6 ms·

I was fired from my internship for proposing a more flexible dress code

10 points by rhapsodic 10y ago

Kristine1975 10y ago
>to push back on it in such an aggressive way. Yes, a petition is really aggressive/s
- paulrpotts 10y ago
  So much this. I am absolutely disgusted Green's attitude in response. Green, apparently, never was young, or arrogant, or inexperienced in dealing with work culture, and now stands wholly as a representative of some noxious company's status quo. She tells the fired intern that she "squandered" her opportunity. No, her opportunity was squashed by impatient arseholes eager to bully Millennials. Whelp, I guess learned an important lesson about just how respected their views will be, in their future workplaces! Or something. Added: if they fire a whole group of interns to teach the group a lesson, why the hell did they have interns? They were, apparently, of no actual value to the company? In that case, the internships were effectively BS jobs to begin with. Added 2: there are companies that still require women to wear heels? (TIL...) Added 3: something something ACLU wrongful termination lawsuit something...
  - jnevill 10y ago
    Banding together with other interns and petitioning the company to change their culture is crazy levels of naive. As an intern, you are most likely a net-negative. At best, consider yourself on a long term interview. It's not the time to ask that the company change its culture. If you happened to get picked up by the company and find yourself in a job, it's still not the time. It's not a democracy. The business was built to make money and it was determined long before you got there that the dress code would help them achieve that goal. Unless you can put some money where your dumb petition is, your best hope is some extreme eye rolling.
    - Kristine1975 10y ago
      >it was determined long before you got there that the dress code would help them achieve that goal. That's a big assumption to make. I doubt the company ever tested whether their business made more or less money without dress code.
      - rhapsodic 10y ago
        It doesn't matter. The company doesn't need to justify their reasons for having a particular dress code. If the interns placed so much stock in what they were required to wear during their internship, they should have asked about it during the interview, and withdrew themselves from consideration upon learning of the dress code. But no, they felt that the company should change its policies to suit them. Because they're that darn special.
        Kristine1975 10y ago
        Every human is special.
        rhapsodic 10y ago
        Including the humans who took the risks and did the work that built that company.
    - paulrpotts 10y ago
      >As an intern, you are most likely a net-negative I'm confused by this. Why would I want to take an internship where I was considered a net-negative? If the institution of learning that is placing these interns is slotting people into internships, and they are worth than useless -- net negatives, as you say -- where is that institution's accountability here? Why would any intern walk into that situation? Why would a company take them on under those circumstances? Sure, I would expect an intern to be very inexperienced, to need mentoring, to need training, but the idea is that I'd get free or nearly-free labor in exchange for some of this required mentoring and training... and potentially have some partially trained future employees in the pipeline. It would be, I think, crazy to expect that interns walk in already completely hammered into the appropriately shaped pegs to slot into jobs. I'd fire the person who fired the interns -- I mean, how much time and effort on the part of the people who arranged those internships, did that person waste by being a dick? How does it affect the department plans to get work done with these interns? If the answer is "not at all," why the !@#$% do they take on interns? Some kind of tax break thing? When I was an intern [sometime mumble mumble nineteen-eighty-mumble], I spent a year earning a tiny stipend and working crazy hours because I did tedious work that my organization wanted done but no one had time or inclination to do. I learned a lot, including how to work with people in my department, but I did not learn "I'm worthless and should never question authority because I'll be immediately fired." And, p.s., I've worked with and supervised interns before in several different workplaces.
amyjess 10y ago
I honestly want to find out what company Alison Green works for just so I can remind myself to never ever work there. Any company that fosters that kind of attitude has a broken culture. Edit: Honestly, reading the comments, I want to find out where all these people work and cross off all their employers as places I'll never even consider applying to. No open door policy == broken culture.
- rhapsodic 10y ago
  Alison Green is the advice columnist. She doesn't work for the company that fired the interns. Personally, I think the fired interns were given a valuable life lesson, if they choose to learn something from it. If an employee wants to work for a company, it's incumbent upon them to adapt to the company's standards, not the other way around. This, to me, is an example of the "special snowflake" mindset that colleges foster in students these days.
  - amyjess 10y ago
    If you say that someone deserves to be fired because they gave management a proposal, I would not want to work for any company that would have you. Period. Any company with a healthy culture has an open-door policy. I've never worked for a company that doesn't have an open-door policy, and I never will. And "special snowflake" is a slur used to attack LGBT people 90% of the time.
    - WalterSear 10y ago
      Petitions aren't proposals. And haphazardly laying claim to a perjorative in order to impugn someone? Get over yourself.
    - rhapsodic 10y ago
      > And "special snowflake" is a slur used to attack LGBT people 90% of the time. Got a reference for that?
      - 10y ago
devnonymous 10y ago
I call bs! The whole scenario appears to have been concocted in the mind of this columnist. Who fires a bunch of interns for a dress code petition? If this is true (and that's a big if), methinks these interns are better off not working at such a place.
- Kristine1975 10y ago
  Good point. Especially considering the circlejerk in the comments. Two Minute Hate for managers.
sorincos 10y ago
The mere existence of such a strict dress code should have been already a warning sign against petitions, but yeah a greenhorn could not know this - millennial or not. It's very true that businesses should not be equated with democracies. Now, what would I have done instead? Quit, heck, I wouldn't even have interviewed there (although I'm older so cannot compare). First of all I value input from everybody INCLUDING interns and secondly if I don't want the customer to see butt cracks there's no need to require the whole company to wear matching suits (aka, there are much milder ways).
simbalion 10y ago
Working for other people is a scam. The majority of 'employees' are never paid what they're worth. Employees are usually mistreated or taken advantage of, heck the entire 'internship' thing has become an exploitative form of slave labor. I'm not surprised they were fired. The environment has become so toxic.
- nrinaudo 10y ago
  Slave labour? I assume you're talking about internship in the US, how does that work? In France, I personally pay my interns (no great credit to me though, it's a legal obligation), give them a bonus (usually one month's wages) at the end of the internship unless their performance / attitude has been abysmal, and make sure I devote some of my time to training them (although to be faire it probably averages under 1h a day). It's probably not the best deal in the world, but I certainly wouldn't call slave labour...
  - Kristine1975 10y ago
    > how does that work? Unpaid internship. Aka exploitation.
    - extra88 10y ago
      It depends on the value the intern provides vs. the value the intern receives. In general, I think it's better for interns to receive some pay but money is not the only thing of value an internship can (or should) provide.
      - nrinaudo 10y ago
        While I agree with you now, I recall being on the edge of tears when my very first internship concluded and my manager told me I'd already gotten paid in knowledge and should not expect cash on top of that. For the longest of times, I assumed the knowledge he was talking about was "managers are assholes".

