But the following diary entry written by Kelsey, an unpaid marketing intern at the start-up app creator InfaRed, proves all of these haters wrong. In one rather effusively written entry Kelsey counts the ways she loves unpaid work and proves that even if she may not be the right candidate for the job, she’s certainly a candidate for something.

April 5^th, 2014

Dear Diary,

Another day dawns and it’s yet another chance to take the marketing world by storm! That’s right, after a year of searching, of following every job lead to a dead end, of awkward networking brunches and unanswered emails and I’ve finally landed what every 2013 college graduate dreams of: an unpaid internship!

It’s like all of my wildest dreams have come true. You wouldn’t imagine the opportunities I have. This is real work, real experience, real resume bullet points. I’m pretty sure some people even get paid to do what I do. That’s how legit this is. I even get to manage freelancers. Paid freelancers, too, not some desperate college students looking to work for free just for a byline. These are professional social media marketers carrying out MY plans.

I was so worried I wouldn’t get it. When I went in for the interview, I met another candidate, Daphne, in the reception area. And of course, by reception area, I mean the odd cluster of old couches, ping pong tables, and bean bag chairs that make up the front half of most startup offices. But, Daphne, she was just SO qualified. She had already worked for another startup all through college, helping out their marketing department part-time. She grew their social media following by 1000%. Or something like that? I’m pretty bad at numbers, but she had a handle on them. And she knew all of these industry buzzwords, like SEO and analytics and Facebook insights. The only Facebook insight I knew about was learning that Stacy Peterson got fat after high school but still wasn’t afraid to post a bikini pic as her profile picture.

But, yeah, Daphne was great. She was TOTALLY qualified. So it was crazy when they gave it to me. But I guess it was my naturally bubbly personality. Also, I think Daphne mentioned something about student loans and making rent. I don’t know. I don’t have student loans and I live with my mom and wait tables on the weekends to cover my transportation expenses. So I’m pretty much making ends meet. Which gives me a chance to take advantage of this great opportunity before my health insurance runs out and I need a job with actual benefits.

I mean, sure, I have plenty of friends who are working “real jobs” with benefits and pay checks and vacation days and sick days and all of those crazy extravagant things. But I’m not an extravagant girl, you know. Sure, it would be great to be able to move out of my twin bed with princess sheets and actually live with my friends in the city. And, of course, it would be nice not to watch my savings dwindle every time I go out for lunch with my coworkers, but this is my chance to do something big. And creative! Not like my friends, crunching numbers at accounting firms or at some hedge fund. No, this is marketing.

Marketing. What I’ve always wanted to do since last summer when I was forced to make up my mind about my future! I’m still learning what it actually is, but it’s so amazing that I even have the chance to learn that. Most people don’t even get that! They’re just stuck being lazy and entitled and sticking their noses up at amazing opportunities just because they don’t actually pay.

This is it, I just feel it. The big leagues. My bosses promise me that one day I’ll get paid, that as the startup grows, my position and pay will grow. I just have to wait it out. Plus they have crazy industry connections. They could get me a paid job at any big company with just a snap of their fingers, if they wanted to, they told me. Plus, it’s such good experience, they tell me. Any resume with that experience on it is sure to get noticed, even by the most callous recruiter. It’s basically like being paid in experience and connections. Which is something that money can’t buy, so it’s even better than a paycheck!

I’m on my way, Diary. Just think of it. Last year, I spent every day sending out copies of my resume and now, I’m finally somebody! An unpaid internship this year, then a paid one next, then maybe some temp and freelance work for a few years after that and I may even get something entry level before I’m 30! Fingers crossed!

Yours,

Kelsey

• One pound of bananas: $0.49, or 30 minutes of fixing your boss’s Blackberry
• A box of spinach: $2.99, or three hours of coffee runs
• A loaf of bread: $2.50, or two hours of phone duty
• One gallon of milk: $3.79, or one hour of ordering office supplies from Staples.com
• One load of laundry:  $1.50, or 15 minutes of drafting emails for your boss
• A box of Irish Springs soap: $2.99, or two hours of stalking the building super to find out why your office is so cold
• One month unlimited Metro Card: $112 , or 20 hours of “database management”
• Interview outfit, cobbled together from Macy’s sale rack: $50, or one hour of cleaning up your boss’s Outlook calendar
• One month prepaid cell phone: $35, or five hours of taking notes in meetings during which you are not permitted to speak
• Monthly student loan repayment: $290, or two new industry contacts willing to forward along your resume
• One month’s rent: $1000, or 80 hours of social media profile maintenance
• Splurge birthday dinner for your boyfriend: $100, or ten hours of taking lunch orders for your superiors, one of whom is a vegetarian, two of whom are gluten-free, and one who insists that her sandwich crusts be cut off. (Good thing you still waitress on the side, or you’d surely mess this order up.)

Dear Diary,

I’m beginning to think this isn’t an “unpaid internship.”  I’ve been here for six months. I work 18-hour days, and I’ve accidentally electrocuted myself six times while tweaking the iPad Air.

I thought it would be such an honor to be a real Santa’s Elf, but I’ll tell ya, my old job at Keebler is looking pretty good right now. In fact, I’m beginning to think that Mr. Santa Claus is nothing more than an obese, psychotic, megalomaniac with a manic obsession with Christmas.

Sure, there’s cocoa. Yeah, there are lots of freshly baked Christmas cookies lying around. But all the good stuff goes straight to Mr. Claus’s jiggling belly, and we get thrown the leftover scraps like pigs – if there is anything left by the time my break rolls around, that is.

Being one of Santa’s Elves means that the Clauses and the head elves can treat us like crap, just because they know the prestige of working here is enough to make us stay. They take us on as “apprentices” for an undefined period of time, and justify their lack of compensation with phrases like “you’re paid in experience,” “this builds your resume,” and “indentured servitude isn’t slavery.”

 Every day, we wake up in our cots (we sleep about 20 elves to one room) at 4:30 a.m., to arrive in Santa’s Workshop by 5 a.m. We work straight through until noon, when we’re are allowed to break only if we need to relieve ourselves. Mr. Claus comes by periodically to check in and do impromptu quality checks. Then it’s back to work until 11 p.m., when we get our measly meal of lukewarm cocoa and burnt sugar cookies. We clean up until midnight, and walk home through the freezing wind and snow back to the dormitories. Then, we do it all over again.

 And the Christmas music! I laugh bitterly when I hear that humans get sick of it after a few weeks – imagine hearing it every single, solitary day. It doesn’t matter if “Deck the Halls” is sung by a country musician, a rapper, or an opera singer – it’s still the same fucking song, over and over. In fact, I’ve heard that Mr. Claus uses this tool to torture elves he catches snoozing on the job. He’ll lock them up in the closet with only a locked iPad, and make them listen to “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” on repeat for hours. Sometimes, I can still hear them screaming as they rock back and forth in agony. 

But what choice do I have? The job market for elves is dwindling ever since the market crashed, and they realized that they can replace us with machines and even cheaper labor (dwarves). And of course, I have to compete with the elves who studied engineering and computer science in ways I’ve never had to before. I’ve always been told that my doll-making ability was excellent, and I’m not bad with train sets, either. But Final Fantasy XIV on PS4? I’m in over my head. 

I just have to pray that this apprenticeship opens doors for me as a managing Christmas elf. Then maybe I’ll get health insurance and a paid vacation. I want to go somewhere, anywhere, that doesn’t have snow.