6 ms·

Related article: Don't be a UN Intern First thing’s first. You should understand the objectives of the organization you’re trying to join. There are three prim

Related article: Don't be a UN Intern First thing’s first. You should understand the objectives of the organization you’re trying to join. There are three primary objectives of the UN system today. The first one is to pay the salaries and the perks of its employees. The second is to give them a microcosm in which they can walk around in suits, look important, use buzzwords, and basically find some, however contrived, meaning. The third one is to make it seem like there is an international political system out there, a framework of rules that everyone respects. This last one is increasingly optional in the post-Cold War geopolitical climate. ... Your globetrotting, world-saving dream job doesn’t exist. It hasn’t existed for a while. The world has been explored – it no longer needs explorers, and especially doesn’t need faceless bureaucrats. It needs people who do things. Even if, through blackmail, magic rituals or blind luck, you land a UN job somehow, you will not be part of the world elite – far, far from it. You will push paper watching your years go by; your sole obsession will be sucking up to your neurotic supervisor in the hope of seeing your grade increase by a small notch five years down the road; you will wake up at 55 wondering where your professional life has gone. And that’s even discounting the remote possibility that the funding countries come along and say “Ok guys, the show’s been great, now pack it up and go home, you’re not needed anymore.” https://desertqueensarah.wordpress.com/2015/08/21/dont-be-a-un-intern/ https://desertqueensarah.wordpress.com/2015/08/21/dont-be-a-...

