Agency X
Assed Out In Palm Springs

I had no idea my internship would be such a learning experience.

As I finished unpacking the moving van on a sunny Sunday afternoon, I received a call from my new employer.

"Do you have any plans this coming weekend?" were her first words.

"Uh, not that I know of," I responded. Having just moved to a new city, I had no friends other than my cousin, whom I was sharing an apartment with.

"Would you be interested in joining the rest of the company for an all expense paid weekend in Palm Springs?" she asked.

"I suppose so," I replied in complete disbelief. I had nothing to add, I was waiting for her to let me in on the joke.

"Great, we'll get you the tickets and details when you start Wednesday." She said, then hung up.

My first three days of work flew by as I thought about my first official business trip. As I soon found out, it was nothing of the sort, for better or worse.

We all boarded the plane Friday afternoon and arrived in the desert oasis early evening. We piled into rented vehicles and I immediately stepped up to the plate by offering to drive. Of course I'd never driven a minivan, and my previous visit to Palm Springs was through a set of grade AA college issue Spring Break beer goggles.

I still managed to get us to the first bar on time. The spirits started flowing and the volume increased. The 12 or so Agency X employees drank and yelled like a company 3 times its size. As I sipped on my Tequila Sunrise, I reflected on my previous experience. My first internship at a large agency provided an opportunity to fine tune my copying, faxing and stapling skills and a few discreet afternoon beers. No resorts or tropical drinks, however.

After dropping our bags off at the four-star resort hotel, we collected for dinner. The fun came naturally as everyone had had the opportunity to soak up the alcohol. The Mexican restaurant almost kicked us out for being loud and disrespectful. I felt right at home being a recent college grad.

On the way back to the car, one of the senior partners made a crack management decision to show her employees a bare backside. Fortunately, I wasn't ready for it, so I didn't really see the event in full SpecraVision, but it was enough to cause pause. Is this really what agency life is all about? I thought you could get arrested for this. I decided to keep my mouth shut and play along.

The caravan headed to a dance club. We'd lost a few of the crew, we were now down to 8 or so. I was not so lucky. I entered the cheesy 80's club to painfully loud top 40 dance music and smattering of surprisingly low class individuals. We moved through the place as a pack for safety. I learned quite a bit about my coworkers as they took turns heading out to the dance floor and shaking their money makers. Not one Solid Gold dancer in the group.

After a few hours of droning bass and Vanilla Ice, we decided to call it a night. As we walked towards our car, "Pressed Ham" partner decided once again to show us her unexercised ass end and a further lack of inhibition by laying on the hood of a beautiful 52 Cadillac convertible and exclaiming "wouldn't it be great to have sex on the hood of this car?" I hoped it was a rhetorical question.

As she gave slurred directions back to our hotel to the two clients we'd met at dinner, I realized if she could pull these stunts, there's nothing from stopping me from being a partner either. I have a better ass than her.

After returning home safely, I decided high tech PR was for me. All I had to do was "drop trow" here and there and threaten sexual acts on a stranger's car. As I came to find out over the following months, it turned out this partner was not the norm and she was later asked to leave the agency.

Oh well, I still had my goal of partner on the same timeline as her. She was 27. Ain't youth great?