I was fired from my internship for writing a proposal for a more flexible dress code

by Alison Green on June 28, 2016

A note about this post, which is being linked to from all over the internet: This situation is not about “young people today.” The letter-writer’s generation is far from the first to bridle at dress codes or misunderstand office culture or start out with little knowledge of how things work in offices. This is about being young and new to the work world, not about what generation they belong to. Most of us made plenty of mistakes when we first started work — I certainly did. So please go a little easier on this person.

A reader writes:

I was able to get a summer internship at a company that does work in the industry I want to work in after I graduate. Even though the division I was hired to work in doesn’t deal with clients or customers, there still was a very strict dress code. I felt the dress code was overly strict but I wasn’t going to say anything, until I noticed one of the workers always wore flat shoes that were made from a fabric other than leather, or running shoes, even though both of these things were contrary to the dress code.

I spoke with my manager about being allowed some leeway under the dress code and was told this was not possible, despite the other person being allowed to do it. I soon found out that many of the other interns felt the same way, and the ones who asked their managers about it were told the same thing as me. We decided to write a proposal stating why we should be allowed someone leeway under the dress code. We accompanied the proposal with a petition, signed by all of the interns (except for one who declined to sign it) and gave it to our managers to consider. Our proposal requested that we also be allowed to wear running shoes and non leather flats, as well as sandals (not flip-flops though) and other non-dress shoes that would fit under a more business casual dress code. It was mostly about the footwear, but we also incorporated a request that we not have to wear suits and/or blazers in favor of a more casual, but still professional dress code.

The next day, all of us who signed the petition were called into a meeting where we thought our proposal would be discussed. Instead, we were informed that due to our “unprofessional” behavior, we were being let go from our internships. We were told to hand in our ID badges and to gather our things and leave the property ASAP.

We were shocked. The proposal was written professionally like examples I have learned about in school, and our arguments were thought out and well-reasoned. We weren’t even given a chance to discuss it. The worst part is that just before the meeting ended, one of the managers told us that the worker who was allowed to disobey the dress code was a former soldier who lost her leg and was therefore given permission to wear whatever kind of shoes she could walk in. You can’t even tell, and if we had known about this we would have factored it into our argument.

I have never had a job before (I’ve always focused on school) and I was hoping to gain some experience before I graduate next year. I feel my dismissal was unfair and would like to ask them to reconsider but I’m not sure the best way to go about it. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Oooooohhhh.

Firing the whole group of you was a pretty extreme reaction, but I can understand why they were highly annoyed.

Y’all were pretty out of line. You were interns there — basically guests for the summer. Their rules are their rules. This is like being a houseguest and presenting your host with a signed petition (!) to change their rules about cleaning up after yourself. You just don’t have the standing to do that.

To be clear, that doesn’t mean that you need to suck up any and every condition of an internship. You don’t. But this wasn’t something like asking you to do unsafe work or work unreasonable hours; this was asking you to abide by what sounds like a very common and reasonable professional dress code.

They presumably have that dress code because, rightly or wrongly, they’ve determined that it’s in their best interest. Sometimes these sorts of dress codes make sense (like when you’re dealing with clients who expect a certain image). Other times they don’t. But you really, really don’t have standing as interns to push back on it in such an aggressive way. And beyond standing, you don’t have enough knowledge as interns to push back so aggressively — knowledge of their context, their clients, and their culture.

What you could have done was to say, “Would you talk to us about the dress code and explain why it’s important? We’re sure we’ll run into this again in future jobs, but coming from the more casual environment of school, it’s not intuitive to us why so many businesses have formal dress codes. We’d appreciate getting a better understanding.”

But instead, you assumed you knew better (despite being in a position where the whole point is that you don’t have experience and are there to learn) and then went about it in a pretty aggressive way. A petition is … well, it’s not something you typically see at work. It signals that you think that if you get enough signatures, your company will feel pressured to act, and that’s just not how this stuff works. A company is not going to change its dress code because its interns sign a petition.

Honestly, if my summer interns banded together and this was what they decided to take on, I’d have some serious questions about their judgment and their priorities. I wouldn’t fire you for it … but I would not be impressed and we would be having a very stern conversation in which I explained the above.

The fact that they did fire all of you for it makes me wonder if there were other issues too and this pushed them over the edge. Were you getting good feedback before this, or had you noticed your manager trying to rein you in on other things? If there were other issues, I can more easily understand them just throwing up their hands and being finished with the whole thing.

In any case, I don’t think you can ask them to reconsider. What’s done is done. But it would be smart to write a letter to your manager explaining that you’ve learned from the situation and that you appreciate the opportunity they gave you and are sorry that you squandered it. They’re not likely to invite you back, but a note like that will probably soften them up a little and will mean that they don’t think so witheringly of you in the future.

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  1. Katie the Fed*

    Oh, OP. I feel for you, I really do. I was very similar when I was younger – I was used to most everything being up for negotiation if I pursued it. I remember pushing back with a boss on something and him agreeing, and I joked “it’s always fun negotiating with you!” and he ripped me a new one, and told me I needed to learn that not everything was subject to discussion.

    You’re not a teenager anymore. It’s no longer appropriate for you to push back on so many boundaries. You’re going to have to learn to assess how much capital you have in a workplace, and what you want to spend it on. In a new internship, you have very, very little capital.

    BTW, one thing you might not have considered – the person who wore more casual footwear may have a special exemption to do so due to medical reasons. I wore ugly black sneakers most of last year because I was recovering from severe leg injuries. Your boss won’t tell you that’s the reason someone else gets to do it, and you frankly don’t have any business asking.

    I agree with the recommendation that you reach out and apologize for your behavior.

    1. Katie the Fed*

      Oh and also – petitions really aren’t the way things are done. Your workplace isn’t a democracy.

      1. MsMaryMary*

        I was coming here to say this. Your workplace is not a democracy. At best, it’s a benevolent dictatorship. It might be a totalitarian regime. But either way, rounding up supporters and creating a petition is not appropriate.

        1. Rob Lowe can't read*

          My Girl Scout troop leaders in middle school referred to themselves as a benevolent oligarchy. (They were four moms, mine included.) That was how I learned what those words meant!

        2. Cordelia*

          I refer to my household as a benevevolent dictatorship.

          If a group of interns came to me at work with a petition and a proposal for why they shouldn’t have to follow my well established dress code, I would probably sack all of them too.
          Im sure this seemed like a harsh way to learn a lesson. Next time seek out advice. Any working adult that you know could have advised against this.

          1. tim maguire*

            That’s a great point you make at the end–for all their claims of presenting well-reasoned arguments, it’s plain they never sought the advice of a more experienced person. Who would have been sure to tell them to eat the petition and dress nice for the summer and smile while they do it.

          3. BarleySinger*

            I worked as a senior I.T. consultant on very large projects, and so I was constantly having to observe my surrounfings to find out how each business (and person in it) functioned. Rules vary wildly. It is a fact of the world we live in, that there are societal assumptions about what is considered “appropriate behavior” in the work place, and this includes how people dress. It us not the same everywhere. Every societal group has its differences. They are different cultyral assumptions in different nations, in different industries and of course there are variations between companies.

            Keep that in mind, while taking this in. Most highly sucessful bysiness people are unysually high in psychopathic traits. Thus means they are power hungry and cannot feel compassion or guilt. That makes for a hard line effective executive, but a really crappy human.

            The ugly truth about capitalism (which is not the same thing as making money) is that the power is very attractive to certain psychologucal types. Capitalusm us in orbit around power. Owners and senior management got where they are because having that power was more important than anything else. They are not going to take well to a total stranger, one they probably few as being “just a child”, presenting a petition to make changes in a policy whose rational the interns had not even inquired about. There might be real world reasons why the rules exist. Try asking, with the caveat that this is all new to a new intern.

            Is it fair that interns (and employees in general) often have to walk on egg shells to cater to their bosses mental health issues. No. But guess what? Not everyone is mentally healthy enough (possessing enough Theory of Mind) to understand that equitable treatment between adults (non competitive game theory) makes companies more money while keeping the employees morale up. But not everyone wants to have healthy relationships with their employees. A lot of bosses are attached to being dictators, and became bosses because they gave an irrational craving for power.

            These facts are not going to change, and when you are on their turf, you have to follow their rules. If you dislike the rules enough you can leave.

            1. Adam*

              Most successful business people are unusually high in psychopathic traits? Got any reference for that at all? The only study I’m aware of states that the occurrence is notably (3x) higher than the general population, but 3% versus 1% doesn’t seem like a majority.

              1. Jamie*

                Here’s an article about an unusually high percent of CEOs being psychopaths. It’s nowhere near ‘most’ but it might indicate somewhat of a correlation between psychopathic traits and leadership.

                I haven’t found anything to indicate it yet but I wouldn’t be surprised if most business people have a higher degree of psychopathic traits than the general population. That’s not to say they’re actually psychopaths but that they possess more psychopathic traits.

                http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/09/13/1-in-5-ceos-are-psychopaths-australian-study-finds/amp/

                1. Anonymoose*

                  There was also a recent Yale symposium that looked into it (rather quietly) after Trump was elected.

        3. A bunisness owner*

          I implemented a dress code at my office. Why? Past hires allowed clients to see their butt-cracks and made other horrible decisions. Would I fire those interns? Absolutely. They are not worth the time and energy of training and getting fired is the best lesson they could have learned. I show up to my office wearing anything I want. Why? I invested almost $1M of my money in my business. If my staff wants to wear whatever they want, they can buy-in as a co-owner. Until then, they abide by the rules, explained in advance (as I am sure this dress code was), and decide not to take the job if it is a problem for them.

          1. Kyle*

            My boss dressed like like a Orlando Mafia (flared 70’s collar, chains, chest hair, and all) guy at an event he required ties for the men.

            No one had a problem because:
            1) The event had free food (prime rib, salmon, etc)
            2) The event had free, bottomless booze
            3) The guy started the company and made it into a million dollar company.

            1. disconnect*

              I just want to say that I love your boss and would like to connect with him via LinkedIn. Or maybe quit my job and go work for him.

          2. Rick*

            That’s all well and good; as the owner it’s definitely your prerogative to do this.

            I would say I would respect an employer much less for having this “do as I say, not as I do” attitude about the dress code, personally. I prefer a “lead by example” boss. If it’s just the dress code, I could somewhat look over it, but if it bled over into other matters as well…your company would be a stepping stone to somewhere else.

            1. Just a guy sitting here reading this website*

              I get that you invested a lot of time, money, and sweat equity into your business, and you get to enjoy the perk of being your own boss. But I agree with everyone saying I absolutely wouldn’t respect you as a boss if you had a “do as I say, not as I do” attitude. When I was in the military, we had a company commander who on his first day stood in front of us and said “when it comes to the appearance of your uniform, I am the standard. You need to either meet the standard or exceed it.” I would run a dead sprint through a brick wall for this guy because of how much I respected him, and I know many others in my company would have as well. If I worked for you, you should expect the minimum standard from me as far as work experience and nothing more.

              1. impressed by the guy who was just sitting there reading this website*

                That is the crux of what’s missing in culture today. I didn’t serve in the military, though my dad did. Our home, though warm and loving, was a place of discipline and integrity, which has benefited me greatly throughout my life.

                The internet has given everyone a voice, and egotists that we all are, we assume that this makes us all equal unless taught otherwise. Look around the world and see the giant soup of humans living up to a shockingly varied percentage of their full potential, repeating obvious life-mistakes ad-nauseum, yet all of whom secretly think they’re amazing and unique snowflakes who deserve more than they have. Add to that the fact that the youth of today have grown up with the ability to whip out a smart-phone and gang-flame a dedicated accomplished person from a position of ignorance and intellectual laziness without reprisal, and thus have come to believe that leadership which stems from competence, experience & authority doesn’t matter. Nothing could be further from the truth. IRL is not and will never be like internet and the social media. I hope that the kids of today will grow up and look back on their whiny entitled adolescence as we look back on leisure suits and macrame. Well, here’s hoping! ;-)

            2. I work for myself now*

              This is more nuanced than “do as I say, not as I do”. On the one hand, there are those who take a similar position for ego’s sake (“it’s my company and you will dress up so I can feel powerful and cool”), and those people probably aren’t great leaders for a variety of reasons.

              On the other hand, as a business owner, it is important to deal with things simply and efficiently: there was a problem (exposed butt cracks; presumably other unprofessional dress), the solution to which was to develop an all-encompassing dress code that would ensure the problem ceased.

              It would have been a waste of time to try and account for every possible scenario and have a book-length list of the “dos and don’ts” of office dress (why some jeans are OK but not others; what makes certain sneakers office-appropriate but not others; the difference between a golf shirt and other knit shirts), but something overly broad like “look professional” would be a similarly futile effort.

              Depending on the nature of the company, there’s another element to this: the owner knows what is going to happen each day; who will be in the office, what meetings will come up, which clients might stop by. Therefore s/he knows how to dress the part. Employees aren’t always privy to that information and therefore can’t make such decisions accordingly.

          3. Vicki*

            Wow. That’s… bad.

            “I show up to my office wearing anything I want. Why? I invested almost $1M of my money in my business.”

            No. No no no. If you institute a dress code, you abde by it. Otherwise, you’re a hypocrite.

            I would be surprised if you don’t have a lot of turnover on your staff. The “I’m the Boss and you’re the staff” attitude doesn’t go over well with most people. Not since the 18th century (and even then). That’s why we have unions now.

            1. John*

              “The “I’m the Boss and you’re the staff” attitude doesn’t go over well with most people.”

              So what? You don’t like the rules, don’t work there. It’s amazing the amount of people who want to be the “boss” yet have no financial interesting in the business.

              2. Zak*

                Creating conditions that make reasonable people not want to work there isn’t a very good idea from a strictly business perspective. It tends to increase turnover and reduce the quality of your applicants. There’s also a more subtle effect where workers are more likely to go above and beyond for a boss they respect.

                Sure, if you’re the boss you CAN make unpopular rules for your employees and ignore them yourself, but it has costs.

                1. JeffreyG*

                  I get the distinct feeling that you are of the intern age! Jobs are scarce, and if you run away to a safe space every time a company owner expects you to do something that he will not do, you are gonna have a long resume with very little experience….

            2. Ron*

              No, he’s not a “hypocrite”, he’s “the boss”

              Ie, the guy who signs the paychecks and

              DOES. NOT. ANSWER. TO. YOU.

              Seriously. Some people.

              1. Rika*

                I’m inclined to agree with Vicky on this one. Of course a boss can get away with things his staff cannot, but there are limits to everything. Abiding by the dress code that you yourself have set for your company is not the same as having to answer to your employees; it just signals that you stand behind your own rules.

                I mean, sure, you can decide to screw the dress code you have told your staff is so important and therefore compulsory. Being the boss that is totally your prerogative, no arguments there. As long as you don’t mind that a manager who is seen to break his own rules doesn’t exactly do wonders for his reputation and his staff’s respect. If that doesn’t bother you, you can do whatever you like.

                I suppose it depends on what kind of boss you want to be.

                1. Eastland*

                  There is a difference between a boss and a leader.
                  A boss will tell you to do some thing and act a certain way and expects you to do it.
                  A leader is more of a managers position, were you lead by example.
                  A boss doesn’t have to, under any circumstances, follow his own rules. You don’t have to like it, but that is the benefit of owning and running your own company. No one telling you which rules to follow.
                  Imagine a business as a home, the interns are guests who are staying for a certain amount of time and have some rules they must follow, such as cleaning up after themselves (dress code). You follow that rule without question, even if the owner doesn’t follow it himself.

                2. Not the boss*

                  “Abiding by the dress code that you yourself have set for your company is not the same as having to answer to your employees”

                  You miss the point. Maybe he wouldn’t mind his employees showing up in the same kind of clothes he does, but dress codes of the form “whatever the boss wears is ok” is only an invitation for disaster. It won’t be long before somebody shows up in something the boss deems inappropriate but they consider to be along the same lines of whatever the boss wore 3 days ago.

                  As the boss you are perfectly entitled to not let dress choices at the discretion of your employees while you trust your own discretion.

                  After all, it is your money and your company. If somebody doesn’t like it they can all go fund their own business venture.

                3. Hmmm*

                  There may be a slight difference between a ‘boss’ and an ‘owner’ who is also a boss. A boss can also be an employee and as such should abide by any dress code like all other employees. But an owner may choose to get away with somethings like dress code and working hours etc. Its unlikely an owner wants to harm the image of his own company.

              2. oslianon*

                “Ie, the guy who signs the paychecks and / DOES. NOT. ANSWER. TO. YOU.”

                I’m absolutely stunned by these comments and all the others in which people seem hell-bent on emphasizing that the boss has ultimate authority over all … aka his/her lowly employees. What about collaboration? Mutual respect? I am not referring to the situation described by the letter writer — I’m talking generally about employees who work hard and express their opinions about company policies in mature, well-thought-out ways.

