My First Internship

Hello and welcome back.

This post features the water cooler in my office. It is plain and simple, like a No. 2 pencil. It is cliche and unoriginal, like your Tumblr blog from 2017. And last but not least, it is boring and unfulfilling, like my job, at which I am writing this review.

The cooler has three settings: hot, cold, and room temperature. The button for cold dispenses water very slowly. It's the "death by a thousand drips" option in the cooler's smorgasbord of buttons. The room temperature button dispenses at a normal speed, filling my water bottle in 12-20 seconds. And I haven't used the hot water button. I don't drink hot water. Do you think I'm some kind of crazy person?

Note to self: maybe I should bring hot chocolate packets to work and use the hot water to discreetly drink hot chocolate all day, like a workplace hot chocolate alcoholic.

If I had to explain the water cooler with a single quote, it would be this: "I don’t think of all the misery but of the beauty that still remains.”
– Anne Frank

Anne's insight proves extremely meaningful here when applied to the water cooler. To fully understand what I mean here, I want you to imagine yourself as this water cooler.

Every morning, you get to watch the lights flick on. You observe tired sales representatives, marketing agents, software developers and countless clients shuffle by. Every morning, you see the same faces file into their cubicles. And every night, the sky darkens. The office, like your water reservoir, slowly empties. Soon, the lights are out, and you are alone in a dark office, silently keeping watch over your corporate domain.

You question if the people here enjoy their work. They smile and say "good morning", but you see weariness behind their eyes. People come and talk by you, but somehow, nobody says anything. As 5:00 pm grows closer, the tension in the office rises. Furtive glances at the door betray a burning excitement at the prospect of going home. You are reminded of your high school days, and you wonder if something better is waiting for you out there...

Then someone comes along and dumps a five-gallon water drum on your head.

Originally posted on Instagram