“I was fired from my internship for proposing a more flexible dress code”
askamanager.org
askamanager.org
No, it isn't. They never asked about it at all, that was very much part of the point the author was making. They signed a petition demanding a change to the dress code. That is absolutely entitlement, and it is beyond naive to believe this is not more common in this generation. The generation demanding everything change so they never have to hear an opinion they disagree with.
>like how forcing women to wear heels is a product of patriarchal culture and can drive women out of particular careers (disclaimer: I have no idea whether that was the case here)
You do have an idea if you simply read the article. But no, lets try to shoehorn more identity politics in, we can never have enough!
These employees didn't have a functional dress code and it didn't seem to be in service of a brand. They were petitioning to wear reasonable footwear. And whole you may shy from such discussions, dress codes disproportionately impact women and transgender people, so it's no surprise that we note that impact.
It's also worth noting how quick Americans are to dismiss any collective action as "entitlement" to be derided. It is not a new phenomenon.
Some parts of the culture pay more attention to stuff we cover ourselves with that others. Maybe in some places what tattoo you are wearing on your cheek is much more important than what cloth you are wearing on your feet, but in many Western workplaces that's how the culture works. Substantiating culture from rational principles is very hard (why is it ok for Western people to eat chicken but weird to eat parrot? Because. Why it's ok to women to wear pants but weird for a man to wear a skirt? Because. Why we use zippers and not codpieces, why we once wore wigs and hats and now we rarely do so? Because!).
That doesn't mean culture doesn't exist or it is just stupid (unless you think whole life is stupid - which is a valid approach, but then there's no reason to single out this part of it ;). And for people that probably heard words like "diversity" and "tolerance" every day in the school, it should not be hard to understand the value of not dismissing other's culture as "this is just a stupid prejudice" and not approaching it with the posture of "now I'll show you how to do things properly". If a western person did it to a non-western person, they themselves would call it "cultural imperialism" or something like that. But they did exactly the same and don't even have enough self-reflection to realize that. That's a major failure of their education, and hopefully this life lesson would work to correct it at least partially.
> It's also worth noting how quick Americans are to dismiss any collective action as "entitlement" to be derided
It is also worth noting how some people think if 10 people do same thing it is somehow better than one people doing the thing - somehow "collective" is better than individual.
[1] https://hgwlorenzo.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/namba4.jpg
This isn't forcing women out of their hijab. This is letting interns wear sensible footwear and not wear blazers in the summer.
Maybe it is sensible to slightly alter the dress code, maybe not - it's not the point. The point is the interns failed to even realize what the issue at hand it - they just assumed everybody by them are being stupid and only wait for them, straight out of the hight school, to set them straight. Sometimes it's exactly the case, but overwhelmingly more often it is not. Even where it is the case, changing the established culture is very hard, it's much easier to grow your own to replace it.
Linux wasn't born as a division of Microsoft that convinced Bill Gates to change his ways. And if you ever want a bank where bankers are barefoot and wear pajamas, it may be a coolest idea ever that will upend all the banking world - but don't expect the president of Wells Fargo or Chase to be excited about it. That's just not how culture works.
Why are you asking me this? I have nothing to do with it. I am not talking about dress codes, petitioning is the problem. If you don't like the dress code, try asking why it exists. We have no idea what value it was adding, because the person involved who had absolutely no experience and was there to learn, never bothered to learn. They just created a petition.
>dress codes disproportionately impact women and transgender people, so it's no surprise that we note that impact.
Again, trying to inject identity politics into everything is disgusting and contemptuous. Quit trying to pull a victim card out to declare yourself special, and thus nobody else can understand the "impact".
Heaven forbid people express a mutual desire clearly to their management. Far better to be shot down individually so the manager can control the message to their management.
> Again, trying to inject identity politics into everything is disgusting and contemptuous.
It is not politics. Brexit was politics. This is societal contracts.
No, common etiquette forbids it. A guest given an opportunity is not in a place to make demands, especially without even bothered to ask about what they are demanding first.
>It is not politics
And yeah, I know the term. Another manufactured social conservative term for human rights without saying those words.
from point of view of more conservative generations or people from more conservative backgrounds the mere asking of such questions may seem like the "millennial entitlement" (a part of the traditionally more known as "questioning the authority" behavior exhibited by young generations through the history)
Being able to question fairly trivial things like dress codes seems a perfectly reasonable level of entitlement.
But a petition is a way to force an answer to a specific request on your terms, without leaving much room to listen and learn.
