I can understand being tired. I can’t understand waffling when stuck on a problem. Not as an intern or any stage of employment.
He’s not waffling. He’s slacking. If he really didn’t know how to handle the problem he’d get help. Instead he’d rather not do the work, and when he’s asked why he didn’t do the work he comes up the the excuse that he didn’t know how. But that’s not an excuse, it’s just another way of saying “I didn’t feel like it.”
Yeah, that would be my guess, too. Assuming this guy is in the normal age range for a college student, people that age do seem to be more prone to sudden-onset anxiety / depression / other issues than fully fledged adults; I’ve seen a number of formerly conscientious students develop them, and it often looks like slacking from the outside.
Speaking as someone at a university that helps arrange paid internships with tech companies…
Please follow the above advice, and let the university know about this. If he was one of my students, he would FAIL the internship, and because these are mandatory, he would not get his degree. But more importantly, I would want to know about a major behavioral change in one of my students. There are some big red flags here, especially with an international student.
An anecdote: I got into medical school with the local equivalent of a 4.0 GPA and several prestigious extracurriculars, programs for talented students, etc on my application. I read thousands of pages worth of books and articles a week out of sheer ravenous curiosity, consistently frustrated teachers by turning in assignments that were twice the recommended length, and played 20-25 hours of high-level sports a week on top of this.
Come medical school, I couldn’t concentrate on reading, didn’t get my coursework done, and generally started avoiding anything that had to do with school because my complete inability to concentrate frustrated me to the point of tears. I went from a model student with a 99.9th percentile GPA to literally flunking out and abandoning med school entirely. Shortly after, I was diagnosed with an anxiety disorder and comorbid depressive episodes.
And where am I getting at with this? People who aren’t slackers don’t turn into them overnight - apathy and avolition are characteristic symptoms of a host of mental illnesses. It sounds like he needs help, not scorn, to me.
I don’t know what we pay, but the internship comes with a free rental car and free housing. I got interns every year because I assume they gave us a good rating and we hired a bunch of them.
I agree with the advice about telling the school, and I think it is time for a bit of straight talk with him. He might be in denial. While he has every right to withhold medical conditions from you, being on disability is a lot better than getting fired and/or an unsatisfactory review. But it is easier for him to deny everything to himself and try to tough it out.
I understand your distress. People who have never been managers think that managers just can’t wait to screw or fire their employees, while good managers are upset when someone in their staff fails, because they are thinking about what they have could have done differently to bring the person around.
there are many other possibilities. I contracted mononucleosis in my 20s and basically spent 4 months trying to stay awake, luckily people were sympathetic and let it slide.
See, there’s your problem. You need to stop hiring interns from that trade school across the street from the hot dog restaurant, and get qualified candidates from a good university. Say, the one about 66 miles east of your alma mater, for example. Then you’d have interns who were educated, as opposed to just trained.
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Unfortunately, we don’t have any openings for Turfgrass Management, Studio Art, or Dairy Science majors. 
His end of semester review is tomorrow, since Friday is my last day. There will be a bit of frank discussion then, although nothing should be a surprise to him.
And if he requests some sort of letter from you?
Remember the song “Take this job and shove it”.
There is the line “woman just left, took all the reasons, I was a workin for…”
I bet if you checked his browsing history he would be looking at dating sites.
I’m not sure what you mean.
I think kayaker means a letter of reference, for when he applies to other jobs.
I’m not too sure if I would go through the bother of having a “frank discussion” unless there’s another person in the room who can verify what you said and his responses.
Probably better in the long run if you merely make sure that his paperwork is in order, his desk is cleaned out, access to systems are denied, etc… and then shake his hand, say “thank you” and escort him to the door. Don’t worry about venting your frustration or “telling him how it is” or anything like that - be a professional, let it go, and just get him processed through and out the system as soon as possible so everybody, especially yourself, can move on.
Those aren’t really common in my industry. In general the most someone would expect is to put down a name/phone/email for a reference and the interviewer (or probably HR/background check) would call/email for the reference. A letter isn’t something I’ve heard of since grad school.
If he asked even after everything I would just tell him not to bother.
My boss sits in on all the intern end-of-semester reviews, so that’s not an issue.
Well, we had the end-of-semester review today.
It started late - not because I wasn’t ready, not because my boss was finishing something up - we were both in my boss’ office waiting for him to show up. He didn’t, because he had fallen asleep in his cube AGAIN. It was unbelievable.
