Bad interns

[No Wave Casio Kitsch]

How bad does an intern have to be before you'd decide to ask them not to come back?

The studio I work at has a long-standing relationship with several local schools and there is rarely a time of year we don't have an intern. A lot of the folks we've had have been really wonderful and even with the ones that were just okay, we've been glad to have the extra set of hands to help us out on stuff. I've heard horror stories about interns-past, but in my time at the studio we've only had one whose behavior was poor enough that we felt it necessary to have a talk with them about it.

The guy interning with us now is really trying my patience. There's been a huge difference between "interview" intern and "actual" intern. He always has one foot out the door, has poor phone etiquette, and doesn't complete any tasks without prompting in spite of being given a very clear list of job duties in the interview and on his first day. I'm inclined to talk to him first and see if his performance improves before taking any other action, but this is the first time I've given serious consideration to letting an intern go as I feel his presence is making my job more difficult at the moment.

So.....what've you done with your under-performing interns? Any of them improved upon being talked to? Ever fired one?

Humorous intern stories that might lessen my frustration would be welcome too!

[Z-Plane]

Put the labels on the wrong side of 200 CDrs for a client.
When doing a mailout, put the franking machine brand label on the items and threw the actual stamps away.
Sent to the bank to pay in cheques, he phoned up because he forgot the name of the bank, which was right there on the slips.
Sent to Protape with a list I wrote myself, with one instruction "Just give this to the staff". I get a call from the staff who are pissing their pants because he is stood at the counter asking for some Protape, no sign of the list.
Evetually we paid him with a cheque, he went straight to the record store and tried to buy CDs with this cheque made out to himself.

Fired.

[No Wave Casio Kitsch]

Put the labels on the wrong side of 200 CDrs for a client.
When doing a mailout, put the franking machine brand label on the items and threw the actual stamps away.
Sent to the bank to pay in cheques, he phoned up because he forgot the name of the bank, which was right there on the slips.
Sent to Protape with a list I wrote myself, with one instruction "Just give this to the staff". I get a call from the staff who are pissing their pants because he is stood at the counter asking for some Protape, no sign of the list.
Evetually we paid him with a cheque, he went straight to the record store and tried to buy CDs with this cheque made out to himself.

Fired.

That was all ONE person?!

[Z-Plane]

That was all ONE person?!

Incredibly, yes. We thought we might be victims of an elaborate prank until we realised he stitched himself up just as badly given the chance.

[Snarl 12/8]

When I worked with interns (video production), I always said "no two interns are created equal". I once had this intern get all pissed at me because I didn't want him hooking up a video deck to the capture card on my computer. He said "I know how to hook up a freakin' tape deck to a computer, dude!" (I'm paraphrasing). So, I felt kinda bad that I besmirched his abilities. He plugged the S-video cable into the (ADB) keyboard/mouse jack on the (oldschool) mac G3. He wedged it in there really good. After that, I had a good excuse to tell the effing interns to leave my shit alone.

A similar thing happened with another intern that I totally trusted. He was setting up an Avid station and he plugged the mouse into the keyboard jack and vice-versa (PS-2). He was totally freakin' out that he broke the new avid systems. I fixed it for him really fast after he insisted up and down that he couldn't have plugged those into the wrong jacks (color coded, he told me.)

The thing was, he was (before and after that) a mind-bogglingly rockin' intern. Goes to show that really anyone can make a mistake.

[kslight]

My personal opinion is that if an intern doesn't do well at their "job" they probably either don't like it, don't care, or aren't clear on what you expect out of them. If they aren't performing to your satisfaction I would let them know what they are doing wrong and reiterate what you expect, and what the consequences will be if their performance does not improve. With that, they will either walk out the door or try to do better...

I think they need to be reminded that it should be an educational industry experience and if they don't appear to get anything out of it then there's probably a line a mile long of others dying to come in for the same experience.

[Brian]

Make a list, have a talk, give clear expectations, do not use ANY sarcasm, give them two weks, if you can wait that long, then, if no improvement, FIRE away.

[Jay Reynolds]

How bad does an intern have to be before you'd decide to ask them not to come back?

