Getting Fired From My First University Internship

I was required to complete three internships during my university studies to graduate with the internship recognition on my diploma. I was able to find a full-time position for the first time by the end of September 2021 after pouring my soul into searching for jobs and scholarships over three consecutive years. However, it did not turn out as awesome as I thought… The story below recounts the events in detail that I was able to record perfectly, because of my habit of writing in my personal diary.  

THE CALM BEFORE THE STORM

I saw a job offer sent by a fastener manufacturing facility at around 12 PM and the application deadline was set to 5 PM of the same day by the end of September 2021. I had one week left before deciding to quit the internship option of my degree and just graduate. I was literally the only guy who saw and replied to that email so I was able to land an interview with the director of the quality assurance department the next day. We had a nice chat and he agreed to give me an internship as a lab technician along with the possibility of extending it for two other terms. That was great, because I could count those terms as course credits for my degree and not have to look for different jobs each time. So I got there pretty excited and got settled with safety gears and a desk to work at.

THE SHABBY SUPERVISOR

My first day went well and I found out that they needed me quickly because the previous intern was leaving for another better job. I could not really do much on my first four days, because I had to go through some basic training. On my fifth day, the director assigned me a supervisor to grade my performance. She was a woman who worked there for a year and who supervised the intern before me. Upon seeing me the first time and hearing about the news, I immediately saw the anger emanating from her facial expressions for no apparent reasons. I did not think much of it to begin with, because I thought something went bad on that day that affected her mood for a bit, but that it would fade away once it was solved. However, the morning of the following day, she went up to me and started insulting me randomly about how I should have read, understood and remembered everything that the previous intern knew. She said stuff like:

“I thought you would know this by yourself.” (while rolling her eyes)

“Can’t you see this was not well done?” (while shouting and pointing to the previous intern’s work)

“Write down some stuff better and don’t just tell me obvious things from the documents. I can read for God’s sake!” (while shouting again)

She said those despite not having said anything that would infuriate her on purpose. I was not sure if it was an act or if she was serious, but I assumed the latter , because I needed to give her a good impression cause she was the one grading me 😒. That was the first odd instance that made me question how the whole experience would turn out. I thought:

“Will she grade me badly no matter what?”

“How could I possibly have known everything the previous intern knew who worked there for a year?”

“Is it commonplace to insult one another around here?”

“Should I study all the documents?”

I spent the rest of the day just questioning myself and reading a book she gave me, because I still did not have access to the computer. 

INDEED, IT WAS NOT AN ACT

The very next day, one hour after I arrived, she went up to me and immediately said: 

“What have you done since this morning?” (while making a snooty face)

I replied that I scanned some documents which were honestly part of my tasks as a polite response. Then she rolled her eyes still angrily and then asked if I had access to the computer which I literally could not do anything about. When I replied no, she left while making some whining noises and movements. I decided that maybe this would stop if I could prove myself somehow. So I decided to  head to the laboratory and not just stay at my desk to work on one of the projects I was told about. That project involved cutting some small metal coil samples and analyze them with several lab equipment.  She discovered that two hours later and she got mad at me by saying that I was not trained enough to use the equipment. Instead, she made me work on some other project while she would schedule those additional training sessions (which by the way, never happened 😑). That second project was about studying the effects of submerging some metal samples into different chemical solutions. 

A few days went by and I kept working on this second project while still dealing with her petty attitude occasionally. Whenever I would ask her questions or anything, she would always become pissed out of the blue so I kind of stopped asking her anything completely. I remained polite with my replies and always thanked her whenever she took the time to tell me anything. Once again, I never tried to purposely fight against her verbally, because I needed a decent course grade from her. However, I could hardly discern the actual message from her tantrums most of the time. Then came a day when she told me to give a presentation to the director and her about the first project she strictly told me to not work on. In my mind, I went:

“Hold on a minute… all this time, she made me work on something that had nothing to do with the presentation I was about to give in two days?!?! What a dumbass she was.” 