10 points by rhapsodic 10y ago

Kristine1975 10y ago

>to push back on it in such an aggressive way. Yes, a petition is really aggressive/s

paulrpotts 10y ago
So much this. I am absolutely disgusted Green's attitude in response. Green, apparently, never was young, or arrogant, or inexperienced in dealing with work culture, and now stands wholly as a representative of some noxious company's status quo. She tells the fired intern that she "squandered" her opportunity. No, her opportunity was squashed by impatient arseholes eager to bully Millennials. Whelp, I guess learned an important lesson about just how respected their views will be, in their future workplaces! Or something. Added: if they fire a whole group of interns to teach the group a lesson, why the hell did they have interns? They were, apparently, of no actual value to the company? In that case, the internships were effectively BS jobs to begin with. Added 2: there are companies that still require women to wear heels? (TIL...) Added 3: something something ACLU wrongful termination lawsuit something...
- jnevill 10y ago
  Banding together with other interns and petitioning the company to change their culture is crazy levels of naive. As an intern, you are most likely a net-negative. At best, consider yourself on a long term interview. It's not the time to ask that the company change its culture. If you happened to get picked up by the company and find yourself in a job, it's still not the time. It's not a democracy. The business was built to make money and it was determined long before you got there that the dress code would help them achieve that goal. Unless you can put some money where your dumb petition is, your best hope is some extreme eye rolling.
  - Kristine1975 10y ago
    >it was determined long before you got there that the dress code would help them achieve that goal. That's a big assumption to make. I doubt the company ever tested whether their business made more or less money without dress code.
    - rhapsodic 10y ago
      It doesn't matter. The company doesn't need to justify their reasons for having a particular dress code. If the interns placed so much stock in what they were required to wear during their internship, they should have asked about it during the interview, and withdrew themselves from consideration upon learning of the dress code. But no, they felt that the company should change its policies to suit them. Because they're that darn special.
      - Kristine1975 10y ago
        Every human is special.
        rhapsodic 10y ago
        Including the humans who took the risks and did the work that built that company.
  - paulrpotts 10y ago
    >As an intern, you are most likely a net-negative I'm confused by this. Why would I want to take an internship where I was considered a net-negative? If the institution of learning that is placing these interns is slotting people into internships, and they are worth than useless -- net negatives, as you say -- where is that institution's accountability here? Why would any intern walk into that situation? Why would a company take them on under those circumstances? Sure, I would expect an intern to be very inexperienced, to need mentoring, to need training, but the idea is that I'd get free or nearly-free labor in exchange for some of this required mentoring and training... and potentially have some partially trained future employees in the pipeline. It would be, I think, crazy to expect that interns walk in already completely hammered into the appropriately shaped pegs to slot into jobs. I'd fire the person who fired the interns -- I mean, how much time and effort on the part of the people who arranged those internships, did that person waste by being a dick? How does it affect the department plans to get work done with these interns? If the answer is "not at all," why the !@#$% do they take on interns? Some kind of tax break thing? When I was an intern [sometime mumble mumble nineteen-eighty-mumble], I spent a year earning a tiny stipend and working crazy hours because I did tedious work that my organization wanted done but no one had time or inclination to do. I learned a lot, including how to work with people in my department, but I did not learn "I'm worthless and should never question authority because I'll be immediately fired." And, p.s., I've worked with and supervised interns before in several different workplaces.

