I took a 30-hour-a-week internship at a local magazine to get some clips before The Big Move to New York in July. I just got a job offer in NYC, sort of negating the point of working 4 days a week for very little pay. I don’t mind maybe doing two days at the local mag, or one and work from home, but now that I’m facing spending the rest of my nice days inside an office, I want to cut back, enjoy the weather and the end of college.
So: Can I ask for fewer days, considering one of the stipulations of the job was that I work 30 hr/week? Is that unconscionable? I feel like, if the alternative is quitting, they’d prefer it, but I have NO idea how to broach this topic with my boss.
Not gonna like this but...
I’d suck it up and do the 30 hours/week. Four days a week isn’t that bad and I think if you wiggle your way down to fewer days (especially one or two!) you’re going to introduce some bad blood in your relationship with this mag. You might not need them for the job you’ve already landed (congrats!) but most jobs want phone numbers to the last several jobs/internships you’ve had. So, in a year or two you might be pulling out the number to this internship to give to a current employer — you want them to say good stuff, right? I’m on the market right now and - no joke - I had one interview call my last four jobs to check out my references. One of those was an internship from 2.5 years ago! (And I felt burnt out at that one and almost asked to go down to fewer days but decided to stick it out - so glad I did in the end!)
July is so close - you can do it!