An employer was not pleased with an intern’s last-minute request to have a virtual interview and decided to cancel the intern’s application altogether.
In a viral post shared by the employer himself, who runs a toy agency in Singapore, he expressed his frustration over a young student named Sarah who had asked if it was possible to do a virtual meeting a day before their scheduled face-to-face interview. “Call me a boomer but I seriously think our future is f***ed,” he began his rant.
Photo from Unsplash
“[I] decided to take the time to interview this student tomorrow. Gave her the benefit of the doubt cuz’ she actually left her internship company after working for just one day, claiming that the environment was toxic and is now looking for a new internship company. 19 mins after agreeing to come down for an interview, without giving any reason, she probably figured that a virtual meeting works fine too.”
He then called her an “entitled Singaporean” and added that he’d rather accept “hardworking” foreigners.
“Sarah is the very reason why I absolutely welcome foreigners who are hungry and hardworking to work here. F*** all these rules and laws protecting entitled Singaporeans,” he said.
As of writing, the post that was shared on September 15 has over 500 comments of people either agreeing or disagreeing with the employer’s sentiments. He then made a follow-up post explaining his side seemingly as a response to the criticism he’s received.
He shared more context about his experience with young Singaporean interns who allegedly “barely know how to use Photoshop or Illustrator,” “go for 1.5-hour lunches, oversleep when they work from home and don’t give a damn about deadlines.”
“It’s maddening and frustrating when you see the lack of hunger vs the can-do attitude of the foreign students I came across when I was teaching part-time,” the employer continued.
He then revealed that the intern Sarah had emailed them about their internship program months ago but proceeded to ghost him after he had replied. When she finally got back to him, she reportedly explained that she was having “legal issues” with the current company she was interning for and found the culture “toxic” after only working there for one day.
“Nonetheless, [I] asked if she wanted to come in on Friday for a chat. She said yes and told her I’ll text her my address. 19 mins later, she asked for a virtual interview. I admit I got angry and frustrated that no reason was given whatsoever and decided that I shouldn’t bother anymore,” he said.
“I certainly wasn’t expecting the uproar over this, and being infamous is not on my to-do list. I’ll apologise for wasting everyone’s time if this thing has been taken out of context. Life is short. There are many other more important things to worry about. Like how to make sure the other interns coming in learn what is right.”
(ALSO READ: This Filipino Student Landed an Internship at a Research Center in USA)
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