How to process bad internship experience?

Yeah, so, you were vastly taken advantage of by two catty women who apparently got a whiff of your insecurity and used it as an opportunity to dig in and be sort of evil. Which bullies do sometimes. It's how they work. And it sounds like you did a lot of work at their company and you won't get much out of it. You didn't make a vast mistake by sending off the video to the non-industry person, you made a normal human type error and you took the fall because these people had decided in advance that they didn't like you, except when they were whimsical enough to admit that they appreciated everything you did for them. But here's the thing - you had a part in the way everything went down because you 1. decided to work for their company for free, 2. decided to work ridiculous hours and bend over backwards for people who were apparently not giving you any monetary compensation or appreciation whatsoever, 3. didn't stand up to them at any point (or leave) despite their repeatedly egregious treatment toward someone who was essentially working for free. They were using you to a ridiculous extent, but you were also proffering yourself up to be their doormat. Concerned friends and other interns approached me and said they felt I was being exploited. I wanted to cut back my days but I felt trapped because, given her personality, I feared she would think less of me if I did. I didn’t want to destroy all of the work I had contributed. I’ve always had trouble asserting my boundaries and often find myself in compromised situations with narcissists. I also don’t have high self-confidence and I feel that I have to overcompensate for my weaknesses, like my shyness, in order to gain approval. This is so incorrect. I feel your pain because I am shy too and I struggle with this, but you're wrong that she would have thought less of you if you had laid down your boundaries and made it clear what you would and would not accept. It seems like all your actual work is fine - if you have anything to prove to people, just work on proving that you deserve decent treatment/working conditions. Anyway, cut your losses because although it sucks, it's more a matter of wasted time and effort than some black mark on your resume. I've had personal "crossroads" moments in my life where the choice was between believing that the reason I was rejected for something or by someone was because I was permanently deficient or believing that I'm imperfect but essentially good enough and smart enough so fuck them. This might be your crossroads moment where you choose how you cast this in your internal narrative. I would advise if you have any further communication with the ex-bosses that it be terse and possibly skirting the boundary of bitchy as if to say, "Screw you too" if in not so many words. Because better late than never!

Yeah, you were taken advantage of, but you also really, really fucked up. Sorry, but I worked in the entertainment industry and NDA's and other confidential documents are serious shit. Stop minimizing your mistake. I had a recurring nightmare when I worked at [Redacted Studio] about accidentally emailing confidential info to the wrong people. I apologize for the length but this story has many layers and I’m having trouble telling which are important. The layer that's important is that you shared confidential information that should not have been shared. And you got fired for it. This That night when I came home I made a terrible mistake. Our office had received hundreds of audition videos over the last few months. I emailed one of the videos I was excited about to a trusted old friend who is a fellow appreciator of actors. It was an audition of a non-actor. He’s somebody outside the industry who would never share that material with a soul. In retrospect I realize how wrong it was, but at the time I was unaware of the legal ramifications as I had barely skimmed the NDA I signed at the beginning of my internship (completely my fault). is why you were fired. Everywhere I've ever worked has had a policy whereby if you're caught sharing confidential information, with anyone, you're going to be fired. It's probably best to assume that this is the policy everywhere. Yep. They weren't snooping your personal email if you were at work using their server. Sorry. For the rest of it: If you're not a good fit at a company, cut your losses and try to find a new position elsewhere. For whatever reason, your boss didn't like you. Instead of dwelling on why, and oh it's so unfair, and blah blah blah - suck it up and muddle through until you get what you need out of the experience, or move on. I was a producer's assistant on a TV show and my boss hated me, but I think she also liked having me around because she brought me back for a second season. I did my job, I made friends with other departments, and I got the fuck out of there. If I had found a better job while I was working there, I would have happily jumped ship. Don't make it personal. It's not personal. It's business. Check your ego and your feelings at the door as much as possible. You're a human being, I know, but try to not let the stupid stuff get you down. Even trying - just trying - will make it better. Try to rise above, and you will. You mention feeling unappreciated. No one feels appreciated at their jobs in glamour fields. It's a rough working environment, kiddo. Toughen up. I got out because I wanted to do something else, but I am forever grateful for my thick, thick skin. You also bring up frustration with the expectation that entry level employees need to be hyper organized while bosses can be messy. Guess what? That's the pretty much par for the course in every industry. Sara C. has written some great posts about how to transition from working as an intern to working as a paid employee and I hope she chimes in, but anyway: Whenever I have had the opportunity to hire an intern for a paid gig, or to hire anyone for an entry level gig, I've picked someone who was good at the job that I needed them to do. Not someone who was super nice and had put in the time, but someone who made everyone else's life easier. Maybe you were that person and you were unfairly passed over. But it's possible that you weren't, so try to figure out how to be that person for the next job. And for the love of god, do not share confidential information with people who shouldn't have it.