gohrt 11y ago
The silly part of that analysis is that they think someone who gets a UN intern job has any interest in ever applying for a job they can't get through powerful friends and family.
- pdabbadabba 11y ago
  This is just knee-jerk, spiteful cynicism. I know a number of people who dream of working for the U.N. and getting the job through connections certainly doesn't factor into it. Quite the contrary: landing a U.N. job (at least in the U.S.) is extremely difficult, and certainly far more difficult than other job opportunities available to these sorts of people. They're driven to the U.N. out of idealism, not laziness.
  - entee 11y ago
    I think in some ways that's true, but then why does it seem to be so congealed and terrible? All of these idealists should make it better somehow no? Maybe some (not all) of the people in higher positions get appointed through more political, less idealistic processes and gum up the works? Maybe having an organization that by its very nature needs to cater to so many different world views means that it can't actually get anything done efficiently. Too many cooks in the kitchen.
    - pdabbadabba 11y ago
      I suspect your final point explains most of it. I certainly don't think its the idealistic interns' fault.
    - kingkawn 11y ago
      What decades old organization does not feel congealed?
    - hguant 11y ago
      For every idealist trying to make a difference, you get some bureaucrat from <insert country here> who is only interested in having a title and bilking it for as much money as it's worth. Because said bureaucrat is from <insert third world post colonial country here>, firing them in favour of <idealist overqualified candidate from the G7> is impossible, and actually contrary to the mission of getting various nations to buy into the system. I used to really believe in the United Nations. Did MUN in high school, got a degree in politics, studied how developing polities can form ideal governments, the whole nine yards. Now I write python for one of the beltway bandits. At least the problems the computer has can be solved by logic and hard work.
drzaiusapelord 11y ago
>This last one is increasingly optional in the post-Cold War geopolitical climate. Considering Russia and China are casually annexing territories, its pretty obvious this framework no longer exists. The UN made sense when the security council members had some incentive to use the UN system, but when their foreign policy is to circumvent international law at any opportunity, then its easy for them to sidestep it. Autocratic states ultimately can't work with democratic ones. Its unfair to expect one group to 'follow the rules' and another to go off willy-nilly when it serves them. There's no enforcer here, they're supposed to be voluntarily enforcing themselves and obviously that's not happening. I won't even go into how easy it is for democratic nations to game the system either. Bush's run up to Iraq had all the hallmarks of the 'legitimate' UN: a debate, an airing of evidence, a vote, etc. Ultimately, it was just as hollow as an autocratic state annexing territory and telling everyone to piss off. I suspect the UN has long fallen into pageantry and will never recover. It probably made sense to keep the US and the USSR from nuking each other, but today it lacks purpose and any real spirit of participation. It now exists to bully smaller nations who don't have a permanent seat in the security council, and because of that, it will never go away.
- hackuser 11y ago
  > Considering Russia and China are casually annexing territories, its pretty obvious this framework no longer exists A pretty big overstatement. The only cross-border war between nations I can think of is Russia and Ukraine. If perfection is our standard, then of course the UN and everything else is a failure. Otherwise, the UN is doing this job effectively. > The UN made sense when the security council members had some incentive to use the UN system, but when their foreign policy is to circumvent international law at any opportunity, then its easy for them to sidestep it. Autocratic states ultimately can't work with democratic ones. Its unfair to expect one group to 'follow the rules' and another to go off willy-nilly when it serves them. There's no enforcer here, they're supposed to be voluntarily enforcing themselves and obviously that's not happening. The golden age you imagine never existed. It's always been this way. This is the way the UN, and politics in general, works. I wish it were otherwise and we should work to improve it, but it does work, unless we measure it by the standards of ideals and perfection - and then what human institution (or human being) measures up?
jandrewrogers 11y ago
This article is a very accurate depiction of the UN in Geneva based on my experience there. I was working much higher up the food chain, not an intern, but the experience was the same. You have a few true believers trying to get things done surrounded by a vast sea of bureaucrats, a significant fraction of which are corrupt, with no obvious skills nor offering even a pretense of doing useful work for anyone. It makes the most deadwood-collecting US government bureaucracy (I've worked there too) seem almost startup-like by comparison.
- dba7dba 11y ago
  Kinda expected. Any organization that requires no accountability (meaning occasional layoff sometimes) from members will breed people that do nothing.
gozur88 11y ago
>And that’s even discounting the remote possibility that the funding countries come along and say “Ok guys, the show’s been great, now pack it up and go home, you’re not needed anymore.” Hah! That will never happen. World governments need a place to send embarrassing brothers-in-law, blowhards, and idiots who can't, for political reasons, simply be drowned in a tub.
- orbifold 11y ago
  I think that is to some degree also how most of the other diplomatic posts are filled, the people that get the job usually have very strong ties to the political system and aren't particularly bright or qualified. For example the current ambassador of Germany to the vatican Annette Schavan lost her doctoral degree and position as minister for education because she plagiarized large parts of her dissertation. Obviously someone like that should represent a country.
almostApatriot1 11y ago
>The second is to give them a microcosm in which they can walk around in suits, look important, use buzzwords, and basically find some, however contrived, meaning Sounds like every private sector job i've had tbh.
- lvs 11y ago
  Yes. But not just suits. This is a cutting observation that applies to all "professionalized" organizations, but the form of that professionalism depends on context. It could be standard-issue to be wearing a blazer and jeans with spikey hair in your loft office, but you're still just acting important, using buzzwords, and doing basically nothing.
  - ethbro 11y ago
    Hey now, there's a big difference between doing nothing in a T-shirt, a blazer, and a suit.
almostApatriot1 11y ago
>The second is to give them a microcosm in which they can walk around in suits, look important, use buzzwords, and basically find some, however contrived, meaning Sounds like every private sector job i've had tbh.
CM30 11y ago
"The second is to give them a microcosm in which they can walk around in suits, look important, use buzzwords, and basically find some, however contrived, meaning." So that's the explanation for the UN's infamous 'internet violence' report, where instead of actually trying to look at any sort of real issue, they spent hundreds of pages talking about internet trolling on behalf of a few rich kids who were having issues with Twitter. While making every possible sourcing failure in the book at the same time.
- said 11y ago
  That U.N. hearing made several of my friends suddenly extremely interested in politics. And not in the way the U.N. bureaucrats would have liked. They're currently sharing pro-Trump memes on Reddit.
bjourne 11y ago
The problem with such absolutist statements is that you just need one counter-example to make the argument shaky. The IPCC organized by the UN puts out annual climate change reports and that is good work. Hence, not everything the UN does is useless garbage.
- Snargorf 11y ago
  You're so close to a breakthrough here. If everything the UN does is self-serving bureaucratic garbage designed to maintain and expand the bureaucracy itself... And the bureaucrats behind the IPCC gain authority and money when their reports are more alarmist... And, every year, their reports become more alarmist... And, every year, the IPCC bureaucrats gain authority and money... Maybe... maybe the IPCC reports aren't a shining jewel of perfect Science that has somehow arisen from the bureaucratic cesspool of UN corruption? Personally I find it pretty hard to believe that an organization that is so shot through with politics and corruption could somehow have one perfectly uncorrupted part. And, even more, that this part is one of its highest-status sub-bureaucracies. Something to consider, anyway. Maybe the invariant in your argument shouldn't be an invariant. That's all I'm really saying. This article could refute your belief, rather than your belief refuting the article.
  - bjourne 11y ago
    Yeah, except the IPCC reports have been vetted by other independent climate scientists and their findings haven't been contested. So your argument falls flat.

