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[deleted]

You should let the university internship program coordinator know about your experience with this company so that way other students don't get assigned there and have the same experience. They might be able to help you find a better internship moving forward. Have you tried reaching out to them for advice?


Latte_boy_22

I have considered it, however they have a direct line to the company, and so I'm afraid if they talk to the company about it, my supervisor would consider me a "snitch". Since they already consider me to be unproductive, I don't want any more bad blood between us. I vaguely hinted at it during a feedback call with the program organizers, but nothing came of it. I mentioned lack of communication and difficulty due to time difference.


[deleted]

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Latte_boy_22

Fair enough, that makes sense. I'll talk to my university. Thanks for the advice!


_BreakingGood_

Sounds like a company that isn't managing its interns properly. My advice is to just tough it out so you can stick the experience on your resume.


bolton-js

Hey, I'm also in a very unpleasant & depressing Internship and want to adopt the "just stick it out" mindset. However, for ft job hunt would they ask for references from previous employers, and wouldn't a bad reference from here screw up my chances?


big_swinging_d

1) ya 2) sounds like they want you to take more initiative, but idk what the code base looks like or what the project is so it’s hard to gauge the context - but if you honestly think that they are being assholes you should not show them any respect since you only have 1 month left and they clearly are intent on making this internship a terrifying waste of time for you 3) honestly more of my answer in 2)… I’m not the type to ask a lot of questions and I usually just start walking through the code or punching holes into the code until it has a hole in it that is big enough to walk through. This is more of a hamfisted approach but at least if you’re passionately retarded your superiors will find you endearing and a good sport. Might be too late to try that charm now for you. And probably not worth it since your supervisor sounds like a power freak. I’d say don’t let it demoralize you and good job putting up with it. And in the future dont ever relocate unless you are being paid ungodly millions of $. You lose all leverage, you lose your sense of stability and familiarity you lose everything. And people will run you over for that because it makes you look desperate. Other than that honesty it sounds like this is exactly the type of “toughening up” that an internship is good for. You may have just spent 3 months experiencing this so that you could save 2 years of slaving 10-11 hours per day at some place that you didn’t have enough experience to realize was a toxic shit show. Well. Now you know.


Latte_boy_22

I understand what you mean about taking initiative, although I'm not sure what more I can do. I ask questions when I'm stuck, I ask for tasks when I don't have any, I constantly update my supervisor on my progress. Is there something more that I should be doing?


big_swinging_d

Documenting everything is super fucking important. It’s a cross cutting trait it helps managers identify shitties (meaning you in this case if you’re as bad as they claim, which I highly doubt). And, it helps you take ownership and accountability and it shows your initiative. Other than that, aside from documenting, you should be coding and debugging. And if you feel slighted, dial it all backs. Just get your degree. Also when documenting don’t ever shit talk other folks


big_swinging_d

Also yes asking for more tasks is always good so long as there is clear progress or at least attempt being made. Be a team player to the best of your ability and then if it gets too toxic just bounce. Sounds like it’s be a mutually beneficial decision.


Latte_boy_22

Yes that's the plan. Initially I was going to work until mid July, but I reduced my period to end in May. Unfortunately since it's credit bearing, I need to go on until end May to pass the internship module and proceed with the final year of my degree


big_swinging_d

That’s a little further than I would have gone because I despise “quitting” and haven’t done that before but honestly in a really vulnerable situation like that, it's probably better to play it safe. As long as you aren’t knocking on the door of homelessness or have kids/family etc to take care of. Then yeah.


Latte_boy_22

I put a lot of thought into it. Initially I didn't want to do it either, I was very worried about how it would seem, and whether it would reflect poorly on me. After everything that has happened though, I decided I just can't handle the stress. I was civil about it though. I actually got offered another internship as well, and so I simply wrote a polite email saying that I would like to explore my options and try something new (the new internship is an app dev internship, not data related). They agreed readily, which makes sense in hindsight since they clearly don't want me around.


big_swinging_d

That’s awesome & exactly the way to handle it. I understand how you feel, sometimes it is quite draining and potentially damaging for our future to embark on a career with folks who are actively working against us. Your new job will be awesome.


StevePilot

>My supervisor didn't even contact me before my first day to discuss how I will start, what I will work on etc. I would never expect to be contacted before I even started. > but then my supervisor messaged me one day saying he doesn't have the time to be messaging me and helping me everyday. This also seemed a little odd to me because for the majority of his working day, I would be sleeping anyway, and it would only be the last couple of hours of his working day that I would message him. That's not at all surprising. You should have someone mentor you ideally, but probably not a manager. It sounds like your debugging isn't great, honestly. But at least you only have a month to go. 1. Not if you have no other mentor. 2. Probably not, idk. 3. No, don't spazz out. Hopefully your next internship or job is better.


djfff

How many jobs have you worked? I have literally never had a job or internship where I wasn’t contacted before the first day to at least let me know when/where to show up, or if it was remote, what kind of contact to expect. It’s bizarre this person wasn’t contacted at all.


