Posted on 06/29/2016 4:18:33 AM PDT by C19fan
A reader writes:
I was able to get a summer internship at a company that does work in the industry I want to work in after I graduate. Even though the division I was hired to work in doesn’t deal with clients or customers, there still was a very strict dress code. I felt the dress code was overly strict but I wasn’t going to say anything, until I noticed one of the workers always wore flat shoes that were made from a fabric other than leather, or running shoes, even though both of these things were contrary to the dress code.
(Excerpt) Read more at askamanager.org ...
***I have never had a job before (I’ve always focused on school) and I was hoping to gain some experience before I graduate next year.***
I was surprised to read this statement, because I worked during high school and college and managed to focus on school at the same time.
The good thing is, this company gave the interns some valuable experience, on what not to do. Hopefully, they’ll learn from it.
Here’s a life lesson for the former intern; as long as you sign your paycheck on the BACK side, you don’t get to make the rules for employment.
Little snowflake probably got fired for taking time to do this and not her little job.
We have a dress code where I work. I see people violate it every day. The violations don’t seem to mess up any client relationships or cause havoc in the office. I’m not going to say anything because I think the dress code is a bit ridiculous. When I finally quit/retire I will wear what ever I want.
Bull. They had absolutely no standing in the company at all, yet they made a list of demands and organized to present their demands. That's what a petition is. What the hell did they expect? I'd have fired the whole damned bunch of them too. They haven't even attained the status of the lowest paid employee at the place yet they saw it as their right to change the culture there.
Yes, you noted the policy was someone inconsistently applied in regards to another employee. (assuming full-time regular employee) Did you ever consider perhaps she had a medical condition with her feet that made dress shoes not an option? Did you consider that perhaps instead of being a problem agitator she had made herself so productive and so valuable to the company they were willing to overlook a minor infraction?
I have zero sympathy for this tender young soul. Time she learned some realities. The real world is not fair. The real world does not exist to cater to you and your wants or needs. You're not doing the company a favor by gracing them with your presence, they actually expect you to get things done as directed. I would've done the exact same thing as the management there did.
respect for yourself and others and for order in the universe.
Sadly too many people today have no respect for others or themselves.
Isn’t it interesting that her “school” taught how to write proper complaints and demands for employers. They neglected to cover union organizing skills when I was a lad.
Some places, it’s a form of slavery.
So my summer time job as a go-fer in the mail room of the print shop of the USDA was really an internship?
All these years I thought it just $2.50 an hour. Maybe I should have gone to Woodstock after all.
This firing is probably the best lesson learned during the internship for all the petitioners.
Disagree. Their reaction means that they value their paid employees time too much to force them to continue to deal with this worthless lot.
Interns, and goodness knows I had to babysit a lot of them in my career, are a pain as a general rule.
They usually are dumped on you by upper management. Like new employees they have no idea how things work but unlike new employees they are usually not interested in learning. They already know everything you see.
When they start complaining and want the company to change the rules for them it is time for them to go.
Especially when they start doing it in groups. It means you have SJW on your hands and you are not going to get a lick of work out of them.
Out of all the interns we had there was about one every couple of years that got an invitation to come back and apply for a job or offered a paid internship for the next summer.
And all but one had the burning zeal and desire to be the agents of change their parents and teachers prepared them to be.
Stupid and impotent little action committees banging their heads against hard reality. Good for the one abstainer, maybe he or she will be successful.
Then it's stupidity. Some folks apparently value themselves and their time so little that they'll work for no pay at all.
Morons.
No, internships are usually unpaid positions (paid internships are rare, but do exist) in with a skilled department that runs some aspect of the business. For example, I work as a storage engineer at a major corporation. We have two interns with us for the next couple of months who are CompSci majors at the local university. They’re learning the ins and outs of what we do, as well as spending a day or so at several other teams’ desks. When they finish, they’ll be able to put the internship on their resume as having actually worked in the IT department, and list the technologies they handled: IBM storage, Remedy ticketing system, bash scripting on actual production systems that do more than “hello world” etc.
In your case, an internship would have been working alongside the guys who ran the printing machines, or the typesetters, or similar, and it would be because you were majoring in something that might lead to a career doing those things. Since the company I work for is a food producer, we have interns in IT, but also marketing, sales, accounting, and even in the production plants.
It was mentioned, though buried in the article. The one person wearing running shoes was a veteran who had lost a leg in Iraq. Management let her wear whatever she needed to in order to be able to walk comfortably.
Wonder what the letter of recommendation looked like?
Neckties. Any job that requires me to wear one is a non-starter for me. Don't get me wrong, I love the way they look, I even collected them for a while, but I can't stand wearing them. The main reason is my physiology. Even loose, and with collars that are appropriately sized, it feels like I'm going to pass out when I turn my head. So, I look for jobs where I can wear a nice golf-style shirt and no necktie. Kinda hampers my management track, but, oh well. A man's got to know his limitations. Mine's a necktie.
The the beauty of management. You can get rid of insubordinate people. It is their company, their rules. Real life. Interns aren't even employees, they are guests. Belly up to the bar.
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