The NJDOL Internship: An Interesting Contrast

Well, I've been home for over a week now, so it would seem the trip is over. Yet I'm still mentally more in Thailand than I am in NJ. I keep coming back to my experiences at the BLC and re-evaluating them.

I've started work at the NJ Division of Law, the Attorney General's Office. I picked an interesting week to start working -- the state legislature didn't pass a budget by the deadline, so the state was officially shut down all week. All non-essential state employees were on furlough, including my father.

But the interns were allowed to report. After all, we're not being paid. So it was us and a few of the most senior attorneys running the entire office. The enormous Richard J. Hughes Justice Complex was a ghost town. As were the parking lots, streets and restaurants of Trenton.

The building is just overwhelming to me. It's huge and new and beautiful. It has 8 floors, multiple wings, hundreds of offices, dozens of photocopiers. It has a huge law library, filled with nice desks and cushy chairs. It even has an awesome view of the Delaware River. It's carpeted. The bathrooms are clean and modern (the toilets have flushers!) It has air conditioning. My supervisors and colleagues wear suits to work. I feel very cool and important just walking in and around the building, in my fancy suits. Like a big girl.


The BLC, in contrast, is a very different office. The building was very modest. All the furniture was plastic. The dress code was casual. Very casual. My supervisor would, not infrequently, take off his shirt and bathe himself in well water less than 20 feet away from me. Stray dogs roamed the property. I sat on a plastic chair in an overcrowed office (below right) that was actually a cage. The walls were fences, the roof was a thin aluminum sheet. The "air conditioner" (in 100 degree heat) was a fan. The floors were concrete. Frogs and all manner of bugs roamed about. Lizards climbed the walls.

After working at the BLC, the splendor of a government office seems almost silly to me. Unnecessary. Almost uncomfortable. It's lovely, to be sure. Does a lot for morale. But I don't feel any more intelligent or professional or motivated because of it.

For now. We'll see how long that lasts. But I hope I'll spend the next 40 years remembering the BLC every time I go to work.