No internship horror stories in 2020, thanks to COVID-19 lockdown

Manning the manager’s desk even during lunch breaks, buying grocery supplies, printing out documents for others, booking salon appointments or handing out coffee during meetings: These are not the responsibilities that business school student Pradeep Mondal expected to be doing during his 2019 internship at a retail firm.

But that is precisely what he was made to do throughout the 70-day period. He was also assigned a 'special project' to study the sales impact of single day flash discounts but barely found time to complete it. The result? The company gave him an 'average' rating, citing he was 'uncooperative' because Pradeep expressed his unwillingness to do non-official tasks.

Mondal expected a similar fate for his relative Suman who was to intern with the same firm in 2020. However, the coronavirus (COVID-19) lockdown turned out to be a blessing in disguise for Suman who will now complete the process online.

COVID-19 has forced India Inc into a lockdown with all business processes being managed from home. With this, special projects including summer internships have also moved online.

While at the outset this could be demotivating for students, the reality is that a lot of these candidates have been spared from becoming the one running errands at the workplace. Virtual internships mean that students need to only work on specific duties/projects assigned to them.

The flipside with virtual internships is that one misses out on experiencing how an actual workplace feels like. Students merely interact with senior members of an organisation over video calls and emails.

Also Read: Summer internships go virtual in 2020 in India

These interns, however, are saved from turning into personal assistants for regular employees at these companies.

Past interns across firms in India would be able to narrate their own ‘Miranda Priestly’ stories where the boss would behave exactly like Meryl Streep's character in The Devil Wears Prada. Anna Hathaway's Andrea may not have been an intern, but the testimonies sound similar.

The senior/boss would suddenly ask you to run down and get their dry-cleaned outfits or force you to remake the coffee until the temperature was perfect for their palette.

Summer internships for college students are essentially a first step into the corporate world and an opportunity to learn how a professional workplace functions. The actual workplace treatment, however, is far from professional.

Since there is no legal contract to retain the intern nor is there any fixed set of rules on what work is expected of these students, companies tend to make the most of this opportunity. Interns are given the job of an office assistant and often made to complete personal tasks of whoever they are reporting to.

Twenty-five year old financial services professional Jatin Guha recalls his internship at a bank where his job was to book seats for the boss’ personal guests at their private events and serve food and drinks. What was worse is that he would even have to drive drunk guests back home.

“I didn’t have much of a choice back then because a refusal would mean a poor rating in my final scores. But this is not what I signed up for. In fact, I was told I would learn the basics of retail banking. This was far from it,” he added.

Interns don’t have the right to complain. If they still choose to, the future employment prospects get hampered. Further, this could also impact the relationship between the company and the institute which could affect the job prospects of other students during placements.

Virtual internships are likely to stay for another one to two years in India amidst talks of remote working being made the ‘new normal’ due to COVID-19. For now, students have been spared the unpleasant internship experiences.

Follow our full coverage of the coronavirus pandemic here.