Interns Get Fired En Masse After Protesting Dress Code at Work

[PosPosPos]

This is 100% false. (considering interns are UNPAID)

They shouldn't. And that's even worse, isn't it, in the case they are unpaid?

They have to go through months and years of no pay, before they get a chance at employment.

Maybe it's that some people are brainwashed by the rich into thinking that effectively threatening the survival of humans, albeit in a more metaphorical sense, is not slavery.

P.S. Interns are paid here, even if it might be a small stipend, but then again, fortunately Singapore doesn't buy into the "internships are a privilege" crap.

[echoSAW]

Group A presents a inquiry/request/whatever in writing.

Group B rounds up everyone that participated and kicks them all out on the spot.

...who "threw a fit" here, exactly?

I would say the folks who were there, voluntarily and supposedly to learn something, who rather than take advantage of the opportunity they had decided to rally together and complain as a group thinking that it would actually matter

[bigbaddan]

Slavery is not specifically and only buying and selling of humans, that's human trafficking.

Human trafficking is a form of slavery. Slavery is SPECIFICALLY the buying and selling of humans. Please do a quick search for yourself.

If you hold someone's life at ransom, be it by gunpoint or what they need to live off on, it's slavery.

That is not slavery, at all. That's not any kind of slavery or slave labor. It's wrongful imprisonment.

[NoiseTank13]

This is 100% false. (considering interns are UNPAID)

Not all the time, there are paid intern positions.

[PosPosPos]

Interns are paid with experience. That is the actual point of them being interns. Unless you want to start paying school students that slave away over differential maths or have to.. *gasps* run laps in PE?

What experience? In the end, interns are no better or worse than full time employees who just entered the workforce and skipped internships altogether.

Just because you call yourself an intern, does it make you less capable than people who label themselves employees, or make you less human altogether?

What a laughable and delusional notion.

[Orange Joe]

They shouldn't. And that's even worse, isn't it, in the case they are unpaid?

They have to go through months and years of no pay, before they get a chance at employment.

Maybe it's that some people are brainwashed by the rich into thinking that effectively threatening the survival of humans, albeit in a more metaphorical sense, is not slavery.

P.S. Interns are paid here, even if it might be a small stipend, but then again, fortunately Singapore doesn't buy into the "internships are a privilege" crap.

They don't have to take those positions. They take them while knowing full well in advanced they won't get paid.


They do this to get a jump up on work experience and further their career for later on in life.

[Ragedaug]

So basically the information isn't in the story at all, but you're going to just go ahead and assume it because it fits your argument, even though the OP pretty strongly suggests that this topic was never brought up previously by the interns in question.

Uh....great....?

I guess I'll just assume that the manager in question is secretly an alien lizardman in disguise while we're at it.

nope. I'm going with probability. So with the lack of information, the question about "what else happend" the most probable answer is the one that makes the most sense, not the one that is crazy and outrageous. I'm not saying it can't be crazy and outrageous, I just don't make those leaps. So without the necessary information, I will assume the most probable course of actions took place.

also, "alien lizardman" has very little probability.

[kamuimac]

At this one job I had there was some office drama. One of dramatists came up and asked me what I thought about it and I told her. Turns out she was taping my response and she replayed it for the boss. 4 or 5 of us were let go. I don't need to say that I keep my mouth shut these days.






After complaining at work and hoping to enact change, a class of interns was met with a very unexpected outcome.

After complaining at work and hoping to enact change, a class of interns was met with a very unexpected outcome.

A blog post on askamanager.com says that a reader recently scored a summer position at a company within the field the individual hopes to work in post-graduation. “Even though the division I was hired to work in doesn’t deal with clients or customers, there still was a very strict dress code,” the person wrote, adding that they felt the clothing rules were “overly strict” but weren’t going to complain. That is, “until I noticed one of the workers always wore flat shoes that were made from a fabric other than leather, or running shoes, even though both of these things were contrary to the dress code.”

Angered by the hypocrisy, the reader rallied other interns, and the group wrote a proposal, along with a petition signed by the whole class (minus one who declined to participate). The request mostly focused on footwear, asking for non-dress shoes that would fit under a more business casual dress code, but also asked if it was possible for the workers to not have to wear suits and/or blazers in favor of a more casual but still professional dress code.

The next day, everyone who signed was called into a meeting, where the lot was informed that due to their “unprofessional behavior,” they were being let go. “We were told to hand in our ID badges and to gather our things and leave the property ASAP,” the post reads. The young adults were shocked and weren’t given a chance to defend their actions. But that’s not the worst part. “Just before the meeting ended, one of the managers told us that the worker who was allowed to disobey the dress code was a former soldier who lost her leg and was therefore given permission to wear whatever kind of shoes she could walk in. You can’t even tell, and if we had known about this we would have factored it into our argument.”

In response, Alison Green, the voice behind the blog, shared that while she believes firing the whole group was an extreme reaction, she understands why the employers were highly annoyed. She explained that being an intern is basically like being a guest — the company’s rules are the rules. “To be clear, that doesn’t mean that you need to suck up any and every condition of an internship. You don’t,” she wrote. “But this wasn’t something like asking you to do unsafe work or work unreasonable hours; this was asking you to abide by what sounds like a very common and reasonable professional dress code.”

