interns – Dispatches From The Front

If you have a backlog of projects piling up because there just aren’t enough hours in the day, you may consider hiring interns to help you get caught up. This can be a great idea that provides benefits for your company and the students.

However, if you want help from interns, don’t expect to get it for free. The requirements for unpaid internships are strict. In recent years, there’s been a wave of legal actions taken by those who’ve served as interns. They’ve accused employers of violating the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and/or state laws by not paying them.

The Department of Labor (DOL) has a six-factor test that you can use to determine whether a relationship with a worker could qualify as an unpaid internship. Keep in mind that this is a test, not a law. But don’t take it lightly — or you risk the possibility of incurring a fine or other legal action.

There’s a game played among young Wall Street analysts, usually late at night after everyone but the janitors have gone home. It goes by various names, but the one I’ve heard most often is “Misery Poker.” The rules are simple: If your workload is worse than your colleagues’, you win. So “I’m staffed on two deals, and I haven’t left before midnight in a week” might prompt a raise of “Oh, yeah? Well, I’m staffed on three deals, and I stayed past 2 a.m. six nights out of the last eight.”

Usually Misery Poker is played with a wink to its ridiculousness. These are 22-year-old investment bankers, after all, not battlefield medics or single moms working three jobs. All of them are being well compensated for the pain they endure. But last weekend, when a London-based Bank of America intern dropped dead, reportedly after pulling three all-nighters in a row, we learned what happens when a game of Misery Poker goes high-stakes.

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Tag: interns

Know the Rules Before Your Organization Brings in Interns | Payroll Link

BofA Intern Death and Wall Street’s Culture | Daily Intelligencer