Posted: 4/21/2011 3:36:25 PM EDT
Well its that time of the year...Intern season. As you look around your office, you probably are starting to see the interns moving in for the summer. Getting all cozy for those three to four months of getting paid to not do a whole lot. Obviously not all interns were created the same, and some are better than others. Last summer we had a kid who would fall asleep sitting up at least a couple times a day. He was bright, and it was kinda comical to watch the eye lids start getting heavier and heavier every day. People would start taking pools with guesses as to what time he would fall asleep. So he was atleast useful in the fact that he gave us humor, and he actually did a decent amount of work, was pretty intelligent, and was very interested our work. I liked the kid, he just needed to get a bit more sleep at night. Well our new intern this summer is just a waste of air. She moseyed into work today at 10:15 this morning and sits on the internet til lunch. After lunch me and a fellow engineer(who is her mentor for the summer) are in the lab doin some work, so he calls her to ask her to come to the lab to learn some stuff that we are working on and she can try testing some code. He gets her set up and she seems to be doin alright, so after about 5 mins, we get back to what we were working on. Well about 10 mins later she begins to complain that all the websites she wants to go on are blocked at work. this is at about 1:15. She continues to dick around on her phone and the internet til about 2 oclock when she tells us she will be back to the lab in about 10 mins. I figured she was goin down to her desk of something. Nope. She shows back up a half an hour later with a bag of taco bell . WTF? Well I usually get in at around 7 and take off around 4. Well she clearly is too good to work 8 hours for some reason and leaves at the same time I do. Nice job being in the office for a whopping 5 hours and 45 mins. Take out her 45 min lunch she takes and her half hour tacobell fiasco, and now is is on the clock for a whopping 4 and a half hours yet getting paid for 8. I'm not trying to be an asshole, I understand that they dont know a whole lot of the technical things we are working on, but would it hurt to at least pretend to be interested in the work you are getting paid not to do, and how bout showing a little work ethic and atleast showing up for 8 WHOLE hours for work instead of just blatantly stealing from the company in the for of time and pay.
Anyone else got any stories to share of crappy interns? |
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Talk to your boss and get her transferred to another dept. No time for that kinda bullshit unless she is really hot ( and I don't mean hot on the engineers scale  ). If she is hot make her earn her pay.not hot at all  . I dont think we could get her transfered anyways. I work for a very large corporation, and I dont think my boss had any say in gettin her. It seems they just throw interns to groups, and the groups are stuck with them
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Talk to your boss and get her transferred to another dept. No time for that kinda bullshit unless she is really hot ( and I don't mean hot on the engineers scale ). If she is hot make her earn her pay.not hot at all . I dont think we could get her transfered anyways. I work for a very large corporation, and I dont think my boss had any say in gettin her. It seems they just throw interns to groups, and the groups are stuck with themThen you should take it as your mission to make her life a living hell. Nah just kidding. Sorry. I'd LOVE to have an intern to do my mundane boring tasks so I could do the good stuff. |
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Originally Posted By vand6167: Well its that time of the year...Intern season. As you look around your office, you probably are starting to see the interns moving in for the summer. Getting all cozy for those three to four months of getting paid to not do a whole lot. Obviously not all int erns were created the same, and some are better than others. Last summer we had a kid who would fall asleep sitting up at least a couple times a day. He was bright, and it was kinda comical to watch the eye lids start getting heavier and heavier every day. People would start taking pools with guesses as to what time he would fall asleep. So he was atleast useful in the fact that he gave us humor, and he actually did a decent amount of work, was pretty intelligent, and was very interested our work. I liked the kid, he just needed to get a bit more sleep at night. Well our new intern this summer is just a waste of air. She moseyed into work today at 10:15 this morning and sits on the internet til lunch. After lunch me and a fellow engineer(who is her mentor for the summer) are in the lab doin some work, so he calls her to ask her to come to the lab to learn some stuff that we are working on and she can try testing some code. He gets he r set up and she seems to be doin alright, so after about 5 mins, we get back to what we were working on. Well about 10 mins later she begins to complain that all the websites she wants to go on are blocked at work. this is at about 1:15. She continues to dick around on her phone and the inte rnet til about 2 oclock when she tells us she will be back to the lab in about 10 mins. I figured she was goin down to her desk of something. Nope. She shows back up a half an hour later with a bag of taco bell . WTF? Well I usually get in at around 7 and take off around 4. Well she clearly is too good to work 8 hours for some reason and leaves at the same time I do. Nice job being in the office for a whoppin g 5 hours and 45 mins. Take out her 45 min lunch she takes and her half hour tacobell fiasco, and now is is on the clock for a whopping 4 and a half hours yet getting paid for 8 . I'm not trying to be an asshole, I understand that they dont know a whole lot of the technical things we are working on, but would it hurt to at least pretend to be interested in the work you are getting paid not to do, and how bout showing a little work ethic and atleast showing up for 8 WHOLE hours for work instead of just blatantly stealing from the company in the for of time and pay. Anyone else got any stories to share of crappy interns? |