gohrt 11y ago

The silly part of that analysis is that they think someone who gets a UN intern job has any interest in ever applying for a job they can't get through powerful friends and family.

pdabbadabba 11y ago
This is just knee-jerk, spiteful cynicism. I know a number of people who dream of working for the U.N. and getting the job through connections certainly doesn't factor into it. Quite the contrary: landing a U.N. job (at least in the U.S.) is extremely difficult, and certainly far more difficult than other job opportunities available to these sorts of people. They're driven to the U.N. out of idealism, not laziness.
- entee 11y ago
  I think in some ways that's true, but then why does it seem to be so congealed and terrible? All of these idealists should make it better somehow no? Maybe some (not all) of the people in higher positions get appointed through more political, less idealistic processes and gum up the works? Maybe having an organization that by its very nature needs to cater to so many different world views means that it can't actually get anything done efficiently. Too many cooks in the kitchen.
  - pdabbadabba 11y ago
    I suspect your final point explains most of it. I certainly don't think its the idealistic interns' fault.
  - kingkawn 11y ago
    What decades old organization does not feel congealed?
  - hguant 11y ago
    For every idealist trying to make a difference, you get some bureaucrat from <insert country here> who is only interested in having a title and bilking it for as much money as it's worth. Because said bureaucrat is from <insert third world post colonial country here>, firing them in favour of <idealist overqualified candidate from the G7> is impossible, and actually contrary to the mission of getting various nations to buy into the system. I used to really believe in the United Nations. Did MUN in high school, got a degree in politics, studied how developing polities can form ideal governments, the whole nine yards. Now I write python for one of the beltway bandits. At least the problems the computer has can be solved by logic and hard work.

drzaiusapelord 11y ago

>This last one is increasingly optional in the post-Cold War geopolitical climate. Considering Russia and China are casually annexing territories, its pretty obvious this framework no longer exists. The UN made sense when the security council members had some incentive to use the UN system, but when their foreign policy is to circumvent international law at any opportunity, then its easy for them to sidestep it. Autocratic states ultimately can't work with democratic ones. Its unfair to expect one group to 'follow the rules' and another to go off willy-nilly when it serves them. There's no enforcer here, they're supposed to be voluntarily enforcing themselves and obviously that's not happening. I won't even go into how easy it is for democratic nations to game the system either. Bush's run up to Iraq had all the hallmarks of the 'legitimate' UN: a debate, an airing of evidence, a vote, etc. Ultimately, it was just as hollow as an autocratic state annexing territory and telling everyone to piss off. I suspect the UN has long fallen into pageantry and will never recover. It probably made sense to keep the US and the USSR from nuking each other, but today it lacks purpose and any real spirit of participation. It now exists to bully smaller nations who don't have a permanent seat in the security council, and because of that, it will never go away.

hackuser 11y ago
> Considering Russia and China are casually annexing territories, its pretty obvious this framework no longer exists A pretty big overstatement. The only cross-border war between nations I can think of is Russia and Ukraine. If perfection is our standard, then of course the UN and everything else is a failure. Otherwise, the UN is doing this job effectively. > The UN made sense when the security council members had some incentive to use the UN system, but when their foreign policy is to circumvent international law at any opportunity, then its easy for them to sidestep it. Autocratic states ultimately can't work with democratic ones. Its unfair to expect one group to 'follow the rules' and another to go off willy-nilly when it serves them. There's no enforcer here, they're supposed to be voluntarily enforcing themselves and obviously that's not happening. The golden age you imagine never existed. It's always been this way. This is the way the UN, and politics in general, works. I wish it were otherwise and we should work to improve it, but it does work, unless we measure it by the standards of ideals and perfection - and then what human institution (or human being) measures up?

