StudentChristin
New Member
I've interned for a Public Accounting firm in the summer of 2006. My major was public accounting and I interviewed for the Audit position, but was talked into taking the internship position as an IT Auditor. I stated that I do not have any IT experience and it was expressed that they will train me, and knowing the business process is more important the technical. Since that position paid more and seemed like a great opportunity, I took that position for the summer.
I was assigned to work with a team during my internship. I asked the team a number of times how am I doing, and progressing. They reply was satisfactory. Well, my first review was late, and it states that I need to develop my IT skills. Ok, I know that. There are three sections of the periodic review: Areas of Strength, Areas for Growth and Development, and Areas Needing Immediate Improvement (kiss of death).
The senior management and team wrote on the first two sides, but the Areas Needing Immediate Improvement (kiss of death), there was nothing written.
Since my internship was only two months long, and they were late with my first review I received another review in two weeks and I was floored. All the areas were written on, and the area Needing Immediate Improvement was filled up.
This review was a personal attack; they slit my throat pretty much.
Here is an example........
• I was not comfortable having Christina document our testing results or walkthroughs. While she was able to perform the testing after instructions, she did not seem conversant enough to document to standards. Additionally, when I had her review the process narratives in our work for grammar and to remove repetitive comments, I found that I still had to go through and clean up the work. Again, since this documentation was technical in nature, her lack of technical knowledge may have been the reason for her not removing a lot of the repeated information.
[This person wanted me to review his work for grammar and repetitive comments. He had to clean up his work.]
• The quality of her work was not at the expected level for an intern.
• I had to re-do much of her work. Example: She incorrectly documented management's testing, placing samples in the wrong areas, and incorrectly documented process narratives in wrong sections within the database.
• Christina should try to be more organized in her work. We would often discuss testing issues and when I asked her to document what we discussed, or to fix a problem, she would be going to the wrong section to document. For example, we would be speaking about change management testing and she would go to fix the change and be in the operations section (or even last year's database).
• The performance issues may be coachable, but don't know if it will be efficient (in terms of time and resources to provide the necessarily level of guidance and support).
The team hardly provided any direction and let me fall flat on my face. I asked the team for feedback and got no response. The first review never mentioned any of this, and the finally one, geesh it kept going on and on and on.
The team made a number of derogatory and personal remarks.
This review was sent to HR and the partner of the firm, and I did not get a full time offer. That was not the worst, this was sooo embarrassing. I never felt so low in my life. I knew it was all personal, but I could not help but feel less than human, a loser.
Many will say get over it, but learning more about my rights, I cannot help but feel this was illegal.
I would like to know if I have a case against the company I worked for, even though it happened last year.
I was assigned to work with a team during my internship. I asked the team a number of times how am I doing, and progressing. They reply was satisfactory. Well, my first review was late, and it states that I need to develop my IT skills. Ok, I know that. There are three sections of the periodic review: Areas of Strength, Areas for Growth and Development, and Areas Needing Immediate Improvement (kiss of death).
The senior management and team wrote on the first two sides, but the Areas Needing Immediate Improvement (kiss of death), there was nothing written.
Since my internship was only two months long, and they were late with my first review I received another review in two weeks and I was floored. All the areas were written on, and the area Needing Immediate Improvement was filled up.
This review was a personal attack; they slit my throat pretty much.
Here is an example........
• I was not comfortable having Christina document our testing results or walkthroughs. While she was able to perform the testing after instructions, she did not seem conversant enough to document to standards. Additionally, when I had her review the process narratives in our work for grammar and to remove repetitive comments, I found that I still had to go through and clean up the work. Again, since this documentation was technical in nature, her lack of technical knowledge may have been the reason for her not removing a lot of the repeated information.
[This person wanted me to review his work for grammar and repetitive comments. He had to clean up his work.]
• The quality of her work was not at the expected level for an intern.
• I had to re-do much of her work. Example: She incorrectly documented management's testing, placing samples in the wrong areas, and incorrectly documented process narratives in wrong sections within the database.
• Christina should try to be more organized in her work. We would often discuss testing issues and when I asked her to document what we discussed, or to fix a problem, she would be going to the wrong section to document. For example, we would be speaking about change management testing and she would go to fix the change and be in the operations section (or even last year's database).
• The performance issues may be coachable, but don't know if it will be efficient (in terms of time and resources to provide the necessarily level of guidance and support).
The team hardly provided any direction and let me fall flat on my face. I asked the team for feedback and got no response. The first review never mentioned any of this, and the finally one, geesh it kept going on and on and on.
The team made a number of derogatory and personal remarks.
This review was sent to HR and the partner of the firm, and I did not get a full time offer. That was not the worst, this was sooo embarrassing. I never felt so low in my life. I knew it was all personal, but I could not help but feel less than human, a loser.
Many will say get over it, but learning more about my rights, I cannot help but feel this was illegal.
I would like to know if I have a case against the company I worked for, even though it happened last year.