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Talk to your boss and get her transferred to another dept. No time for that kinda bullshit unless she is really hot ( and I don't mean hot on the engineers scale ). If she is hot make her earn her pay.not hot at all . I dont think we could get her transfered anyways. I work for a very large corporation, and I dont think my boss had any say in gettin her. It seems they just throw interns to groups, and the groups are stuck with themThen you should take it as your mission to make her life a living hell. Nah just kidding. Sorry. I'd LOVE to have an intern to do my mundane boring tasks so I could do the good stuff. if I tried to make her life a living hell, I would probably get a call from HR tryin to accuse me of being a racist (shes black) And your right, we're SUPPOSE to have the intern there to give a bunch of the boring tasks that no one else wants to do. Problem is, she isnt doin them
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Quoted: They are graduating and starting careers with the same shitty attitudes too. They expect to be making 6 figures, have a corner office and not do jack shit. Yup Coming from the other side of the OP's post. It's kind of disheartening to show up to an internship only to have your boss tell you that he really doesn't have anything for you to do. At one internship I did, for the first three weeks I would ask for stuff to do and they didn't have a single thing for me to do. So I was basically being paid to sit in my office and surf the internet for 8 hours a day. If I can deliver high quality results (save the company $180k per year) and get all my assigned task done on time(300+ time studies, plant layout products, standardized work instructions for a ten station assembly line that makes 6 different products all in 10 weeks) and still be able to surf the internet for 5-6 hours a day, then I'm obviously not being given enough to do, even though I'd ask my boss multiple times a day if there was anything additional I could be working on. |
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They are graduating and starting careers with the same shitty attitudes too. They expect to be making 6 figures, have a corner office and not do jack shit. Yup
Coming from the other side of the OP's post. It's kind of disheartening to show up to an internship only to have your boss tell you that he really doesn't have anything for you to do. At one internship I did, for the first three weeks I would ask for stuff to do and they didn't have a single thing for me to do. So I was basically being paid to sit in my office and surf the internet for 8 hours a day. If I can deliver high quality results (save the company $180k per year) and get all my assigned task done on time(300+ time studies, plant layout products, standardized work instructions for a ten station assembly line that makes 6 different products all in 10 weeks) and still be able to surf the internet for 5-6 hours a day, then I'm obviously not being given enough to do, even though I'd ask my boss multiple times a day if there was anything additional I could be working on. Thats the thing though, my co worker has been trying to get her involved and do some testing for us. She just seems to always mosey away when ever we are trying to show her things or give her work. And even if we dont have anything for her to do, she is still getting paid to be there 8 hours, so she should BE there 8 hours |
When I was in Grade 12 I did an unpaid after-school internship at an engineering firm, and I learned more about physics and drafting than I ever did in school, so I had no problem with the "unpaid" bit. They hired me to work for them over the summer as an assistant designer. They even let me do my own designs from scratch (we design transmission line crossings over rivers, railways, highways, etc.). They just hired me back this summer for twice the hours and with a 50% pay raise 
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When I was in Grade 12 I did an unpaid after-school internship at an engineering firm, and I learned more about physics and drafting than I ever did in school, so I had no problem with the "unpaid" bit. They hired me to work for them over the summer as an assistant designer. They even let me do my own designs from scratch (we design transmission line crossings over rivers, railways, highways, etc.). They just hired me back this summer for twice the hours and with a 50% pay raise nice job. Sounds like your the type of intern that I WISH we had |
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I loved my internship, I drew exploded parts views of AKs, the PKM, FAL, and other weapons used in places a Marine might find himself. After work I drank beer and talked guns with a former Marine who had been to many of the hot spots around the world in the last 50 yrs or so.