jandrewrogers 11y ago

This article is a very accurate depiction of the UN in Geneva based on my experience there. I was working much higher up the food chain, not an intern, but the experience was the same. You have a few true believers trying to get things done surrounded by a vast sea of bureaucrats, a significant fraction of which are corrupt, with no obvious skills nor offering even a pretense of doing useful work for anyone. It makes the most deadwood-collecting US government bureaucracy (I've worked there too) seem almost startup-like by comparison.

dba7dba 11y ago
Kinda expected. Any organization that requires no accountability (meaning occasional layoff sometimes) from members will breed people that do nothing.

gozur88 11y ago

>And that’s even discounting the remote possibility that the funding countries come along and say “Ok guys, the show’s been great, now pack it up and go home, you’re not needed anymore.” Hah! That will never happen. World governments need a place to send embarrassing brothers-in-law, blowhards, and idiots who can't, for political reasons, simply be drowned in a tub.

orbifold 11y ago
I think that is to some degree also how most of the other diplomatic posts are filled, the people that get the job usually have very strong ties to the political system and aren't particularly bright or qualified. For example the current ambassador of Germany to the vatican Annette Schavan lost her doctoral degree and position as minister for education because she plagiarized large parts of her dissertation. Obviously someone like that should represent a country.

almostApatriot1 11y ago

>The second is to give them a microcosm in which they can walk around in suits, look important, use buzzwords, and basically find some, however contrived, meaning Sounds like every private sector job i've had tbh.

lvs 11y ago
Yes. But not just suits. This is a cutting observation that applies to all "professionalized" organizations, but the form of that professionalism depends on context. It could be standard-issue to be wearing a blazer and jeans with spikey hair in your loft office, but you're still just acting important, using buzzwords, and doing basically nothing.
- ethbro 11y ago
  Hey now, there's a big difference between doing nothing in a T-shirt, a blazer, and a suit.

almostApatriot1 11y ago

CM30 11y ago

"The second is to give them a microcosm in which they can walk around in suits, look important, use buzzwords, and basically find some, however contrived, meaning." So that's the explanation for the UN's infamous 'internet violence' report, where instead of actually trying to look at any sort of real issue, they spent hundreds of pages talking about internet trolling on behalf of a few rich kids who were having issues with Twitter. While making every possible sourcing failure in the book at the same time.

said 11y ago
That U.N. hearing made several of my friends suddenly extremely interested in politics. And not in the way the U.N. bureaucrats would have liked. They're currently sharing pro-Trump memes on Reddit.

bjourne 11y ago

The problem with such absolutist statements is that you just need one counter-example to make the argument shaky. The IPCC organized by the UN puts out annual climate change reports and that is good work. Hence, not everything the UN does is useless garbage.

Snargorf 11y ago
You're so close to a breakthrough here. If everything the UN does is self-serving bureaucratic garbage designed to maintain and expand the bureaucracy itself... And the bureaucrats behind the IPCC gain authority and money when their reports are more alarmist... And, every year, their reports become more alarmist... And, every year, the IPCC bureaucrats gain authority and money... Maybe... maybe the IPCC reports aren't a shining jewel of perfect Science that has somehow arisen from the bureaucratic cesspool of UN corruption? Personally I find it pretty hard to believe that an organization that is so shot through with politics and corruption could somehow have one perfectly uncorrupted part. And, even more, that this part is one of its highest-status sub-bureaucracies. Something to consider, anyway. Maybe the invariant in your argument shouldn't be an invariant. That's all I'm really saying. This article could refute your belief, rather than your belief refuting the article.
- bjourne 11y ago
  Yeah, except the IPCC reports have been vetted by other independent climate scientists and their findings haven't been contested. So your argument falls flat.