"Got anything for me?"

I had been sitting at the desk for about ten minutes when I heard one of the sports guys (Scott?) start talking to Colin, a copy editor/reporter.

Apparently an intern called him earlier this afternoon and asked if they were going to have any work for him to do. Sports Guy Scott said, "Uh...Yes." Intern Dude said, "Ok. Cuz I just didn't want to waste any time and was just making sure."
...Interesting.

Wow. I don't know about you all, but in my world, that's not exactly something you say to a potential employer. That's not something you say to anyone you've agreed to go and work for. I know that I haven't had very much work experience besides bookstores and volunteering and now this opportunity at the Tribune, but calling in to say anything besides "I am dying of tuberculosis" or "This blizzard is so bad all the highways are closed" is, in my book, out of line.

I even secretly hate the part-timers from the bookstore who would tell me, the unbiased student who of course relates to everything via drunk stories, that they were really tired but were going to go out anyway and get completely sloshed and call in the next morning. I'm sorry, did I miss something? Are we supposed to be lazy and shirk all responsibility?

Of course some of you are thinking right now, "Oh, sure, she's one to talk, she's blogging while at work. Hypocrite." I'll just point out that the blog is required for the internship class, I'm in between projects (I don't write this all at once, you know), and, last but not least, I take no official breaks.

I told Sports Guy Scott that he should be sure to give that intern the most mundane job he can think of. As I write this, Intern Dude is typing up the schedule. And that, for a terribly evil reason, is immensely gratifying.

Oooohhhh....a new project! I get to triple edit the Tribune's Stylebook! Yay!
And by that I mean, oh help. This stack of paper is almost half of an inch high. I might need more than one felt-tipped pen to finish this baby up.

Now for a word question. Why do we pronounce "indictment" as [in-dahyt-muhnt]? It came from the middle English "enditement;" why didn't we just keep it the way it was? I'm sorry to say that before about two years ago, I had no idea that it wasn't [in-dict-muh nt]. I really didn't. I knew what "indictment" was, I just didn't know how to spell the real word.

I wonder how many other words there are like that? I used to be so vain about my spelling skills, hurrah for spelling bees. Then I started learning French, and speaking a different language with so many cognates whose only differences are spelling (usually "s" in French when it's "z" in English) really messes me up. It's like I don't know who I am anymore.

It's even worse when I realise (see? Example #1) that the British spell it differently than we Americans do; and like the proper snob that I am, I decide to go British. I don't know why part of me thinks that the British are cooler speakers than Americans are. We just sound so....dull. Like no one cares about speech anymore. They just want to get it over with; if they just barely manage to get their point across, that's fine by them.

I say that everyone should start caring and begin pronouncing vowels the way they were born to be pronounced! .......Uh.....And how was that, again?