Hell of a summer to say the least |
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Sorry, OP, that you have such bad experiences with interns. Most of ours have been top-notch, real hardworkers. Some even worked for nothing- they were the best ones, really dedicated, learned a lot on the job, and always willing to help out.
The paid staff, however...  Some of them are truly oxygen thieves. 
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Every time I see a pic of her, I have to turn my head away and squint my eyes shut.... 
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Paid internships? When were these when I went to school!?  Ours get 75 bucks a week, and a room in an old house with other staff. We get most of ours through: http://www.thesca.org/ |
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Each year my goal is have my bosses/managers/supervisors say years later, "Hey, remember Rem700PSS? Gosh he was the best intern we've ever had". And usually I met my goal. This last year I created a program that caught the attention of several company VP's...so I got to make a presentation between all the site managers and the VP's. Scary, but awesome at the same time as I really knew my shit. I was always asking for more to do...because I actually had a work ethic and got my shit done correctly and in a timely manner.
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I never had an internship so I guess I'm not really up on what goo they are for our work.
I work in LE, an intern is generally a nuisance and of little help. I think we had one intern they kept in the office to do some really mundane research and useless spreadsheet crap. (end product wasn't needed)
I know I feel like a babysitter and view my task as to expose a criminal justice student to the realities of doing LE. Obviously I can't let them do much or even expose them to risk. If push comes to shove I have to stop the patrol car, tell them to exit the vehicle in EBFE and go to a hot call without them. Hasn't happened yet that way. Normally it's just show and tell while actually handling routine complaints. Show them the forms for court and explain how the laws apply to the case. I have had interns with attendence and attitude problems and wanting to ride around all day bitching about how tough their life is. If I like them I burst their bubble gently. My boss does their evaluations, I just sign off on the hours. Only one that I can recall that several of us told the boss to give him a craptastic review equal to his effort. |
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We used to get interns for the summer.
Im a Land Surveyor. Most of them couldnt do anything actually WORK related, were to hung over from the night before to learn, so I had the last two we had carry the stake bag for me.
One guy was a dead head and was bent his old man made him work for the summer instead of following the dead around the country smokin weed
The last on two years ago was supposedly some big wig university assholes kid. Personally got hired in by our owner. Since he was king shit , my boss told me I had to teach him how to run the instrument, NOT REPEAT NOT have him carry the bag for me. Fuck me running
I could teach my kid how to set up the instrument in about 20 minutes. Now she wont be fast at it for about and year or two but she would be able to do it. If you know what youre doing , you can set up and be ready to go in about 45 seconds if you know what youre doing. Newbs usually take about 3-4 minutes. After a couple of weeks of INTENSIVE training  said fuckstick took............... wait for it............................
1 hour , yes I said one HOUR . I said fuck it, boss wanted me to teach him, I taught him, hes fucking stupid and cant/wont learn??? Fuck him eat it buddy, youll learn or we wont get shit done. Then when job super wants to know what in the flying fuck is going on Ill tell him . Then phone calls will be made to my boss, my owner, and finally your pops. Next day??? Hey dipshit, carry this fuckin bag.
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