Also, I mean, you sent some person's casting video to a random outside person. There are two options here: 1. Your friend doesn't work in the business, but you thought it was amusing, interesting, hot, whatever. Well, the person in the video didn't make it for your consumption and your friends' amusement. They made it to try to get a job, and they had an expectation of privacy. This is the equivalent of sending a friend someone's resume for kicks. It's not okay, no matter what you signed. 2. Your friend does work in the business, and you were sending them confidential business materials, which is so obviously no OK from a business & ethical perspective that I won't even take the time to explain it. It doesn't matter if you were Super Doormat before then. You can't earn the right to do shitty, thoughtless things because you were really martyr-iffic. Or, to simplify, two wrongs don't make a right. Start being responsible, genuinely responsible, for taking care of yourself and for doing the right thing. Or continue to experience these situations where people refuse to parent you as deep betrayals. Your call.

The reason it's important that you realize why you got fired here is because all of the rest of your story is essentially about making yourself feel better, which suggests that you may have a hard time learning from your mistake here. That mistake was sharing company information with someone outside of the company. That's why you got fired, and you would have gotten fired from a good place to work as rapidly as you got fired from this allegedly bad place to work. I'm frankly not sure what to believe in your wall of text, especially in relation to other questions you have asked here. I would suggest that you consider how you are contributing to situations that become dramatic sinks for your time, attention, and self-worth. For instance, you are not in a "dire professional situation." As near as I can tell, you got fired for cause from an unpaid job. You are arguably in a better situation now than you were before you emailed company IP to someone who had no business receiving it.

I think you are one of those people who doesn't realize how much drama you invite into your own life. In your persoective, everything is something that has happened to you but there are so many points in this story when you could have asserted yourself and stopped playing a victim. You were manipulated because you allowed yourself to be. At the same time most real jobs aren't like college where there is constant praise for doing well. I think you're too focused on liking everyone - you will not get along with some people you work with but they can still respect you. You basically allowed your bosses to disrespect you because you never respected yourself. And as stated above, consider anything you do on a work computer to be monitored. You're responsible for knowing what anything you sign says, regardless of whether you actually read it. You'll get through this, but adknowledge the part you played.

I understand your frustration. I just want to gently point out some misconceptions you seem to have in your post. These misconceptions seem to be helping you to focus too much on what others did wrong, in your mind, rather than on what you could've done differently. I also felt uncomfortable with the fact that I was told on my first day that an intern can be fired at will without explanation. First, just so you know, that's the case for most of us in the working world here in the US. Unless you are working on a contract, or unless you're in a state that adds a few wrinkles to at-will employment, anyone can be fired for any reason- good cause, or because the management just doesn't want you around anymore. Second, try not to take any more unpaid internships. My experience is that they don't help someone get future employment. On the contrary, they can hurt in many ways... to be frank with you, hiring managers see this sort of thing and wonder "if they're talented enough that they're worth me hiring them, why did they spend so long working for free?" Plus, there's the fact that these kinds of internships are flat out exploitative. I know that the film/TV/stage industry uses them and people will tell you they are expected in that industry, more than in any other industry, but still... too often they end up being a poor situation for an intern, and too often they're exploitative. The day after this happened she left for the two-month trip that I had planned without ever thanking me for my work. Third, unfortunately this is de rigeur in most jobs. If you rely too much on hearing praise and encouragement from your boss, you're going to be disappointed. I think most managers have the opinion that the pay you receive, or good comments on reviews, or simply continuing employment is thanks enough. I'm not commenting on whether that is right, I'm just saying that this is how it is in most workplaces in my experience. That weekend I volunteered to scout at a large festival, which was expensive and put a serious hole in my pocket. Fourth, you have to have some agency and some responsibility for what you volunteer for. In any job that's the case. If I go in to my boss's office today and volunteer to start a new project, I'm taking on the ups and downs that are related. You've got to think ahead about what you're volunteering to do, and about what you'll need to do it well (while maintaining your own sanity and wellbeing). You needed to volunteer for that festival while saying "and I'd be happy to go if you guys can cover the cost of X, Y, and Z. Bosses actually prefer people who do that. It shows that you can think ahead, anticipate expenses, have a realistic expectation about what a body of work will include, et cetera. Someone who just launches headfirst into a project is someone who can come off as foolhardy, immature, or ignorant. A month in they complained that I was “weird” and had an “off energy” but could never point to anything specifically that I did wrong. Fifth, managers are going to think these kinds of things about employees. It happens. While it's a bit ignorant or simplistic of your bosses to boil it down to that, and while it's awful to say this... I can understand why they'd think little of someone who lets them walk all over them, or someone that exhibits some of the behaviors you are describing of yourself, like having a hard time speaking, being extremely nervous, having a shaky voice, et cetera. See what I mean? The rest of the conversation is a blur but it came to light that her assistant had been snooping in my personal email from the office because he got a notification that a video was downloaded from their server. Last, to me it sounds like nobody was snooping here. IT or an assistant noted that company information was being downloaded personally from their server for an unapproved purpose. Here's what's going through their minds: are we being hacked? Is someone trying to steal our info? Is our private info public on the web somewhere? Is this going to cost us money? When any job sees this happening they are going to get IT to dig in and find out what's going on, and most jobs have you sign an agreement stating that you accept that all of your communications using work equipment are open to investigation. This is certainly a case where just about any job would feel that investigation was warranted. Moving forward, you need to know that your communications shouldn't be raising red flags. But if they are, this kind of thing will happen, and it's likely you signed an agreement or a portion of your NDAs allowing them to investigate. I won't get into the problems with sharing the video, which is a huge business no-no, as others have covered that already. As others have pointed out, most of you wrote seems to be an effort to make yourself feel better and to downplay the mistakes you made, or the things you weren't aware of. I understand why- you're very disappointed right now. But if you want to find more success and satisfaction in your future jobs, you need to embrace and apply the lessons above.

