Usurper

Before I became president of WYA, I had the reputation as the worst intern in the history of interns. I spent my evenings and weekends partying and brought other interns along with me. This obviously led to a significant reduction in useful work that happened, for them, not for me. At that time I had endless energy and would stay up till all hours of the night, grab a quick nap between 3 and 8am, and then run to the office arriving about 10 minutes late.

NB. For any interns reading this, my productivity never suffered. You only have permission to follow my example if you have the energy to do it properly!

Once I became President of WYA, my bad habits changed. I spent so much time traveling and working that I didn't have the energy to stay up all night every night and stagger into the office late every morning. Plus, there's the whole example business. Have to set a good example for the current interns...

I did however still have my own personality. I was the only science major among WYA staff, I definitely played the most sports, I came up with the oddest ideas even in serious brainstorm discussions, I was the youngest staff member, I could still be the most extreme version of certain things. All that changed when we hired Cathy.

Cathy who joined us after leaving a PhD in molecular biology, Cathy who not only has odd ideas but brings them to completion, Cathy who does Tae Kwon Do and hip hop. At least I'm still the youngest staff member. The worst part about having Cathy here is not only am I no longer the most extreme in certain areas, even when I have weirder ideas than she does, she gets all the credit. What does she have to say in her defense? "All I did was sit there."

You can poll the office: who found out about coed naked nonsexual yoga, and who got all the credit? Who found out about the 7th annual no-pants subway ride, and who got all the credit? Who discovered the game of freeze-tag on wall street and who got all the credit? (For freeze tag I harbour no grudges for Cathy getting all the credit, I wasn't in NY that weekend and not only did she go, but she even wore my beer-goggles. She deserved credit for that!) For the other events, my angst runs high. Neither of us has participated in the first two events, but Cathy gets all the credit.

I guess the only bright side of all this, is if I ever want to do something really off, I just have to tell everyone Cathy made me do it, and she'll get all the blame!