- Oct 9, 1999
- 21,019
- 156
- 106
This is getting worse all the time. I'm ready to send them all home.
We have four new interns at work, all of whom are very bright college juniors in either Engineering or Comp Sci. It's been about 6 weeks, and that's more than long enough to get over any initial nervousness. Not a one of them can carry on a conversation, write a document, or work with any of the others.
Intern A talks in a whisper when she's not mumbling and you can't understand half of what she says. Intern B cannot write a whole paragraph without an incomplete sentence and excels at producing incoherent documentation. Intern C asked me if they could have an IM program to "help productivity" when all of them sit together and I am literally 10 feet away. Intern D is so overly sensitive he just about cries if every aspect of his work isn't praised as Nobel Prize material. I have a feeling that in his entire life, no one ever criticized him for anything.
When we meet to discuss as a group the work plan for the week, it's like a lecture. They sit and stare and don't seem to know how to actually participate in a discussion. I asked them to develop a software utility, outlined the requirements, and asked them to divide up the tasks within their group and two days later one of them asked if he could just do it all himself because it "would be easier for (him) than to have to explain to the others what to do."
Every one of these students has a 3.8 or better average at tough schools.
So I told them we won't be using an IM program, we'll actually talk face to face with each other since we're all sitting together, that each of them will have to participate in the weekly planning meeting, and we'll rotate the team leader position twice a month. I won't be surprised if they start having panic attacks.
This is a problem that is steadily getting worse. Please learn how to communicate with others face to face, write in plain English, and work with other people. Unless you're going to run your own one-person company, you are going to need to do those things to have any success.
end rant.
We have four new interns at work, all of whom are very bright college juniors in either Engineering or Comp Sci. It's been about 6 weeks, and that's more than long enough to get over any initial nervousness. Not a one of them can carry on a conversation, write a document, or work with any of the others.
Intern A talks in a whisper when she's not mumbling and you can't understand half of what she says. Intern B cannot write a whole paragraph without an incomplete sentence and excels at producing incoherent documentation. Intern C asked me if they could have an IM program to "help productivity" when all of them sit together and I am literally 10 feet away. Intern D is so overly sensitive he just about cries if every aspect of his work isn't praised as Nobel Prize material. I have a feeling that in his entire life, no one ever criticized him for anything.
When we meet to discuss as a group the work plan for the week, it's like a lecture. They sit and stare and don't seem to know how to actually participate in a discussion. I asked them to develop a software utility, outlined the requirements, and asked them to divide up the tasks within their group and two days later one of them asked if he could just do it all himself because it "would be easier for (him) than to have to explain to the others what to do."
Every one of these students has a 3.8 or better average at tough schools.
So I told them we won't be using an IM program, we'll actually talk face to face with each other since we're all sitting together, that each of them will have to participate in the weekly planning meeting, and we'll rotate the team leader position twice a month. I won't be surprised if they start having panic attacks.
This is a problem that is steadily getting worse. Please learn how to communicate with others face to face, write in plain English, and work with other people. Unless you're going to run your own one-person company, you are going to need to do those things to have any success.
end rant.
Don't worry they will get fired.
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