By Samuel Armen

One of the interns, who happens to be my roommate, has provided me with a perfect example of what would happen if an intern would endure grave misfortune during their YSIP experience.

Like most of us, his internship began on Day 3.

As stated in a previous journal, my first day of work began with vast optimism; by the end of Day 3 I was exhilarated for the multitudinous opportunities that were before me. This led me to feel incredibly guilty when my roommate returned from work and entered our room with a face of utter hopelessness.

His boss told him immediately that he did not speak enough Armenian for the job, and then discouraged him with continuous disparagement throughout his first day.

After a full work-week of torture, his misfortune grew.

At some point during this first week he must have ingested something improper, for he had one of the worst cases of diarrhea I have ever heard of. This was both a subject of comedy and deep sympathy among our group, especially in cases when he walked up to our group, clutching his stomach, frowning miserably and revealing absurd realities to us such as, “I either have constipation or diarrhea …it’s one or the other…there’s no equilibrium.”

By the first weekend he recounted his work experience to me in detail:

According to my roommate, his boss “has the right to access files from the government and military in order to defend human rights whenever there are cases to do so.” Because of this, his boss often meets with government officials. Aside from this, his boss has an extraordinarily impressive résumé, especially for being so young.

Despite all of this, according to this intern, he was still a terrible boss to work under.

Firstly, this boss was extraordinarily dominating. For example, he simply could not accept that the cultural activities affiliated with AGBU’s YSIP – including Armenian dance classes, language classes, and group trips – were mandatory. When this particular intern insisted upon being punctual to a mandatory event, his boss called him naïve. 

My roommate is, by no means, unintelligent or inefficient. It painted quite a sad picture when he revealed that he was forced to spend his ‘work hours’ sitting in an office, facing a computer monitor and awaiting instructions that never came. His boss would ceaselessly watch him and all his workers from a collection of surveillance cameras placed throughout the office – a scene that could be taken from George Orwell’s 1984.

In between this recorded torture and his unpleasant indigestion, my roommate developed a particularly efficient habit to pass the time.

During his long, dreaded hours of misfortune, he would spend time in the office bathroom watching water droplets fall from the sink.

“It got to the point where I got excited when one dropped.” He said to me in a tone as pathetic as the statement itself, “Sometimes a water droplet would hang for minutes.”

By the 7^th day, Anna and Aline - our two supervisors – changed his luck.

Aline and two of the interns provided my roommate with multiple medications and nutritional guidance that cured his irritable bowels by the following week.

Anna, after seeing my roommate’s immense dissatisfaction with his job every late afternoon, felt it was inappropriate for him to continue at his internship.

First she explained to his supervisor that the internship wasn’t compatible with him or his schedule. Directly after, Anna went through my roommate’s file and saw that he was an English major.

She then examined the comments of two interns involved in journalism – a girl and I – and decided that this area would be a proper place to put him. She immediately searched through her contacts and found the deputy director of AGBU in Armenia – who was a close friend with the Chief Editor of News.am – a very popular Armenian news outlet.

After a few phone calls, several meetings, and Anna’s persuasiveness, News.am became where my roommate would work. After being there for a while, he stated that his boss “told me upfront that he wants me to write about any Armenian topic from an American view. He told me I could write from home or wherever there is a computer with internet, but that everything had to be handed in on time.”

When I asked him about the character of his boss he stated, “He’s the type of person who encourages you to work. He’s efficient and knows how to make others efficient.”

The following is a link to one of my roommate’s articles: http://www.lragir.am/engsrc/society-lrahos22741.html#.TjJhxi2UfKw.facebook

After being presented with a first week of unfortunate circumstances, my roommate was no longer constrained by omnipresent cameras, no longer locked to a stubborn schedule, no longer dominated by a dictatorial boss, and no longer at the whim of erratic bowels. All of these problems were handles in less than a week.

My roommate would continue with freedom of topics, freedom of schedule and the freedom to go to the bathroom whenever he saw it appropriate.

Throughout the following weeks, my roommate’s internship allowed him to write daily, tracking down different observations and even doing multiple hands-on studies. In fact, I was privileged with the honor of joining him as a clandestine camera man for one of his reports.

He and the other journalism intern in our group were to walk about Yerevan and explore the reactions of locals to what is called “Emo.” They were to assume the role of Emos – wearing dark clothing, makeup for men, unusual and expressive hairstyles etc. – and to put locals in situations where they would have to interact with them.

According to what they hear, the Emos are severely disliked in Yerevan because of the locals’ fear of their negative, pessimistic, and depriving attitudes spreading to the youth. One can even see the word “emo” aside many buildings – almost always surrounded by profanities.

I do not wish to reveal much that would give away the results of their project, but I will just mention that several police officers were involved – quite unnecessarily.

If he had as much fun as I did, I can certainly say that AGBU’s YSIP staff – especially Anna and Aline – made the right choice.