Button-down shirts, free notebooks and workplace safety training are a few of the things that define the new co-op term. For one UBC student, this routine has become second nature.
“Yeah, this is probably the 100th time I’ve started at a new job.”
Fitz D. Bill is one of two students who are targeting some of the biggest companies in the world, including Oogle, Amizon, BMOO and Teslala, to name a few.
“My mom used to tell me to take down the enemy, you have to join them,” Bill whispered secretively, despite being in his private Oogle office. (Are they even allowed to give interns private offices?) “So I took it to a whole other level.”
His strategy is simple: get co-ops at the world’s most powerful and evil corporations, then take advantage of their benefits until they have hired him at a net financial loss.
Take his internship at Oogle, for example, where interns are given free lunch. Upon getting hired, Bill immediately decided to become a mukbang influencer for the company, using the virality of his promotional content to justify the fact that he would eat the equivalent of his weight per meal. “What? I’m taking initiative. And 17 more burgers than the average employee,” he said.
Bill estimated that he was responsible for Oogle losing $700 million over his 4 months at the company. Deciding he had done his part, he snagged an internship at Teslala to take advantage of free therapy.
Teslala knows how mentally distressed they make their interns and, as a band-aid solution, provide free therapy. But Bill wasn’t distressed. He went to therapy to practice his mind games on a professional psychologist and then, in an ultimate power move, would sleep on the couch.
How does he not get fired from all his jobs you may ask? Well I asked him, to which he said: “Pure Charisma with a capital C.” Bill flashes a smile with enough charm to undo the massacre that is my last term’s transcript. He then flatters my intelligence until I feel so good about myself that I run to the nearest ATM and give him all the remaining money in my bank account ($27.80).
My editor says these are very bad journalistic practices, but who cares about reverse bribing when I feel special?
Bill has big hopes for the future, particularly recruiting more students to take advantage of big companies through their co-ops. “There’s only so much I can do as an individual and the only other student who is bankrupting the evil companies via co-op… well, I’m not even sure she’s doing it intentionally.” He chuckles wistfully and shakes his head. “She’s just a horrible employee.”
Now quite literally a Bill-ionaire, Bill is applying to his final internship and hoping to take down the ultimate enemy.
“I can’t tell you which establishment it is yet,” he tells me. “But let’s just say that it starts with U and it ends with C.”
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