Interns

[Mich the Tester]

If you're managing people you should be a) delegating and b) looking after them to get the best out of them. Nor working stupid long hours and setting a bad example.

Yes, and if you're managing young people starting out on their careers there's a lot more to it; managing talent involves looking after the individual and seeing the signs that an ambitious young person might be pushing himself beyond his limits. Modern sports coaching education pays attention to this; ambition, talent and hard work are great, but some of the most talented young people in any field are also very vulnerable; this guy showed all the classic signs; he'd written an application letter about how he had always been pushed to succeed, how he would always go further to make a success of things, and he had obviously never experienced failure. Modern coaches (as opposed to some of the 'drill sergeant' types of the past that belong in the history books and who often achieved short term gains at the expense of ruined long term careers) are taught to spot these signs and take action to protect talented young people against themselves to stop them overtraining, injuring themselves or ending up in a heap on the floor. The young guy had written about being pushed by his family to always be the best in everything ; he perhaps misinterpreted them as I wonder what his mother would have said if she'd seen him in the state people are in after a couple of days without sleep. He showed all the classic signs of someone who is talented, or even gifted, diligent, hard working and potentially self destructive. Add to that, he had epilepsy, although to be fair I don't now if his employer knew that.

It seems to me nobody picked up on this; perhaps because many managers have not had the right training to look after young ambitious people or perhaps because working all several nighters in a short time had become the orthodoxy, and we all know what happens to people who challenge the orthodoxy in th corporate environment. It's a very sad story indeed; I'm not going to call for gummint regulation of internships because I don't have that much faith in the gummint, but I hope the management learn some lessons from this; Unfortunately I doubt they will as they grew up in the same orthodoxy.

To all the objectors on this site or the Wail who say 'we did this in the past' or 'the army do this all the time' I'd say two things; firstly, the fact that something has been this way for a long time is no justification. For a long time Europeans practised Galenic medicine and bloodletting, until they discovered something better and life expectancy almost doubled. Now we know there are better ways to get the best out of people. Secondly, in the army they're busy with a war; the officers are highly trained in how to get the best out of young recruits, modern scientific insights are used and the officer has real responsibility for his charges and has to account for what happens to them. Army leadership looks all 'shouty shouty' to outsiders but actually it involves a lot of responsibility, good training and an understanding of the human being that very few in corporate-land have mastered. It also provides the best possible medical care in the circumstances and army vicars, priests, rabbis, imams and so on are highly trained in providing pastoral care to young people.

It's a crying shame but I don't imagine it's going to change until some people sort their attitudes out.

Look at this. It is obvious to someone with any training in managing young people that this guy needed to be watched carefully;

In an online portfolio Mr Erhadt told prospective employers that his upbringing taught him to always be driven to be good at everything.


He wrote: 'I have grown up in family that expected me, in whatever respect, to excel in life.

'By implication, I felt somehow pressurizes [sic]. However I did not intend to belie my parents' expectations.

'Therefore I have become highly competitive and ambitious nature from early on.

'Already during my times in elementary school I began playing soccer as well as tennis, I engaged in track and field athletics, and I started ski racing.

'Sometimes I had a tendency to be over ambitious, which resulted in severe injuries'.

The last bit that's underlined should make it crystal clear, even to someone with no coaching education or leadership training, who they were dealing with. It's a bloody disgrace that this wasn't managed properly.

[bobspud]

now I know you are not that dumb.


I can get 25 units of work, which will save my ass/job. or I can get 100 units of work which will help the company 4 times more. mmmm let me think.



youse guys are all talking about whats nice, and morally right and namby pamby goody goody.

I think we ARE in a war. Let me ask you airy fairy tarts one question

if my company acts like it was in a war (and acts legally) and your airy fairy, arty farty, wishy washy, namby pamby, mumsnet basket case company does not
who will go out of business ?

get real guys. we are the shock troops of the future. its a war. the enemy are the competion and the wanky attitudes that are making themselves heard more and more in a once proud forum

But if we are the shock troops of the future why am I in a comfortable position that lets me sit on my backside for most of the week and still remain ahead of the game ? I work smart not hard, Yes I will do 20 hour stints when we get to a DC cutover or a build phase but thats being present while stuff builds,boots or gets racked up. Its not 15 hours productive work... Productive work in an office is probably no more than 5 hours in a 40 hour week. The rest of it is spent sitting in meetings talking about how we are not going to deal with our problems and listening to the unaware try and bend the laws of physics. Sorry meetings go before hours increase...

[Dominic Connor]

Sensationalist BS. Don't see what the problem is. Pay seems decent for an intern (I thought "interns" didn't get any money?) So what if he had to pull some all-nighters, we've all done that at uni.
And it was only for a limited time anyway.
What did he die off anyway? Probably had an undiagnosed condition.

I've never seen an intern at a bank who was unpaid, one guy I helped get an internship informed me that he was earning a more (3K per month) as an intern than hs dad earned in a real job.