                Obviously employees are “free” to leave if they don’t like the workplace rules. (Used those scare quotes because the reality is that it is very, very difficult for people of all classes to find work these days, especially within a short time frame.) But in the interim, they shouldn’t be demeaned for voicing their concerns about a policy if they have a reasonable objection to it. Shutting down that kind of discourse is going to achieve one thing: a deplorable office culture.

                In general, sane, rational people are going to have a problem following extreme, inconsistently applied rules. It amazes me that someone could argue against the validity of that, even in the abstract.

                1. LaughingSkeptic*

                  No. A boss can basically operate his division as he sees fit. If you want it to be successful, certain types of divisions or companies will do better with collaboration. If you’re the boss over a warehouse… the job just needs to get done and you need to do it.

                  Also – lets consider this. If you want all rules to be consistent. Therefore the boss gets to be given instruction by the employees. The employees get to define the work schedule. They get to define the break schedule. They get to decide the scale of their raises. No – that’s stupid. The boss is the boss, and he doesn’t follow the same rules that you do. He has proven that he doesn’t need to be micromanaged. You haven’t. If you don’t like it… find a new boss. That boss will find and keep people who are capable of doing the job. Because they deserve it.

                2. Annonymouse*

                  Again I think the difference here is between a boss and an owner. A boss should abide by the same rules you do – dress codes, asking for holiday leave and accountability.

                  An owner can do as they please as there is no higher authority for them to answer to.

                  E.g at my last job the staff could only take holidays during school holiday periods and only one person could be on holiday at a time. My boss – the owner – could holiday whenever he chose for as long as he liked. He even booked some during school holidays preventing us from taking that time off.

                  Unfair? Incredibly. But as owner he can set the rules and not have to follow them.

                3. GoodChuckle*

                  If the Founder/CEO wants to wear business casual but required the entire staff to dress business formal. that is his choice.

                  I find it odd that people would find room to have as their official complaint… “THE CEO doesn’t have to, why do I?”

                  The CEO will leave at 2 in the afternoon and go to the country club and play golf too.

                  All positions aren’t the same.

              3. Mike*

                Correct, he does not answer to his employees, and they’re free to leave at any time. Except, realistically, this is not actually an option for most of them, most of the time. And honestly, while no one is arguing that The Boss can’t implement hypocritical policies, just because he can doesn’t mean he should.

            3. MeMe*

              “I’m the Boss and you’re the staff”

              I worked for a boss who expected us to work 12 hour days during tax season (a small CPA firm with three hired people). That was OK by me. Everyone would be at work by 5AM or 6AM and we’d call it a day by 6PM. He would get upset when we would leave, because he would be in the office alone after 6PM. “Who is going to answer the phones?” he would ask. He’d stay in the office until 11PM during the peak weeks. He expected us to stay as well.

              The problem is, he would show up to the office at 11AM or even noon. If we showed up that late, he’d ask, “Who is going to answer the phone in the morning?” Rather than work out separate office hours to cover the lag, he actually expected all of us to be available and in the office by 7AM to answer calls, and stay until 9PM or 10PM, too. I didn’t mind working 12 hour days. But at some point you have to call it quits as fatigue sets in and it’s just time to rest. I could never comprehend why he failed to recognize we were working just as long as he was, if not longer.

              Furthermore, with the quiet 2 hours we had in the morning, we were able to be more productive.

              In any case, the whole idea of do as I say and not as I do can only go so far. Unreasonable demands are an invite to high office turnover, which he had. After 4 seasons, I tendered my resignation (the last of the three) and now work for an amazing company who appreciates hard work and dedication.

              A dress code is a reasonable demand. You are young and inexperienced. Turn this into your favor. When interviewing, you may want to share this as a lesson learned to your potential employer. You’ll certainly be remembered for this story and it may set you apart from others. Some employers may look for this type of individual. Just make sure you let them know you’ve learned there’s a time and place for everything.

            4. annonymouse*

              As long as the boss is dressed appropriately (no butt cracks and closed toe shoes – also no offensive shirts) then they can wear what they want.
              I work in a more casual work environment and wear clothing appropriate for my front desk role (pants/skirt & nice tops)

              My bosses aren’t customer facing so they can wear jeans, t-shirts and hoodies. And I don’t care.
              I’m allowed some flexibility in clothes (not overly formal/business but nothing sloppy) but our roles are different and it is part and parcel of working for a small business.

              1. annonymouse*

                I should point out my bosses are the owners of the small Business I work for.

                As someone above me pointed out there is a world of difference between an owner and a boss. An owner can afford to be a hypocrite about dress codes whereas a boss (another employee) cannot.

          4. Kathy O.*

            Every place of business has a dress code, and most are in place for good reason. Whether you work for Starbucks and wear a logo’d shirt, or work for a bank and need to wear socks, or work for a tattoo shop and must show your own tattoos. ALL places of business have a dress code. You could’ve saved yourself your internship by simply having a discussion with HR to better understand the dress code that was in place and if it was negotiable. You would’ve been better informed and still have your internship.

            1. ThatAspie*

              I once applied to a Starbucks (didn’t get the job, but whatever), and in reading their rules, I read their dress code, and it’s pretty strict. I mean, I get that they want a certain image – that’s fine. It’s also fine to have rules that go with wanting a certain image, and it’s obviously fine that they have people dress in ways that don’t put them or others at risk of illness or injury (burns, cuts, scrapes, broken bones, ground-up fingers, salmonellla, e. coli, etc.) But some of their dress code seemed a little ridiculous to me, but I know that, if I worked at a Starbucks, I would definitely adhere, or at least try to adhere. If I had, or knew I was getting, a job at Starbucks, I would put off my next Cherry Kool-Aid hair dye attempt for the remainder of the job (as much as I enjoy looking like Jessie), I would refrain from wearing my white shorts, I wouldn’t show up in light-colored jeans, I’d tuck in my shirt (and tell my poor skin to just suck it up), I’d paint my shoes black, I’d never wear my little green skirt, and I’d make sure to measure my earrings before they even touched my ears.

        4. JWH*

          It’s called “forming a union,” and there are processes for it. Interns circulating a petition isn’t one of those processes.

          1. melrmc13*

            If my employees decided to form a union without talking with my husband and me first, I’d shut the doors of our business. I’m NOT dealing with union jerks when I’M the one who invested in the business.

              1. Dana*

                Yours is a lazy man’s way of dismissing a valid point. Nothing you said invalidates melrmc13’s very valid point. Many businesses do choose to shut their doors rather than deal with unions. That would certainly be my choice.

                1. Vicki*

                  But gloryB raises a good point. If melrmc13 wants to make a point, s/he need to leave out the pejorative name calling. The word “jerks” cheapens the message.

                  Now it’s not about unions; it’s about jerks.

            2. gloryB*

              If you need to resort to name-calling to make your point, then I question your point.

            4. Buttered Toast*

              Even union organizers will tell you that unions don’t create the need for unions. Conditions and policies chosen by management of the particular company in question do. Do a good job as leader and you have nothing to worry about.

              Don’t forget that being “invested” in a business isn’t all monetary. Employees invest a lot of themselves in your business too. Take care of that investment and it will pay dividends for you and them.

              One last thing, if you want employees to have a dialog with you instead of union organizers, it is ENTIRELY up to you to create an environment where that can and will happen.

              About the interns. I am completely in agreement with the actions of management here. It seems clear that to a person, (with one exception,) they had a very poor understanding of the employer-employee relationship. I’m stunned. How does that happen?

            5. Stephan Ahonen*

              FYI, it’s illegal under the National Labor Relations Act to close or threaten to close a business if employees unionize. If your employees unionize, the law requires you to stay in business and deal with the union.

              1. Ask a Manager* Post author

                They can’t close a plant to avoid dealing with a union, while otherwise staying in business. But they could certainly shut down the entire business if they wanted to; the NLRA can’t force you to keep your business open. The part you’re talking about is just about individual sites.

      2. Trout 'Waver*

        A petition also has the underlying connotation that the person responsible for such decisions is unreasonable or unapproachable.

      3. Ad Astra*

        “Your workplace is not a democracy” is an extremely important lesson to learn here, and also something I wouldn’t necessarily expect someone to know if they’ve never held any kind of job. It sucks that OP had to learn this lesson in such a costly way.

        (This is also why it’s a good idea for teenagers to work some kind of job in high school or early college, before they’re ready for internships or full-time jobs in professional fields — but that may not have been the best choice for OP’s specific circumstances.)

        1. L_Tony*

          Actually, I think their Colleges failed them as they should have already been TOLD that 1) as an intern you will have NO clout and 2) “making waves” is NOT acceptable when you are on the bottom of the ladder that you are wanting to someday climb.

          1. DW*

            Maybe their colleges failed them somewhat for not explaining the do’s and don’ts of workplace etiquette, but it’s pretty late at that point. Parents, teachers, and coaches need to explain that somethings aren’t up for debate. Sometimes no is the answer and why not isn’t the correct response.

            1. Rowan*

              I work in a business school and with both undergraduate and MBA students. Many, many, many of my staff peers do counsel and coach them, as I do, on the various “teachable moments” in life and business (the school even holds etiquette classes for business dinners because students are not getting that info from the home). Too often, the students completely ignore or disregard the guidance provided by professional staff, dismissing them as admin assistants or secretaries. Few staff are in a position to let students outright fail and be monetarily responsible for things like event over-expenditures and the like. I, on the other hand, have told MBA students who view “everything as a negotiation” that while they are in a simulation of work and business, I am actually in a live, production version of what they are still learning and that I will allow them to fall down. But the reinforcement and the effort it takes to get them to even listen, let alone not dismiss me completely because they know they’ll be making twice my salary in 6-months, is staggering – and is only one of five roles I am required to fill for a major research university.

              1. higheredrefugee*

                I worked with law students for nearly ten years, and I must second this idea. Depending on the culture of the student body, the more likely the students are to ignore the advice of the professional staff and even distinguished faculty. I tried to teach students about balancing their negotiations, especially the young parents, about why sick time or more vacation might be worth more to their sanity than $5000 in salary. Or understanding that when a small employer pays you less but completely pays your health insurance that is taking money out of the owner’s own pocket. But what would I know?

                1. Karen C Lewis*

                  Most of us don’t have the luxury between choosing a high paying job and a job with benefits. When I worked, I worked in a low-pay industry, but the benefits were great. I talked to a career changer and he had the opportunity to choose between two high paying jobs. The slightly lower paying job had better benefits, the higher paying job required he pay for his own health insurance. In the end, he choose the lower paying job (still about $80,000, as opposed to $100,000) because the cost of purchasing health insurance reduced his overall take home pay.

          2. Comerupper*

            I would go one step further and say that their parents failed them in teaching them to not respect their employers. As a disclaimer, I am a college kid but I started babysitting at ten, working Summer’s selling snow cones at fourteen and I did that each summer til I finally got a regular part time job at seventeen… Etc. Hiw is it possible to go through college and never having a job? That sounds so ludicrous to me to be hardly believable.

            1. rein-murray*

              It’s a privileged position to be in, for sure, but not an unusual one. For those whose parents are upper-middle class and value academic education very highly, sometimes jobs are off the list.

              Personally, my parents were very protective of me growing up and would not allow me to have a job. They definitely thought it more important that I focus on school – basically saying that rather than I get B’s and work a low-wage job at a McDonald’s or something, they would prefer I get straight A’s that would help me to secure a more professional job or internship later in life. I still had many responsibilities and chores and would often volunteer for nonprofits and work for family friends in the like here and there, but nothing formal and rarely paid. When I got to college, I had no reason to get a job because I received a full ride to the college of my choice (a point in the column of ‘focusing on school’).

              Now I know that many people do not have this luxury, but it is a reality. That said, I held several internships throughout college (all unpaid) and never once would have considered this kind of behavior, and my relationship with my employers was more casual and less corporate. I can’t fathom why someone would think this was a good idea…

          3. Karen*

            In fact, part of her letter implies that the school taught her how to write the petition.

            1. Quickbeam*

              I know! Argh. I actually like seeing the interns cone to our very conservative office with their first big boy pants and shoes!

          4. Arico1*

            As a college professor, I have been fighting with administration regarding this very point, which falls on deaf ears. The college is now seen as a business, the student the customer, and we must make the customer happy in order to keep up revenue.
            My view on the subject is that the student is the “product” of my efforts – to which I must determine if I am turning out a quality “product” to the world.
            It is a struggle, and I have suffered quite a lot of backlash from students (who become quite abusive when they do not achieve their perceived goal), but I persist. I know that employers are not so flexible and that I do my students an injustice by teaching them otherwise.

            1. James West*

              I entirely agree with Arico1 – as a professor, I don’t view the students as my customer, I view their future employer (or perhaps society) as my customer. Making the student happy is frequently entirely at odds with making them good at their job or a benefit to society.

              1. Oligonicella*

                Not customer, client. The difference being that a client expects (or should) to get feedback they may not have foreseen. I took on an additional degree at 55. I certainly wouldn’t have needed you to see my nonexistent future employer as your customer nor for you to concern yourself about my benefit to society (which presumes you know better what that benefit would be).

                1. Annonymouse*

                  I think customer is the right term in the contex. If the student comes from a wealthy family or well connected one it makes sense the university would want to keep them happy.

                  It becomes a transaction: student gets degree and school gets access to money/connections.

                  What the two previous posters were saying is that they don’t want it to be a transactional relationship and want to educate and prepare the students for working life.

        2. Y'all gone make me lose my mind*

          Yeah, the intern said they didn’t have a job because they always focused on school. Actually, they didn’t have a job because they could afford not to and still go to college. Your point is well taken. A job in high school would have taught them so much more.

          A lot of college students who put themselves through college would love to always focus on school instead of juggling a job and classes, but they can’t. However, they will have an edge on those whose experience is more limited.

          1. Dust Bunny*

            I think that a lot of younger people assume that the kinds of jobs they had in high school and the kinds of jobs they have as adults will work differently. It’s normal to not have any clout in whatever job you had as a teenager, but *surely* this job/internship will see them as the potential star their parents told them the would be.

        3. ASM826*

          It is clear the OP hasn’t learned the lesson, even when it was delivered with appropriate emphasis.

      4. Jay Bree*

        YES!
        Learn a life lesson. Work isn’t a democracy. Your “vote” may or may not count. Your opinion may or may not count.

    2. alter_ego*

      It actually says that the boss told her there was a medical reason for the other coworkers footwear during the firing. So you’re spot on.

      1. many bells down*

        It was the first thing I thought of – if one person is consistently wearing something otherwise not allowed, they probably have some sort of exemption. But that’s probably something that comes with experience of work; I’m not sure it’d have occurred to me in my very first job.

        1. Katie F*

          And the “Well, they should have TOLD US WHY SHE GOT TO WEAR THEM” bothers me a lot. A medical exemption is just that – medical, and therefore a privacy issue. The manager did the absolute right thing, trying to maintain the employee’s privacy by NOT explaining her medical issues.

          I’m going to assume that prior to the “you’re all sacked” meeting, they probably went and spoke with the Gym-Shoe-Wearing-Employee to get her permission to explain to the interns why she wears those shoes.

          But, ugh. Ugh ugh ugh. This whole situation is one gigantic mess.

          1. Kelly O*

            Exactly. The reason this person was an exception was absolutely none of the interns’ collective business.

            The reason could have even been “just because” and that would be fine.

          2. NotAnotherManager!*

            Yes, and not “Well, they should have told us…” because then they would understand the exemption but so they could factor it into their argument.

            I mean, I wouldn’t have fired all of them for just this incident, but this would have been a major teaching moment about appropriate professional behavior.

            1. Mallory Janis Ian*

              +1. That they say they could have factored it into their argument instead of accepting it as the boss’s very reasonable explanation makes me think this group of interns were probably unsalvageably over the line. I imagine they showed other such propensities, and that the boss factored those in when deciding to wash his hands of the lot of them. There’s a time and a place for rabble-rousing, but this was not it.

              1. Blurgle*

                I think they are simply very young, *very* privileged, and completely inexperienced.

                1. Dave Mann*

                  Very young. Ha. Immature. And unwilling to learn, if the one sided story is any indication. So much for good word of mouth, networking, and connections when you punch up at them.

                2. BananaPants*

                  Immature, privileged, and inexperienced sums it up perfectly. These kids have hopefully learned the valuable lesson that the workplace isn’t a democracy, especially when you’re the low man on the totem pole. A freaking petition?!

                4. Growing our future*

                  Um – did none of the interns talk to other employees, or maybe their parents, or tutors before riding off to war? What a confrontational way to attempt to solve a pretty unimportant issue (they were only there for a few weeks right?). I agree with an earlier poster, I would be surprised if this was an isolated incident which led to them being fired, I suspect there may have been other earlier incidents.

