A Fierce Internship
My Very Worst Job was as an intern at a big cat sanctuary. Basically, it was a place where people take their tigers when they realize they don’t make good pets. The internship was touted as experience in “animal behavior,” and while it was in the middle of nowhere (in between two towns with populations of 500 and 760 respectively), I thought it would be an interesting experience to work around big cats.
First of all, we worked six days a week starting at around 6 a.m. Every morning we had to prepare around 400 lbs of frozen, raw meat (with bones and organs ground in), saving the blood to mix with medicines the cats required. While we delivered the meat, we also cleaned the cages and picked up poop. After that was done, we spent the rest of the day doing manual labor – painting, weed whacking, etc. My internship was in the middle of the summer in Texas, so you can imagine how much fun that was – especially when the cats didn’t finish their meat and we had to clean out the baked meat with maggots in it. If there was any time for animal behavior education, we were all too exhausted by the end of the day to do anything.
To make matters more fun, my boss didn’t like me for some reason and would critique the clothes I wore outside of work. She also had no idea how to manage people, but we couldn’t complain to anyone because she was engaged to the only person above her.
The best part of the internship, however, was the tiger poop. Apparently if you put predator poop in your garden, it will keep pests away. But obviously people want the tiger poop in a more palatable form, and who better to do this job than interns! So we had to separate the tiger poop, lay it out to dry, then grate it (and dried tiger poop blows everywhere!) and put it into bags. Did I mention the pay was $50 a week?
I quit after two months. My only regret is that I didn’t do it sooner.
You knew you’d be working with animals. Animals are dirty. They poop and they eat. Sounds like you didn’t understand that.
Bryn- He was told the internship would be about Animal Behavior, so I’m assuming they were told they’d work with/learn about the tigers. To me it sounds like the OP was mislead by the job description.
Also, I’m pretty sure I grew up near that tiger sanctuary =D We were always afraid a tornado would come through and the tigers would get out haha
Yeah – an “internship” that is really a “janitor” job really doesn’t sound like fun.
This sounds like almost every internship I’ve ever heard of. I think it comes with the territory that you are going to be given the yuckiest, crappiest jobs to do. I’m also sure she did more for the big cats than feed and clean; like move and trade out their stimulation toys (animal behavior), know which ones could be approached in which ways during feeding (animal behavior) and which ones were in cages along and why (ANIMAL BEHAVIOR!).
I do feel for you with the boss issues. That’s one of the worst things I’ve noticed about family businesses. If you have a problem with one of your bosses and go to tell another boss, they won’t do anything about it…because they’re family…and you’re not.
edit: alone, not along
grinding tiger poop. ’nuff said.
The work given to interns generally entails the grunt labor of whatever trade one interns for— you intern for a law office, you run errands & alphabetize; for a fashion designer, you sweep & schlep garment bags; for a cat sanctuary, you deal with tiger poop.
Did you think you’d be idly strolling around in pristine white lab coat, jotting down your keen insights into animal behavior?
I’ve worked with animals all my life and I’m still stunned whenever some newbie pops up and complains when they have to clean up after said animals. Yeah duh, working with animals is 80% shit shoveling! Especially if you’re an intern and the organization is a rescue that’s probably only just scraping by financially.
Poor management I can sympathize with, but if you don’t want to work hard and get your hands dirty, you’re going to need to reconsider working with animals.
Intern is code for cheap to free manual larbor disguised as real world educational experience. What did you think you’d be doing at an animal sanctuary? Teaching the cats tricks?
Sorry, but sounds like a pretty standard interning job. They aren’t glamorous or fun, its about getting real world hands on experience in the field you want to work in and primarily does invovle just doing the basic grunt labor of that field.
This seemed pretty standard until I got to the $50/week comment. Sounds like the OP was working way too much to be paid the measly sum of $50, intern or no.
I find it interesting that she got paid at all. Internships are usually not paid where I come from, no matter what they’re in.
I agree with the others — sounds like someone didn’t know what she was getting into. Everybody poops, sweetie, especially big cats.
Sorry but i’ve gotta agree, this sounds like pretty standard work for a big cat sanctuary. I am curious to know what you thought the job would be like?
I am curious, you did not say if you got free housing and uniforms… so that the $50 a week was for food. Do you know the defination of an intern??
To all these dumb commenters who think they know what an internship is:
If you are being paid a decent wage, you should expect your internship to involve a lot of work, especially grunt work in the given field.
If you are NOT being paid a decent wage, you should expect your internship to involve mostly just educational experiences.
Why should anyone work for something that gives so little in return? They shouldn’t. Don’t put up with “internships” that don’t give you something, whether it is money or experience. In the best cases, it will be BOTH!
I’m a recruiter….I deal with jobs and internships as a part of my own job, everyday…I think I know what I’m talking about.
From Wikipedia, “Internships provide employers with cheap or free labor for (typically) low-level tasks, and also the prospect of interns returning to the company after completing their education and requiring little or no training.”
“Internships provide employers with cheap or free labor for (typically) low-level tasks, and also the prospect of interns returning to the company after completing their education and requiring little or no training.”
At least half to the majority of internships end up being no to low paid as the purpose of the internship is to give you real world work experience to put on your resume for your future career in said field as you can’t graduate with no experience and just expect to waltz into your career.
There is a reason its called an internship and not a job, the internship is a learning experience, even if your just cleaning cages, you’ve at least paid your due’s. Where does this sense of entitlement come from anyway?
I’m siding with the OP on this one. I have a lot of marine bio major friends that have had internships wiht marine animals. While they certainly deal with the gross stuff– cleaning cages, fish guts, etc.– they also have lessons and help with research. The OP states that they did not learn anything about animal behavior, which she was promised. Yes, interns do grunt work. But organizations shouldn’t tout a manual labor job as an internship as an excuse to deny fair wages.