From my first year of college to my second year of university, I have experimented with my hair, going pretty much every colour of the rainbow. I loved being able to express myself in this way, but I was always acutely aware of the fact that there was a time limit on how long I could have colourful hair for; something my parents reminded me of on a regular basis. Likewise, I have been oft reminded that my nose piercing will have to switched from a ring to a stud and any tattoos I get will have to be easily hidden in business dress, lest I never get employed anywhere and die alone in a cardboard box somewhere. Whilst these reminders come from a very much well-meaning place, it still irks me that potential employers would put the fact that someone dresses alternatively over their experience in terms of employment – something based solely on there own personal views and biases. As a result of this, I have kept my hair one colour (blonde) since February of last year.
It has been made abundantly clear to me by many people through the years that when you become employed by someone, you become at least partially the face of their company. However, as part of a generation who are expressing themselves more through their personal appearance more than any other, I simply do not understand why the face of said company has to look a certain way. I understand the use of business attire to a point – it can be important to be able to separate your home and work life, and one way in which this can be achieved is by having a section of your wardrobe dedicated to work attire. In addition, some places of employment (e.g. hospitals) have certain attire rules for hygienic purposes, which is understandable. However, I simply don’t understand why tattoos and alternatively styled hair would be penalised against – they are not unhygienic, nor do they inhibit anyone from doing their job properly. I have often joked about wanting to work for Buzzfeed or some other similar company so I would have the ability to dye my hair and not be penalized for it. It is interesting that there more companies like Buzzfeed – companies that employ mostly Millennials/Gen Xers are far more lax with these ideas of ‘professionalism’, even turning their employees experimenting with their appearances to profit by filming the process and putting it on YouTube. Companies like this promoting self-expression in this way makes me hopeful for the future – perhaps it is the start of businesses being more accepting in terms of personal appearance.
Overall, whilst the professional world comes with a certain degree of professionalism, this definition should include those who dress more alternatively – as long as they follow all other workplace etiquette, there is no need to exclude them based simply on the way they look. Times are changing, and workplaces should accommodate these changes, and recognise that people can choose to express themselves through their appearance, and still be able to be professional at the same time.
career
Tears of a Clown: The experience of being a student clown
As my girlfriend always said, it doesn’t matter if you’re ugly, as long as you have a sense of humour. For my young, pimpled self, it was the key to my heart; a self-validating rush I hadn’t felt since that final cathartic Twilight film. I may have struggled with body odour, drowned in love handles and felt more erotic in a game of Twister than in sexual contact… yet all of those problems fell to dust in my mind, as long – she said – as long as I could make people laugh.
Sadly, I couldn’t do that either, which was possibly why she left me for my brother. He had his own comedy show in Brixton – while if I made a pun about fish, it was a pretty good night.
Everyone says that’s why I became a clown. Where others would turn to Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction, to psychotic phone calls at 4am and flaming parcels of poo, I did that and more. Jesting was when I felt alive.
Jesting was when I felt alive
An average gig offered about ten fans. Average age: five. You see the extremes of human life as a clown: the wailing, whining, screaming animal of the strife-ridden human, or a giggling little specimen that throws Party Rings on your shoes and is, in itself, a powerful advert for contraception.
It was an easy life as a clown. It had its pitfalls of course, the worst being the additional birthday cake weight, or the drunken footballers who steal your wig at TP Wednesday. Still, it wasn’t quite the SAS.
Or so I once thought. The clowning profession has experienced many rogues in its time; The Joker, Stephen King’s It, Ronald McDonald… Yet none more sinister than the killer clown.
It’s fine for some of us made redundant; many went to join their fellow clowns in the BHS management. Yet jesting, for me, is my life. Gone are the party invites, the solo performances, the circus gigs; rotting is my red nose, my wig. In desperation, I’ve taken to haunting the local school in the hope that some four-year-old will take pity. Sadly the restraining order stopped that, along with the subsequent 219 from nearly every primary school in Devon.
The desperation has been tangible, trawling through job application after application; Great British Bake Off, the Labour leadership… Hell, even Lord Sugar’s apprentice… Yet, the discrimination is even greater. No one wants a clown. Not even Alan.
No one wants a clown
For days it was like a break-up, like Brangelina or Brexit in painful repetition: the tears, the agony, the ice-cream… Still, I feel the stabbing remembrance of Waitrose, of circus stardom, of frolicking freely like my balloon animals, rather than surviving off of Sainsbury’s basics and mouldy Domino’s deals I robbed from The Ram.
So – along with all other students – I string up my job prospects, my finances, all hopes of long-term stability… Yet never the make-up; never the nose; never the lust for vengeance that burns cruelly in my breast…
Internships- more than making tea?
Why do we apply for internships? Do they really mold us into more competent professionals, or just tick another box for that all-important CV? What do we ultimately stand to gain from them? We’ve all heard the jokes and clichés; many of us have even experienced those tragic hours of being a glorified tea-runner. However, it doesn’t have to be this way. If you find the right opportunity and commit to making the most of it, you might just surprised what you can achieve, and how much you can benefit moving forward.
During my first two years of university, I was often frustrated by my seeming inability to settle on a potential career path – something I’m sure many of my fellow arts students out there can relate to. Even after an enjoyable work placement in Communications with an electricity and gas company in 2013, I wasn’t wholly convinced that this was the career path for me. However, when I was invited to come back as a full-time intern last summer, I decided to bite the bullet and give it another go.
In this role I was trusted to take on a number of important tasks independently, despite my relative inexperience. Working as part of a team that was limited in size but certainly not in its number of projects, it was simply never an option to have my hand held through the placement. This pressure to step up and seize responsibility really brought out the best in me, and made me aware of a number of professional skills I hadn’t previously realized I had. By the same token, it also highlighted the areas I need to improve. I now have a much stronger sense of where I want to take my career.
Furthermore, the benefits of my time with the company went far beyond a professional context. As a somewhat shy and reserved individual, the nature of a significant role in Communications was naturally somewhat daunting at first, given the expectation placed on me to keep cooperating directly with a number of very senior people. Nonetheless, I slowly but surely began to edge out of my shell and assert myself. This, along with the positive feedback I received from my manager and colleagues, left me feeling far more self-confident as a person than I ever have done before.
If there’s one resounding lesson I took away, it’s that an internship really is what you make of it. From one Exeter student to another, here are my five key pieces of advice to turn a good internship experience into a great one:
- Don’t just ‘do the job’. Finish tasks as quickly and to as high a standard as you possibly can.
- Once your immediate tasks are complete, look for further work to get involved in. Whether more work is available to you or not, at the very least you will have demonstrated a proactive and enthusiastic approach.
- Keep asking questions – about the company, the industry as a whole, related careers, and any relevant qualifications that might help you achieve your goals.
- Aim to build relationships with your colleagues. Not only will this improve the experience for you and them, but with their experience in a specialist field they may just be able to help you out further down the line.
- Most importantly, seek out frequent feedback from your manager, and find out what you need to do to improve.
So, what’s stopping you? Get out there and give it a go!
Neil Cahill [Read more…] about Internships- more than making tea?