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Perma-interns: Is working for free a good career bet?

When he isn’t hitting the books at Northwestern University this summer, Mike Boyle of Chicago dreams of making it in the music industry. And why not? With his ready smile, tousled hair and laid-back demeanor, Boyle comes across as sharp and affable, a hipster with heart. And he grasps the fine points of the business like few 21-year-olds you’ll meet.

Yet this organizational behavior major — who hopes to attend Northwestern’s prestigious Kellogg Graduate School of Management — is taking a calculated risk. Following a summer 2010 internship at Jeff McClusky and Associates, Boyle stayed on, although not stepping up to full-time work. Boyle instead works for the independent radio promoter 16 hours a week, earning the hourly equivalent of a well-paid babysitter. But if you ask him, this internship extension is a sure bet, even it doesn’t morph into a full-time job. “I don’t consider the experience risky whatsoever,” Boyle says.

“I’m learning a lot about the inner workings of the industry … And Jeff McClusky is a phenomenal mentor figure. He’s provided me with a sense of where I want to go and who I want to be.” (McClusky has helped break acts from U2 to Mumford & Sons.)

Boyle belongs to a growing class — some call them “perma-interns”— who’ve stretched the traditional bounds of the one-semester internship, where non-paid labor is traded for college credit. If you listen to those who know the internship game well, Boyle’s doing it right. After working for free in 2010, his modest pay entitles him to key tax deductions as an independent contractor. (CDs and downloads? Check. Concert tickets? Check.)

Perma-interns may be at the bottom of the office pecking order, but there are ways to benefit financially from the arrangement. The experts weighed in with these five tips.

1. See what your employer will reimburse. If you’re using your cellphone, taking public transit to work, or buy your own office supplies, ask your employer to foot the bill, says Jennifer Halperin, the internship and special projects coordinator for Columbia College Chicago’s journalism department. “Once they’re in place, even unpaid interns sometimes successfully negotiate for some sort of compensation for expenses,” Halperin says.

2. Consult an accountant who knows your field to see what’s deductible. “Interns in journalism would do well to seek advice from an accountant who works with freelance writers to learn what expenses can be legitimately deducted come tax time,” Halperin says. In media, these range from pens and pads to laptops. As for finding an ace accountant, Halperin suggests talking to co-workers.

April Fools’ Day pranks: Tread carefully at the office

It’s not hard to pinpoint exactly when Tim Wiedman began to sour on the idea of April Fools’ Day pranks in the office. It was shortly after his hair had been set on fire.

Wiedman was an assistant manager at a fast-food joint at the time, and wearing one of those flimsy paper hats. His colleague Rick thought it would be a riot — and a fitting tribute to April Fools’ Day — to sneak up behind his buddy and set his cap aflame.

Rather than creating a slow burn, though, the gag made the manager’s hat go up like a bonfire on the Fourth of July. “He had to pull it off, throw it on the floor, and stamp out the flames,” remembers Wiedman, who’s now a business professor in Lincoln, Nebraska. “I’d been singed, and for several weeks, it looked like I was going bald.”

Wiedman isn’t alone is being the target of workplace mischief on April 1. According to a survey by online jobs site CareerBuilder.com, 33 percent of respondents said they’d been the victim of an office April Fools’ Day prank –- and a quarter said they’d actually done some pranking themselves.

“That’s a big number, and I was a little surprised,” says Michael Erwin, CareerBuilder’s senior career adviser. “It’s probably because people are putting up with a lot in the office these days: The staff is often leaner, and they’re expected to do more work than ever. I wouldn’t be surprised if this Friday, people try to pull something lighthearted in the office.”

Among the Harris Interactive poll’s 5,000 respondents, there were some standard gags: Gluing phones to receivers, dumping goldfish into water coolers, changing office clocks. But there were also some inspired ones, like changing a co-worker’s computer wallpaper into the screen that pops up when your entire system is about to crash. Or the hiding of a colleague’s cellphone in the ceiling tiles, so no one can locate the ring.

That last one might have been stolen from NBC’s The Office, where Jim Halpert has made office pranking into an art form with his torture of cubicle neighbor Dwight Schrute. Among Jim’s greatest hits: Sending faxes to Dwight from his future self; recruiting him for a classified CIA mission; and planting a bloody glove in his desk and convincing him he was a murderer. And, of course, the original classic of suspending his stapler in a Jell-O mold.

You’re the boss now. Here’s how to deal

All those years of climbing the corporate ladder have finally paid off: you’re the boss now.

But being the head honcho isn’t easy — just look at Michael Scott, the needy boss in hit TV show The Office, whose bumbling handling of being a leader and a buddy brings no shortage of corporate hijinks.

Enter Kevin Eikenberry, the cheekily titled “chief potential officer” of his own consulting firm and author of “From Bud to Boss: Secrets to a Successful Transition to Remarkable Leadership”.

“If you’re a new leader, often times people say it’s no big deal and they don’t want to talk about it. But I can’t stress enough that having a conversation about it is going to stop it from becoming a much bigger problem,” Eikenberry says.

Reuters talked with Eikenberry about being a leader, the difference between being friends and being friendly, and why you need to have “the talk” with your former coworkers.

Tell me why you wrote this book — has this ever happened to you?

We’ve come a long way, baby — but we have far to go

Lara Pingue is a Personal Finance producer for Reuters.com. The opinions expressed here are her own.

A coworker recently sent me a YouTube video of a 5-year-old girl declaring to the world her intention to get a job before she gets married. It’s a funny clip, filled with the kind of urgency and drama only a pre-teen girl can muster. But something about it made me uneasy: Isn’t getting a job before marriage a given? Since when is this decision worth broadcasting on the Internet?

It seemed fitting that this video would go viral in time for International Women’s Day, a time to look back on just how far we women have come. Fifty years ago, would it surprise anyone if a little girl talked about landing a husband – not a job – right out of high school or college?

I’m grateful times have changed for most of us, but we can’t be smug. Yes, women are making impressive strides in the workplace. And yes, we’re juggling it all: marriage, kids, career and dazzling social lives. But a recent White House report on the state of women in America is a wake-up call for anyone who thinks the struggle is over.

Consider this: after all the fighting for gender equality, women are still earning 75 percent as much as their male counterparts in 2009, the White House report finds. And women’s career choices are partly to blame: we’re still working as secretaries, nurses, teachers and cashiers more than men, who are busy launching careers in science, technology and financial services – careers that pay serious cash.

And guess what else? When times get tough, women – not men — are more likely to bear the brunt of it.  In 2009, 28 percent of working women who were unmarried with children had incomes below the poverty level, compared to only six percent of male workers.

Women’s health is another cause for concern. While it’s true that women outlive men, the gap is narrowing. More alarming, women are more likely to suffer chronic conditions such as asthma, depression, arthritis and emphysema.