And dress is not trivial. It may take more than a one-sentence explanation to describe why. Consider, for a moment, that people are not robots and changing attire may have real impact on how people behave and interact in a social environment like business.
It might, certainly. But on the other hand, there are countless other issues that could be brought up—open office plans, office fraternization, expectations of late night email responses, working hours, salary, and so on—that are directly about how people behave and interact, or do business, that something like dress codes that reach no further than "may have a real impact" kinda fade in importance.
Taking collective action to try and overturn your manager's decision to enforce pre-existing and clear company rules, is pretty entitled. To do that when you're an unpaid intern, suggests a high degree of entitlement to me.
Whether that justifies millennial bashing, or whether all generations are like that at 18, is another matter.
They learned how valuable they were to the company: less value than the hassle of dealing with their petition. They dramatically overrated their value, what the company thought it was already giving them, and what they deserved as a result.
Entitlement can mean various things, but in terms of acting entitled in the workplace, it's a pretty good example.
My guess is that everyone has standards for politeness and they'd be annoyed when those standards are violated.
But for some reason, polite and respectful dress is considered somehow more arbitrary than, say, polite and respectful speech.
> It's millennials asking perfectly reasonable questions about why certain things are the way they are
Ah, but that's the point! The weren't asking - they were telling that this must change, because so many of us tell you so! You don't need signatures to ask a question. You need signatures to pressure.
> how forcing women to wear heels is a product of patriarchal culture and can drive women out of particular careers
I seriously doubt this is the case for "women". Some women, of course, can't stand wearing heels - just as some men can't stand wearing suits - and they choose careers where it is not customary or required. But generalizing on all women doesn't seem to be prudent. I am sure there are a lot of very motivated and driven women who won't let such things as heels derail their chosen career.
> If your only response to an office custom being questioned is to tout your authority and sneer at the insolence
If you, as an intern, question the authority of the company's management, you probably will be shown the door. There's being right, and there's being right in the right way. Hierarchies exist for reason, relationship and organizational culture are important, and the probability of an intern being so right that the company must abandon their culture and listen to the intern over the management is in general much less than the probability the intern is too green and doesn't understand a lot of things. Thus I would take an an important lesson here is that it's important not only to be right, but also to present it to other people in ways that they will be willing to accept it and that will be beneficial to them too.
If the intern's proposal is beneficial for the firm, the the firm's stakeholders should be co-opted, not bashed over the head with signatures. If it is only beneficial for the interns themselves - one would be asking, why the management should care?
Hopefully these interns learned a hard lesson. Talk to the manager first. Find out what flexibility you might get from these clothing code. If none, just go through the summer and leave with some understanding how to deal with this in the future.
Petition! Wow.
You CAN negotiate just about anything but you need to have the political capital to spend. Knowing when to pick your battles and which ones you can win is also an important life lesson.
I do feel that firing the lot of them was really an overreaction. What they should have done was treated it as a teachable moment and explained the situation and why their response was exactly the wrong thing to do.
On the other hand, in their place, I'm not sure I'd want to work for someplace that would fire a whole group of people for something so small. As another comment puts it, the best places to work are those that treat interns the same as other junior employees.
You can't give due process and full consideration to every inane idea. The business will come to a standstill.
They did bring up the dress code issue to their managers, and it was dismissed. Petitioning it is a level above that, and while I agree that firing them is a bit much, it doesn't mean they can't take feedback necessarily. It sounds like they would still be receptive if you bring up a more serious issue in the proper way (i.e. talking to your manager).
Indeed, the better way is to unionize and bargain. Work contracts and conditions are a matter of haggling between self-interested groups, and while the interns should certainly accept dress codes as conditions of employment now, they should be testing the limits of their bargaining power together to see what they can accomplish for the future.
(Startups where all parties have honest information about the gamble they're taking are an exception -- and startups are typically not the kinds of places that unionize because the process takes longer than the startup lasts.)
That is not really a union issue, what we need is a few tech workers to push for IRS Exemption rules and sue over it, to get some clear established case law on who and who is not exempt from overtime.
The IRS and DOL have been woefully derelict in their guidance on this issue, and I personally believe that many of the IT workers that are classified as exempt today should not be.
It is really a union issue: the government can't be counted on to have workers' interests at heart when workers aren't the ones running the government. Workers should do it ourselves.
Oh right, some people think working 60 hours a week is okay. sigh.
It's not that loads of people think 60 hours/week is ok. It's that lots of people seem to think there's something immoral and mafia-esque about collective bargaining and organized labor. Labor rights don't get improved because people walk away from bad jobs (there will always be someone sufficiently desperate as to undercut everyone else, even if the employers have to change a bunch of laws to make it happen), and they don't get improved because the government sees just how lovely and moral it would be to improve labor rights.