                  A sad situation and the fail boat has to make a few stops;
                  1. What had the college done to brief students for internship? Perhaps they need to make some adjustments to the content.
                  2. How had the students prepared for the internship? Did they have personal goals and objectives about what they wanted to achieve? Perhaps a more targeted focus would have stopped them getting caught up in “clutter”.
                  3. How had the company prepared? Interns always come with “rough edges” – it’s what they are. They are there to learn – which means the company has to invest some time and effort – interns are not just unpaid labor. There was a wonderful challenge/coaching opportunity here that the company missed. They could have had a five minute discussion on why the behavior was inappropriate, reminded the interns of their role/place, advised the point was not negotiable as it was a policy and then asked who wanted to stay on the bus and who wanted to get off. Quick and simple.

                  This would have been my preferred approach. Most interns arrived with the expertise and skills of a 16 year old office junior, and that is where my expectations are. So the fact they did what they did is not a surprise, it’s a learning opportunity. I would definitely not have sacked them for it.

                5. Stephen*

                  Being Young is about learning. Unfortunately this lesson came at the cost of their internships. The sooner you learn things in life, the less the lessons cost you.

                6. Intern2016*

                  @GrowingOurFuture I was with you until the 3rd point. As a current intern, I can understand firing the lot of them. This wasn’t a case of a handful of interns constantly pestering a handful of managers about something. If that had been the case, a “teachable” moment may have been realistic. But… They chose a VERY aggressive option to get their way. Basically, they went from 0 to 100, without stopping to get input, as you have stated, or even really thinking through the implications of their actions. I would think as manager, that if this is their default way of dealing with issues, then they aren’t worth my time and effort to rein them in. Especially over such a trivial and narcissistic issue, that really has very little bearing on the reason they are there in the first place. Personally, if the dress code didn’t work for me at my current internship, I would do the work, and at the end of the summer, thank them for the experience, get a good recommendation, and find a job somewhere more lax next year. And that is exactly what I did this summer, not for dress code but due to culture.

                  Furthermore, I don’t know what universities these interns went to, but educating students on etiquette and proper professional decorum is secondary to education on the actual subject matter they are studying. I have taken classes and been a full time student at several universities (I was military and transferred a few times) and every school I have attended, from individual courses at a community college to full-time at various universities, all have offeed professional behavior seminars and classes, but you have to be proactive in attending them. It’s not the school’s responsibility to force students to go to these kind of events any more than it is their responsibility to make sure grown adults wake up and attend class, nor is it the rest of the world’s responsibility to finish their parent’s job.

              2. Robot*

                Yup! And if I were their manager, I would DEFINITELY factor in the rabble-rousing. Not only did they show extreme lack of judgement and total misunderstanding of their workplace, but they decided they were going to openly admit to having talked all around the office about their lack of faith in management, and ask a bunch of people to sign a petition agreeing! That kind of thing is damaging to morale and to management structures. To allow a bunch of interns to do walk around bad-mouthing management? Nope. I would have fired them too.

              3. Wendy Robertson*

                When I read the part about them wanting to know ahead of time about the exemption for the wounded soldier, that they would have “factored it into their argument” sounds a lot like an entitlement issue to me. Someone has always given them what they wanted, and they think they deserve to be allowed something different than what is the status quo. I just HOPE they learned a lesson from this, but stating the above makes me think that perhaps this young man did not.

                1. Maurine*

                  Funny. Maybe I missed something but I do not see anything about the OP being male. I actually think the OP was a female due to the reference to the female veteran being allowed to wear flat shoes while the rest of them could not. Very high school girl think

                2. Y'all gone make me lose my mind*

                  Wendy,

                  They didn’t learn. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be asking, “How can I get them to reconsider firing me?” Dude, you can’t. It’s over. Accept it. Be accountable, say you screwed up and do better next time.

                  That you have to be told THAT after what just happened, says loads.

              4. Bibliovore*

                This reminded me of a petition that the 6th graders came to the library. They wanted to be able to stay in the library after school from 3:30 to closing (10:30) unsupervised. I said no. We have had incidents in the past with unsupervised children in the library. They can get a pass from the office to be there after school from 3:30 to 5:00. This way we know who has parental permission to be there. They likened the “getting of the pass” system to civil rights injustices of South Africa.
                They had gotten 60 signature.
                They were shocked (shocked I tell you) when I said that the answer was still no.

                1. Huh*

                  Not quite the same as the OP’s situation? I wouldn’t expect 12 year olds to have a firm grasp on historical analogies, but I would expect them to be able to conduct themselves appropriately past 5 p.m. (Given all the other things 12 year olds do on their own, I am kind of shocked that you said no, as well.)

                2. Nesnnora*

                  So the children could still be unsupervised as long as they had parental permission, until 5pm? Seems like an odd arrangement since your concern is that they are unsupervised and parental permission would not solve that concern.

                  I’d suggest trying to compromise with limitations or a trial period because a child’s interest in being in a library should only be encouraged, not discouraged. You seem a big smug about the whole thing. I worked in a public library for 24 years and I raise my eyebrows at the attitude behind this.

                3. Sleeplesskj*

                  Nesnorra – in a school you never leave children unsupervised. Ever. The school is responsible for the safety of those kids at all times.

            2. Michael Ship*

              This WAS a major teaching moment. In a perfect world, they wouldn’t have been so coddled and misinformed in university, but they still got the message … loud and clear.

          3. Laurene*

            Yes I was going to say this too. It is NOT the intern’s RIGHT to know every single detail about every medical condition that every employee in the company has. If the boss sees fit to grant a person right to break a dresscode that is the Boss’es right, and it is no one elses right to know why! It doesn’t even have to be something as extreme as losing their leg in the war. It could be that they tore a tendon while running and need special shoes to be able to walk better. That is NOT “Need to know” information for interns, or any employee for that matter. It is a privacy issue. If the person wearing the shoes wants to talk about it, fine. But it better not explode into a gossip situation either! Gossip will kill professionalism in a workplace environment.

            I most especially love this comment too. “Oh and also – petitions really aren’t the way things are done. Your workplace isn’t a democracy.”

            EVERY WORKING PERSON NEEDS TO LEARN THIS (intern or not!). The Boss gets to set the rules because they are the boss. There is one leader for a reason. There is a chain of command for a reason. There is an order of operations for a reason. If everything is up for negotiation nothing gets done, no profits are made, and everyone loses their jobs. A company MUST make money or there will be no money to hire anyone. And the way a company makes money is for the Boss to set goals and the people to work together to accomplish those goals according to the guidelines and environment established by the leadership. The leadership has reasons. They don’t just make decisions willy nilly to torment their employees. If you don’t understand the reasons, ask someone who might understand, but don’t go straight to the boss and challenge them. They don’t have time for that. They’re trying to run a company and don’t have time for unteachable interns.

            2. E le B*

              It’s also worth noting that the company may have been required, for legal reasons, to accommodate the veteran’s need under the ADA. The ADA requires “reasonable accommodation” as long as it doesn’t materially impact the nature of the job. I’m not an expert on ADA but presumably wearing professional flats vs heels for an office-type job would be a required accommodation.

          4. Nancy Q*

            My message to the sacked intern …Get a grip! If you want to work in a suit and tie industry then you will have to wear a suit and tie.
            You are not entitled to know or weigh in on the dress or medical issues of another employee. In the later stages of my pregnancy, my employer understood why I was wearing sneakers to the office. Should this have been placed in the company newsletter?….. ” Sally’s feet are swollen into pods and she must wear sneakers because nothing else fits her. ”
            As an intern, you should have been focused on learning the business not what other people were wearing. This alone shows that your focus was on the wrong thing and I would have fired you as well. I want folks working for me who are interested in the work and focused on learning the business.
            This petition showed a lack of understanding of the potential special needs that some folks need to do their work, in this case a very minor accomodation(sneakers) that allowed someone to work. I don’t want someone working for me with such little imagination that they can’t figure out that accomodations will be made for employees.

        2. Swami*

          That’s exactly right. If there is someone who daily and obviously is in violation of a rule the office is otherwise held to, there are several possibilities.
          Medical reason is high on the list.
          Other possibilities are Related To Boss and The Only One Who Can Make the Farglinugalator Work.
          Also up there is Consistently Leads in Sales.

          But there is always a reason, and for these interns to assume “unfairness”, well.. at least they got a learning opportunity. Hopefully they learned.

          1. Steph*

            I love your other reasons. Mostly because I fit into a few of those categories at one of the places I worked, and was able to break dress code on a regular basis so long as the owners weren’t around. It pays to work hard, even in little ways.

            1. Average Joe*

              Well, that depends on the position that the company is in as well. In one of my jobs, we were required to wear full PPE in some areas. One guy would wear sandals and shorts in those areas and would tell management no if they asked him to put it on. Minimum punishment was supposed to be 1 week unpaid suspension, no ifs, ands, or buts. The company couldn’t really retain employees, it was to the point that other companies didn’t have training, they would just hire guys that our company finished training. Management would say just wait for the slowdown and you guys will still be working and they won’t be. Unfortunately for management, most of the guys were smart enough to realize that if they worked for 6 months and made $100k, was the same as them working for a year and making $50k but with an extra 6 months of vacation. So it was to the point that some guys just wouldn’t show up for work, they’d only show up for an hour, etc. and management wouldn’t do anything about them if they had the seniority.

          3. Showy*

            >Farglinugalator

            I Googled this word. You are the only Google result for it. You have invented a new and wonderful word!

        3. Y'all gone make me lose my mind*

          It likely wouldn’t have occurred to you on your first (or any) job to hand in a petition that says, “Look how many people agree with me that your policy is wrong” either.

        4. KBonn*

          Good point. It should have occurred to them from their experiences in school, however. There are always students–in a public school setting, in any case–who have special needs because of medical or learning issues. I teach high school, and my experience is that most students seem to assume that there is a good reason for one student being allowed to eat during class, take extra bathroom breaks, leave class five minutes early, or any of the other accommodations that a student might need. It’s just something that they’re used to seeing as they’ve grown up.

      2. Emily*

        Even if the specific reason for the other employee’s exemption hadn’t been revealed (which it probably shouldn’t have been, but wow, it was an effective way to drive the point home!), it’s almost never a good idea to go with the “but my superior gets to!” argument. I completely understand how unfair and irrational it can seem when a superior—or any colleague, really—is allowed to make exceptions to the dress code, or leave early, or work from home sometimes, but junior employees, especially interns and/or other temps, are better off assuming there’s a reasonable exemption in place.

        Firing everyone seems quite extreme. The employer could have used this as a teaching moment without dismissing their entire brigade of interns—after all, I think learning the nuances of office politics, policies, and etiquette is a really important part of internship experiences.

        1. The Rat-Catcher*

          ^All of this. Interns were WAY out of line, but this also sounds like a company who might see “interns” as “cheap/unpaid help” rather than “individuals who are not familiar with workplace norms and need to be taught.” The petition was definitely off-base, but they probably thought that a written proposal showing that they’d thought out their work and weren’t just randomly complaining would make them appear professional.

          1. Tennto 2*

            I think the interns just received an excellent education. I applaud the owners of the company for seizing on a teachable moment and firing the lot of them.

          2. Bruce*

            Most interns provide little work of value. While a few may abuse interns, in most cases the companies feel as if they are providing a service. The intern receive much more value than the company. For interns to present a petition is completely inappropriate and the firing was justified. This spoiled snowflake should file this under “lesson learned”.

            1. leslie knope*

              “Most interns provide little work of value.”

              this is both insulting to those of us who have done internships and false. this just sounds like something companies say to justify not paying someone for their work.

              1. Ask a Manager* Post author

                I actually think that’s true — and it’s how the law says internships are supposed to work. They’re supposed to be there primarily to learn and for their own benefit, not for the company’s benefit.

                1. WV*

                  I’ve had a lot of internships and managed interns and honestly, whether and intern is doing valuable work depends on how you use them and (I’m assuming) the type of workplace. Most of my internships involved fairly important work that, frankly, wouldn’t have been done without my work. When I was managing interns I was working for an organization that wouldn’t have functioned without them. Of course, leadership development was a major part of our mission, but we also didn’t have the funding for a huge staff. For the most part, they did the job and did it well. At one point I even farmed out a major project to a group of them and, with some supervision, they did great. They got a big learning experience and resume booster, and I got a lot more time to focus on other things.

                  Bottom line: Depending on the circumstances, if interns are used correctly their work can be both a huge asset to the organization and a positive learning experience.

                2. BTH*

                  The interns at the agency that I am employed at work side-by-side with experienced staff to enable us to provide critical services–we couldn’t do the work that we do without our interns, and they provide our agency with tremendous value.

                3. pescadero*

                  “and it’s how the law says internships are supposed to work”

                  Nope.

                  It’s how the law says UNPAID internships are supposed to work.

                  Every internship I had as a student was paid, the intern was an employee under FLSA.

              2. David S*

                With the interns I have hired, we have them for about 10 weeks, sometimes a bit longer. I sometimes will have a “nice to have” assignment to give an intern — something that, if it does not get done, does not hurt the project, but if it gets done and works, it could be beneficial.

                More often than not, I spend more time with the intern than it would to do it myself. But, that is ok. I am not hiring the intern to get things done. I am hiring the intern to figure out if I want to hire them long term. You do a good job, I will hire you and pay you a bit more. How can you tell if you are on the good side? I will put you in for a DoD security clearance. And I will officially keep you on as an employee while in school.

                In other words, the internship is an extended interview.

                1. Bookdoc*

                  I only worked for one company that took on interns and it really was an extended interview.
                  It’s a way to see if a person fits the corporate culture, can take instruction, and can follow policies. Most of the hires I saw in their training program came from interns. I thought it was a great idea as it is difficult to judge that sort of thing from a resume and a 30 minute interview.

              3. QD*

                Agreed. I work in aerospace, and we commonly toss our engineering interns right into the deep end, usually paired with an experienced mentor or two. Circuit design, FPGA coding, lab testing, etc. They love it. It’s what they want to do for a living, after all. One was timed just right to go on a short site testing trip with us- get to see our stuff working out in the field.

              4. Alex*

                You can find it as insulting as you like, but interns not only provide little work of value, but are actually a DRAIN on the value of a company. Interns take time to train and always work on the most ridiculously contrived problems that interns work on the whole summer competent workers can do in a couple days. In addition to eating up resources, such as desks, chairs, computers, the most valuable resource interns consume is the time of c0mpetent workers. Taking an hour or two here and there to first explain to you the problem to be solved, as well as walking you through whatever the inevitable stumbling blocks you will stumble on will certainly exceed the number of hours it would have taken to simply have solved the problem himself.

                If value were traded for value, interns not only wouldn’t be paid, but would be paying the company, for the same reason students pay tuition: you are learning valuable skills that are used in the company for which you interened without providing anything of value to the company in return.

                Internships are used as recruiting tools. Companies are willing to take interns who average losses for the company to extend offers to the most competent who will more than make up for the losses of interns.

                1. JWH*

                  Interns take time to train and always work on the most ridiculously contrived problems that interns work on the whole summer competent workers can do in a couple days.

                  Random memory from one of my summer internships. My boss had me compiling some reports from a database. (Keep in mind this was 1994). I went through it, and I found what I would recognize today as very bad database structure. On the second morning of the project, I told my boss that I couldn’t give him accurate reports because of database inconsistencies. He told me he had confidence in me and I should work at it. That afternoon, I told him I was still having the issue, and I could use some help.

                  We went into a meeting, and I went over the problem with him (in detail). He looked at it, took my observations and went home and said he would work on it. As I recall, he seemed a little disappointed I had brought it to him.

                  The next morning, I asked him how it went. That morning’s lesson was on the value of giving up on on insoluble problems …

                2. LJT*

                  Every company spends money to train every new employee. It’s part of the bargain; whether it’s service industry or aerospace engineering, new hires (or interns) get low (or no) pay to learn the ways and potentially become permanent employees. The new guy gets paid crap but learns a lot, and the business pays crap and but has to deal with the training. This is why it’s important for businesses to hire wisely and train well; it’s expensive to keep training new hires.
                  That said, can’t stand newbies in training making laughable demands and pointing to those with seniority with “well why does he get to?…”

              5. Polybius Champion*

                I did have an intern once who made really good coffee. And, I also had one who was like a walking road atlas (before GPS). I’ve hired a ton of interns, made full time offers to many. But the goal was to engage in a long term interview, do some social good and get menial tasks done that didn’t require actual thinking. But for the first year of employment very, very few people provide any real value to an orginazition. New (1st year) hires I always told them a great policy was to never offer improvement ideas for at least 9 months. When hiring experienced people I asked them to refrain from making suggestions for at least 90 days.

