…because it was the third time I’ve caught him sleeping on the job this semester.
I’m just so frustrated with him. This is his third semester with us, and he did good work the last two semesters. In fact, we were thinking of going through the trouble of sponsoring his visa* (assuming it’s possible) if he had another good semester. Instead he’s done nothing but be a complete fuck-up.
He gets stuck, and instead of asking a question decides it’s time to surf the web for the rest of the day. I can’t count the number of times I’ve come to his cube to ask what’s going on, and have him jump and close the internet browser. Then I ask where he is, he mentioned he got stuck, and I solve his problem in under 5 minutes so he can get back to work. I’ve mentioned over and over that if he runs into trouble, he should ask for help, but instead he just goofs off. I’m ok with checking your email or the news or whatever (hell, I’m on the dope now), but it’s not ok to spend hours browsing the web when you have work you’re behind on.
He’s apparently forgotten basic parts of the job, including things he did last semester. For example, his degree is computer science and he’s specializing in databases. He’s taken all of his specialization courses. He needed me to explain how to run an update query in SQL.**
He’s taking extraordinarily long for any of his tasks. I estimated a semester’s worth of work for him. I did this mainly by saying “how long would it take me to do this? Well, he’s a student, so double that amount of time if he’s fast, triple it if he’s slow”. First task I thought would take him a month if he was on top of it, six weeks if he was having trouble. A month goes by. He’s not finished, looks like my six week estimate was more accurate. Six weeks hits, still not finished, alright, give him some extra time. Two months, still not done. Three months, barely finishing. This has been with me taking extra time to give him advice or explaining how to finish a particular task. I was trying to give him some space to get some experience with design, development, testing, the whole lifecycle of a product, but instead it’s been handholding the whole semester. I’ve even let him know that I was expecting him to take more of an independent role since it’s his third semester, but nothing seems to get done unless I practically stand behind him and watch him do it. Of course, the “goof off as soon as I’m stuck” probably has something to do with this.
He continually takes off without letting me know he’s going anywhere. Really, I want to be reasonable about this, so if he needs to meet with his landlord to keep from getting evicted (I don’t have the whole story there), fine, although I dunno why you couldn’t meet outside of business hours. If you have to look for a new place after getting kicked out, sure, you can have an afternoon to do that. But the key here is you need to tell me IN ADVANCE. I thought this was basic courtesy, but after the second time of “hey, I’m going to be out the rest of the day” I told him he needs to give me at least a day’s notice if he’s going to be out, not 5 minutes (emergencies excepted). Hasn’t stopped him. He’s even come up and said “hey, it’s nice, I thought I’d head out and see a movie with my girlfriend now”… to which I simply responded “Do you think you could do that if this was a full-time job?” and he stayed the rest of the day. Dunno what his girlfriend thought of that.
And then there’s the sleeping thing. I’m not the only one that’s caught him passed out either, which isn’t doing my reputation any wonders if people think I’m OK with my interns taking naps in their cubes.
Part of my frustration is I turned in my two-weeks notice this Monday, so I won’t be around to cream him in his end of semester review. But, I don’t think he would get the message since I’ve been letting him know his performance hasn’t been good on a weekly basis for the past two months and nothing has changed.
I just don’t get it. It’s not like he’s unpaid - he’s making $18/hour. I could understand not giving a shit if you weren’t getting paid. But he’s making more than twice minimum wage, and has a wage in line with his major/experience in our location.
Part of me just wants to fire him, but since I’m not going to be here in a week and his semester ends two more weeks after that, there’s not much point. I’m just pissed and needed to vent. Haven’t had this happen with any of our other interns. My wife thinks he’s on drugs, but I haven’t noticed any signs (nor would I ask him up front).
- apparently his student visa allows him to intern with us, but that visa ends when he graduates, and he’d need an H1-B to avoid deportation.
** For the non-programmers out there, that’s like telling someone you aced your driving test but you don’t know how to put the car in reverse.
