Internship Lessons from Gossip Girl

Social IssuesEmployment

  • Author Corey Witt
  • Published May 20, 2011
  • Word count 477

I’ll admit it: I’m a huge Gossip Girl fan. And it did not escape me that the recent plot surrounding Blair Waldorf (who also happens to be my favorite character) has centered around the significance of her internship at W Magazine.

Short summary for those who’ve missed it (tsk tsk):

First, Blair and arch-rival-slash-new-friend-and-love-interest Dan Humphrey both scored the same internship at W. Dan’s an aspiring writer, and Blair’s an established fashionista, so it was perfect for both of them — except that neither wanted to share the spotlight. So they each set about to sabotage the other, in classic GG style, and ended up making fools of themselves. Dan graciously took the fall, and lost his internship. Next, Blair realized that her boss Epperly could use some fun, and with reviews coming up, she wanted to be the one to show her a good time. Epperly ended up reconnecting with an old flame, leaving NYC lickety-split, and passing the baton to Blair, who stepped up to the plate. Blair worked her butt off, but lack of sleep got to her. She started delegating tasks to her "minions", none of whom actually worked for W, and things went awry. She lost the internship and (as of this writing) is unemployed. Side note, the whole situation brought her closer with Dan and further away from her former love, the dashing-yet-toxic Chuck Bass. Whew!

Aside from being outstanding entertainment, it struck me that there are several great real-world internship takeaways from my favorite show:

• Sabotage is not good in the workplace! Is that not obvious? Every time Blair starts with her scheming, it ends up going the wrong way. Take a lesson: Treat your co-workers as you’d want to be treated. Good old-fashioned strong work is always well rewarded.

• Keep personal relationships out of it. There are plenty of romances that start in the office — sometimes you can’t fight fate. But let it interfere with your work, and you’re both doomed to failure.

• Work hard, but take care of yourself. If you’re suffering from lack of sleep (or if you’re sick, or even if you just forget to eat lunch!), you’re bound to make mistakes. In that case, you’re no good to your employer and your co-workers. You won’t be performing to your full potential, and you’re doing yourself a disservice.

• As an intern, chances are, there’s no delegating. Sorry guys, but it’s true – you can’t pass your work off to others, even if you do have three well-trained non-colleague followers waiting their orders. Maybe you can have them get you that lunch!

And who else is ticked as hell that the next new episode isn’t till mid-April? Guess we’ll have to wait to see what awesome internship Blair lands next!

Urban Interns is an online job marketplace that connects high-growth companies with talented candidates looking for internships, part-time jobs, freelance work and contract positions.

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