A rant about a nasty internship student coordinator.

I was ranting about Universities and student candidates for internship  yesterday and reading yesterday's entry might put you in context for this rant.

I seem to remember getting a larger selection of candidates and from many more universities in the past. Some of is is that the reputation of the company I work for in some circles leaves a lot to be desired so some students just won't apply with us.  Some universities burned their own bridges.

One stage coordinator decided at some point that she was going to teach me a lesson and decided that I was banned from hiring students from her university for 2 years until I resolved some 'issues' in my team. She figured that my colleagues would still hire. However from that point on, we stopped hiring candidates for that position from that school since  I was banned from hiring none of us were hiring.  It was probably the last straw as it was already a major inconvenience to hire their students because they were 2 hours outside Montreal and we had to interview them on the university campus.

My boss didn't feel I had done anything wrong, since a large percentage of the problems this university's stage coordinator  had with 'me' were really issues she had with the internship position itself.  I also suspect she was unclear on the concept of what engineers do.

She complained that it wasn't up to her students to do technicians work. Did she really expect students with 6 courses in engineering to be able to do development?  My boss, who was formerly an engineering student told this woman, that he would have gladly mopped the floors in an engineering firm just to see how the company worked when he was attending university!

She complained that students were coming in at 7am and that I wasn't in before 10am and they had no one around to help them out. That one was resolved easily. Students are no longer allowed flex time or to choose their own schedule. They get their immediate supervisors schedule imposed on them or my schedule imposed on them. Exceptions are made if the student has courses and must leave by 4pm. They are  allowed to come in at 8 on those days.  I found this complaint beyond stupid. Until that point students could choose their own work schedule like any other Matrox employee but because some were too immature to take advantage of the opportunity, it's not longer offered.  People who don't want to work generally choose the schedule that overlaps the least possible with the boss to do the least possible.  New employees can no longer ever chose their work schedule.


Another complaint she had was that I wasn't FRIENDLY ENOUGH. That unlike a colleague I had not taken my students out for a beer!! The said colleague at the time was only a few years older then the students and often went for a beer after work. Unlike me who went home to 2 children, and really did not socialize with co-workers ever. My boss said that he was just as quiet and introverted as me and he didn't socialize either with employees and that the role of a boss is to lead work, not to be friends! This stage coordinator was doing her students no favours by letting them think it was ok to expect their BOSS to be their friend.  It can happen but it's very rare.

Another complaint was that even when I was present I was too busy and could not give enough hand holding to the students, and  that they all answered to me. My boss told her that he had absolutely swamped me with work and it was amazing that I managed it that well. That unfortunately between layoffs and departures I was the only person with the knowledge to help the students with the tasks they were doing and that yes people at work are BUSY!!!

She tried to make it sound like I was a horrible boss and while she did a number on me, she attacked me and said things that no professional should ever say in a professional meeting.  I was so upset, that my boss and the HR person of the time also scheduled to have a meeting with her about my case.  Of course neither HR girl or my boss were attacked personally so they could defend me rationally.  After the person finished her attack the HR person said that I'd been at the company for 10 years and had had at least 200 students/permanent employees go through my department, and there was never a complaint made to HR by anyone who's worked for me.  

In fact my company did nothing to resolve 'my problems' because they didn't deem they were 'my problems'. I took out the one positive criticism, that I needed to share the knowledge with my team and made modifications. It's helpful if I don't have all the students answer directly to me. But as soon as I get someone up to speed on a project and it works well with the students, the person leaves and I'm back to square one again.

I know it was one particularly bitchy student from that school, who complained about me.  The coordinator claimed the last 6 students that worked for me complained, but she just warped the data. Sure the students will all say that the stage is a technician level stage, because it is.  It's not a complaint for most it's just the honest truth.

She said the students didn't like their experience so they didn't' come back for a second stage. As far as I know out of the 6, 4 came back for a 2nd stage, including the one who complained, so yeah they were all really traumatized!!  Three of them hated me so much that when they were doing their 2nd stage, they all stopped in at my desk to say hello, some more then once!

The bitchy student was a diva. On the first day when I tried to explain to her what I expected her to do, she cut me mid instructions to tell me it wasn't how you did it.  So I asked her how many years experience she had in testing display drivers. She said none, so I continued and finished explaining what the job she was expected to do. After that day, she did the bare minimum of work. I'd never seen a girl who multitasked so poorly.  She did very little and I'm not sure she realized that she wasn't with us to teach us things but to learn from us.  

Out of the three students I had those 4 months, she was the least productive, spent too much time on the phone chastising her little sister and she was by far the most mouthy. So when I did her evaluation at the end of the stage I did them honestly and hers sucked. Something she didn't appreciate when she realized she had the worst evaluation of them all. 

Maybe she or their stage coordinator thought they would rid my company of the bad seed [me] but I think this student and her coordinator might have been hit with a rude awakening. Just because Ms Diva was a gifted student in imaging, didn't mean that she could tell me or my team what to do or decide how the job was going to be done, a job she knew nothing about and had no experience doing.  When you're a student intern, you aren't given the role of the company's president, unless maybe if your dad is the owner and hers was not!!!!