amyjess 10y ago

I honestly want to find out what company Alison Green works for just so I can remind myself to never ever work there. Any company that fosters that kind of attitude has a broken culture. Edit: Honestly, reading the comments, I want to find out where all these people work and cross off all their employers as places I'll never even consider applying to. No open door policy == broken culture.

rhapsodic 10y ago
Alison Green is the advice columnist. She doesn't work for the company that fired the interns. Personally, I think the fired interns were given a valuable life lesson, if they choose to learn something from it. If an employee wants to work for a company, it's incumbent upon them to adapt to the company's standards, not the other way around. This, to me, is an example of the "special snowflake" mindset that colleges foster in students these days.
- amyjess 10y ago
  If you say that someone deserves to be fired because they gave management a proposal, I would not want to work for any company that would have you. Period. Any company with a healthy culture has an open-door policy. I've never worked for a company that doesn't have an open-door policy, and I never will. And "special snowflake" is a slur used to attack LGBT people 90% of the time.
  - WalterSear 10y ago
    Petitions aren't proposals. And haphazardly laying claim to a perjorative in order to impugn someone? Get over yourself.
  - rhapsodic 10y ago
    > And "special snowflake" is a slur used to attack LGBT people 90% of the time. Got a reference for that?
    - 10y ago

devnonymous 10y ago

I call bs! The whole scenario appears to have been concocted in the mind of this columnist. Who fires a bunch of interns for a dress code petition? If this is true (and that's a big if), methinks these interns are better off not working at such a place.

Kristine1975 10y ago
Good point. Especially considering the circlejerk in the comments. Two Minute Hate for managers.

sorincos 10y ago

The mere existence of such a strict dress code should have been already a warning sign against petitions, but yeah a greenhorn could not know this - millennial or not. It's very true that businesses should not be equated with democracies. Now, what would I have done instead? Quit, heck, I wouldn't even have interviewed there (although I'm older so cannot compare). First of all I value input from everybody INCLUDING interns and secondly if I don't want the customer to see butt cracks there's no need to require the whole company to wear matching suits (aka, there are much milder ways).

simbalion 10y ago

Working for other people is a scam. The majority of 'employees' are never paid what they're worth. Employees are usually mistreated or taken advantage of, heck the entire 'internship' thing has become an exploitative form of slave labor. I'm not surprised they were fired. The environment has become so toxic.

nrinaudo 10y ago
Slave labour? I assume you're talking about internship in the US, how does that work? In France, I personally pay my interns (no great credit to me though, it's a legal obligation), give them a bonus (usually one month's wages) at the end of the internship unless their performance / attitude has been abysmal, and make sure I devote some of my time to training them (although to be faire it probably averages under 1h a day). It's probably not the best deal in the world, but I certainly wouldn't call slave labour...
- Kristine1975 10y ago
  > how does that work? Unpaid internship. Aka exploitation.
  - extra88 10y ago
    It depends on the value the intern provides vs. the value the intern receives. In general, I think it's better for interns to receive some pay but money is not the only thing of value an internship can (or should) provide.
    - nrinaudo 10y ago
      While I agree with you now, I recall being on the edge of tears when my very first internship concluded and my manager told me I'd already gotten paid in knowledge and should not expect cash on top of that. For the longest of times, I assumed the knowledge he was talking about was "managers are assholes".