Let me preface this by noting, I put the quotations around bad because it's how I feel about the experience, I understand this may be a "good" opportunity for someone else.
I started working this internship at the beginning of the semester (in September), it's a web design unpaid internship for ...
Where are you located? What's the issue with "Here's my 2 week notice."? Also, surely you have an agreed upon set of hours to work during a week, why not stick to it?
@rkeet It's located in NYC. I just started working there 3 months ago, is it appropriate to leave so abruptly? The set hours would be fine, if I wasn't being thrown work on days I don't work there and being told to stay longer than my set hours "because we need you".
@AsheraH No, but I desperately want to start receiving reasonable compensation for my craft. No one is going to take that chance on me until I get some professional work under my belt
@aLeekProductions For-profit businesses (which I suspect the fashion house is) has restrictions for internships. Read through that Department of Labor fact sheet to see if your unpaid internship was actually supposed to legally be paying you for your time.
Have you tried the basic "Thanks, will look at it when I'm at the office tomorrow/X days from now" ? Because that's a perfectly valid response and something you should learn early on in a career if you do not wish this your whole life ;) You may of course allow exceptions, but at your own discretion, not "because I need you"
@rkeet Yes, I have tried that. Not out of divine wisdom, but because I am usually unable to do it until I get to the office (school, work, and family). This is usually met with disdain, like I'm not committed to the company.
@JRodge01 Interesting! I will read through that and see what apply to me. I don't see a contact on the PDF, if this applies to me, who should I bring it to?
@aLeekProductions New York Department of Labor. There's a number on the home page, or you can navigate on how to file a wage complaint. I suggest filing a wage complaint and having the DoL sort out if it was or wasn't an illegal unpaid internship. No skin off your back for doing so.
It's not entirely clear what's bad about it/what it would take to make it good. You say that it's taking time away from your paid job. If it were fewer hours, would you consider staying? What if it were paid?
Reiterating: it is literally a crime for them not to be paying you. It's not legal to have someone just work for free and call it an "internship" except under extremely restrictive circumstances. An "employer" like this will never be a good reference, and you are clearly not getting valuable experience (given what you've said about their tech stack.) So it's not clear to me you are actually getting anything out of this, other than abuse, and a distorted sense of how the work world operates that will serve you badly at real jobs in the future. Just leave.
“I do all my work with attaching custom scripts, style sheets, and HTML code blocks on top of Squarespace's code [...].” Sounds like this will be fun for the next person who comes in to work on the site ;) Not that they don’t deserve that...
It is insane to me that it is even possible for someone to haven an internship at a location where no actual "teacher"-role individuals are present. Shouldn't the school check this?
“The website I'm working on is a Squarespace site and I feel gross every time I log in” — If you want to be working web developer, you'll almost certainly deal with much worse than Squarespace at some point. As long as you're following the documentation, so that the next developer has a chance of continuing the maintenance, it could be decent experience. Customising Squarespace sites is probably a viable business.
I'm very curious as to how this has turned out. In particular, I'm curious if you simply walked away, or if you requested to be paid - and if this request was subsequently honored, or whether took your case to a legal authority in order file some sort of suit.
I'd speak with them honestly, there is no need for bold actions such as removing some stupid html templates. Be classy, finish the current assignment or part of it, Then tell the manager that, while you find his company interesting (great word), you have found an internship where you can learn a lot and will get money from that. Then offer to stay (if you want) for a comparable amount of money, or wish them a merry christmas, happy new year, successes in life, and your sincere will to help them in the future if they need to fix their website [and don't find anyone that does it for free]
Discussion on question by aLeek Produ…
Discussion on question by aLeek Produ…