Unpaid interns are a mechanism by which outfits run by arts grads in the media keep lower class people out. A year in London unpaid is beyond many people, so that suits them very well. Who watched the Dr. Who announcement last week ?
Look at who was on:
Zoe Ball, daughter of Johnny Ball of the BBC
Liza Tarbuck, daughter of Jimmy Trabuck
Georgia Moffet, Dr Who's daughter, daughter of Peter Davison and just happens to be David Tennant's girlfriend.

That's just the ones easily spotted, some kid called Mohammed whose dad is a bus driver in Birmingham would very rarely get through the BBC process. As some of you know I've been on the BBC a few times, in one conversation with a bunch of BBC-ites I put to them that banking was open to all, regardless of background, one interchangeable Emma took exception to my assertion that children of manual workers like my dad couldn't work for the BBC, apparently her dad had been finance director of Wimpey, the building firm, which apparently made her a counterexample.

Unlike the media, there is an expectation that if you do your internship properly you will get a job, illustrated by the fact that the interview process for internships at several banks is harder than for real jobs, n effect an internship at a bank is a long interview, unlike the media where middle class kids are free labour.,

That means you can interpret a banking internship as 3 month job interview, which can be pretty bloody pressurised.

[Mich the Tester]

...listening to the unaware try and bend the laws of physics...

Yes, I've seen that several times. Like when I demonstrated an application that presented selections of employees for projects on skills, training and then even 'personality profiles' and the more selective you were, the less potential project team members were displayed, some HR numpty gave me combined and extensive details of the people she was looking for and when it said 'no records returned' she concluded there must be a bug and I would have to go back and redesign. I stood there and drew a Venn diagram to demonstrate smaller and smaller subsets in more and more detailed selections. I may as well have been speaking Arabic to one year old Eskimoes.

[bobspud]

Yes, I've seen that several times. Like when I demonstrated an application that presented selections of employees for projects on skills, training and then even 'personality profiles' and the more selective you were, the less potential project team members were displayed, some HR numpty gave me combined and extensive details of the people she was looking for and when it said 'no records returned' she concluded there must be a bug and I would have to go back and redesign. I stood there and drew a Venn diagram to demonstrate smaller and smaller subsets in more and more detailed selections. I may as well have been speaking Arabic to one year old Eskimoes.

I used to get really abusive when faced with people like this. I almost found it abhorrent that someone could make it into the same room as me, but couldn't grasp basics like disks spin fast, but not fastenhough that its ok to pull every username out the database into a memory array and look for your record then (for every user that logs into a web app). But now I see it as a failing on my part for not helping them to understand better....


Yeah right!

[EternalOptimist]

But if we are the shock troops of the future why am I in a comfortable position that lets me sit on my backside for most of the week and still remain ahead of the game ? I work smart not hard, Yes I will do 20 hour stints when we get to a DC cutover or a build phase but thats being present while stuff builds,boots or gets racked up. Its not 15 hours productive work... Productive work in an office is probably no more than 5 hours in a 40 hour week. The rest of it is spent sitting in meetings talking about how we are not going to deal with our problems and listening to the unaware try and bend the laws of physics. Sorry meetings go before hours increase...

why ? because you are complacent. You are like the gull on pitcairn laying his eggs in the open in a field saying, 'what do I have to worry about?'
before the ships rats arrived

[doodab]

Yes, I've seen that several times. Like when I demonstrated an application that presented selections of employees for projects on skills, training and then even 'personality profiles' and the more selective you were, the less potential project team members were displayed, some HR numpty gave me combined and extensive details of the people she was looking for and when it said 'no records returned' she concluded there must be a bug and I would have to go back and redesign. I stood there and drew a Venn diagram to demonstrate smaller and smaller subsets in more and more detailed selections. I may as well have been speaking Arabic to one year old Eskimoes.

EO is right. We are the shock troops, and the war is against stupidity.

Keep fighting the good fight troopers!

[bobspud]

why ? because you are complacent. You are like the gull on pitcairn laying his eggs in the open in a field saying, 'what do I have to worry about?'
before the ships rats arrived

Actually something seems to have happened as I consciously do less work, I get paid more and given less I have two more clients vying for my time at the moment and a client that is paying me about £500 per productive hour. I am starting to get tempted to take a few extra jobs on to fill my time, although that would mean I would have to do a little flounce from here for a while

[EternalOptimist]

Actually something seems to have happened as I consciously do less work, I get paid more and given less I have two more clients vying for my time at the moment and a client that is paying me about £500 per productive hour. I am starting to get tempted to take a few extra jobs on to fill my time, although that would mean I would have to do a little flounce from here for a while

There is nothing wrong with taking a rest now and then, so long as you can go up through the gears when its needed. Dont lose that edge Bobspud

[bobspud]

There is nothing wrong with taking a rest now and then, so long as you can go up through the gears when its needed. Dont lose that edge Bobspud

That bits worrying me too. I keep thinking get ready there's going to be a tulipstorm any moment now... But then a puny piece of work that takes me five minutes pops up and its back to trolling on here I have another very good mate who is also a ninja architect like me and he is also finding that the air is rarified at the top maybe its just the SA's