Workday

Good food and internship activities

My title is misleading because it makes you think I had a good manager here as an intern. That was NOT the case.

After I left, the following summer I interned at a company where the manager and team invested in me. At the better company, I was put on interesting projects and felt supported as an intern. I worked 1:1 with my manager and did my code reviews with them. It was honest to God such a different experience. Who knew some nurturing could make a world's difference?

On the other hand, the previous summer my manager at Workday put me on a project that was impossible to do. He did not provide any guidance or tell members of the team to help out. There was zero growth during the 10 weeks at the company. The manager also assigned me a buddy that was absolutely useless and did not care about me. He also seemed depressed, so maybe he had a lot going on, but beyond the point.

Anyhow, looking back at the internship, the team clearly had no time for me and it showed. Yes, I understand there are deadlines and time-consuming projects, but if you agree to take an intern, you need to take responsibility for mentoring and teaching that intern.

I also share similar experiences with other female interns during this cohort, so I now assume their treatment of us was pretty sexist. Not to mention the few times a senior engineer hit on me, but that’s a different story.

My confidence was pretty low after that summer because I felt like I was useless.

Now I’m working full-time at a FANG company. Thanks to my manager at Workday and the subsequent summer, I learned how a bad manager can hold you back (especially early in your career) and how a good manager can make all the difference in the world. So thank you to my manager that was clearly incapable of having an intern. You’ve taught me to carefully vet the people I might work with during interviews.

Only let teams that are willing to take interns actually get an intern. Also, don’t force employees to mentor interns if they’re not capable of doing so.