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MMike

A fowl peckerwood.
Sep 5, 2001
18,207
105
just sittin' here drinkin' scotch
I'm being imposed upon.

So the son of a customer....or potential customer in France is an engineering student. And he needs to do a 3 month stage......sorry "internship" for you american types. So all of a sudden he's my problem.

We've just hired 3 new permanent employees, so I've got my hands full getting those guys up to speed.

As someone who never managed to land one of these choice exotic summer jobs, I need to think of ways to torture the young lad....to make him regret ever tangling with the likes of me!

All suggestions welcome.
 

BadDNA

hophead
Mar 31, 2006
4,257
231
Living the dream.
Interns are really good at making coffee, going on Friday afternoon beer runs, filing paperwork, submitting change control requests, etc. All of the stuff that's going to be hard for you to keep up with while you train your three new engineers you can push off to him and then when it's still not done right you know who to blame. Of course if the young lad manages to get it right there's a couple beers leftover from last week that he's welcome to, right?
 

ire

Turbo Monkey
Aug 6, 2007
6,196
4
Drop him a line and let him know that pants are optional around the office....see if he comes pantless on the first day
 

badphish

Monkey
Feb 28, 2008
294
0
Every employee receives a singing telegram from the company on their birthday. Because money is tight these days, the interns are going to need to perform this task to save the company money. Costume will be provided.



I pulled this with a new dishwasher on his first night at a restaurant where I used to work, except I told him that he had to do it for any of the patrons in the dining room because he was the low man on the totem pole. He never came back to work.
 

JohnE

filthy rascist
May 13, 2005
13,430
1,949
Front Range, dude...
Isnt working with you going to give him enough regret already? That, coupled with being French, will surely haunt him for all eternity...
 

CrabJoe StretchPants

Reincarnated Crab Walking Head Spinning Bruce Dick
Nov 30, 2003
14,163
2,484
Groton, MA
I see interns as a great investment. You pay them very little compared to full time engineers, get them to do the crap/busy work that needs to be done (which frees up FT engineers for "real" work), they learn the ropes by doing said crap/busy work, and you can teach them all the protocols/procedures your company uses with a fresh slate....no need to try to shift a person's work process which follows a previous employer. If you decide to hire them full time in the future, they'll already be 100% up to speed and hop right into real design/engineering work.

That's the exact situation I was/am in. I worked part time for my current employer for 2 years during my Jr/Sr year in college, doing busy work (DCOs/drawing checking, etc.) and some light/minor design work for cheap money. During that 2 years, I learned all about the machines we design/manufacture, the way all the design/documentation processes work, and best of all, how to ACTUALLY apply what I was learning in school to real life work. I've been here full time for 2 years and I'm already the "unofficial" head mechanical guy if my boss (head mech eng) is out (out of a staff of about 10 mechanical engineers/draftsman), as I've been here the longest next to him.


Then again they could be like the intern I had working with me last summer who did nothing but watch soccer games online and sleep all day......so it's a gamble.
 
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TreeSaw

Mama Monkey
Oct 30, 2003
17,669
1,847
Dancin' over rocks n' roots!
Lesson #1 - how to make a good cup of coffee
Lesson #2 - Filing & paperwork
Lesson #3 - delegate...have the intern shadow other people in the office too!
Lesson #4 - suck it up princess ;)
 
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jdcamb

Tool Time!
Feb 17, 2002
19,799
8,383
Nowhere Man!
When I worked for Shearson Lehman. I used to have them plan the golf outings days. Which basically meant having them shadow the receptionist for a couple of days and be her slave. She was happy and I was happy. It saved our department on having to hire a temp to do it. I used to have them deliver personal packaged to our homes and donate them to charity days. I used to recieve huge accolades for them raising a bunch of money on various heartwalks, habitat for humanity days and the like. The desiganted driver assignments were also very popular too. Concert tickets, they were always amazing at getting them. Mailroom training was another popular assignment. Not sure why though....
 

dump

Turbo Monkey
Oct 12, 2001
8,194
4,419
Find out what his ability level is. Assuming he's a bright kid and he knows some stuff, do him a favor and put him to work doing real engineering work.
 

