How I Became the First-Ever Paying Intern

This Might Be the Worst Summer Internship of All Time

So… this wasn’t exactly how I imagined things going.

Let’s take a quick look how things are really going so far this summer:

• I didn’t get the high-paying, prestigious internship.

• I didn’t get the low-paying one either.

• I didn’t even land the unpaid volunteer gig at a startup or nonprofit.

Instead?

I’m paying to work.

Literally.

PAYING.

What. Have. I. Done.

WHO PAYS TO GET IGNORED?!

This might officially go down as the worst summer internship in history.

Character development? Sure.

Career development? Questionable at best.

Financial development? We don’t talk about that.

As you can now understand, I have not gotten any answers. In theory, this project sounded bold, initiative! creativity! entrepreneurial spirit! In practice? It’s starting to feel more like a beautifully crafted, high-effort way to practise rejection.

I genuinely thought I was being smart, taking the unconventional route, doing something that would stand out. A future LinkedIn post that would go mildly viral. But five days in, 3,000 kr down, and staring at a completely empty inbox… I started to feel less like a genius and more like a complete idiot. This is how the last 5 days have been:

SCOREBOARD:

Day one: no replies.

Day two: still nothing.

Day three: a hopeful ping from Gmail… from Spotify. (Unsubscribing from their newsletter immediately.)

Day four: beginning to take it personally.

Day five (today): confirmed idiot.

At this point, even Gmail is starting to feel sorry for me. I’ve never hit refresh so many times in my life. And somewhere between refreshing my inbox for the 40th time and questioning every major life decision I’ve ever made, I spiraled.

What if this whole thing was just a very expensive way to embarrass myself?

Is this blog going to be nothing more than a warning to others?

What am I going to say when people ask me:

“Hey June, what did you do this summer?”

“Nothing major. Just spent my summer paying to work, getting ghosted by half of Norway’s business elite, and slowly going a little insane. You go anywhere nice?”

I found myself irrationally mad at every person who has ever told me to “be bold.”

Teachers. Career counselors. TED Talks. The random woman on Instagram who posts "Monday Motivation" quotes. And most of all?

My dad. (You know what you did.)

But here’s the thing: I’ve always said I wanted to do something different.

Well… this is definitely different. And yeah, it hurts. But when you try something you genuinely believe in, even if it flops, you can’t really hate yourself for trying.

So no, day five wasn’t my proudest moment. It was regret, second-guessing, and the quiet horror of realizing I might have created the world’s most expensive, self-funded exercise in rejection and that maybe my gut should not always be trusted...

But then, the next morning

An email popped up.

-June