                1. rhucele*

                  I had a six month Engineering Internship in aerospace. I worked in three different departments and added to the knowledge base in each with results used after I left. Plus I developed on my own, the concept of a laser scriber for chemical milling masks, an idea that was later put into production and patented by others. I saved the company several times my salary while being moved around.

                2. YepIt'sMe*

                  @rhucele, Glad you had the chance to make an impact. But that’s the exception, not the rule. In companies where I’ve worked with interns (and when I was an intern myself), they were given real tasks that would provide real value, but which would not really hurt the company if nothing came of it. And quite often, absolutely nothing came of it. The product of their work is NOT why they were there, ever. Sometimes they did great work. If so, great, we’ll take it! But when we hire interns instead of seasoned employees, we treat it like an extended interview (we actually call our intern program our “farm”). We also do it to be good members of society, giving inexperienced people a chance to grow regardless of whether they ever work for us again. We see it as a kind of charity.

                3. Amanda*

                  This is actually some really great advice! While I’m all for people challenging old systems/ways at their company, you need to sit back and learn your job and the company first. I shut up and listen for the first 6 months before trying to take on any new work or offer suggestions.

              6. Ron*

                The fact is that the typical intern comes in knowing very little about the company, what it does, and how it goes about doing it. Companies typically bring interns on as a means of investing in their training in the short run to determine whether or not there would be a longer term fit. Working with a summer intern right now, I can tell you I’ve invested quite a bit of time trying to bring this person up to speed on a project and the performance study I needed done, whereas if I utilzed an internal resource, I wouldn’t have needed to invest anywhere near the same amount of time.

                In short, an intern is not in a position to add value immediately, so the statement made above is certainly not false, and is not “something companies say to justify not paying someone for their work.” It’s simply paying the for the value the intern is able to provide.

                At the end of the day, the intern always has a choice, as do we all: If we don’t feel like we’re being paid for the value we provide, look for another job.

              7. Dana*

                I work for a Fortune 500 company and we don’t hire interns to do work for the sake of work. This is done to give them an opportunity to learn about our business. It is primarily a training exercise….for the intern. We hire them to see how they will fit into our culture for future consideration. I would agree the experience is more for the intern than our company.

                This was certainly a hard lesson, but I agree with the actions of the employer. Their behavior was so unprofessional that is best to learn the hard way.

              8. Y'all gone make me lose my mind*

                Leslie,
                I think you might have read that more harshly than it was intended by Bruce.

                In our office, we don’t expect our interns to provide anything of value, and that’s absolutely fine! We do derive value from them being there, which allows us the opportunity to help them gain some experience and forces us to talk about what we do, how we do it and why. That gives us perspective outside of the day-to-day running and gunning.

                We don’t expect them to produce like an entry-level employee, but we do pay them entry-level wages.

                Also, a company’s attitude about interns doesn’t figure into it. The law is very specific. The interns must derive value and learn through the internship.

            2. Ram Tos*

              If your company finds interns to be of little value, you are either:

              1. hiring the wrong people for these internships
              2. needing to overhaul how the intern program is run and managed

          3. Swami*

            I agree, however, with all these interns being so far out of line, and so unfamiliar with norms, the obvious question is…

            Why didn’t their educators let them know?

            I’m certain the educators who “prepared” these interns considered themselves highly professional, competent individuals, yet this episode calls that into question.

            Perhaps the interns’ next petition should be: “As your brochures clearly claim that the quality of education here is excellent, based on actual outcomes we feel we are entitled to a partial refund”.

            1. DeepThought*

              “Why didn’t their educators let them know?”

              The answer to that question is simple, throughout my B.S. and M.S(IT). years, I learned one valuable lesson. Most of the Professors were left leaning and had no real world experience. If Professors have no experience in the private sector, how are they supposed to educate?

              1. Becky*

                I work at a university, and while some of what you say is true, I would also offer another reason. So many of our students today have been told all their life that they are extraordinary, special, wonderful, etc., that they don’t listen to what people who do have experience in the work world tell them — the rules apply to everyone else and not to them.

                1. Wem*

                  I agree with you. One simple question to the employee wearing the shoes, “Can I ask you why you get to wear shoes different than office policy?” Would probably have gotten a truthful answer. I also think the petition was the last in a series of issues with the interns. I also think a sit down meeting with the interns, after the first couple of issues, with some very clear language may gave helped. All I know is I’m pretty shocked at the language and attitude of young people at work. Jobs are hard to find, wages suck but if you are earning a paycheck do the job you are getting paid for until you can find better. They have a very steep learning curve ahead of them.

              2. shakemyhead*

                while it may be true that many people learn valuable skills from school that they then employ in the workplace, the purpose of a college education is to increase one’s erudition…not prepare for the workplace…the place to learn job skills is on the job…that employers wish to shirk their responsibilities and pass them on to schools does not absolve them of said responsibilities…

                1. Denise*

                  No. It is absolutely not the employer’s responsibility to prepare a college graduate (or any person applying for a job) to be able to work for them, unless this is specifically a “trainee” type position.

                  They should tell them the rules of their organization, of course. If someone chooses to not follow those rules it’s not the employer’s problem, though.

              3. Snowy*

                I’d ask that you leave politics out of it; both the left and the right (and the middle) have their share of people without real world experience.

            2. Erin M.*

              I’m not sure the obvious question is “why didn’t their educators let them know”? What precisely were their educators supposed to let them know?
              Not to think they were collectively entitled to access to private medical information about other employees?
              Not to jeopardize a valuable internship over something as trivial as a short-term, inconvenient dress code?
              Not to think that an intern was on an equal footing as an employee?
              Not to undermine your boss?

              These are not lessons that taught in ENG 201 The Early plays of Shakespeare; BIO 320 Genetics; ANT 330 Archaeology of China or ART 206 Graphic Design. This is common sense. There is no class for that. Nor should there be.

              I get that students may need help filling out forms. My daughter is starting college in the fall, and so YES, she needs help filling out her FAFSA, opening a checking account, buying a car etc. And as we do these things together, she’s taught life lessons like making sure she reads the fine print before she signs something, what happens if you overdraw your checking account, what an interest rate is. But she was taught when she was in PRESCHOOL not to sass her teacher. She sure as heck knows not to sass her boss, let alone start a petition over something as lame as a dress code. They were interns. How long were they going to have to *suffer* under these Draconian expectations? It would have been SO different if an actual employee had suggested casual Fridays, gotten office staff support (in the form of collecting signatures), and presented some data showing that the less restrictive attire improved office morale and productivity. That’s how adults bring about change. But these interns had collective temper tantrums.

              1. Jerry K.*

                Adults don’t go around collecting signatures, they TALK to their supervisor. If the answer is no regardless of efficiency, morale Etc, endow of story.

            3. Annonymouse*

              It depends on what the student wants to learn and is willing to hear and what experience the professors have.

              So even the most willing students can’t learn if there is no information available to them.

              Conversely even if you had a fortune 50 CEO deliver a lecture about how to start in business or office environments but the students think they know better or this common advice doesn’t apply to them there is no level of education can reach them.

          4. Wesley Long*

            If you’ve ever managed a department, you’ll know that onboarding staff is a HUGE (trying hard not to put the “Y” in huge) commitment of time and resources. For knowledge workers, it generally takes 6 months for an entry-level hire to start producing more than they cost, 1 year before you are “done” with all the training and review, and 2 years before you’re “in the black” with a hire. That’s one (of many) reason that experience is such a valuable commodity when hiring.

            An internship is generally less than 6 months, so for all intents and purposes, hiring an intern is charity work. Sometimes it “pays off,” in that you identify a good candidate before they’re done in school, and you can use the internship as a “trial” period and get training done on lower wages, but by and large interns leave at the end and the business has a “net zero” on it. You can’t assign interns to critical tasks because they’re not “invested” in the company. Their first priority is their education, and rightfully so. They also don’t plan on being there 5 years, so long-term planning and development don’t mean much to them, either.

            An internship is essentially a company investing in outreach to college students, hoping to find good talent, but doing it mainly to “give back” to the college world by giving students some practical field experience and a little “culture shock.”

            Apparently these students needed a higher voltage shock.

          5. Emily*

            Well, wait; I didn’t read “cheap/unpaid help” attitudes in the letter, and didn’t intend to imply that in my comment. The company was certainly free to penalize the interns; I just think their penalty of choice was a bit extreme. It likely taught the interns this one lesson, but now they’re missing every other lesson they could have learned if given the opportunity to learn from their mistake and continue on, and the company is missing out on the benefits lead them to run an internship program in the first place (there are pros and cons to interns, but we can reasonably assume the pros outweighed the cons for this company when they started their program.)

            1. Phelps*

              I don’t think that the intent was to teach anything.

              The intent was to cut a cancer out of the culture before it metastasized into the whole corporate body.

              1. Neil*

                This ^.

                What message does it send to the regular paid staff if a bunch of interns can get a petition together that changes corporate policy?

            2. Ray B.*

              I think the company got what it wanted and taught the right lesson. Interns are there to absorb information and lessons, not make demands of the employer. If the employer hires interns the following year, how many of those interns will make demands about the workplace environment that are superficial? How would interns approach such a question in the future? Will they learn to back channel before making public demands again? What abgreat lesson this company taught! Life is frequently difficult, hpw much better to learn this lesson as an intern rather than getting canned in your first job out of achool.

            3. GREmployer*

              They did have the opportunity to learn from their mistake: they asked their supervisors for permission to be exempted from the dress code. They wouldn’t take no for an answer, so discussed it among themselves. And escalated to a petition which was pretty much outright rebellion. Once it gets to that level, the only way to stop it is to cut it out. They didn’t learn from their first mistake, so they dug their hole deeper.

              1. Sean*

                Exactly. They asked, were told they had to comply and then said “no one tells me no” and took it to the next level. Telling them no a second time wouldn’t end the issue.

                None of us have seen the actual petition. We are told it was well thought out with valid points by the same person who thought writing a petition and having everyone sign it was a good idea.

                The amount of time and money wasted by the company to handle the issue justifies the firing, in my mind. The meeting with the interns wasn’t the only time management wasted.

                1. Old Enough*

                  One reason for having dress codes is to stop discussions and meetings about dress codes. Diverts energy and focus from the important goals of the organization.

            4. J Slone*

              Like it was said earlier, the interns may have done some other unacceptable things before they were finally let go.

          6. Dweali*

            I don’t know…the company didn’t fire the only intern who didn’t sign the petition (at least as far as OP knows) so maybe the company does realize that these are individuals that need to learn workplace etiquette…and they did just get a really good lesson on it (if only they can recognize it)

          7. JNZ*

            Wait, I don’t remember her making any such statements regarding pay. That is a pretty big leap.

          8. Annonymouse*

            But the parts that get me and show that OP was beyond saving are:

            “If they had told us about the medical exemption we would have factored it into our argument.”

            Meaning they still would have fought for the dress code changes even though the main reason for it was that one employee didn’t have to follow it. In their own words there was no argument to be had.

            And

            “How do I get them to reconsider firing me?”

            Both of these show that OP doesn’t get it – that your importance to a workplace is determined by what they get from you vs the hassle of keeping you. When you provide less value than hassle they’ll cut you loose.

            Hassle can be things like wages, work product, reputation damage, costing clients or even personal reasons / personality clashes like we’ve seen here.

        2. Rafe*

          It depends. Getting fired en masse is a learning experience. If all but one of the interns signed the petition, then all but one of them thought it was appropriate to do — and there’s really no reason to think any would budge from that view if the office … negotiated, or accepted the petition as reasonable.

        3. Mickey Q*

          Maybe the boss didn’t want to spend the rest of the summer managing a bunch of children.

          1. Coco*

            The OP is probably reading the comments, and I hope they’re not turned off by this. Calling them “a bunch of children” seems unnecessary and unkind to me.

            1. Marvel*

              I think it’s harsh, but I also think it’s probably an accurate portrait of the management’s view. OP and cohort were acting immature and childlike, and should learn from this experience.

            2. Andrew X*

              The world is not “kind”. Children who learn this have taken a step toward becoming what we call “adults”. It would be nice if our universities played a useful role toward that end.

              It would be nice…..

            3. Hermilion*

              And what made you think someone must be kind and considerate to anybody – especially to person who showed no tack nor consideration herself?

              There is one more lesson to be learned: people do not have to like you and are free to be completely inert about you or your fate.

              This is exactly the lesson that makes kids to grow up – kids are taken care of .. grown up takes care for themselves.

            4. Jerry K.*

              Well COco, adults don’t write petitions in the workplace, they talk to supervisors and most of all don’t waste time on petty stuff. They are their to learn the culture and business etiquette. I think they really got a hard lesson but will remember.

          2. A bunisness owner*

            Amen! It sounded like the boss would be managing a day care instead of interns interested in working!

          3. David*

            Nah, I’m sure that had the employer acceded to their request it would have been the last and only thing they would have ever decided they could change their employer’s policies on and wouldn’t have petitioned again. They wouldn’t have gotten the idea that they ran the place. Just like college.

        4. CC*

          I get the impression, based on the dress code and reaction, that this was a highly competitive internship in finance.

          Finance has a reputation for a cutthroat approach to problems, and I think this was one where that came to a head.

          1. zora.dee*

            Yeah, the description of the shoes: “no non-leather flats” sounds similar to UBS’s dress code, and other large banks/financial institutions I’ve heard of.

          2. Don't Poke The Bear, Dad!*

            Probably. I’m in finance and in IT, and it’s still business casual for us even though our floor isn’t client-accessible … because we all use the same elevators, and the People Who Pay The Bills have decided that they don’t want high net worth clients getting into an elevator with someone with a torn concert t-shirt and their ID badge hanging from their belt.

            I live with it because, holy hell, I know what battles are worth fighting.

        5. Stacey*

          These interns had a group meeting that involved talking about an employee and what they thought about that employee not wearing the proper type of shoes. They made that person a subject of gossip and speculation. Most places of business have rules about what you can and cannot do to another employee. This is something you cannot do.

        6. One Short Comment*

          If you were the disabled employee would you like to be working in an office where all the interns banded together to write an essay about how you dress? Who probably in their “reasoned argument” detailed your footwear? Would you feel comfortable working with them after that?

          There is a wronged party here. I think it is not the interns.

          So keep them around after they got together and wrote a petition about a specific, disabled employee?

          I feel that the employee with the exemption was targeted, or would have felt targeted. This is not OK.

        7. Annonymouse*

          The way OP has responded to the information given
          (would have factored employees missing leg into petition instead of not carrying out petition, asking Alison on how to get their job back as their dismissal wasn’t fair)

          Shows they aren’t able to take value from these lessons. One must have a teacher and be able and willing to understand the lessons taught.

    3. Blue Anne*

      The OP actually notes that at the end of the meeting they were told the colleague with more casual footwear is allowed because she had lost a leg in the military. What way to learn that lesson.

      I’m cringing for you, OP. I’m sure this is mortifying and painful for you to go through. But I agree completely with Alison.

      1. Katie the Fed*

        Dammit! I really need to slow down and read more thoroughly before I skip to the answer!

        I was so worried last year that someone would give me grief about my footwear :(

        2. Anxa*

          I worry about my footwear all the time. I have all but given up on trying to find shoes that you can wear with a dress that cover the full tops of your shoes. For quasi-medical reasons, I won’t wear shoes that can’t be worn with full sock or can’t be easily washed at least weekly.

          Even with pants, it’s difficult to find a full shoe that covers cotton socks anymore. I’ve resigned to wearing street shoes, but that means my whole wardrobe has shifted to more casual. It’s still well within our dress code, though.

          There have been times I’ve needed to dress up and mismatched my outfit with terribly too casual shoes. Sometimes I wonder if you go all out into totally casual, if it’s more obvious its for medical purposes.

            1. Anxa*

              It’s not really my style, but I have been considering eventually getting something similar. For work I’m thinking maybe a modified oxford. I wonder if I could pull off a skirt or dress with them (though I wear mostly pants at work)

              I’d like to wear more slim fit pants, but I don’t think I could go much slimmer or cropped until I figure out how to pair more with full shoes.

              Agreed that the socks don’t look bad at all in those pics!

              1. Blue_eyes*

                I have a pair of Cole Haan oxfords that I wear with skirts and dresses. Lots of brands are making women’s shoes right now in styles that are similar to traditional men’s dress shoes. Googling “women’s oxfords” comes up with a lot of results at a variety of price points and formality levels. That could be one option to look into.

              2. Murphy*

                Ankle boots and oxfords are two of my go-to shoes since an accident that severely damaged my leg and means I can’t wear heels at all. They look great with all sorts of business clothes (loafers are my other go-to, but they have no support so I can’t wear them as much or walk as far in them).