MMike

A fowl peckerwood.
Sep 5, 2001
18,207
105
just sittin' here drinkin' scotch
Find out what his ability level is. Assuming he's a bright kid and he knows some stuff, do him a favor and put him to work doing real engineering work.
Negative. If one thing my 15 years of industry experience has taught me is that even the brightest and well intentioned summer students, unless watched like a hawk 99% of the time, will arse things up in unimaginable ways.....requiring many hours to undo.

We have plenty of little tasks to do that entail minor drawing updates and whatnot......stuff that no-one wants to do, or has time for.
 

moff_quigley

Why don't you have a seat over there?
Jan 27, 2005
4,402
2
Poseurville
Find out what his ability level is. Assuming he's a bright kid and he knows some stuff, do him a favor and put him to work doing real engineering work.
He's French. What makes you think he's interested in this thing you call "work"?
 

dump

Turbo Monkey
Oct 12, 2001
8,194
4,419
Negative. If one thing my 15 years of industry experience has taught me is that even the brightest and well intentioned summer students, unless watched like a hawk 99% of the time, will arse things up in unimaginable ways.....requiring many hours to undo.

We have plenty of little tasks to do that entail minor drawing updates and whatnot......stuff that no-one wants to do, or has time for.
I think that goes without saying... everything he does you have to check... and regularly.
 

dump

Turbo Monkey
Oct 12, 2001
8,194
4,419
and when I said real work, don't have him filing papers... that's what I did during my first and only "engineering" internship. The only "real" work I did was crunch some numbers on a basic flow/rate problem one day. In retrospect, that's probably about the level of the engineers there anyway... a utility company. Bored to death made me dread the job - was probably a good thing because that's what I imagined being a mechanical engineer would be like. That, the 45 minute bus ride each way, having to wear a shirt and tie every day, and getting time-clocked by the surly old secretary who was pissed that I got the vacant window office since I was an intern and not officially part of the hierarchy. One day I missed my bus by 5 minutes, which turned into me arriving late by 1hr - she was pissed and said she would record it and doc my pay.

Keep in mind, I was getting $7.50/hour - which in those days was decent cash for a student job that often was $5.25.
 

$tinkle

Expert on blowing
Feb 12, 2003
14,591
6
- have him stretch out your spandex
- taste test all your body butter
- take dictation in pig latin
- get company logo tat
- must speak in jamaican accent ("licky-boom-boom-down" is his safety word)
- 2 words: lettuce head
 

sanjuro

Tube Smuggler
Sep 13, 2004
17,373
0
SF
Negative. If one thing my 15 years of industry experience has taught me is that even the brightest and well intentioned summer students, unless watched like a hawk 99% of the time, will arse things up in unimaginable ways.....requiring many hours to undo.

We have plenty of little tasks to do that entail minor drawing updates and whatnot......stuff that no-one wants to do, or has time for.
I think you are no obligation to amuse or challenge your intern.

Give him whatever grunt work you deem fit. He might not be happy, but that is a work skill as well: keeping your mouth shut.
 

dump

Turbo Monkey
Oct 12, 2001
8,194
4,419
I think you are no obligation to amuse or challenge your intern.

Give him whatever grunt work you deem fit. He might not be happy, but that is a work skill as well: keeping your mouth shut.
That's a life skill, but grunt work doesn't make for a very rewarding summer internship experience. You can do grunt work anywhere - you don't have to go all the way from France to Canada to do it.
 

eaterofdog

ass grabber
Sep 8, 2006
8,183
1,421
Central Florida
That's a life skill, but grunt work doesn't make for a very rewarding summer internship experience. You can do grunt work anywhere - you don't have to go all the way from France to Canada to do it.
Maybe he wanted to visit the largest french-speaking population that never surrendered to germans?