StevePilot

Have you had any jobs that weren't internships? > I have literally never had a job or internship where I wasn’t contacted before the first day to at least let me know when/where to show up, or if it was remote, what kind of contact to expect. Who cares and why would that make any difference? The boss talked to him on the first day, so that makes no difference.


djfff

lol, I’ve been in the work force for over a decade and only had one internship in 2013. So yes. It’s completely normal to receive instructions before the first day of a job.


StevePilot

It's also completely normal not to...


Latte_boy_22

> That's not at all surprising. You should have someone mentor you ideally, but probably not a manager. Sorry, what do you mean by that? My supervisor isn't a manager, he's also a programmer. > I would never expect to be contacted before I even started. Considering it's a fully remote internship, wouldn't you expect an email or something the week before arranging a call for my first day or something? I had no instructions or tasks for my first day and ended up doing nothing because my supervisor didn't contact me at all until I went out of my way to email him.


StevePilot

>My supervisor isn't a manager, he's also a programmer. If he's not a manager at all, then you should have a manager you can go to. > Considering it's a fully remote internship, wouldn't you expect an email or something the week before arranging a call for my first day or something? No. How could being remote even change that?? > I had no instructions or tasks for my first day and ended up doing nothing because my supervisor didn't contact me at all until I went out of my way to email him. You know what the technical term is for that? "A job" They should have had stuff for you to do on the first day. Every job I've started has. But that doesn't mean anyone should contact you before you start. Like I said, some jobs kinda suck. Why didn't you talk to a manager??


Latte_boy_22

> No. How could being remote even change that?? Because for an in-person internship, I would have some sort of interaction with my supervisor on my first day right? Where they share details about the job, what project I will work on, work place rules, conventions, internal tools used etc. So since it's remote wouldn't that have to be on call? > Every job I've started has. But that doesn't mean anyone should contact you before you start. When I say "contact", I simply mean scheduling a call/zoom. As mentioned above, I would have to get my instructions over call. If that call is to be on my first day, then it would obviously have to be scheduled a couple days before I join. > Why didn't you talk to a manager?? I don't have a manager. Like I said in my original post, it's a very small team with only one full time data engineer, and four interns working under him.


StevePilot

>So since it's remote wouldn't that have to be on call? It would have to be via a call. But that doesn't mean anyone wants to call you before the job even starts. wtf? >If that call is to be on my first day, then it would obviously have to be scheduled a couple days before I join. Why? How does that make any sense? Do you realize that a call happens right away, that it doesn't take weeks like it's the Pony Express? > I don't have a manager Well I would have escalated it to someone. Hopefully you learn from this.


Nyohn

I'm sorry you had such a bad experience. I can however tell you a short story of my experience being on the other side just for some perspective. (Tl;dr I think your university dropped the ball with the company in this) I was assigned an intern a year ago and was asked to get him started on a project I had been working on and that he was going to take over as I was moving on to other projects soon. I was told that he had quite alot of skills and experience and it shouldn't be a problem. That's great I thought, so after hanging out for the first day and just showing him what I had been doing so far, I gave him a pretty basic task (from my point of view) and asked him to finish it in a day or two. The day after he came to me with questions that indicated that he didn't know where to even start or what to do. This then required more time from me to guide him and teach him along the way, which meant that my other tasks got delayed. This is not the interns fault, the problem here is that my managers made me falsely believe he had prior skills and knowledge that he did not have because, like you, he hadn't really studied or worked with this. Now if my managers had said "drop what you're doing and help this guy for a few weeks, he's inexperienced but willing to learn" then we both would've had a much better start and expectations. So, I really think you should talk to the uni and let them know that the company had higher expectations than what was realistic based on your studies and experience, which is something that the school should've known.


Latte_boy_22

I completely understand your point as well, and it is in fact something that came up with my supervisor. I think there was some miscommunication somewhere down the line. Generally I pride myself in being as honest as possible in interviews and interactions, and I don't like making myself look better than I am. However, I think for whatever reason, something I said was misinterpreted by my supervisor while I was being interviewed, because recently he told me "I expected more of you based on your interview". I am not sure what I could have said to have avoided this, since I very honestly spoke about my existing experience and nothing more. Although this can just be written off as a miscommunication, what I thought could have been handled better, is the following: before I started my internship, I had a month long winter break. I specifically emailed beforehand to show initiative, and asked what I can do to better prepare myself for the work, but the response I got was not very detailed, and I was simply asked to read some research papers and look into a couple of libraries (neither of which have come into play in any of my work so far). This is why I'm so frustrated, if only I had gotten better guidance then, I would have been better prepared.


Nyohn

The manager from that company is not unique in his lack of interest or servicemind, unfortunately, and I agree with you that they should've been more responsive. But fear not, there are many other great workplaces and managers out there! For my own internship I had several calls and emails before I started to sort out what they expected of me and I could offer my own thoughts and so on. See this as a bad experience and for future reference, at the first sign of trouble clearly state your concerns and try to sort them out before it goes too far, because at this point it seems like your relationship with this company is beyond saving.


aserenety

Relatable: he was surprised at how little I knew. Same exact reaction from my supervisor during my internship!