So low and behold, it went horribly, because I literally knew nothing about the stuff I was not allowed to work on. I took their feedback and only then did she schedule an official training session because the director requested her to. Three days went by and she scheduled on one day-notice another presentation, but with so little time to prepare and because I was undergoing the training simultaneously, it still went badly. She then decided to give me three more training sessions not because I needed them, but because the director started to get mad at her and not just at me. One week later, I was given the chance to present for the third time and although it went fine,  my supervisor still gave me a midterm performance evaluation of unsatisfactory. This reaffirmed my worries that she would give me a bad grade no matter what. I pretty much knew at that point, that regardless of the future circumstances, she would still grade me poorly, because that was just how she was. I decided to try and talk to her gently (not confront her) and honestly about the situation. I only suggested to have quick weekly meetings to update her on my progress to avoid any confusions on which projects actually mattered. Throughout that conversation, she displayed even more of her demeaning behavior. She was absolutely overjoyed about the bad things that happened to me and she insulted me even more and this time, personally:

“Do you have difficulties with the language? The previous intern was much better at presenting than you are even though he was not from here so are you even from around here? I have a hard time imagining that you barely belong here or in this country.”

After saying those, she felt satisfied behaving authoritatively and putting me down. I was very stunned that someone in her position would even say those even though I never replied with insults nor did I say anything wrong about her personally at any point in time since I started.  Afterwards, I immediately stopped talking to her about anything and we were done with the conversation. I did not want to engage in a trash talk exchange with personal insults, because I don’t naturally have those chains of thoughts about other people.   I just wanted to get through the rest of the term without getting her mad and with enough done to get a decent grade.

ACTUALLY GETTING FIRED

A week went by while I was working on the first project and in the middle of the afternoon, the director came up to me and said, 

“Do you have a moment? I would like to talk to you.” 

I entered his office, sat on a chair and he said very directly:

“So because I am not satisfied with your previous presentations, you are fired. We will let you work here until your contract ends in two months, but we will not extend the internship for two other terms.” 

And just like that, my hopes of completing three internships were shut down. I have never been fired from a job before so it was also a new feeling for me. I straight away without any hesitation went straight back to online job searching. That same night, I looked for places in the area that were hiring, wrote down their phone numbers and every lunch hour of every following day, I would cold call them.  Then, weeks went by without saying anything to my supervisor including any small talk conversations.  I was just doing the repetitive lab work and reading some past reports as I was told beforehand. At some point, after remembering that I existed and assuming that I was ready, she assigned me to cut 48 thick metal coil samples, test them, record and enter all the data in only three days!! In case you are wondering, a metal coil looks like this: 

I also found out that all the training sessions she gave me significantly did not prepare me properly for this and it took me much longer than three days. It was literally the first time I had to cut thick metal coils which were sharp and hard to pull. Also, they were heavy to carry from the warehouse to the lab and I had to stay overtime on two days to try and speed things up, but to no avail. 

Because I could not finish in three days, she had multiple bursts of anger, sometimes slamming the keyboard or other items. I literally did not even listen nor understand what she wanted. I managed to survive by keeping my head down for the remaining two months and blissfully agreeing to what she said. Fast forward on my last day to avoid explaining the technicalities of my work, she was scolded by the director, because she gave very little and poor guidance that affected my performance. I do not know exactly what happened because I was not in the room with them, but she came out of it bursting once again with rage at me. She was just not able to come to terms with the fact that she was partly responsible. What an asshole she was, incapable of taking anything while dishing out at will. She went as far as requesting me to give her my computer username and password for God only knows what reason:

This whole thing turned her so evil that she was willing to do anything to destroy me in any way possible. Of course, I did not reply to that and I just left quietly while politely saying goodbye to the director.  So  there I was on my last day confused again and told screw you, see you never.

THE AFTERMATH

After job searching for these two months, I could not find anything so I just went back to school for another semester of courses. I got back my supervisor’s performance evaluation the first week after I left and it was brutal. She wrote a lot of false comments making the director believe a lot of nonsense and just some negative stuff to take revenge on me for being scolded by her superior. 