The studio I work at has a long-standing relationship with several local schools and there is rarely a time of year we don't have an intern. A lot of the folks we've had have been really wonderful and even with the ones that were just okay, we've been glad to have the extra set of hands to help us out on stuff. I've heard horror stories about interns-past, but in my time at the studio we've only had one whose behavior was poor enough that we felt it necessary to have a talk with them about it.

The guy interning with us now is really trying my patience. There's been a huge difference between "interview" intern and "actual" intern. He always has one foot out the door, has poor phone etiquette, and doesn't complete any tasks without prompting in spite of being given a very clear list of job duties in the interview and on his first day. I'm inclined to talk to him first and see if his performance improves before taking any other action, but this is the first time I've given serious consideration to letting an intern go as I feel his presence is making my job more difficult at the moment.

So.....what've you done with your under-performing interns? Any of them improved upon being talked to? Ever fired one?

Humorous intern stories that might lessen my frustration would be welcome too!

I'm just taking a stab here:

Did you (or your partner/co-owner) have to explain what the word "tracking" meant when you were trying to show this person some PT shortcuts?

Does this person, after three days sitting in on music and VO session that all used a U87, still not know which mic the Neumann U87 is?

Did this person, after being given explicit instructions to collate my VO scripts in first numeric, then alphabetical order, barge into the tracking room to give them to the talent before coming into the control room to see if we were rolling? And, BTW, the scripts were out of order.

Did they no-call no-show on Tuesday afternoon only to roll up for the Tuesday night music session like it was no big deal?

Has this person NEVER been on time?


If so, I cleaned the coffee maker yesterday. You're welcome.


If not, I just described the first week of "Skippy", the wonder intern. The thing that is probably going to get this kid fired is attendance/punctuality. I had a fairly big VO session yesterday and we had him in 1/2 before start (I know, it should have been an hour, and I was there an hour early). He was, as always, 15 minutes late. The funny part is that the intern who we had before him just happened to show up at the time Skippy was supposed to be there. Guess who I'm calling for my next two music sessions? Not Skippy.

[cgarges]

I am perfectly capable of running a session myself, so if an intern isn't making things considerably easier for both me and my clients, I have no use for them.

I haven't dealt much with interns in the past few years for exactly that reason, but back when I used to work at studios that got them every once in a while, I developed a few "tests." I usually started by telling them to show up whenever they felt like it. If the band got to the studio at 11AM and the intern wasn't there by 10:30 at the latest, they were done. I had people show up the same time as the band. I had some people show up AFTER the setup was finished! I had one would sit in the corner and read a (non-audio-related) book all day. I eventually apologized to her that my sessions were not more interesting to her.

I had one guy who had interned at another local studio and got thrown up against the wall by the engineer (in front of the clients) for making an unsolicited suggestion. I told the guy that the engineer had probably overreacted, but that I could understand his frustration, since interns are NOT supposed to offer their opinions. Then, the guy proceeded to do the same thing to me. That wound up being his last day.

I have to say that the awesomest interns I've ever dealt with were the guys at Electrical Audio. They were extremely helpful and not the least bit intrusive. They really seemed to have it together and would always appear at the right time and disappear when they weren't needed. They knew where everything was and offered to run the most ridiculous of errands for us. I think those guys were named Daniel Ruder and Ben Flint. That's saying something that I remember those guys' names after three and a half years, considering how little I saw them.

There was a STELLAR article in EQ (I think) maybe ten years ago that Phil Ramone wrote about what makes a successful assistant. I used to make copies of that for all my interns because it's such an "on-point" article.

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC

[Ronan Chris Murphy]

There is a slim chance this intern does not realize they are under-performing. I would say to them ' You are not performing up to the level we expected from you. We are going to use this week to decide if we are going to fire you."

A good intern will jump through every possible hoop to be amazing that week and all the weeks after that. The one the does not is not worth having around.

[roscoenyc]

you get what you pay for.

[rwc]

you get what you pay for.

A truer statement has never been uttered.

[Jay Reynolds]

you get what you pay for.

Except for the rare occasion when you don't.

[Rakoro]

This thread definitely makes me feel much more confident when it's time for me to find an internship. Just knowing how to ask people how I'm doing will help me out. Bad people skills is a dealbreaker.

[megajoe]

There was one intern that hooked his friends up with green, and some dude knocks on the door and asks the owner if this kid is around for a hook up.

See ya later!