tiktok?” Marie added. “I thought it was for teenagers. I have no idea how it works.” The rest of the room shook their heads, and Connor saw his moment to shine.

“I do!” he chirped. “I’m a bit of an influencer on there. I could put together a list of accounts with a similar vibe to review–”

“I meant employees,” Marie cut him off sharply. “You’re here to write things down. Not talk.”

Connor thought he was going to die. He prayed for the ground to break open so he could slide into the pits of hell and pretend he never existed. 

She said something else before the topic changed, but Connor couldn’t hear it over the humiliated pounding of his heart in his ears. Why was he still alive? What kind of bullshit was this? Why did he open his mouth? Of course, she wasn’t talking to him! He felt like puking, and his eyes prickled. Could he leave for the bathroom now? No. That would draw too much attention, maybe he could just quietly slip under the conference table and become dust. There was a little garbage can behind his chair, he could drag that under with him to barf in. He could–

Brody nudged his knee and brought him ruthlessly back to his body. His soul had been attempting to vacate the premises, when Brody leaned in to whisper in his ear, “Don’t take it hard, she’s like that with everyone. It was a good suggestion.”

Connor nodded blankly, resenting his own inability to astral project. Brody squeezed his thigh under the table– probably intending to be encouraging– and tipped his head meaningfully at Connors laptop.

He was right. Missing things would only make this worse. Luckily Connor’s hearing had returned, and he went back to note taking.