              3. Karen*

                I wear heeled oxfords all the time with skirts and dresses – but then, my wardrobe sort of skews 1940s and 1950s in style, so it works. I think some flat oxfords can work, too, especially with longer skirts.

              4. AVH*

                I have back issues but love wearing heels. I have to have comfort, so I wear character shoes which are made for dancing). They are a godsend.

          2. Koko*

            Oh my gosh, I hate women’s dress shoes for that exact reason, except it’s completely unrelated to a medical reason, I just can’t stand the style. WHY is the entire top of the foot always exposed?? It doesn’t even feel like a shoe to me!

            I exclusively wear dress sandals when I need a dress shoe because I’d rather have the top of my foot covered (which is the case in most dress sandals) and my toes peeking out than my toes covered and the entire top of my foot exposed.

            1. Anxa*

              I feel like this trend has gotten out of hand in the past few years. I almost wonder if the exposed shoe trend has contributed to the overall relaxing of dress standards in many areas (although I think most of that is marketing untailored clothes).

              My boyfriend sometimes gripes about not finding shoes on sale (I think men’s wardrobes are more affordable, but overall they are less trendy and the staples are harder to find on sale). I tell him at least he’s getting a full shoe!

            2. Mallory Janis Ian*

              I injured my foot last summer and now I can’t wear those flimsy little shoes that don’t come up high on my foot. Every time I’ve tried going back to “pretty” shoes, I’ve aggravated the injury. I guess it’s Oxfords for me from now on, too.

          3. Nelly*

            Skechers go walk can come in all sorts of styles, some quite professional, and can often go through a washing machine safely. Comfy/clean.

          4. AnonAnalyst*

            Ugh, I have this issue, too. I have Raynaud’s that’s particularly bad in my feet and it’s progressed to the point that I pretty much always have to wear fully enclosed shoes with thick socks (apparently something that there is zero demand for in women’s shoes, at least based on the styles I see everywhere I look).

            I’m not a big dress/skirt person, which makes things a bit easier, but I still find that a lot of the shoes that will meet my warmth needs look really clunky or too casual when paired with a more tailored pant and top. I’ve kind of given up because I’m not going to risk permanent damage to my feet just to wear more attractive shoes, but I’m always super self conscious of it when I go to meetings where people are more dressed up.

          5. Sera*

            Are oxfords or brogues appropriate at your workplace? I think they’re a nice alternative to ankle boots and very pretty styles of shoes.

        1. Blue Anne*

          Yeah, you’re right. I’m giving them the benefit of the doubt that they’re going to be mortified when they read Alison’s answer, though.

          1. M*

            Speaking of mortified, mortified is definitely the tone OP should go for if they write a note to their manager apologizing for squandering the internship.

            1. OlympiasEpiriot*

              This made me think of the (offensive to my mother) Hebrew National tv ads back in the 70’s…”we answer to a Higher Authority.”

                1. OlympiasEpiriot*

                  She never really explained it to me, but, knowing her as I do, I suspect it was one of the following:
                  (1) Making light of G-d; or
                  (2) claiming G-d as something that cancelled out food safety regulations.

                  Never quite sure with her.

        2. AMG*

          She will be in time. And she will have a good story to tell someone who needs to learn stuff like this. Maybe her future interns. It’s okay OP. Everyone makes mistakes. Just another reminder of how different academics are from the professional world.

          1. Stranger than fiction*

            Exactly. None of the interns thought this was a bad idea, so they’re clearly coming from a university student mentality.

      3. Joseph*

        Honestly, even if there wasn’t a medically necessary reason like “lost a leg in the military”, it still wouldn’t really be allowable to complain about it. As long as the employee’s manager (and anybody above that) is OK with it, it’s their business not yours.

        At my last job, we had a senior employee who would wear shorts, sandals and t-shirts every day during the summer. The rest of us wore standard business casual – dress pants, polos, etc – and it was mentioned if you weren’t dressed up to standard. But you know why the senior guy was able to do it? Because he brought in a ton of business and the company (wisely) decided it wasn’t worth fighting that battle with a guy selling multi-million dollar contracts every month.

        1. Not the Droid You are Looking For*

          I went round and round with an employee who complained that IT still wore jeans on days when we were supposed to be business casual. I felt like there were only so many times I could say, “I am not the IT department manager, I don’t set their rules.”

          1. CH*

            My husband is an IT worker who wears jeans every day in a business casual environment. He spends so much time on his hands and knee installing computers, moving servers, and other physical tasks that he would wear out the knees on khaki pants.

            1. Not the Droid You are Looking For*

              Ha! I really, really, really wanted to say, “if you want to crawl around under the server just so you can wear jeans, there is an opening in IT.”

              1. Mallory Janis Ian*

                I know, right?

                “I am not the IT department manager, I don’t set their rules [but if you want to work in IT, feel free to apply].”

              2. NotAnotherManager!*

                I have used this so many times. We sometimes provide additional technology accommodations to people who do certain work where having the additional tech makes a night and day difference in productivity. When people complain to me that so-and-so got, say, an extra monitor, I have offered to get them an extra monitor in exchange for taking 25% of the drudgerous project that requires it. So far, no takers.

            2. TychaBrahe*

              I worked one summer at a job like that. I was required to wear a skirt and pumps because the front of house was a medical office. Yeah, I’m sure the patients enjoy how professionally I am dressed while I am on a ladder running cables in your ceiling.

            3. Not So NewReader*

              My husband worked a technical job, the standard was tie and white shirt when he started in the industry. You KNOW so many ties got caught in the mechanisms. Finally they ditched the tie and the shirt could be color or patterned. But they kept the dress pants. With no protection on his knees, my husband developed chains of cysts (picture a bunch of grapes) in his knees. His one knee got HUGE.
              Likewise my neighbor has permanent foot damage from wearing heels for retail.

              Companies drive up their own medical costs and are never held accountable for that.

              1. Marley M*

                You can always quit. I don’t think an employer should purposefully or maliciously torment their employees, but if you choose to work for someone you choose to accept everything that comes with it. Maybe your husband doesn’t like the medical condition, but it seems he liked the job well enough to get the medical condition- he could have quit.

                I personally wouldn’t work for a company that didn’t offer medical benefits so I guess I hold them accountable in that way, I have skills they can’t get without offering me medical so they’re pretty accountable. To say that an employer is “unaccountable” is pretty disingenuous.

                1. Snowy*

                  You can’t always quit. You can’t always just go and find another job with comparable pay and benefits, and you’ll rarely find one that will match what your seniority at another job might have given you. Even if you do find one, you might have to move, uprooting your entire family, kids in the middle of the school year, etc.

                  A much better solution is for employers to open their eyes and not require workers to do things that are detrimental to their health if there’s a much safer, more comfortable option.

        3. Blue Anne*

          Oh, I totally agree that it’s really not good to complain about it no matter what the reason. But I do think that the actual reason in this particular situation is more likely to drive the point home to the OP than pretty much anything else. It certainly would make me feel extra-terrible, if I were in OP’s position.

        4. zora.dee*

          I agree that it makes sense that there are exceptions to these things for very valid reasons, but I do think that organizations should make a little more effort to explain that to incoming interns or first-job employees. I have seen new employees get in trouble over this exact thing so many times, either dress code, or flexible hours, working from home, all kinds of little things, and I feel so bad for them. When I’ve had the opportunity, I’ve found ways to matter-of-factly explain preemtively, before I see a problem starting, because I think it’s only fair. In many college settings there just are no exceptions, all classmates are given the exact same rules, and it kind of makes sense that some young employees wouldn’t get how those things work intuitively.

          Anyway, I just encourage everyone here to consider making that part of first-week conversations with interns or very new to the workplace employees. It really could make a huge difference in helping out a young person, before they do something like this OP and get themselves in big trouble with a higher-up.

          1. Kelly O*

            But what message are you sending if you hold a group of interns by the hand and explain “Jane wears different shoes because she has this reason” sets a really bad precedent for expectations in a corporate environment, and would seem to do the opposite of what an internship should do – expose students to a real working environment so they can learn.

            There is no reason to disclose dress code deviations during orientation. Simply present the dress code – this is what it is, follow it. This is not a sociology class, it is an office.

            1. zora.dee*

              No, I don’t mean that specific other person in the office is explained. I mean explaining that there are exceptions generally, and they should not assume that they get an exception without it being specifically granted to them by their supervisor.

              Another example I have seen bite a lot of young people in the behind in a previous job was working hours. In this location, pretty much everyone worked random, flexible schedules, and after seeing people come in late, leave early, etc, I saw more than one new employee start coming in late, thinking that everyone did that. And their supervisors waited until they had done it multiple times before they said anything, and by then they were frustrated and blew up at them about it.

              I think it would make a lot more sense to just speak about it in general terms during onboarding. “You might notice that other employees sometimes don’t seem to be following some of these policies, working hours, dress code, etc. That does not mean you should assume they are still not the policy. All policies apply to you until you have worked here long enough that you can start earning some exceptions. There are different expectatoins for different postitions.”

              I think that would nip some of this in the bud before it has gone on so long that they feel like a continued pain in the butt. But of course, some people might still not get it and then, sure, cut them loose. I just think it’s worth considering talking about the general concept of exceptions with very new and young employees.

              1. Lady H*

                This is a great point. It took me until my mid-20s or later to understand that not everything has to be “fair” at work and that circumstances will alter cases when it comes to coworkers having different schedules or dress codes. But for so much of your young adult life you’ve had authority figures stress treating everyone equally…even when exceptions could be made.

              2. Mike Schilling*

                You can explain the rules during on-boarding, or you can set up your new hires to fail. I’m amazed how many of the commenters here seem to applaud the latter.

                1. Katie the Fed*

                  They were told the rules. They didn’t like the rules. So they asked for an exception. They were told no. They didn’t like that answer so they wrote a petition.

                  They weren’t set up to fail. They kept pushing something that had already been answered.

                2. Heather*

                  For interns, I think that the internship coordinator at the school should be the one to give them this guidance: work isn’t fair, follow the rules, you don’t have the standing or the capital to change things, etc.

                  When I managed interns, I had an excellent coordinator at the school. Tech writing students had to complete an internship to graduate, and we needed lots of tech writing done, so it worked out well for all of us.

                  I had some great interns, and when I found one I tried to help as much as possible. I critiqued their resumes and gave them interview advice. But if the intern was, um, not suited to an office environment, out they went.

                3. myswtghst*

                  That’s really not what I’m getting from the comments here. It seems like most of us are totally on board with explaining the rules (which it seems was done multiple times for the interns in the letter), but don’t feel we need to break it down for people that just because you see someone “breaking the rules” doesn’t mean you should assume you can too.

                4. Theresa Foley*

                  A lot of commentators have a tough luck, too bad attitude towards this intern, and think that she got what she deserved for having the audacity to speak up about her concerns with the dress code. The lesson she learned is that an employee must never contradict management, a lesson I am sure she will remember for the rest of her career. Companies who teach this lesson to their interns should not be surprised when the company fails to develop innovative ideas and keep up with market changes.

                  I think that the company management is at fault for not providing more guidance to the interns, and their punishment is very harsh.

          2. Katie the Fed*

            I could see both arguments. If they seem like a redeemable bunch, I would probably say “listen, you probably don’t realize this because you’re new to the working world, but what you just did was a really bad idea. There are going to be times where people are allowed to play by different rules, and it’s not really your business why that is, until you’re the boss and you can set the rules and exceptions. Right now, you’re here to learn and do what’s asked of you.”

            But if they seem like they’re going to be a continued pain in the butt, I might just cut them loose too.

          3. sara*

            The thing is, this is really not true in college! I teach at a university, and we provide plenty of accommodations for students with documented disabilities, ranging from note-taking services to extra time on exams, etc. etc. Of course we don’t advertise those accommodations to everyone in the class because it’s a private medical situation, but I would guess there are probably more accommodations given at the college level than in the workplace (I doubt many workplaces give you double time to complete your work assignments because you have ADD…)

        5. Kathy*

          A friend hired someone who was an extremely big deal in the IT field (he created a well-known programming language). She eventually had to fire him because he refused to wear pants. Nope, not just shorts; NO PANTS. This was a problem. He didn’t understand.

      4. Catalin*

        Worst part = (having learned the colleague had lost a leg and earned the right to wear whatever she could walk in) “We would have factored that into our argument”
        It wasn’t, “We were mortified by our assumption that if one person got an exception, the rules could and should be bent or changed”, they would have just ‘factored that into” their argument.

        LW, I’m sorry, but you were LUCKY enough to be given the opportunity to intern IN YOUR ACTUAL DESIRED FIELD OF WORK where you were exposed to cultural norms and your reaction was, “Well, these shoes suck and these people are doing it all wrong, let me draft a petition like this is some sort of social injustice requiring banding together in cohort to make our demands.” That company was showing you exactly what your future would look like in an environment where you had the leeway to make a few minor goofs and be mentored.

        Your one graceful course of action here is to write that manager (or company) a letter of apologetic gratitude for the opportunity they gave you, recognizing that you missed the entire point of the internship and you got your priorities skewed. Take responsibility as the ringleader and request that they consider letting some of the barely-involved interns return (you screwed over a lot of young people). Do NOT ask them to take you back. If you write a good enough letter, maybe they’ll consider it anyway, but do not bet on it.

        Snail-mail that letter to the company, chalk up the lesson learned, and find your next move.

        1. Christopher Tracy*

          Worst part = (having learned the colleague had lost a leg and earned the right to wear whatever she could walk in) “We would have factored that into our argument”

          Yeah, that part was concerning because once they found that out – there is no argument. The argument is moot. The employee would be held to the same standard as everyone else if there had been no medical issue, so bringing up the fact that she does have one really wouldn’t have helped their situation. There was a logic fail in there somewhere.

          1. OhNo*

            Exactly. If someone is receiving a medical or disability accommodation, your first thought should not be how to argue your boss into letting you have it, too.

            One other thing, OP, that tends to be very important in the business world: it sounds like your proposal and petition didn’t have a “why”. It sounds like you just went to them and said they should let you wear whatever shoes you want because you just want to. That doesn’t fly in the working world. Read through some of the other posts here about actual workplace negotiations – you’ll see that they are always presented with a good reason or benefit to the company. Justifying something like this with “because I want it” is really, really privileged and would make most people have serious questions about your judgement.

          2. Anna*

            I’m hoping what the OP meant was that they wouldn’t have used that person as an example of how they go away with wearing whatever footwear they wanted. I really hope that’s the case.

            Please let that be the case, OP.

            1. Purple Wombat*

              That’s what my impression was, too…OP wouldn’t have lifted that person up as an example if they knew the context of that person’s situation. At least, I’m hoping that’s what they were saying.

            2. JessaB*

              Or depending on why they thought the restriction was there in the first place, the argument would have changed to “Well Sally doesn’t look unkempt, unprofessional, etc. and the average person looking at her would not know she has a medical exemption, and nobody is complaining about her shoes, so why are shoes relevant at all?”

              I think the OP was out of line (petition is not the way to do this at all, and certainly not such a confrontational stance either) but for a long time I’ve had issues with dress codes that do not take reality into account.

              Someone working in a totally non customer facing position or at some crazy night hour in shift work, does not need to be held to the same dress standard as a (to use the banking analogy) teller or bank officer.

              I really hate places that make people who work in, for instance, call centres, dress like they’re on the front lines. Even if they have visitors walking through, sensible people understand that you don’t have to dress much more than “neat, clean, covered, not obscene (in terms of sayings on shirts,)” to do the job.

              1. Rosie-O*

                The director of “Gone with the Wind” insisted that all the actresses wear the correct style for the 1860s including undergarments. The justification–if you feel the part you will act the part. So too in a call center. Dress professional and you are more inclined to act professional.

                1. Jonno*

                  Sorry, I have to disagree with that sentiment (not necessarily you). I interact with students and parents (albeit not in person) and I wear pants, shirts, tie, and sometimes a waistcoat or even a blazer (one notch down from full on suit) and then there are times I work from home in my underwear. The quality of my work, my professionalism, my tone, and my commitment to a job well done is unwavering and unchanging regardless of what I’m wearing (or what I’m not). I don’t understand this rationale.

          3. Ad Astra*

            I agree, but I originally interpreted OP’s words more charitably. I assumed “factored that into our argument” is just throwaway language for “We might not have mentioned this person at all because we would have realized it wasn’t relevant.”

            1. JessaB*

              I hadn’t thought of this read, but it does make sense, and you’re right it could easily have meant that, yeh, they would not have mentioned it because well, that makes you look really petty and bad, and it really IS a decent reason to have an exception.

              Although I get privacy and everything else, but I think managers should be able to say or should actually say, if someone complains, “We know about x, our reasons are none of your business, but they’re sufficient for us to be okay about it. That does not however mean you can do it.” Not calling out the fact that exceptions can be made, makes morale a problem because people are conditioned to want to at least get a vague answer.