They get improved because workers unite and fight for our collective interests. To my mind, people who don't admit this have a strangely romanticized conception of how business works.
You also have wage fixing/anti-poaching agreements that could potentially be more effectively fought. Overly broad non-compete agreements are another obvious target.
I am aware, I am also aware the "computer professional" is narrowly defined and simply because you work with a computer does not make you a "computer professional" I am aware of several companies that do not classify their employees properly
>> Workers should do it ourselves.
Workers should by refusing to work those jobs, I myself am Salaried Non-Exempt. I personally disagree with the concept of unions, and find they are often worse over the long term
Imagine showing up to a dinner party and trying to create a lobby of other guests that don't want to take their shoes off in the house. The entitlement of the interns is astounding.
I'm a full time employee who is well accomplished, and even I still realize that there is a limit to how much influence I can exert over the business before I get the boot.
Approaching HR, or discussing the situation with your manager's manager in a 1 on 1 situation is a much better approach.
No! Never talk to HR unless there's a problem with your benefits or something. They are never on your side; they're basically there to protect the company from you. If you ever get into a situation you feel can't be resolved without involving HR, just start looking for a new job.
IMHO, no matter how hard criticism may be to hear, (especially when it is entitled and baseless), you still want to encourage and reward employees and interns any time they go out of their way to try and make the company better, stronger, or a more enjoyable place to work. Not because you agree with what they're proposing, but because you want to encourage the free flow of ideas, and the voicing of concerns.
Moreover: When you take on interns, you take on the role of mentor and teacher, for better or worse. I seriously doubt that firing them was the best way to teach them anything.
I however never circulate a petition to my coworkers asking is they agree with me, or my boss. I never circulate a petition to my coworkers and then present it to my boss as if my work place was some kind of democracy in which is my coworkers all agree then my bosses veto is somehow over ruled.
>>>I seriously doubt that firing them was the best way to teach them anything.
It should have taught them that when you are a new employee and something you request is denied, that is the end of it. You do not circle the wagons and attempt to force the issue.
It should have taught them that the work place is a heirachy with Interns at the bottom,
It should have taught them that the real world is a cold ruthless place and your feels are irrelevant.
The manager's decision to fire the interns was entirely within their right and the interns should have seen it as a possibility, even if it was a little extreme. But even though it has essentially no bearing on what happened, the interns were in the right. They saw unfairness in the office, confronted the superior about it, and were ignored. Obviously management needs to protect the privacy of the injured employee, but for the sake of dignity and good communication, they could have at least said "that person has a special circumstance which warrants an exception". Their reaction to being ignored violated social conventions, but was a civil, meaningful expression of dissatisfaction.
The quote above takes the wrong lesson from this story. It encourages apologizing for organizing the petition, but they absolutely shouldn't apologize, because they were in the right. Unless they want to try to still get a good reference out of this employer (which would be characteristically naive), they have no reason to pander. Instead, they should thank the manager for giving them a reality check about how business operates, while holding firm to their convictions. It would take care to not come across as passive-aggressive, but full repentance would only serve to reinforce the manager's authoritarian tendencies.
Regardless of whether or not you agree with the interns' proposal... regardless of whether the issue is important enough to start a petition for, it is NEVER ok to fire someone for making a polite and respectful proposal. It is NEVER ok to make someone feel as though they aren't important enough to put forward suggestions.
Not only is it morally disgusting, it is organizationally dysfunctional. Teams operate best when every member feels empowered to make suggestions and improve upon the status quo. Teams operate best when those in power don't use their power to intimidate and silence those with less power.
If there's one takeaway from all this, it is how dysfunctional the the workplace is for most people, and how important it is to protect yourself by planning ahead. Work your ass off and attend an elite university. Pick a profession that's in-demand, so you'll have plenty of options. Otherwise, you're going to be at the mercy of egomaniacs who have no qualms over firing you at the drop of a hat.
As an intern, you are lucky to have an opportunity to learn and to prove yourself. Don't squander that opportunity on something as little as a dress code.
At least one of you was wise enough not to sign it. I would bet that person's still an intern there.
Edit: full disclosure, I'm an intern
"Half of engineering team fired for starting a petition demanding higher class shares in equity compensation. Apparently nobody in management knew of the petition as the letter of notice originated from the email of one of the engineer's mothers and was accidentally logged in a spam folder. Management only found out after engineers failed to show up to work in protest.".
