Toto, I don't think we're at Seventeen anymore...

And the stories begin... Yesterday saw the start of my job as Boob Looker-Upper Extraordinaire, i.e. FHM Mobile intern. If you don't know (considering none of you are 20-year-old guys, you probably don't), FHM is a men's magazine that used to be published in the States as well, but folded there a year or two ago. It's technically men's "lifestyle": it covers technology, video games, movies, style, funny stuff. Oh, and girls. But that's actually why I use the term "lifestyle" with quotations--unless there is a common lifestyle that involves surrounding oneself with naked women all day, I'd say this is more of a "fantasy" magazine. Anyway, I'm working for the Mobile division, which is actually just one guy, my boss. He works sort of alongside the web department, and I'll probably be doing some stuff for them too.

So, first day. Didn't start off on the best foot because I left a few minutes later than I had intended, tripped on the walk to the Tube, and realized I forgot to bring directions to the building. Woops. Luckily, I pretty much remembered from the last time. I just walked past the Topshop, toward the Marks & Spencer. There is so much good shopping near me, which is both a good thing and a bad thing. There's also a McDonald's across the street, which is definitely a bad thing.

My boss, Mal, showed me around when I got there, peppering his sentences with the word "fuck" more times than I've ever heard another person say it. Until later that day, when I realized everyone says it a million times an hour. It's set up like a newsroom, all the desks together. The atmosphere is much louder and rowdier than at Seventeen. I saw some other dirty magazines hanging around and smirked... oh, if only I knew what was in store.

The whole thing is nothing like Hearst. The kitchen isn't this super-nice room with an awesome coffee maker; actually, I think I need to bring my own coffee if I want to make some. Yeah. It's pretty much all men, too. There is a small handful of women, but I'd say it's a 3:1 ratio. This is perfectly fine, but I was kind of dressed up on the first day (not dressed up for a normal job, but it's very casual here -- jeans and sneakers are normal). I knew I was overdressing a bit, but it was the first day and I wanted to look nice. The problem is, I was the only person in the whole office wearing heels, so when I walked down the hallway, the loud "clack, clack, clack" seemed to resonate through the office. So the whole "inconspicuous intern" thing didn't really work.

I got my first assignment: putting together some text about some hot celebs. Some of it was stuff I got from other sections of the website, but I wrote some of it myself, too. It was an interesting style shift -- my mindset was, "OK, I'm a bro. I'm a dude. Sex. Beer. Huh. Burp. Tits, man." I basically tried to turn everything into a, "Yeah, and she's hot, too!" thing. My second assignment felt a little more pervy. I needed to find sexy pictures of celebs, but not "classy" sexy. Nudity was a plus. So, I had to scour the web for screenshots of nude scenes in movies. Basically, soft-core porn.

Day 2 was similar. I was flipping through one of the magazines and landed on the joke section. I thought this was was pretty funny... in an "oh, boys" kind of way:

What kind of bee makes milk?
A boo-bee!

I had a bunch of uploading projects to do, but perhaps the most interesting (and definitely the most R-rated) was uploading content from the "High Street Honeys" section of the website to the Mobile site (it has to be reformatted for phones). These are all pictures that wannabe Glamour Models (topless models) send in, posing in underwear... or not underwear. I had to resize and edit out the ones that showed nipple because you can't send that over a phone, apparently. So what did you do at work today? Don't worry, I did tamer stuff too, like uploading movie reviews. That focused on things blowing up and hot girls.

Again, lots of cursing in the office, including some fun British words that made me giggle at my desk: shite, wanker, bullocks. How beautiful the English language is. I also actually talked to some people sitting around me today. Yay, friends! Haha.

XOX