All of her comments were:

-Fabien seems interested from time to time. On the other hand, his efforts in the face of his interest are not (hard to be when getting insulted)

-Fabien has difficulty learning even with the support and resources given. (she was constantly pissed when I asked her questions)

-Fabien does not manage his time well for deadlines.  (gave crazy delays with irrelevant training) 

-The work he presents lacks rigor. He does not bother to make the suggested changes before the presentation of his work although he should have had the time to make them. (That was a lie, the lab was occupied on some days, but apparently she was unaware)

-Does not meet delivery deadlines. Takes much longer to do what is asked of him. Supervised, he is able to do the same task in almost a third of the time compared to when he is not supervised. (irrelevant training given for unrelated work. Worked overtime on several days)

-Fabien is a bit shy and takes time to create a working relationship with his colleagues. (Who would want to open up to someone verbally insulting them? She would say otherwise, all he does is chit chatting instead of working)

-Fabien did not have the initiative to take over the laboratory tasks which are normally taken on by the other trainees. (I did, but I was scolded for doing so, then I had to catch up on my own while she pretended that it never happened)

-His production is much better under supervision which gives us the feeling that he is unreliable. (straight up lie, I worked overtime on several days to try and get it done. Stuff were heavy and dangerous to handle)

IF SHE EVER READS THIS (only for her so not you whoever reader you might be ✌️)

I know she will stumble upon this, but will never admit to. I am 100% certain that any of your past mistreatments has turned you into a piece of shit twat that is taking revenge against anyone below you as much as possible. Always suspecting others are not working as fakely hard as you and supervising them with a grumpy dingbat fuckface to check their work does not make you a hard-worker, but a moronic bitch instead. You took pleasure in mistreating people cause you have the power to grade them like shit if they do not obey your bitch ass. Remember when everyone from the department gathered for your birthday? Well surprise motherfucker, but we all pretended to be happy with dummy smiles including me who only came to eat the cake. You should have witnessed the joy you brought to everyone else when you left the room. You only behave professionally, nicely and politely with a superior, but as soon as you get promoted on “top of anyone else just above you before, you will shoot them behind their back without hesitation. Do not be surprised if someone punches you in return for everything bad you did to them. You can have the job title, the salary and every possible career perks, but life will not reward you for acting like a dumbfuck and instead karma will obliterate that dirtbag of arrogance out of you. You can probably laugh this off and be internally glad feeling like you got the best of the situation cause that is how big of a scumbag you are, but I am sending you the largest amount of fuck yous that your knob dickhead can possibly absorb.  Please understand that I am not insulting you through all of this, but I am simply describing you.

MY TAKE ON THE SITUATION

I overrated the experience and was irrationally grateful for it, because I struggled to find a job (kind of a weird thing to say about gratitude 😅). The whole thing also motivated me even more to become free and have something for myself otherwise I would end up like her hating the job. Whenever a supervisor verbally (or any other way) insults me, I just internally stop listening to them. Nobody, except the director, had genuine conversations such as saying have a nice day while truly meaning it instead of just reciting it for its own sake. The people were mostly gossiping about others or just pretending to like one another.   She was the epitome of hard work signaling as if she was working unimaginably harder than everyone else every microsecond demonstrated when she asked me what have I done in the first hour since I got there (I bet not much from her part either except for making and drinking her horseshit coffee).   She only appeared helpful when the director scolded her and when it affected her. Otherwise, she was more than glad to mistreat me.  

If you are ever worried about getting fired, having disastrous workplace conflicts or if you can’t find any employment, let this serve as a reminder that it only means that you are not meant to be wherever you currently are or try to get in. My life was far from over though, because my university course instructor allowed me to pass that course 😁. I then completed two different internships and graduated. If you ever experience(d) anything similar wherever you are, never give up and to hell those people. Do not let them crush you, because if I could get myself out of this mess and still succeed, then I can 100% guarantee that you can too!