          4. Kelly O*

            This is what really sent me over the mental edge with this OP. You can’t take a medical necessity and “factor it in” to your argument.

            Honestly, for that matter, why do some people get to park in the special places right by the door? I mean, if we know they have a disability we can factor that in to our argument that we should park closer.

            See how ridiculous it sounds?

            1. Mookie*

              I mean, if the original petition required this kind of “factoring” and reasoning and had the nuance the LW says it did, writing and editing it sounds like an endeavor that distracted the interns from their, y’know, job. I wouldn’t be too pleased having that rubbed in my face, on top of how presumptuous and tone-deaf such a petition reads.

        2. Living 400lbs*

          The “We would have factored that into our argument” also implies that they thought they had a right to know the employee’s personal medical issues.

          BZZZT

          No, you do not.

        3. Artemesia*

          That ‘factored in’ comment also let me to infer that they had whined about ‘how cum SHE doesn’t have to follow the rules WE do’ in their petition. Again, worst argument ever.

          1. Barney Stinson*

            I’m reasonably certain that’s exactly what they did, given the manager’s, ahem, tart response.

    4. fposte*

      In fact, it says toward the end that they were informed that person had lost her leg in the military. And absolutely there’s no reason for them to be told about that, and that’s a great illustration of why “but how come *she* gets to do it?” is a bad way of thinking.

      1. Katie the Fed*

        oy – I totally missed that! It just hit a nerve because I was so nervous about people judging me for my terrible footwear last year.

      2. GigglyPuff*

        Exactly, even before I got to the medical reason. I kept thinking, “*she’s* an employee, you’re an intern”. I can’t explain very adequately, but there is a difference between employee and interns, OP. You’re there for a short time to get experience, they’ve been there for x amount. Honestly even if you weren’t an intern, you can’t go into a job thinking you’ll get the same leeway as people who already work there.

        1. Kate M*

          One of the differences between employees and interns is that (usually), employees have been there much longer, and will be there longer after interns leave. Employees who don’t strictly adhere to things like the dress code (and get away with it) probably didn’t do that within their first few months at work. They proved themselves and their professionalism first. I know in my first year at my first job, I wasn’t late once, never delegated work to anyone else that I could do or complained about any work, and was on my very best behavior. Now that I’ve been here five years and have consistently proved myself, I feel ok coming in a few minutes late (especially when I work late), or work from home once in a while on a really slow day. But the intern who once informed me that “he was going to work from home today” certainly heard from me and others why that was not acceptable.

          You can’t prove yourself enough in the span of an internship for them to loosen the rules for you.

      3. Batman's a Scientist*

        They weren’t told about the coworker’s disability until the end of the meeting though, so it was after they’d already submitted the petition.

        1. GigglyPuff*

          I think, at least i see it this way, that shouldn’t have even been part of it though. Just because one person is doing something, doesn’t mean the rest of the office gets to. Just like in this, there was a reason behind it, and management shouldn’t have had to explain it.

          But I do get why the OP did include that rational. It’s not always something you know going into the work place. But now OP does, and can learn from it, and store it away.

        2. myswtghst*

          I think it’s a good lesson (for all of us, honestly) that just because someone else gets an accommodation we want (or would consider a perk) isn’t reason enough to ask for said accommodation, because we don’t know why they’re getting it (and it often isn’t any of our business). Even in a situation where a proposal or petition would be warranted, holding up “but Jane gets to do it” as a reason why is going to be a terrible idea 99.9% of the time.

          For example: It may be frustrating to me to see my coworker walk in “late” 9 days out of 10, but I shouldn’t assume he gets to do it just because and go off on my manager about how unfair it is that I have to be on time when Wakeen doesn’t. I should assume he either made arrangements with our manager, or is being reprimanded for his tardies, and if I want to come in late, I should have a conversation with my boss about why it makes sense for me to do so, independent of Wakeen.

          1. Amber T*

            On top of that, just because someone else gets an accommodation doesn’t necessarily mean you get to know why that is. I think management here played it right – not saying why that one coworker got to wear different footwear at first (because the interns didn’t have the right to know), then revealing why as a point to drive home (hopefully with said coworker’s permission/knowledge).

            I bet in the future, the OP and other interns there will think twice before asking something they don’t have the right to know.

            1. Katie the Fed*

              Agreed! It was the right time to relay that bit of information – to drive home how petty they were being. The only thing that would have made it better was Septon Unella ringing the “shame!” bell.

            2. myswtghst*

              Great point! I know I’d personally prefer to work for a boss who isn’t going to disclose to all my coworkers why I need an accommodation, especially if it is medical-related, without my approval, even if it means I occasionally have to give my coworkers the benefit of the doubt about their accommodations.

          2. Kelly O*

            Exactly. He might have a recurring doctor’s appointment, or even a work-related errand that makes him late most mornings.

            If his boss is happy, and he is happy, then what is anyone else’s problem?

            I liked your point of managing it independent of the other person. No two employees have the same needs, and so no two employees can really have conversations that bring in another person’s accommodations. Besides, the mature thing to do is present the reason why it makes sense for you, not whine about why someone else “gets” to do something.

        3. Foxtrot*

          It could be an experience thing, but reading the letter and seeing that it was one employee constantly breaking the footwear rule, my first thought was medical. I didn’t think it was so horrible to have lost a leg, but there are lots of things that require sturdy footwear.

          2. Emma the Strange*

            Me too, especially since I have my own medical issues that would make most dress shoes unworkable for me. Fortunately I work at a fairly casual tech start up, so it’s moot.

          3. Queen Gertrude*

            Yeah, I thought is was interesting that even reading this letter in the OP’s own words that at no point did I ever feel like I thought the employer was in the wrong. I immediately jumped to thinking “medical issue” when the OP singled out the employee “breaking the rules”. And I also thought “Go You!” when it came to the ONE intern who didn’t sign the petition because they de facto stood up to some peer pressure there when faced with everyone else signing it. Now that is an impressive intern. I would have been much more critical of the company if they had gotten rid of that intern as well. But they stood by her. I really hope that our OP is reading all of this and REALLY taking to heart all the years of experience being laid out in the comments section. We’ve all made our mistakes, one of these days I’ll share some doozies I promise! ;)

      4. AF*

        Yes! I’m trying to wrap my head around how that was the first thought – that the interns were being wronged, and not “maybe there’s a legitimate reason for this situation.” The assumption that the employer is being mean. Not to pick on the OP, but I don’t think I ever acted like that, so I’m having a big problem understanding why that was the default thought.

      5. RokShox*

        I could work there for 10 years and never notice what kind of shoes my coworkers were wearing.

        1. BananaPants*

          I notice that our innovation group members routinely violate the dress code rules against jeans and sneakers. The rest of the engineers can’t even buy sneaker-style safety shoes, but because their group is fostering a “startup” culture, apparently the rules don’t apply to them.

          We comment good-naturedly on it within our group, “Did you see Wakeen in his ripped jeans and Vans?” but assume that HR is looking the other way for a reason and complaining will get us nowhere other than looking petty and childish.

        2. Ex-Oligarch*

          If they were wearing sandals in a business environment you would probably notice.

    5. EA*

      I agree with you, and feel for the OP.

      I would have done it at 17/18 too… I thought that everyone was equal and people would listen to me if I presented a good case. You have to learn to sit down and shut up in jobs, especially early on. It isn’t really fair. And no one cares about your feelings like they do in school.

      Also OP- This probably won’t matter much in the long run- leave it off your resume and get another internship.

      1. Katie the Fed*

        we once staged a walkout in 8th grade because a beloved teacher got fired.

        Oh, how silly we were.

        Donna Martin Graduates!!!

        1. Muriel Heslop*

          + one million for the 90210 reference.

          As a teacher, I can totally imagine a group of students petitioning for change. Protest! Signs! We have rights! I pay your salary! It’s an abrupt shift to the ways of the world. I mean, my students can wear jeans every day and I can’t wear them at all – of course they feel empowered!

          But I am not their employer. I’m just the only non-parental understanding of authority most of them have until they reach the working world, and if they don’t know workplace norms or professionalism, this is how they would behave.

          1. Aunt Vixen*

            Heh. At my high school, there was a rule against students having food or beverages in the hallways. (Enforced in at least one instance I remember by a teacher telling me, “Get that soda can out of here before I see it.” I was a good kid, which probably contributed to the laxity on that occasion.) Principal once got up in assembly and said “Many of you have expressed dissatisfaction with the rule about eating and drinking in the hallways. You point out to me that every day you see teachers walking between the teacher’s lounge or their offices and their classrooms with cups of coffee in their hands. You’re right. This is what is known as a double standard. Different rules apply to you than apply to them. Everyone needs to get used to that.”

            1. Leah the designer*

              My high school was similar. We had a no food and drink rule in the hallways my senior year. We also had a no open pop can rule. Pop bottles were fine. Apparently, high-schoolers aren’t capable of not spilling their drinks.

              Our senior prank was for all the seniors to dump garbage bags full of empty pop cans onto the floor. We didn’t pick them up.

            2. Megs*

              Your principal sounds pretty awesome, at least in that story. I am 100% with the group who definitely feels where the OP is coming from and am reminded of some of my own early-career mistakes. Life and learn!

            3. TootsNYC*

              I heard a mom once say when her kids were complaining that DAD got to have food in the living room: “He is old enough to drive. When you are old enough to drive, you can have food in the living room.” She later realized that it was about right for her standards–that someone who had matured enough to be trusted with a car could be trusted with food in the living room.

              2. alter_ego*

                This sounds like what I tell my dog every time he begs me for people food. I tell him over and over that once he gets a job and pays for it himself, he can go out and buy all the non-kibble food he wants, but alas, he hasn’t taken me up on the offer.

                1. Stranger than fiction*

                  Same here. Then my one dog “petitions” by leaving an angry poop by the front door sometimes.

                2. Big McLargeHuge*

                  Stranger than fiction: In my house, we call this act “Pooping in Protest”. Someone doesn’t like being left in the other room for an extended period of time? Poop in Protest by the door. That’ll teach us!

              3. Ife*

                “When you are the one cleaning the floor, buying the furniture, and paying the mortgage, then you can eat food wherever you want.” translation… it’s my $1000 couch and if anybody’s going to ruin it, it’s me!

              4. Barney Stinson*

                My reply to ‘dad can have food in the living room’ whine: Dad can afford to replace the sofa if he spills spaghetti all over it. You can’t. When you can do that, you can eat meatballs in the living room, too.

              5. yasmara*

                My husband, who is an excellent driver, cannot be trusted with food in the living room. He’s 42.

              6. Fashionista*

                Heh. My response is, “When you are paying ALL THE BILLS, when you pay for the furniture and carpets, you can eat in the living room.”

            5. VivaL*

              To me, this isnt even a double standard. A double standard implies that both groups should be treated the same, but are not.

              A large group of less mature students should not be treated the same as a smaller group of professionals at work.

              This is what’s known as :life:

              (though I appreciate the lesson he was ultimately trying to teach)

            6. JanetInSC*

              Love this. I would explain to my high school students that I had some privileges that they did not have, and, likewise, they had privileges that I didn’t have (like wearing jeans)j. My favorite line was, “When you’re a teacher, you’ll get to do this too.” With age and position, comes privileges…earned through hard work.

              1. Adlib*

                Yes, yes, and yes to that last line!

                I complained to a coworker as an entry-level employee about being left out of certain things once. Bad move. He reported it to my boss, and she reamed me out. It was an awful thing to go through (for me – who hates confrontation), but I continued to work there and learned to keep my mouth shut. Now I’m 14 years into my career (many different jobs), and now I have the privileges I wanted as a youngster. It just takes time, and we all do dumb things.

            7. Pennalynn Lott*

              I’m feeling very old. Both of my high schools in the early 80’s [I went to one in San Francisco and one in Dallas] didn’t allow food or drink of any kind (even water!) in the classrooms, let alone the hallway. If you were thirsty, you got a hall pass to go drink from the water fountains near the bathrooms, or just slurped quickly from them between classes.

              1. John Ringo*

                I wanted a ‘like’ button for this comment. Food or drink in the hallways? You’re joking, right? The nuns would wack you for chewing gum!
                :-)

            8. Dot Warner*

              I wish I could remember where I saw this (bumper sticker? meme? T-shirt?): “Fair does not necessarily mean Equal.” If Person A earned a privilege, it isn’t fair to them to let someone brand-new have that privilege automatically.

            9. Talvi*

              This is interesting to me because at my high school, a lot (most?) of us ate lunch in the hallways. (There was a cafeteria. I don’t think I even once ate lunch there.) Of course, from what I’ve heard/seen, my high school was pretty lenient about this sort of thing in general. You could listen to music while doing seatwork, you were free to leave school grounds any time you didn’t have a scheduled class, etc.

            10. BananaPants*

              This is an argument I’ve successfully had with our 5 year old when she complains about not being able to stay up until 10 PM. She points out that I can and she can’t, and I informed her that’s because I’m a grownup and she’s a kid and different rules apply. If a kindergartener can understand that concept, why can’t these special snowflake interns?

          2. Katie the Fed*

            Also, I don’t want to overplay the generational differences, but I think there’s a trend toward treating education as customers, not students. So people expect a kind of customer service from their schools and teachers. I suspect this shapes their approach to the workplace when they start too. I can’t tell you how many times I want to say to younger employees “we’re not here to fulfill you. You’re here to work for us!”

            1. Kelly L.*

              I remember once, in the early nineties, I was ready to go to bat for this guy in my class who’d been threatened with a failing grade for an unfair reason.* This was mostly because I had a crush on him. I had this whole speech planned, but it turned out to be moot.

              *The reason really was unfair, even with adult hindsight. However, the threat was toothless. The teacher was just trying to scare the guy and never really meant to go through with it.

            2. Anxa*

              I don’t know how much of it is generational so much as school and work are different. I’m sure there have been shifts as the funding has shifted.

              You have a right, even a mandate, to be in school through high school. It’s reasonable to have certain expectations for the institution you have to spend your time in. I think there is some value in the students-as-customers thinking, although the incentives there get way out of wack so easily and that’s a whole other conversation.

              Work is different. Even though there’s a defacto mandate to work to survive, there is a chasm between what we expect from citizens and employees. Yeah, you’re expected to get a job or find capital to create your own if you want to keep eating and living in a safe environment. But you don’t have a right or a mandate to a job the way you have one to education.

              That said, I still can’t relate to the overall line of thinking that even in school certain things like this would be negotiable.

            3. Anonymous Educator*

              I’ve been working in schools for almost two decades, and there has definitely been more of a shift in both parents and students to a more consumer mentality. The teachers aren’t there to teach—the teachers are there to cater to the customers. It’s disgusting, and I hope the pendulum swings back the other way soon.

              2. Artemesia*

                My friend who spent 40 years as an excellent primary school teacher noticed this change big time. She noted that when she started teaching the argument ‘we can’t let Johnny do this because we can’t let everyone do it’ made sense to parents; now it is ‘I don’t care about anyone else, I want Johnny to have it.’ Her personal favorite was the very resistant kid whom she finally kept in at recess after everything else had failed, to get him to complete his work. (he would wander around, fiddle with toys etc during class) His mother didn’t want her to do that — why? ‘Because he doesn’t like that’ to which my friend responded ‘that is sort of the point.’

                1. Mallory Janis Ian*

                  Ha. Reminds me of an episode of that old sitcom “Mad About You” in which the married couple babysat their friends’ entitled, bratty child. They tried to make him mind reasonable standards, such as “don’t kick adults (or anyone) in the crotch” and the kid’s parents chastised them, stating, “He doesn’t like to be thwarted.” Who knew that real actual people would start acting that way about their kids!?

              3. JanetInSC*

                Yes, you can’t enforce rules or set high expectations if students and parents believe they are your boss. It’s a ridiculous philosophy. (Just so you know, I fully support students’ rights and transparency with parents. We should build cooperative relationships, which is different from a consumer mentality.)

              4. Stranger than fiction*

                Totally! (from what I hear from a couple of teachers I know) Wasn’t quite so much that way when my kids were still in primary school and definitely not that way when I was in school. The parents respected the teachers authority for the most part.

              5. Dangerfield*

                It won’t. In the UK, it’s just been judged that universities must now abide by the Consumer Marketing Authority’s acts for distance selling. While students have to pay so much out of their own pockets for university, they will expect to be treated as customers – and you know what, if I’m paying £9000 a year for something, I would expect to be provided with a damned good service. The pendulum will only swing back if governments recognise education as a societal good rather than a commodity.