Since the blog post was published on Tuesday, it has been shared multiple times across the Internet, with many offering their own opinions. “Kids these days. You gotta pay your dues,” Jason Chalker said. “I think the company handled it perfectly.” Julie Borowski wrote, “Interns these days got mouths on them. You’re in audition mode. You better not be slacking with the dress code.” Lucas Correia even made the argument that the situation was the “direct result of the bad parenting and the self entitlement attitude created in both our primary and secondary education system.” Glenn Beck also offered his opinion, writing that “real life can be brutal.”

Because of the attention the article received, with a majority of the critics calling the millennial generation delusional and blaming “young people today,” Green added an editor’s note. “The letter-writer’s generation is far from the first to bridle at dress codes or misunderstand office culture or start out with little knowledge of how things work in offices,” she said. “This is about being young and new to the work world, not about what generation they belong to. Most of us made plenty of mistakes when we first started work — I certainly did. So please go a little easier on this person.”

so a few retards decided that they know better and wanted to start revolution in dress code still as new interns ? there is no cure for people's stupidity i guess - that was a very good lesson for them. jezus how retarded are young adoults these days :/ where the f.. where parents to teach them life :/

[Dextroden]

Not all the time, there are paid intern positions.

I had one myself. Not much pay or hours since I was 17. But, hey, not bad for "slavery", amirite?

[Laerrus]

“Just before the meeting ended, one of the managers told us that the worker who was allowed to disobey the dress code was a former soldier who lost her leg and was therefore given permission to wear whatever kind of shoes she could walk in. You can’t even tell, and if we had known about this we would have factored it into our argument.”

Management didn't have to tell them shit. That soldier's disability was private and quite frankly none of their goddamned business.

Management did the right thing here.

[PosPosPos]

Human trafficking is a form of slavery. Slavery is SPECIFICALLY the buying and selling of humans. Please do a quick search for yourself.

Human trafficking is a subset of slavery that specifically deals with buying and selling of humans; slavery is not limited to its subset. You should be the one to check the dictionary and read some article on what it's about.

That is not slavery, at all. That's not any kind of slavery or slave labor. It's wrongful imprisonment.

So slaves in the past didn't have chains or some sort of blackmail to keep them in their places? That they were just free to roam around with no consequence?

Do you even realize that you are splitting hairs and drawing two completely different conclusions when presented with identical situations?

[Polyxo]

Dress codes are really stupid unless you're working directly with the public, and even then, they're mostly stupid.

[Dextroden]

Jesus, man. They're just managers, not the King.

They can still can you if they think you'll be an issue. Right to work laws are the thing people should be complaining about.

[Ragedaug]

And how convenient that your version of, "What's likely" happens to align with your view on the topic.

I'll just go ahead and stick to the course of, "Not making shit up."

You are making stuff up too if you want to assume this is the first time any of this came up. No where in the story does it list their employment history. I'm just playing devils advocate, based on what I believe is the more likely "rest of the story".

And I do suppose it is convenient. I hate it when I get riled up about an event just to find out there was missing information that completely explained and justified what happened. That has caused me to be more cautious about getting outraged when I don't have all the facts. Makes me look like a jerk in the end.

[kamuimac]

What experience? In the end, interns are no better or worse than full time employees who just entered the workforce and skipped internships altogether.

Just because you call yourself an intern, does it make you less capable than people who label themselves employees, or make you less human altogether?

What a laughable and delusional notion.

exept in 99 % of cases it does - in 99 % cases interns are clueless babies without any previous work experience and that why they applied to internship not to entry work position in company - in this case not only they were clueless but clearly kinda retarded so ye interns are basickly pushovers untill they get some work experience.

[echoSAW]

Another key point here that others have brought up; these people took the internship voluntarily. I'm guessing that, since the employer was fine with dropping a bunch of interns all at once, that there were plenty of other people waiting in line to take those positions. The best case scenario here is that the fired interns learned a lesson in how to handle yourself in a real-world scenario, rather than thinking the whacko world of career academia actually applies anywhere else.

[Crissi]

Dress codes are really stupid unless you're working directly with the public, and even then, they're mostly stupid.

Then blame the clients that have sterotypical expectations of who they use / hire. The employers just cater to their expectations.

[bigbaddan]

Dehumanizing other members of the working class so that they'll spend more time attacking one another rather than dealing with their shared interests is a pretty common strategy of the anti-union/anti-workers-rights groups.

That would be silly, and false.

[Deleted]

not sure what to say about them getting fired, but not wanting to follow the dress code where you are an intern is just dumb, if you're an intern you should really just get on with it when it comes to dress code. if it was complaints about working conditions or something similar id understand, but dress code is so trivial.

[Slant]

Jesus, man. They're just managers, not the King.

They're the ones paying your wages. That pretty much makes them your king. And also, they most likely earn ten times as much as a regular worker does. That means an hour long meeting talking about bullshit may be okay among interns that cost practically nothing, but wasting a managers time that easily earns 100+/h actually costs the company money.