457
adnanh
7y

Got assigned an intern to mentor him, with an explicit order not to do any of the legwork for him.

We start out with some fuzzy requirements. Intern starts overengineering a generic solution, so I make out a best architecture that conforms to the business requirements and I explain it to the intern why are we going to use such approach and tell him how we are going to do it in three phases.

I explain the intern the first phase, break it down in small tasks for him and return to my projects...

After a couple of days of no words from the intern, I decide to check up on him to see how is he progressing, only to hear him complaining the task is boring. So, instead of doing the assigned tasks, he decided he should do a "design" for a feature I told him explicitly not to do, since it is going to be designed by the design team later on.

I explain it to the intern that we have to do the boring task first because we can't proceed with the next phase of the implementation without the necessary data from the phase one.

Intern says okay and assures me he got it now. Few days later, I check up on him, and he tells me he feels he is doing all the work and that I don't contribute to the project. I call up my boss and tell him intern wants a meeting. Since I was working from home, I quickly pack my things and head to the office. Boss talks to the intern before I managed to get to the office. Once I got there, I meet the intern, and he tells me everything is okay. I ask what did the boss say to make things okay all of a sudden, and he tells me he said we are a team now. Our company has a flat hierarchy model, so he tells me he doesn't feel he needs a mentor, that we are both equal, and that I have no idea how to work in a team, and then proceeds to comfort me on how human interaction is hard and that I will learn it one day... I was like wtf?

I tell him to finish the phase one of the project and start with the phase two, and I leave home again.

I call up my boss and ask him what did he say to the intern, and he says: "nothing much, just explained the project a little bit and how it fits in the grand scheme of things.". I ask about the equal team members thing, and me not being a mentor any longer, the boss goes wtf, saying he never said anything about that to him.

So the kid can't focus on a single task, over-engineers everything and doesn't feel he can learn anything from developers with more experience, doesn't want to obey commands, and also likes to lie to manipulate others.

Tomorrow we'll decide what to do with him...

Sorry for the long rant, it was a long stressful day.

Comments
  • 169
    Some people can't get how lucky they are of being mentored by someone with a lot more experience. Fucking up opportunities.
  • 65
    @dotdeb the thing with this kid is that he is so full of himself. He said that he'll listen and do tasks only the person that's paying him asks him to do. Rest of us have no authority to tell him what to do. LOL, I haven't seen seniors with 20+ years of experience that much full of themselves...
  • 36
    Geez what a nut. I know a person or two from my uni that are exactly like that. I have an internship now and consider myself extremely lucky to be learning techniques that will help me be a better developer in the future.
  • 15
    Speechless lol, best u can do is remove him asap , people like that are bad for a company's culture.

    I don't like someone using the expression : 'obey commands' tho .
    Sure he works for your boss and you are mentoring him , but obeying commands is something a dog or something that you own should do, not fellow humans.
  • 10
    Subscribing in hopes @adnanh updates us on how it all plays out
  • 5
    @IWriteCodeYay yeah keep us updated
  • 13
    Time for the phrase "do as your told or find another job" I reckon.
  • 10
    It's the "immediate results, I need to tweet, where's my Starbucks" generation dude. The future is scary.
  • 28
    Fuck man if I had a mentor he would need a restraining order against me at some point because of my thirst for knowledge
  • 14
    Stupid kid don't know how lucky he is having a mentor. I interned for months and spent most of that time working on frontend because that's what the CTO wanted despite that liked backend. Today, I am better at frontend than I was, and still know how to work backend.
  • 8
    I agree with everyone on this thread. During my internship my host/mentor taught me so much, I don't think I'd be where I am today if not for him.
  • 4
    @ImNotAlfred Ahh, English is not my native language. I did not mean it in a negative context of putting someone down, help me find a better word? :)
  • 9
    The whole situation is plain and simple - the intern MUST be fired without any hesitation.

    Once we had an interview with a candidate for an internship. He was a student of computer science, he knew almost nothing about programming, he didn't have his favorite language, he haven't been doing anything in his free time to expand his knowledge (except mandatory projects on the university but he didn't know much about them either) and he wanted a salary for a person with 1-2 years of commercial experience.

    We rejected him during that interview.
  • 7
    @mantekillah yeah :( development requires patience, a lot of patience... And self discipline, motivating yourself to go through the boring parts to get to the good ones... It's part of the everyday routine...
  • 11
    @adnanh you're 100% right about the patience. but even the boring stuff can be interesting if you want it to be interesting. write a script, automate, use design patterns etc. There are so many possibilities. That's why we are devs, right?
  • 4
  • 0
    I'd like to have a mentor. Stupid one that is
  • 10
    I feel the intern was applying for wrong job. Those are not the qualities you need in dev, but he can do much more in marketing and sales kind of job where these skills are revered and he might find something interesting other than doing boring coding stuff.

