I am too nice. And it's getting worse with age.

I have just completed an internship at a PR company last week, and I have to say, I don't really know what to think. There's one vital thing in a job that I think PR sorely lack, and that is creativity. When I got the position I was somewhat hoping I would encounter a vocational illumination somewhere down the track. I did, to the extent that I now know what I don't want in a job.

Many social truths have come to light during those six months, and I shall remember them next time I venture into a professional environnement where 80% of the people you work with are women. I have noticed that when men work together as a team, there is that wonderful energy that flows between them, as if they were aligned on a common ambition.

When women work together. It gets more complicated.

The PR consultant I have been working with hired me because I am bilingual. She knows a little English, but not enough to sustain a conversation or write an e-mail without the help of a translator, be it a live one or an electronic one. She may be a senior consultant, and I, a simple intern, but there is one thing that made working with her very difficult: I was her missing competence, and she was more than determined to not let that show too much.

I am an incredibly obliging and focused person whenever constructive work is involved. I have been more nice and patient with her than I thought I could possibly be with anyone, yet I never saw any sincere reciprocation in her attitude. It is well-known that interns in France get a ridiculously low pay and we are given the most dreadful, tasks to do, so a little appreciation, I think, is not so much to ask.