Top 8 Distasteful Things Most Kenyan Employers do to Interns

It feels good when that organization you’ve been dying to work for finally grants your wishes by bringing you in as an intern. Like a dream come true, or an answered prayer. Then comes the hardships of life that make you regret the very moment peer pressure made you look for that internship in the first place. How you wish that you could just take a bus back to the village and be your father’s shamba boy for the rest of your life. Here is the trash that employees keep feeding their interns.

1.  Scanty information.

The fact that you are new in the organization implies that you need some information about your operations in the organization. Your employer wants you to deliver yet he is not showing how to do it with the correct information. He has this backward mentality that you not there to stay and he literally leaves you in the hands of your own judgement and imaginations.

2. Pulling ranks.

It’s so sad when your employer approaches you in a manner that implies he is the boss here so you either do as he asks or he kicks you away. He orders you around anyhow even on things that needn’t supervision. What have you got to do but accept the terms and conditions, bearing in mind that your family badly needs those peanuts they will give you end month.

3. Being scolded on unfounded grounds.

You know those Jezebels you find in that organization that keep looking at you with ‘we will make sure you are fired’ eyes. Those that keep tabs on you, just so you can make a mistake and they go running to report you to your seniors. In a few minutes, the manager yells at you right in front of the customers and fellow staff, tearing you apart mercilessly.

4. Your opinion is null and void.

Even if you don’t like how things are done and you feel that you have a better way to make things work out perfectly, no one gives a damn about your opinion. You are simply a nobody in the organization. Worst still, is how the seniors rub it in by not even giving you the opportunity to air out your views, they will never put it into consideration. You are there to be seen not heard.

5. Being the beast of burden.

You are the one person doing too much for a very little pay, while other are swinging in armchairs, beating stories and getting lost in their phones. When you are not finishing the heavy tasks assigned to you, they call you lazy and a liability to the organization. You end up burning your calories for nothing worthwhile.

6. Being sidelined during company events.

No one tells you a damn thing about an upcoming company event to be attended by all the staff in the organization. You end up being the lost sheep that has no hope of finding its way home. They literally treat you like the odd one out, no one even bothers to give you a heads up.

7. Sexual harassment.

When the manager calls you into his office to get him some documents, only for him to grab and spank you forcefully. But you have to keep silent about all that and fake it like nothing really happened, for you to survive.

8. Peanuts.

An employer will want you to do a certain task, maybe attend an event at the expense of your pocket only for him to refund you half of what you incurred. You know you can’t sue him. Some don’t care how you will get to perform that task all they care about is your delivery. You being new in the company grants you no right to ask for more than what the employer is willing to give you. You are at his mercy.

Life is be beautiful, time is precious. Make the most out of it.