    I understand all here are lets fire him, how the fk he behaved like this and all the rant (and I partially agree), but I think it would be constructive to give him guidance and feedback in exit interview.

    He is normal person lost in dev world!
  • 4
    Ungrateful fuck
  • 7
    *cough* sociopath *cough*
  • 3
    I'd like to see what happens after 24 hours. Maybe the intern'll come around after realizing what he's said, people are like that sometimes. Maybe not.

    In any case, keep updating this thread!
  • 1
    So damn true.@dotdeb
  • 9
    First rule for an intern job ( though applicable to any job):

    -Leave ego at home

    Second rule:

    - Have integrity

    Nuff said

    🤓
  • 2
    Please give us an update.
  • 3
    You should not have to wait until tomorrow to decide.

    People like that having opportunities while humble and hard working devs eating shit everyday looking for an opportunity.
  • 1
    Tagging to hear response.
  • 4
    In his (intern's) defence, he's a noob. He don't know shit. Firing him will only make it worse. He needs guidance and experience to understand he's not right.

    With time, and a few fuckups he'll understand how retard he was back then.
  • 7
    It's guys like that, who turn in the worst pm's over time.
    2 faced, backstabbing, overpromissing
    Just the right 'qualities'
  • 23
    Update #1:
    Given his age we decided to give him a benefit of the doubt, so we'll try to continue the project we started, and see how it goes so we can evaluate his performance and see of there are any changes in the attitude.

    Today, boss and I sat again with him, and the boss explained it to him that I am the guy calling the shots, and that he should listen and learn. He said he needed to hear that from the boss, and that everything is okay now.

    If anyone is interested in further development of the situation, I'll keep you posted :)
  • 2
    @adnanh Keep us posted :)
  • 2
    I too am interested. Why do I feel that he won't learn the lesson....
  • 8
    Sounds like a sociopathic manipulative prick. He'll go places. *sigh*
  • 5
    @yendenikhil Simple, 'cause he said he "needed to hear it from the boss".
  • 3
    And I am curious here how he actually went through the hiring process.
  • 1
    @popcorn Do you know you are opening a can of worms? Do you want to do that? :P If so I need some popcorn (not you the food stuff :P) to see how it goes from here on xD.
  • 10
    @popcorn We sometimes hire young people like him to see if they have a good potential. Since they don't have a job, we can hire them and evaluate their performance, attitude, eagerness to learn and work, on a small project. We don't have much to lose as a company, but we can get a good employee in 2 years if the candidate is a good material.

    He seemed like a good candidate on the first interview, he had side projects, good attitude and was willing to learn new technologies...

    This is why sometimes interviews can't predict situations like these :(
  • 9
    @adnanh But I applaud to the approach of the company, this allows young talents to join without having experience. I know many good devs, just out of uni and cannot get job cause they dont have enough experience. How will they get experience if noone hire them. It is like chicken and egg.

    TLDR: Good work :) (Even with few bad eggs).
  • 8
    @yendenikhil exactly, also the most talented and experienced developers are almost always taken and are not interested in switching... So it's sort of better to invest into young talents and shape them up :)
  • 6
    Of course, you have to maintain certain ratio of senior/medior/junior/intern people.
  • 1
    Wow, I see... but does the company also pay their interns? @adnanh
  • 0
  • 2
    Well, he already lied to you several times...
  • 1
    He will get no where in life that's for sure. Pat his back and tell him "keep up the good work" then kick him in the butt.
  • 5
    @yendenikhil My gut feeling is telling me that he'll come Monday morning to tell us he's quitting.

    I think that he honestly believes that we are being unfair by giving him someone to mentor him.

    He simply thinks he knows it all, and that he doesn't need someone to help him learn. :/

    I'll keep you fellows posted :)
  • 6
    Man, your company sounds amazing. Hiring young people, training them, boss that listens.. nice.
  • 6
    @Letmecode In this whole situation the loss can only be on his side.

    If he leaves, gets fired, or stays and learns some lessons, it won't affect my life, carreer or skills in any dramatic way.

    I really wish all the best to the kid.