Anyway, I woke him up, had him come in and shut the door. I started off asking what his plans for the future are after finishing his work term. While he does have a couple of classes left, he did mention he was unable to get a job, so he’s working on a personal portfolio to try and overcome that. But he’s probably going to have to return to his home country since his visa won’t let him stay after graduation.
I asked what he thought about the semester in general, and he mentioned he really appreciated a chance to work on a production system. He said he felt like he learned a ton and it really complemented gaps in his knowledge from his college program (Although, having been through his exact college program myself, either it has gone screamingly downhill since I graduated or he paid zero attention to half his classes). I was glad he felt like he got a lot out of it, at least.
I then asked if there was anything he felt he could have done better. He did admit that his time management was very poor - he apparently joined several student clubs this semester and has been working on his portfolio after work and wasn’t planning out a schedule that let him do all of those things very well. I was glad for his introspection but I did remind him that while we’re happy to work with a schedule like that, letting me know you’re peaceing out in 5 minutes before you hit the door is not professional, and while he improved a bit on that this semester there were even times this week he didn’t give more than an hour’s notice before leaving early. I mentioned he’d need to give better notice at whatever job he found next, especially if it was one that’s less flexible with time off as we are.
Then it was my turn to talk. I started off with saying I was glad he had good performance his first two semesters, but this semester was disappointing. I mentioned that nothing I was about to say should have been a surprise since we’d talked about it during the semester. However, there was a lack of following directions, turning in half-finished portions of a project and claiming the whole thing was done, not testing any of his code before claiming it was done, and not following company procedures on source control and continuous integration that he’d be reminded about several times before. I tried to be clear that I wasn’t saying this to rag on him but because I want him to be successful at his next job. He seemed to take it to heart.
Then I mentioned the sleeping. Especially after how being warning about it multiple times and being sent home last week he was zonked out right before his review. This is when he decided to drop the bombshell that he’d be diagnosed with some disorder and was only getting 3 hours of sleep a night. That’s hard, but I reminded him that the professional thing to would be to let us know you have a medical issue (don’t have to tell us what it is), and we would have been fine with letting him come in late, leave early, hell he could even clock out and take a nap in his car if that’s what he needed, but just deciding to pass out in his cube while on the clock is totally unacceptable. My boss chimed in to say that while we want to work with any issues an employee might have, it’s a two-way street and you have to let us know there’s an issue and that you’re not just blowing us off.
Anyway, I wished him luck wherever his career takes him and thanked him for his time. I managed to get through it without raising my voice or cursing. I repeated again that he had this review not because I wanted to piss him off, but because I want him to be successful down the line. After he left I had an after-action with my boss. My boss felt I handled it about as professionally as possible, which is easy when you’re congratulating someone but a lot harder when you have to tell someone they didn’t do well. I appreciated that.
Anyway, that’s the followup. Sounds like a lot of what people suggested in this thread were in play - some medical issues, too much going on outside of work, some emotional distress over not getting a job and getting effectively deported after graduation. I just wish he had be more upfront so we could have worked with him to make this semester a successful one. Especially since there were several times during the semester when I asked if everything was ok and he never mentioned anything. Oh well.
I have my “I moving on” luncheon in about 5 minutes and he’s welcome to come if he wants. I don’t think we’ll cross paths again and I can’t in good conscience give him a recommendation for any jobs he’s looking for, but I hope he finds success.
Now that we know that he was having multiple personal/medical issues, I wonder how much these kinds of factors might have influenced his behavior:
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General inexperience regarding how to deal with problems in the workplace.
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General fear about bringing up problems with an employer.
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Cultural notions about workplace behavior and admitting weaknesses.
Given the situation both you and he could not ask for a better outcome. Well done. I salute you.
Enjoy your well-earned hail and farewell party.
@Acsenray: And general attitudes to illness. As a college kid the one thing I knew about illness or infirmity was that the only ill people my age were defective losers. I wasn’t a defective loser, therefore I couldn’t possibly be ill. Had I actually gotten mono or whatever as somebody suggested up-thread I’d have been utterly unequipped mentally to handle it. Not to mention the kinda rudimentary medical arrangements for most students at most campuses.
Does this guy have some kind of internship coordinator or liaison at the school/college he is attending? In other words, did he set up this internship all by himself, or is there a relationship between your company and the educational institution?
If there is a business/educational institution relationship, I would urge you to connect with this student’s program to let them know what has transpired. It’s important for them to be in the loop on this.
Do you work for a real business, or some sort of charity?