I asked them if it was fine to wear a League of Legends jersey, since there was a huge tournament going on in Germany at the same time. The head of HR actually said yes. Wasn't expecting that...
In many ways, an organized petition could be seen as the beginning of union organization. Forget about opinions about unions for a moment. The fact is, most companies do whatever they can to squash a union as early as possible.
Problem solved. And you don't look like some startup schmuck.(I am one but I still suit up often)
Edit: also, no job until halfway through college? Kids got bigger problems than shoes.
And even harder to find is a tailor, unless you are in a decent sized city. I had access if actually needed - my mother. My mother did tailoring work off and on to make ends meet, and more later on for herself, excluding bridal shops. Often, there were between zero and one other person in the area doing the work. Most were just to make pants shorter, and few were willing to pay a fair wage for the bigger tailoring.
Remember. These are going to be on your feet 8-10 hours a day, 5 days a week, 50 weeks a year. How much is that worth to you?
If so, the interns were totally in their right. A dress code that demands wearing heels is just a health hazard.
Whole thing sounds fake to me, but incredibly naive if real.
There are medical conditions that prevent people from wearing leather shoes my partners sister is alergic to pretty much anything and if she wears leather she gets blisters within minutes.
There are also people who will not wear leather due to religious and ideological reasons.
It seems very childish to start a petition because one employee gets treated differently, that's life your boss can also leave early and take a long lunch maybe it's another petition....
The answer to your question is right there in the article
One shot in the dark: what if the company was concerned for legal reasons? Since the issue had a connection to a disabled employee, is it possible the company could have fired them to avoid any legal conflicts?
"Oh and also – petitions really aren’t the way things are done. Your workplace isn’t a democracy."
Of course, being civil and respectful still applies but it seems the OP was, too.
People are quick to judge, even in SV.
I had a similar problem - ridiculous dress codes that made no sense at all. I fought it the best that I could. I worked for a defense contractor as part of another business unit, and the dress code policy was basically "match the site that you work at." Except that they were trying to tell me that I had to adhere to their dress code policy anyway. How dare an employee wear a nice pair of shorts during a 110 degree Texas summer day! They tried to tell me the dress code was a safety issue. I balked and pointed out that the Union employees on the production line were wearing jean shorts and t-shirts, so their argument was flat. A manager two levels above me said something about the fact that she said that she was appalled that I would dare show up to work in shorts. I informed her that I worked in the Silicon Valley before, where dress codes like ours were almost non-existent. She said that she was appalled that I would dare show up to work in shorts. This back and forth went on, and they finally just admitted "This is always how we've done it" and there really was no reason whatsoever for the existing dress code.
I signed up for the voluntary layoff package and didn't regret it at all. This was in addition to a time where we had to go digging in the library for OSHA lighting standards just to get upper management to tell one supervisor that didn't work in our area to stop flipping on all of the lights when he walked by.... but that's another story. Just about as stupid as most dress codes.
This seems like it's fiction to bait the millennial haters, "Get of my lawn" crowd.
Something sounds very off about it. I call copy-pasta
My understanding is that unpaid internships associated with an academic program of study are legal. What is illegal is an unpaid internship not associated with formal education, e.g. an unpaid internship for a recent college graduate.
In many disciplines, paid student internships are highly coveted and many available student internships are unpaid. Social work comes to mind.
A note about this post, which is being linked to from all over the internet: This situation is not about “young people today.” 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. 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.
Their user name may also be relevant. But I'm going to have to sleep on that one.
EDIT: The key word is "today" ;)
Exercise for the reader - figure out why the grand parent post very obviously and highly deliberately does not mention that.
The "younger generation" has asked "why?" to stupid rules for a very long time.
Though I do think the advent of upvote/downvote discussion forums has emboldened the attitude of "I can just downvote/ignore/blockout anything to which I do not agree". That's an annoying and recent behavior (which affects us all, not simply the millennials) which really drives me crazy.
And that's not what is happening here. This is the younger generation criticizing other members of the younger generation for being spoiled, self-absorbed narcissists. I criticize the older generation for making them this way with their helicopter parenting and their special snowflake "everyone wins" nonsense.
Nobody suggested anything of the sort.
>but your comments in this thread fuming about it
I have made no such comments.
>are still lowering the quality of discussion here below acceptable
Just because you don't agree with my opinion, doesn't mean it is lowering the quality of discussion. I have read the rules, and I do not see any way in which an objective third party could interpret me as breaking them. Please step back and read what I actually wrote rather than interpreting it.
(from the OP article)