    We have given him a second chance, so we'll see how it goes :-)
  • 4
    I had a similar situation once, guy overengineering things and adding features just because somebody "might use them", and in that process he added a feature which when used will break the application since it removes permissions on global scale. Other than that he was quite obnoxiuous to everybody, even to mentors, until you show him how wrong he is. We didn't want to fire him as we thought that this was something which can be drilled down with experience, but he left on his own few months after.
  • 2
  • 0
    Test
  • 2
    In for updates
  • 1
    🤗
  • 4
    Sounds like a guy I used to know - they MADE us hire because he was the big boss's nephew, but he was a complete waste....hope that's not the case for you.
  • 3
    I'm in for the update
  • 5
    Even removing everything coding related or even thinking it may be a genius who doesn't need tutoring... this guy is a manipulator. I find these kind of people among the most toxic since with no doubt turn people against each others just for personal benefit.

    Hope you get rid of him only for that reason only.
  • 5
    I've done a lot of internships and I know the importance of a good mentor. He is lucky to have so many chances
  • 1
    That is just so damn rude !!!!
  • 5
    Subscribing for updates as well.

    I also got lucky and got assigned a great mentor from day one when I started out as new employee. He left the company less than a year after, but left me with a solid base to build on. Years later, I get to mentor interns in turn, and still, for me, the learning never stops!

    With an I-know-everything attitude, all you're really hurting is yourself..
  • 1
    I'm sorry you have to go through this - subscribing for updates
  • 3
    If you want to mentor me instead, I'd make a great replacement
  • 6
    Say what you will broseph, but that intern bout to get you a stress ball son!
  • 2
    What an utter fuck of an intern.
    Peace be with you man
  • 1
    Subbing for updates
  • 1
    Your not alone, just know at some point , your intern will learn , and know how important is to have a couch .
  • 2
    I wish I could have a mentor :'(
  • 2
    I wish I had a chance to have a mentor. Burn that ungrateful fuck. Literally set him on fire, it makes me mad knowimg he exists.
  • 3
    I wish I had a mentor. He doesn't know how lucky he is.
  • 3
    I wish i was working with mentors. I had todo solo work when i learned how to code. Needless to say i had a nervous breakdown before i was 24. Teamwork is the most important experience yo can learn. If the intern is not a teamplayer, then he or she is poison that you'll have to fix.
  • 4
    @adnanh I have seen some senior developers with profound incompetence and inability to pull out a good architecture. Some would even contradict you on subject they have never seen in their life.

    I think I have learned more by teaching my classmates than by listening the bullshit of self proclaimed developers that didn't wanted to dwell past the surface of the programming language they pretend to be expert on.

    If a newbie programming since only 4 years can prove you wrong, then you just shouldn't pretend being an expert or at least have humility.

    Yet, if you are a newbie and you happen to know more than your mentor, you should at least be productive.
  • 7
    @adnanh Will wait for an update. Hoping this'll have a good ending. :)
  • 3
    @adnanh been waiting for an update for sometime now did anything worth mentioning happen?
  • 14
    Update #2: The intern continued working on the project. He no longer has a problem with me being the authority, but he now sees this as a project set for him to "prove his skills" rather than an opportunity to learn.
  • 3
    @adnanh not much better but it's an improvement. now you just have to break him down and rebuild him
  • 2
    @adnanh not ideal, but at least he'll now do the work you ask him to... Definite improvement over doing whatever he wants
  • 6
    @adnanh glad he showed some improvement. Don't give up on him yet. You might have find someone worthy after all :P
  • 2
    I'd love to have a mentor
  • 1
    @dotdeb dude. I know. I would kill for that
  • 1
    Any further updates on this?
  • 1
    I wonder what happened since then...
  • 13
    Update: he came around :-) He's started to listen and learn.

    Sometimes he's stubborn and I let him do it his way so he can see it will not work out, and after each of those lessons, he's more likely to listen to me without much arguing.

    He's a smart kid... :-)
  • 3
    @adnanh thanks for keeping the devRanters updated!
  • 1
    Thank you for the updates. @adnanh
  • 5
    @adnanh thanks for the update. this is a good read at a start of the day. it encouraged me to be patient with my colleagues . :)
  • 3
    @adnanh Not only he's doing better, he might have learned some tough (but urgently needed) life lessons. Great for the kid! and you as well!.
  • 2
    Update: He was fired few days ago, he worked with 3-4 more mentors and they decided he was just too disobedient to be productive. He needs to grow up. I wish him all the best in life, and to realise all the mistakes he made and to learn from his experience...
  • 2
    @adnanh Well, that was a bit anticlimactic. But I'm happy for you; now you won't have to worry about him anymore :)
  • 1
    And here I'm desperately looking for a mentor, no luck till now!
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