            4. Anna*

              When I was in 10th grade I think, a rumor went around that the Vice Principal sent a student home because they were wearing all black and it was…I don’t know. Satanic? Anyway, the protest was that everyone was going to wear black the next day because that’ll show them! The next day I remember sitting in the cafeteria eating lunch and there were a lot of students wearing black and in strides the Vice Principal completely outfitted in black right down to her socks. She was grinning ear to ear and everyone was so shocked and I just thought, “She totally got one over on all of you.”

              I don’t have a problem with protest. I don’t have a problem with students protesting something they see as wrong. I also think there’s something of a problem with telling students there are double standards in the world and they just need to accept it. Because frequently there are plenty of good reasons for the double standards and you should trust that you can explain them in a way that will make sense. It’s when you can’t explain them that the problems arise.

              1. many bells down*

                Oh, my school had that rumor too, but ours was that all-black clothes were “gang-related”. I was a drama geek, and who is more likely to show up all in black than theater nerds? We decided we were now a gang, put on all our best black clothes, and yelled “Yo yo come see a show!” at the other students.

                2. an anon*

                  This happened at my middle school, resulting in an actual ban on all-black ensembles. In response, all the goth kids started wearing head-to-toe bright pink.

            7. Aunt Vixen*

              Heh. Same principal made a related point about students not being consumers, possibly in the same announcement. (It was a long time ago, so the exact details aren’t 100% with me anymore.) This was a tuition-paying private school, and there were also rules about where bookbags could be left if we couldn’t make it all the way to our lockers and back between classes or didn’t want to (or shouldn’t, such as maybe in science labs?) bring bags full of books into the classrooms. There were cubby-type bookshelves in various places where bags could be stashed, but there were also seating areas in various places where we were explicitly not allowed to leave things lying around. Ditto leaving bags on the floor against the wall outside a classroom: not allowed. This was a combined tripping/fire hazard and aesthetics issue. Principal says “A lot of you have said things like ‘I pay $[number] thousand dollars to be here, I should be able to leave my bag where I want,’ and I’m here to tell you your argument is flawed. If your parents want to come down here and leave their bookbags lying around the hallways, I guess we can’t stop them, but all of you will put things in appropriate places or they’ll be confiscated.”

              He was pretty cool.

              1. whatsanenigma*

                Personally, if I were paying $[number] a year to be in a place, I would not appreciate having to step around stuff on the floor that didn’t need to be there and risk tripping and falling all the time. And what really, really would not be fair would be if I were allowed to cause a tripping hazard to others but no one else was allowed to do that, due to the fact that everybody is paying that $[number] to be there (or has done the work to earn a scholarship), not just me, so paying it doesn’t make me special.

            8. Pennalynn Lott*

              As someone who has gone back to college very late in life (I’ll be 50 in October), I certainly see my education through the eyes of a customer, not a subordinate student. As in, I’m paying for this with my own hard-earned money, therefore I expect a certain level of professionalism and courtesy from the instructors, whom I consider to be just like any other professional consultant I hire. If you aren’t giving me my money’s worth [like the professor who had an inexperienced former student teach her class while the prof decided to go on vacation], then damn skippy I’m going to complain about it.

              1. Anonyhippo*

                Yup. Going to school as an adult really opens your eyes to unprofessional behavior by academics.

              2. Aunt Vixen*

                Well, indeed. You are applying the correct students-are-the-customer attitude to the situation, which is that you are paying money and are therefore entitled to a service, in this case a certain number of hours per week of qualified instruction. The incorrect students-are-the-customer attitude, which sadly is applied all too often by a nontrivial number of your classmates, is that they are paying money and are therefore entitled to an outcome, usually a particular grade.

                1. Three Thousand*

                  Yeah, to an undergrad complaining about not getting their “money’s worth,” that almost always means a good grade for minimal work.

              3. Old Enough to Know Better*

                Right, but I think what people are talking about is this sense of entitlement and customer-is-always-rightism of not just college but jr high and hs. I’m amazed at this attitude among students (and parents) that it’s the teachers’ and school’s fault if a kid gets a bad grade. I went to both K-12 and college with the idea that *I* was the one who needed to prove something – not the other way around. yes, K-12ers have a “right” to an education, but they need to do the work or they won’t learn. And then they go to college and think their professors are like the housekeeper.

            9. Barney Stinson*

              I was raised by nuns, so I had no trouble transitioning to a work environment. My attitude was factory-installed. The nuns weren’t there to make me happy, and neither is my boss.

          3. Megs*

            When I was in high school, our district’s long-time band teacher retired and was replaced with this young hot-shot who actually expected us to learn music theory instead of goofing around for half of the class. No one believed he was going to actually grade those quizzes until the first quarter came around and 2/3rd of us were failing. Naturally, the band circulated a petition to have him fired. To pat my younger self on the back, I declined to sign. But not to give myself too much credit, I was mostly concerned that it was a hand-written petition full of spelling errors and I was a smug know-it-all PITA who wanted them to at least type it up first.

          4. blushingflower*

            Yeah, the teacher/student dynamic is not the same as the manager/employee relationship. I think this letter writer saw this company’s management as similar to their university administration, who would respond differently (most likely) to a petition. But universities exist to serve students; companies do not exist to serve interns.

            1. Turtle Candle*

              Yes, I was trying to think of a way to say this that didn’t play into the ‘consumer vs. student’ thing, because I think it’s not quite as simple as that. It’s more… education is for the benefit of the student. That’s the whole point of it, is to improve the student in some way, whether that’s teaching critical thinking, imparting information, enriching them in some way, training on a specific set of skills, whatever. The end goal is that the student comes out improved: more skilled, better informed, a clearer thinker, etc. That doesn’t mean that they’re always trying to make students happy (and sometimes it requires making the student do something they’d really rather not), but it does mean that the student is sort of… centered in their own education.

              So a lot of teachers, especially good teachers, are actually pleased by a certain amount of questioning, pushback, etc. It means that the student is at least minimally engaged, willing to question and interrogate until they come to a good answer, and using at least some critical thinking skills. Even if the student ‘loses’ the argument or doesn’t get their way, many good teachers will see the interaction overall as a positive (assuming the student wasn’t abusive or something).

              But jobs aren’t primarily for the benefit of the employees. They’re primarily for… well, for whatever the job does, whether it’s widget making or creating software or providing services to the poor or selling t-shirts. Good companies also consider their employees, of course, but whereas school is primarily about the student, work is not primarily about the employee. And that means that you’re less likely to be rewarded for pushback, and your specific feelings about fundamentally harmless things (like whether you can wear non-leather shoes or not) are unlikely to be a major concern of even a pretty good manager.

              It’s definitely a significant mental shift.

              1. MindoverMoneyChick*

                This – your last paragraph especially. Job are not primarily for the benefit of the employees. They are their to benefit the company and this judgement is generally made by your boss. It’s a big mindset shift to make at first.

              2. Kate M*

                That’s such a good point – instead of thinking of students as customers, think of them as the product. The school is there to create a good product – well educated, functioning members of society. That can include, as you said, allowing students to push back and debate things to develop skills.

                For employers, employees aren’t the product. So while good employers still care about their employees’ growth, it’s not the main objective.

              3. AGirlCalledFriday*

                I agree with your analysis…to a point. Yes, teachers do want students to critically think and pursue courses of discussion that explain a point or persuade. We want problem solvers and creative thinkers. However, after some time teaching in international schools, the difference I am seeing from American schools is that parents and students internationally understand that the teacher and indeed the school have more knowledge of the business of education than they do, and if something will benefit the students becoming more knowledgeable and disciplined, it is something that is encouraged. If their child steps out of line, disrespects the teacher, fails to do their work, or disrupts the classroom in any way the parents feel responsible, ashamed, and furious with their child because they dared to put their own selfish desires or petty disputes above the needs of other students and their own need to become educated and responsible citizens. In America, students expect their words to carry the same weight as an adult, they expect everything to be fun, they expect that excuses will be made for them and that there are no real consequences for bad behavior. They argue about everything, fight with each other, disrespect adults, and refuse to be responsible. Even if your child doesn’t do a lot of these, there are plenty other students that do.

                Children are inherently similar – they push the envelope, they want to fight over the best pencils, they will prefer to play rather than do homework. Children overseas are not any better than American children, but with American kids allowed to disrupt the classroom continuously and teachers unsupported by parents and administration, students are often not learning the skills they need to succeed. I see this now with a lot of people in the workforce. I think sometimes the word is often ‘entitled’, but I don’t think any person necessarily thinks that they are better or more deserving. It’s more that we are not teaching our students that everything they think and do and believe are not the most important things in the grand scheme, that fairness does not mean equal, and that it’s necessary to work with people you may not like or whose rules you may not agree with. A lot of American students start figuring this out as they get older, but some do not.

          5. Peter*

            You’re terrible, Muriel. :)

            I remember a particularly low-level/low-paid job I had years ago. I read the dress code (dark leather shoes, dark slacks, light — preferably white — shirt that is clean and pressed) and did one better: I wore a silk tie every day. Within a month, I was promoted. I performed my job well (and was informed I did it better than any prior employee, although I didn’t see how anyone could do it poorly) but I can’t help but think that my seizing the opportunity to stand out via the dress code was a factor. I chose to use the company rules to my benefit.

            That an intern wouldn’t accept a company’s culture, naively assuming that it would be up for negotiation shows that parents and educators didn’t do their collective jobs. And dismissing the OP as merely immature is overly facile, in my view. There are deeper issues here.

        2. HRChick*

          In high school, we staged a sit in for a student who was expelled.
          Ends up, he did some pretty horrible things.
          I’m ashamed I participated without thought now!

        3. Koko*

          My 8th grade year the school tried to ban students from using their lockers except before and after school and during lunch period – forcing us all to carry 3-4 classes’ worth of 50-lb textbooks around all day instead of changing out books between each class. My friends and I started a petition and got something like 3/4 of the student body to sign and stapled to it a bunch of articles about how carrying heavy books was bad for young people’s backs.

          The school relented and offered us a compromise where we could use lockers after 2nd, 4th, and 6th periods (but still couldn’t use them after 1st or 5th).

          It was my first taste of the power of community organizing…and my last. Petitions aren’t really effective 99% of the time.

          1. Amy Pemberton*

            Actually not ridiculous at all. Four periods of old-fashion textbooks, plus notebooks and folders is very heavy. I was in that position for one year in high school – not due to an arbitrary and silly rule but just due to an unfortunate alignment of my homeroom’s locker section and my classes. The only time I could get to my locker was before and after school and the middle of fourth period. It was so bad that the nexyt year my academic team coach pulled in a favor with her friend the cheerleading coach to get me one of the cheerleader’s extra lockers. The year after that the school wised up and let us pick our lockers before the school year started.
            Why the flip does the school _care_ when students use their lockers, as long as they get to class on time? While I realize I don’t have all the details, sounds like someone needs to grow up and I don’ t mean the students.

      2. Sans*

        OP, you say this is your first job and I can sympathize. Live and learn.

        As I’m reading this, I am very grateful that my daughter is now working at her first job, and it’s as a hostess in a chain restaurant, with crappy bosses and some co-workers that are gossipy and/or slackers. In just a few months, she has learned that: 1)bosses can be unfair and sometimes you can speak up but sometimes you just have to deal with it 2) just because others do something stupid, doesn’t mean you have to. People notice who the mature one is 3)Not every rule makes sense. 4) Sometimes work can be fun … and sometimes it’s a huge pain. It takes time and experience to learn these rules. I’m glad she’s learning them before an internship.

        1. Dynamic Beige*

          Sometimes I hear people say that their parents wanted them to focus on their schoolwork and not have a part-time job, that top grades were more important than a work history. My parent made it pretty much impossible for me to have a part-time job while in high school. But it’s letters like this that really show how an education isn’t something that just happens at school. Working a job in retail, fast food or waiting tables teaches things you just can’t learn at home or in a classroom and I think that people who do get part-time jobs are ahead of the game vs. people like me who didn’t or weren’t allowed to.

          1. TootsNYC*

            Yeah, I really think I goofed.
            Though where I live, it can be really hard to get a job as a kid; you’re competing with so many adults who need full-time work.

          2. GOG11*

            +1 A combo of undiagnosed health stuff and living pretty far away from any work opportunities (without the ability to drive myself at the time) I wasn’t able to have employment until I had graduated high school. Things turned out okay, and I’ve developed a great deal of professionalism, but there was a learning curve there for sure.

          3. Observer*

            The truth is, though, that you still can learn this stuff without having to have a part time job in school. The only work I had in HS was babysitting and camp counseloring. But, I knew from my first day on the job that this kind of thing would never fly. So did my siblings. It’s not because we were geniuses. It’s because we heard enough from our parents about their work world in general, and specifically targeted at us, how work and school are different, for use to understand this kind of thing.

            I think that there is a BIT of a generational thing going one here, because I think that what we heard was fairly common when I was that age, but today parents are much more likely to be sheltering their kids and advocating for them no matter what (obviously there are some situations where a parent SHOULD DEFINITELY advocate, but not always) rather than telling them “life isn’t always fair; even when it’s fair you may not know enough to know it; paid employment and school are very different.”

          4. Michelenyc*

            At the time I hated that I had to work part time during the school year and full time in the summers but now I am so glad my mom made me do it. I really think that parents do their kids a disservice by not at least finding a job during the summer. Some of the fresh graduates I have interviewed have left me SMH.

            1. Stranger than fiction*

              Yeah I sometimes joke I should sue my parents retroactively for child labor for making me help out with my dad’s side business starting around age 9. But now I see how that was invaluable and taught me some professionalism even though I had no clue at the time. Every time the phone rang I would hope it was a friend but instead “ugh another client”. Lol

          5. Joie De Vivre*

            +1

            I have a friend who is a college instructor for a nursing program. She has said many times that the people who seem to do the best in the program are the ones who worked as a waiter/waitress.

            1. Tina*

              I’m a nurse, and I’ve always thought my best training – prior to nursing school itself! – was waiting tables. Teaches prioritization, how to detect the dramatic clients/patients vs. serious issues, and always keeping a positive attitude!

          6. Ife*

            I heard on our local public radio station today that only 33% of teenagers who want to work are able to find a summer job, mainly due to the still-continuing effects of the recession, down from 44% ten years ago. That first job is really important for learning basic “how work works” stuff that is just outside of the scope of formal schooling, so it’s disappointing to hear that so few teenagers are able to get that experience.

            1. Stranger than fiction*

              I’ve also heard a lot of places don’t want to deal with the whole work permit thing when you’re under a certain age, whatever the limit is these days , 16 or 17?

            2. BananaPants*

              When our kids turn 16 they’re going to get certified as lifeguards. Parks & Rec employs lifeguards year round and more of them in the summer. We also have a large amusement park with a water park in town and every summer they’re happy to hire local high school and college students as lifeguards if they’re already certified.

              The amusement park does hire a lot of local teens from the entire surrounding area for seasonal jobs in the park. It’s not hard for a kid to get hired there to do something, it may just not be their dream job.

          7. Marillenbaum*

            I wasn’t allowed to work during the school year (my mom told me that school was my job), but summer jobs were totally normal and okay. I learned that when you’re new, you get a certain amount of scut work, and that it’s nothing personal, that sometimes people are jerks, and how to treat a job like a job (as opposed to a means of personal fulfillment–nice if you can get it, but certainly not necessary). It helped me a lot when I was nervous about applying for professional jobs without any internship experience, because I could show that I knew how to do the less-than-glamorous stuff without a problem.

          8. Lucy*

            The biggest thing working throughout high school and college did for me was networking. Not only does having a job teach you a lot of things you simply can’t learn in school, it gets you involved in a more “adult” world (especially waiting tables, bartending, etc.) because you’re interacting with people who are already in the professional world. People love to help out those they know work hard.

          9. BananaPants*

            I worked very part time starting at 16, lifeguarding at the Y for one or two three hour shifts per week year round, and then during the winter when I wasn’t doing a varsity sport I taught swim lessons several afternoons a week. Working for the YMCA gave me (OK, my parents) a discount on swim team fees. During the summers I worked 30ish hours a week as a lifeguard for the city parks & rec department. I had to ride my bike or walk to work in all cases.

            While lifeguarding was better paying and probably a more pleasant work environment for a peon like me than retail or food service would have been, I still learned valuable lessons about the working world – including the fact that even if a rule or policy didn’t seem to make logical sense or wasn’t fair, I still needed to suck it up and deal if I wanted to stay on my boss’ good side. In some ways I think this was a benefit of coming from a lower middle class background with parents who have always worked in service industry jobs – I didn’t have the sense of entitlement that I see often among upper middle class and upper class kids.

        2. Queen Gertrude*

          Your daughter is learning invaluable experience. I used to envy my friends who didn’t have to work crappy jobs while in high-school or college. Now I realize how much that experience gave me a better foundation for the rest of my career. I wonder how much influence this has had on me when it came to making hiring decisions back when I was in charge of such things at my old job. (I work freelance now).

