- Oct 9, 1999
- 21,019
- 156
- 106
You never know, maybe someone will learn from this, or share it with a friend who needs to hear it.
We had some interns working for us for a couple months while they were finishing their Associate Degree in a technical school. Sometimes we'll have an opening for a permanent position that coincides with the end of the internship period, and we'll offer the job to one of the interns. This is a win-win situation - we've seen how well they work (good work quality, follow directions well, show up on time EVERY DAY, etc.) and they already know exactly what is involved with the job.
At the tech school, our company is considered a prime place to get an internship, because we pay them well. Many other places don't pay people on internships at all.
The latest internship ended about six weeks ago. We had a position open up recently, and called the technical school about offering it to one of the interns who was here. "Bob" was working at a fast-food joint in a local mall for $6.50/hour. He accepts our job offer (full benefits, nice office environment, flextime, good job security, and about $12/hour). Since we're eager to get him started, he starts immediately.
Bob fails the mandatory drug test a week later. But, to be fair, we do another one when this happens to avoid any inadvertent mistakes.
Bob fails the retest yesterday. The results are phoned in this morning, and newly-unemployed Bob is escorted out of the building.
He might figure it's no big deal, and maybe it isn't. Maybe he really didn't care about the job anyway. But now, the school placement office will want to know why he left here after only 10 days. All we will tell them is "he no longer works here", but the school will know something very unusual is up anyway, as we've hired a dozen students from there, we know the placement people personally, and never had a problem before. So it's likely they aren't going to try very hard to get this guy another job as they know he certainly did something wrong big-time.
Now he won't be able to use us as a reference for the work he did on his internship, either. And when he tries to get another job, they are going to wonder why he didn't use his internship company as a reference. That will cripple his chances.
And now Bob is going to have a hell of a time getting a job in the field he's just spent 20 months and $17,000 to get a degree in. But I'm sure he can get his fast-food gig back at $6.30 an hour. Good luck paying back school loans on that.
What's my point? Things can have a much bigger impact than you might think. I'm sure if someone had explained the long-term implications of such a thing to the students, fewer people would end up in this situation. Bob, I hope all that partying was worth it.
We had some interns working for us for a couple months while they were finishing their Associate Degree in a technical school. Sometimes we'll have an opening for a permanent position that coincides with the end of the internship period, and we'll offer the job to one of the interns. This is a win-win situation - we've seen how well they work (good work quality, follow directions well, show up on time EVERY DAY, etc.) and they already know exactly what is involved with the job.
At the tech school, our company is considered a prime place to get an internship, because we pay them well. Many other places don't pay people on internships at all.
The latest internship ended about six weeks ago. We had a position open up recently, and called the technical school about offering it to one of the interns who was here. "Bob" was working at a fast-food joint in a local mall for $6.50/hour. He accepts our job offer (full benefits, nice office environment, flextime, good job security, and about $12/hour). Since we're eager to get him started, he starts immediately.
Bob fails the mandatory drug test a week later. But, to be fair, we do another one when this happens to avoid any inadvertent mistakes.
Bob fails the retest yesterday. The results are phoned in this morning, and newly-unemployed Bob is escorted out of the building.
He might figure it's no big deal, and maybe it isn't. Maybe he really didn't care about the job anyway. But now, the school placement office will want to know why he left here after only 10 days. All we will tell them is "he no longer works here", but the school will know something very unusual is up anyway, as we've hired a dozen students from there, we know the placement people personally, and never had a problem before. So it's likely they aren't going to try very hard to get this guy another job as they know he certainly did something wrong big-time.
Now he won't be able to use us as a reference for the work he did on his internship, either. And when he tries to get another job, they are going to wonder why he didn't use his internship company as a reference. That will cripple his chances.
And now Bob is going to have a hell of a time getting a job in the field he's just spent 20 months and $17,000 to get a degree in. But I'm sure he can get his fast-food gig back at $6.30 an hour. Good luck paying back school loans on that.
What's my point? Things can have a much bigger impact than you might think. I'm sure if someone had explained the long-term implications of such a thing to the students, fewer people would end up in this situation. Bob, I hope all that partying was worth it.
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