Read The Intern's Handbook: A Thriller for Free Online

Just tell us who shot Mr. Lincoln.
    First impressions are everything. How you look and what you say in the first moments of meeting someone will instantly tell them more about you than they would learn if they knew you for a lifetime. Sounds like bullshit, right? Love at first sight is not a romantic notion, it’s an axiom based on the power of first impressions. This iswhy speed dating is the only dating that’s worth a damn. A dog only has to sniff another dog’s ass to know exactly where he stands. The point is that you have roughly sixty seconds to provoke affection, hatred, or indifference.
    Indifference is what we interns are striving for. This is why I recommend speaking from what is called “the top down.” It’s an old journalism thing. The inverted pyramid. And it is the pinnacle—albeit an inverted pinnacle—of objectivity. The journalist top loads the story with the most important facts, so if you only read the first paragraph, you got it. This style is bereft of what they call “editorializing”—a phenomenon wherein the journalist feels that we give a fuck about his opinion and we have to listen to it the entire time he reports the story. Tune into Bill O’Reilly or Anderson Cooper and you’ll see what I mean. Now download some old PBS NewsHour shows with Jim Lehrer. He does not offer opinions. He does not change his delivery the least bit, whether he’s talking about a minor tick down in the market or full-blown ethnic cleansing. This makes the listener focus on the story and not the person delivering it. Ironically, this whole approach came about through assassination. When Lincoln was shot, the telegraph story about his death at the hands of Booth was the first scoop ever for Reuters. “AMERICA. ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN.” A smoking gun of objectivity.
    What this means to you is that you speak only when spoken to. You do not volunteer opinions, make casual observations, or crack jokes. All of these actions would make you a person that the brains around you would want to analyze. I’m not saying be a mute. When someone else cracks a joke, you smile but do not laugh. Your laugh may sound ridiculous and then you are “that guy or girl with the fucked-up laugh”—a memorable title.
    When people offer opinions, you nod or let them know you’re listening. In the end, they’ll think you’re shy—an innocent wallflower that they have no interest in pursuing. Do any of the kidson the playground even look at the shy kid sitting by himself in the sand? Hell no. And when you are asked for your opinion or even just asked a question, you answer like a telegraph journalist. Top-level facts, delivered in an even, relaxed, and emotionless tone. Once they get what they want, they will leave you alone. And the beauty of it is this: they will always remember that someone else gave them the information, someone they like. Our minds are not interested in truth. They are our private twenty-four-hour news cycle putting a constant spin on reality. It’s like The Matrix. Everyone is plugged in to the Bullshit Express.
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    “You fucking maggots make me want to puke.”
    That’s Hartman, the fifty-something office manager and wannabe drill sergeant in charge of the interns. He wants us to think he’s some kind of ex-military hard case with his flattop and shiny black boots. I’ve seen Cub Scouts with more Oorah. Bob would eat him for breakfast, then eat his own guts, and then ask for seconds. This guy would soil his pants right now if I pulled my ankle piece. It’s a tiny .22 caliber holdout special that looks like a toy, but Hartman would evacuate his bowels at the mere sight of it.
    There are twenty-three well-scrubbed spawn of the white power elite, one Asian woman, and me standing in what Hartman calls “the Barracks.” Basically, it’s a small, dank-smelling cafeteria with soda machines and a dorm fridge and it’s reserved for office plankton like us. Hartman strides around it like