Out of Your Job Description

[artsfartsyjanet]

In terms of a fast-paced environment, this situation may happen mostly with personnell at the "lowest" totem pole, but how contradicting is your workplace? For example, say you are a paid/unpaid intern in the IT industry or in the engineering dept, and your employer says that they try very hard to not make the environment that hierarchical, and we value you as future leaders at so-and-so company. After three months of hard work within your ever so changing job description within your field (due to business reorganization), your team members who actually work full time push a responsibility on you like cleaning an old office that have binders and hard copy files up the yin yang. Now that you're juggling your feelings of being "gopher" and the annoyance of a fellow team member being the "hatchet" vs. your employee reviews (due the same month), have any of you felt this kind of unfairness?

[tommyhtown]

Yes, and it sucked big time although I wasn't an intern when it happenned. I think the best way is to talk with the person who will be doing your review. Basically it is about managing expectation.

[kimpossible]

The offices that claim they aren't hierarchical usually get that from the top down, where the head honchos decide in a closed meeting that they'll have a flat structure then it filters down the line to middle management and grunts. I wouldn't say it's done maliciously, I'm sure it's a genuine goal they'd like to achieve it's just not going to happen.

There might be a separate but related issues as either an intern or entry level position. You tend to get the crap work and overworked for underpay. There is a school of thought that you have these crappy positions that test a person's resolve and willingness to work, if they do the grunt work willingly then all of a sudden it means you promote them because they've 'proved' themselves.

Personally, I think it's a crock of shit. And I think you can expect to get used as an intern for paperwork cleanup. For some reason anytime I hear someone mention something about an intern at work, it's often in conjunction with archaic boxes of useless paperwork stashed away in a backroom or basement. Or sorting documentation. In short, physical labor for jobs they couldn't get anyone else to do.