I wrote her back a long apology. I asked whether I would be able to use her as a reference so I could salvage the company as a line on my resume. Just use David as your reference. Anyway, I can see that you feel taken advantage of, and you were. I will note though that you write this as though letting yourself be taken advantage of is some kind of positive thing that people should respond to by giving you stuff or appreciating you. It's not. It's a shitty quality and in fact, it makes other people feel bad even if they benefit from it. So try not to do it anymore.

I think everyone is saying it is irrelevant whether your work was good. Entertainment is absolutely not a meritocracy, ever. Brilliant actors and filmmakers and screenwriters and casting directors toil in obscurity and die unknown every day because there just aren't enough slots for everybody. I got an unemployed filmmaker in the next room, they're just littering the place. It's not a huge field. You can't just be talented, you have to be talented AND in the right place at the right time AND amazing enough to work with that you have a reputation as such, and even awful people - because these folks don't sound like prizewinners - have to like working with you. Being talented does not entitle you to anything. (And from what I hear, NY casting is a way sicker system than LA casting. Like, I've known two people who didn't just wash out after a couple of years at entry level in NY, they burned out and left the country to do things that are basically the opposite.) You're asking how to process a bad experience. People are telling you that a) you can't control how other people act, b) you do have to control how you act. And that basically means that no matter what flavor of bullshit gets aimed in your direction, you cannot show any fear. You did. They exploited it. That's not fair, but it's never going to be fair. If you want to fix the part of that which is in your control, in all honestly therapy is probably going to be involved for you to grow a thick enough skin, and sharp enough people-instincts to know when to be normal-grade professional and when to be super-hyper-vigilant. Per your last update - your public beating-up in this thread is exactly what you cannot do at work. No complaining, no whining, no expecting anyone to feel sorry for you, and when someone offers you a lesson you have to pretend to take it (ideally you then keep the ones that help you).

What I'm looking for is encouragement Well, that's clear. Look, I'm "new" around these parts, but it doesn't seem like you are really using this forum as intended; you don't appear to be truly hearing the (admittedly frank) advice and suggestions that your question has engendered. It's almost like you want a venue to vent, and then direct the responses. That's what facebook is for. Case in point: The email thing. How they found out about it -- while potentially inappropriate -- has no bearing on the larger fact. Namely, that you did the wrong thing. Whether you'd been found out or not, you still did something that was against workplace regulations. Your concern here should be less about adding "invasion of privacy" to your martyrdom list, and more about having done something straight-up unethical. Stop dying in that ditch. Anyway, advice/suggestions: I have had several jobs where I felt under-appreciated and overworked. It sucks. They were also jobs, so at least I was keeping a roof over my head. I see no upside to going through that shit for free. If internships are the norm for breaking into your industry, then your supposedly strong work will speak for itself when you move on to the one that isn't totally dysfunctional. I've also had the experience of not clicking with my coworkers. That sucks, too. In fact, even in my best jobs, I've noticed a tendency to feel martyred. It's a serious personality flaw for me, and I'm always working on it. I can't help but feel that this should be an area of focus for you, as well; your question is just a litany of the ways you put in extra work, without pay or thanks. People without a penchant for maltreatment either never notice those sorts of patterns, or they just walk as soon as they become apparent. Why? Because these sorts of situations can't be improved by doubling down, or sticking around. The only thing you can change is yourself. You can work on your "getting along" skills, to better avoid being seen as the odd person out. You can work on spotting toxic individuals or workplace cultures in advance, or develop coping strategies for when they are revealed. You can learn that it's entirely possible -- nay, even normal -- to set firm-but-friendly work/not-work boundaries. And by improving your base level of confidence in these ways, you show manipulative/using employers that they won't have the pleasure of pushing you around. You are effectively removing yourself from consideration for crap jobs.