Why Should We Save The Intern?

There is yet another storm on Twitter (what is it, cyber-monsoon season?) over an intern that really buggered it up tweeting: "I should log out of my twitter so that my intern doesn't twit-rape me..." The comment was met with disgust and outrage as many took offence to the term 'twit-rape' possibly believing it to be the rape of a particularly dim-witted individual. (That was sarcasm, by the way, in case anyone gets offended.) What made the whole scenario ever so slightly worse was that the person getting 'twit-raped' in this scenario happened to be a kind of important Labour MP called Tom Watson.

Photo from Blottr.com

It was at this moment that hundreds of people all over the country struck their palms to their heads and exhaled sharply through their teeth. And possibly did the awkward turtle manouvre. Writing on your boss's Twitter account is probably in the 'NoNo' section in any office rules of conduct. Referring to rape, tax evasion or a cat/mistress/wife love triangle (yes, John Hemming, we mean you) is probably in the 'Under No Circumstances - Not Even Under Torture or Threat of Vanessa Feltz Using You as Chair' section of that office rule book. The fact of the matter is, if you wrote something on your boss's Twitter that had an offensive term in it, depending on the boss, you would get fired, or receive several painful slaps on the wrist. And most people would agree that any consequences of such a thoughtless but essentially harmless act would be deserved.


Apparently, not when it comes to the intern of Tom Watson. Twitter is buzzing with people talking about the "poor intern who screwed up" with #SaveTheIntern hashtags popping up left, right and, err, well it's really just on the right of the screen isn't it? Anyway, the popular feeling of the Tweeters out there seems to be that the intern should get off with no punishment at all, seeing as they got Tom Watson an extra 500 followers. Unfortunately, in the real world, gaining your boss Twitter followers will not redeem a punishable action. However, this is 'cyber world' and things work a little differently in there, don't they? People are now calling for the intern to get paid for this idiotic mistake rather than be struck off like any other intern would have been at this point.

Maybe he'll keep me on if I do my puppy dog eyes...

What people seem to be forgetting is that interns are qualified men and women hoping to work their way up the job ladder, people that have been to school, college and even university. Interns will make mistakes, just like any other person of any other age and will pay for them, so why is Tom Watson's intern getting so much sympathy? In the work place, life is very simple. If you fuck up, you pay the consequences, no matter how many people are supporting you on Twitter. Let's hope Tom Watson realises this before promoting his intern to Executive Media Correspondent.

Read the full story here on Blottr: http://www.blottr.com/breaking-news/tom-watsons-twitter-account-taken-over-intern