The Intern Dinner

  
Last week Russ looked at me and said he was going to be out to dinner Monday night because it was the first day of orientation for the new company interns. “Well, yes you are going to be out to dinner, but with me at my Food Bank dinner. I told you about six months ago.” Yes, I told Russ, but I forgot to send him a calendar invite so technically, I was not on his calendar.
“To make up for your missing the intern dinner why don’t we have them for dinner?” I volunteered as my snafu make up. That was met with a resounding, Yes!  
Tonight the four rising college senior summer interns, came over with three other employees from the DC office and the wonderful head of talent, head of finance and Russ’ business partner. Carter got a whole evening of seeing what her future holds as a college student. It was fun to get to know these bright young people and listen to what they were interested in.
They were polite, showing up with flowers for me. They were respectful, engaged, curious, and clearly very smart. Everyone had excellent table manners and good social skills. It was nice to see that they could hold their own on the basics. I hope that they have an exciting summer living the life of consultants. Get to do interesting work, feel valued, find their voice and come away from the experience enriched. I also hope that they all love the work and want to be offered a job.
The world of internships is so different than it was when I was in school. I had an internship at the Carlisle Economic Development Center in college, but what I worked on was fairly menial. No one ever taught me anything, valued my point of view or even brought me lunch. I was seen as free labor.
The best part about having a small business is we have team members for dinner. I love getting to know these people and it is great for them to see Russ in non-work mode. Of course he goes right into work mode to do the dishes when everyone is done eating, but that is good for his home-life-balance.
For Russ, any excuse for me to cook party food is good for him. He now has a fridge filled with yummy leftovers. Secretly I know he is happy that the guests did not eat all the tomato pie. Now he is set with the perfect breakfast.