      3. Sparrow*

        Oof, I’m still relieved that grumblings of outrage at my student job at college petered out without much action. At least we recognized that complaining/arguing about recent changes wouldn’t get us anywhere and established a plan to quietly gather data/quantify and track our workload before presenting anything to the powers that be. So that was actually useful experience and we never got around to humiliating ourselves, so I guess it worked out!

      4. MsMaryMary*

        I was thinking about this too. If OP had created a proposal and petition to change something in high school or college, she wouldn’t have been punished and it might actually have worked. The workplace is not school. It is not a democracy. It is not a place to protest rules you find meaningless or inconvenient.

        So even if she was fired from the internship, at least OP learned something.

      5. Sam*

        I never would have tried this at 17 or 18 because I’m so much wiser than the OP, and by wise I mean a lazy employee who quit without notices whenever I hated a job. Youths!

        You’ll learn from this, OP, and you’ll learn from many more mistakes in your professional career because we all make them. If you’re open to feedback, this doesn’t have to be a totally negative experience.

        P.S. I once wrote a scathing article in the school newspaper about the administration moving the marching band to a different section of the bleachers during football games. They published it, God bless them.

      6. Ro*

        As a former classroom teacher, I often wondered where my students ended up and how they fared in “the real world”. I couldn’t even tell you how many parents I encountered who felt that the rules were “unfair” and always up for debate or negotiation. How hard they fought so that their child never experienced the tiniest of consequences for their actions. I was raised in a different era and even as a young teacher, I knew these parents weren’t doing their children any favors. This was the time of self-esteem where you were hurting a child’s feelings or self-esteem if they had to suffer the natural consequences of an action.

        I feel for the OP. It’s always better to learn a life lesson at a young age. Take comfort that this was an internship and not a paying job where you might not find another for a while and the rent is due. Rank/position/seniority/social capital matter and it’s so important in the working world to be able to read a situation and accurately assess where you stand. (And know that it will fluctuate throughout your career.) This involves being able to step outside of your own self and see things from other people’s point of views. It means recognizing that you don’t know everything or even much of anything (which is so hard when you’re young, I remember!). Employers are not your parents, teachers or professors and you are not the center of anyone’s universe (well, you still can be to your loved ones, your dog, etc.) but this is the real world. Your value is in what you can offer to your employer and mostly on their terms. It will often be unfair or maybe just seem unfair. It sometimes can suck. But that’s what it is.

    6. Business Cat*

      +1,000,000

      I pushed back on EVERYTHING as a student and as a young professional, and it made my life much more difficult than was necessary. I am still learning to when it is appropriate to push back and when to reign it in, but more often than not I’m better off reigning it in.

      1. Katie the Fed*

        I feel sorry for my first boss. I try to remember that when I want to throttle my 22-year olds.

        1. NotAnotherManager!*

          Payback is hell. My best employee decided not to do some administrative requirement one year in protest (and, it WAS, in my opinion, a pointless time-waster but also the pet project of someone with their finger on the salary increase button and not that time-intensive — it was more of a hassle to protest than to just comply, particularly since I went to some trouble to arrange a more suitable/less burdensome method of compliance for my team). It was a terrible uphill battle to get the guy a raise, and I know, somewhere, my former supervisor was cackling and had no idea why because that is the exact same shit I pulled on him as a junior staff member.

      2. Leatherwings*

        Same. My parents always encouraged me to speak my mind because I was smart and driven. They didn’t teach me that speaking my mind wasn’t always appropriate, and I got myself into some embarrassing and unprofessional situations in my early career as a result. Luckily, I really did learn from those times and even though I cringe now, I learned how to pick my battles and speak up in an appropriate way.

        I’m STILL learning how to do that, but it’s gotten much better :)

        1. Ask a Manager* Post author

          Me too! Parents who subtly rewarded me for being a total rabble rouser at school, etc.

          Oh, the things I did at 20. I was a nightmare to manage. (I think I’ve told this story before, but when I was 20, a group of us banded together to try to insist that our office hire a manager because the person who was supposed to be managing — who was deeply and profoundly loved by the head of the organization — was severely incompetent. We were shocked — shocked! — when it didn’t go our way.)

          1. Leatherwings*

            Ha! When I speak to my parents on the phone nowadays I’ve learned I can’t vent to them about work stuff because their advice is ALWAYS “well you need to say something.”

            They recently recommended that I go to the head of the board about a relatively minor annoyance. Thank god I’ve learned not to listen.

          2. One of the Sarahs*

            I send grateful thoughts to all those who dealt patiently with 19-21 year old me, all idealistic and thinking I could change the world. I blush for myself!

            1. Jessie*

              I remember taking a current events class in high school that was basically a political debate class (I’m grateful the school let our teacher get away with it.) One of the best courses I ever took in high school, but I shudder when I look back on how brilliant we all thought we were (mostly regurgitating opinions someone else had written) and how idiotic some of my own arguments actually were.

              1. Artemesia*

                I had a philosophy class in high school where I had to construct a personal philosophy (having started at Plato and read up through Wittgenstein and Kirkegaard) and then during one class period at the end of the year read it and then defend it before the class. I still have it. Best class ever. Barack Obama’s mother was a year ahead of me in the same school and took this same class; most intellectually stimulating class I ever had – changed my life.

                1. Not So NewReader*

                  Can you write more about this on Friday? (you know, whatever you feel comfortable sharing)

          3. Jessie*

            I cringe when I hear parents bragging about how their kid always corrects the teacher, especially when it turns out to be about some anachronism or urban legend. Like a parent on facebook was bragging about how their kid ‘explained’ to their teacher that we only use 10% of our brains.

          4. alter_ego*

            Maybe it was because my mom owned her own business, but I never went through that phase. I was the one trying to explain to my obnoxious high school boyfriend why our English teacher would give me more leeway than him if I couldn’t turn in a paper because my printer was broken because I was nice and attentive in class, and he would just flat out tell her she was wrong, would argue constantly, and couldn’t get through a single class without suggesting that she didn’t understand her subject. So yeah, she like me better than him, and yeah, it meant I got more leeway than him.

            1. Rusty Shackelford*

              This is something I drill into my daughter whenever possible. She’s a respectful rule-follower in class, and her teachers appreciate it, and any time they cut her some slack that someone else doesn’t get, I point out to her that she EARNED it.

          5. Anna*

            I think that’s the thing, though. No matter what, you’re going to learn some tough lessons. For some it will be when to push back and for others it will be when not to. Because none of us go into the work world with all the information.

          6. animaniactoo*

            I am not sure how I managed to find the line between “school” “organized activity” and “work”, but somehow I did because from my first job, no, wait, let’s remember that summer I worked as a volunteer at the day care center down the block. There it is, that’s how I managed to find the line. LOL.

            That said, school is definitely a different atmosphere. I do remember my mom talking to me early on about what battles are worth fighting in a work context about her job, but at the same time my parents were politically active and encouraged me to be so as well. So when I told off my younger sister’s elementary school principal for a graduation ceremony that was a glorious tribute to her while the students of each class stood in place as one went up on stage to receive a diploma for the class, my parents and all the other parents around who heard it were all for it. When only 2 students in my 10th grade History class (American Government) had done their homework, everybody agreed to tell the teacher he hadn’t assigned homework. He loved it – especially in light of the particular course. Told us all he was well aware that he’d assigned it, but he loved the organization and united stand so much he’d let us get away with it. But don’t do it again…

            That kind of stuff just doesn’t fly in the workplace.

            1. Three Thousand*

              That’s really interesting. I think Americans have more of a tendency than people of other cultures to idealize childhood and want to reward behavior in children that we wish we could get away with as adults. In the workplace, where there are actual stakes, this kind of behavior simply isn’t cute or charming anymore and doesn’t fly, like you said, and it’s the kids who have to learn this the hard way.

          7. MDM*

            All the talk about fair/equitable…. I’ve told my now 21 year old son for years that “fair” is where his grandma takes cakes and pies every year…don’t feel entitled to it anywhere else…

        2. Artemesia*

          LOL I had a freshman student once whose father lectured us his professors that ‘we had a lot to learn from Sonnyboy’ and would be well advised to hear what he had to say about running our classrooms. (I am not making this up) The guy was intelligent (this was a highly selective program, they were all intelligent) but the faculty were not dummies either and he like his father was woefully lacking in interpersonal skills. It didn’t go that well for this student and his ‘high expectations of making a difference.’ This was also a program that did take feedback from students seriously —

          Interns can make suggestions about the work although based on actually doing the work and also from a position of understanding why it is done this way rather than that way; we do learn from interns. But their assumption should be that the organization is not made up of incompetents and that there is probably a reason for whatever the practice is and they should at least get to know the process and the place before they try to make changes. Odds are good that the brilliant idea you have is that last way that did it and it was dropped for a reason. Or it might be the contribution that gets you hired.

          1. myswtghst*

            But their assumption should be that the organization is not made up of incompetents and that there is probably a reason for whatever the practice is and they should at least get to know the process and the place before they try to make changes.

            OMG so much this. It’s fine to be new and excited, and it’s fine to see something you don’t understand and ask questions to better understand. But it’s not a good plan to assume the people with more experience than you are idiots and to treat them as such.

          2. Not So NewReader*

            I went to school with a guy who I thought probably had very high grades. I was super shocked to hear he was a C student. Then I realized my error in logic. This guy had people skills that were off the charts. He just KNEW how to talk with people and he could handle situations just off the cuff.
            His grades won’t matter. What he will pick up in his interactions with others will carry him through. His ability to accurately assess situations and know the appropriate response was outstanding , very seldom do I meet people with this much skill. I fully expect to see him successfully running a corporation in the future.

            1. Corinne*

              He may have been dyslexic. People with that disability are often highly intelligent and learn to compensate by developing verbal and interpersonal skills in order to survive and succeed.

        4. Turtle Candle*

          I think it’s so tricky, because of course people want to teach their children to stand up for themselves, to speak out against injustice rather than ignoring it, and so on. But it’s also important to teach them that not every hill is worth dying on, and that not every difference is an injustice. (The example elsewhere in the thread, where IT gets to wear jeans when nobody else can specifically because they spend so much time crawling on the floor and aren’t very visible to clients anyway, is a great one. Yes, IT gets a “perk” of wearing jeans when nobody else does, but that’s not because of some bias against non-IT; it’s because the job is different.)

          1. Three Thousand*

            I don’t think it’s helpful to encourage the kind of petty or self-serving pushback that people have talked about here, like petitioning to get a teacher fired because they assign too much homework or banding together to avoid doing assignments you don’t feel like doing. Kids do need to learn that standing up for yourself isn’t a good thing when you’re wrong or don’t know what you’re talking about or if your actions could cause harm. That’s a much, much harder distinction to teach, which is probably why most people just err on the side of “always/never stand up for yourself.”

          1. Lily Evans*

            After I graduated college, I had to have the conversation with my parents where I explained to them that I am not, in fact, a special snowflake who was magically going to get jobs that were way out of my league just because my parents thought I was great. I’m so glad I’d found AAM when I did, or I might have listened to them and let my dad call the hiring manager to “give them a talking to” about why I deserved to at least be interviewed. (I probably never would have actually let him do that, but the AAM post about not listening to your parents all the time was invaluable to me!)

        6. Koko*

          I had a boyfriend in high school who came from a conservative Asian culture where respect for parents was a very paramount value. My parents, like yours, had raised me to question and challenge everything. My boyfriend’s dad once witnessed me push back against something my mom had asked me to do and negotiate something different (not even adversarially, she just was missing information that made it make more sense for me to do it differently, and she agreed once I gave her the missing information).

          Yeah, he officially disapproved of our relationship after that point. He didn’t even want me in the house because I had shown I was “disrespectful” to my parents! He literally had to sneak me in and out of his house because of that one interaction.

          1. davey1983*

            If all you did was give your parents a new piece of information, then I don’t see how that is being disrespectful, nor is it ‘question and challenge everything’.

            The problem comes from how ‘respect’ is defined by the different individuals involved. Your boyfriends father falls into the ‘do what I say when I say it because I’m your father’ camp, while I (and probably many others) fall into the ‘it is not disrespect if you are polite when explaining your position’.

            I actually think your boyfriends father’s mind set can be damaging– I have a coworker, late 30s, who does anything her father says, even when it is bad for her! For example, she was buying a car a few months ago, she had a budget and found a car she really liked in her price range. Her father decided that she should have a new SUV, and that it would need all the bells and whistles for when she drove him around. She then bought the very expensive (and to be fair, it is a very nice car), and spent 4 times what she felt she could afford (putting her 10s of thousands into debt) because not buying the SUV would be ‘disrespecting her father’.

      3. Sketchee*

        I’m in my 30s and still have had times when I realize I shouldn’t have pushed back. It can vary widely on what’s acceptable between cultures, jobs and even different managers and individuals.

        1. Murphy*

          I’m almost 40 and currently playing a “should I/shouldn’t I” game in my head on something work-related.

      4. Nikki*

        I regret all the things that I *didn’t* push back on. I regret not standing up and saying something when I wanted to. I will always push back going forward and I’m never ever gonna lose that idealism when I get older.

    7. AdAgencyChick*

      “I agree with the recommendation that you reach out and apologize for your behavior.”

      Me too. There cannot be even a whiff of “and please give me my job back” in the apology, either.

    8. Turtle Candle*

      Yeah, one of the things about exceptions made for unusual circumstances is that often it would be inappropriate for you to get a complete explanation for the “unfairness.” It may be a medical issue that the coworker doesn’t want disclosed, or a personal issue that is quite simply not the boss’s to reveal, or etc. It can be frustrating, but that’s why sometimes you just have to accept “her circumstances are different.”

      I learned this (second-hand, thankfully!) years and years ago when I was at a job that required coverage, but one of our coworkers was given unprecedented flexibility for a short period of time. We were told that it was a temporary situation (which turned out to be true) and that there was a reason for it, and the bosses worked pretty hard to spread the load so that none of us were unduly overburned by it, but they didn’t explain what the reason was. For most of us, that was sufficient, but one coworker couldn’t let it go and was intermittently passive-aggressive and snarky at and about the person with the new flexibility… until finally one day she, I guess, snapped, and said wearily, “Well, I’d be happy to do a full work shift tomorrow if you want to take over my shift at home caring for my dying father. It’d be a relief; it’s really wearing my brothers and me out.”

      It certainly was an important lesson to me.

      1. PM26*

        Live and learn and all that but it still strikes me as extremely odd that it would not have occurred to anyone in this entire group of interns that there might in fact be a tangible reason for the exception they saw. I do not have much personal experience with office environments myself, much less formal ones. Even so, if I were thrust into the sort of formality described here where the rules were obviously being enforced, and I saw ONE person deviate – I would not need decades of professional experience behind me to think that, hmm, maybe I don’t have all the information here. I know it may be rude to say, but there are certain types of intelligence that seem to get entirely overlooked in business. Was firing too harsh? I mean, maybe, but if OP was looking for experience, they definitely did get some. They are interns, still in school, and can simply leave this off their resume and no one will ever really have to know they fumbled it. Hopefully, they take away the right lessons.

        1. Three Thousand*

          If they did think there was a reason for the exception, it was probably an irritating detail that would only get in the way of them getting what they wanted.

    10. Jay*

      ” I was hoping to gain some experience before I graduate next year.”

      You did.
      Whether you learned from that experience is still unclear.

    11. AF*

      As soon as I read about the employee who “got to” wear flats, I knew the story was not going to end well. OP, I am trying to be compassionate, but this is a big lesson in not assuming things, not expecting that you deserve an explanation based on those assumptions, and not feeling entitled that you can just get your way because you all speak loudly enough. I thoroughly hope you take all of this to heart.

    12. Jim Roam*

      A job and an internship are not a right…..they are a privilege. You should show a little more gratitude for the opportunity rather than get so bent out of shape on superficial matters. The education that you….or most likely your parents or the tax payers paid for did you a complete disservice. Your social justice approach to getting your way will not lead you to success in the work force.

    14. ThePugLife*

      Rule #1 in office culture: don’t be a busybody. Don’t concern yourself with your colleagues’ dress, hours, equipment, vacation days, sick leave, etc. All that stuff is between the person and their manager.

    15. Mike G*

      These kids learned the most important lesson about the workplace.

      If your peers are about to submit a petition to the boss, be the first one to your supervisor to say “Hey, I just want you to know there’s a lot of grumbling about the dress code and you’re about to hear about it, and I totally disagree with it and really value everything I’ve learned here, especially from you, and I really value you as a mentor, so I did not sign it and I hope to have the opportunity to continue here.”

      Never too early to learn the Eddie Haskell approach to the workplace.

    16. CShort*

      I thought I’d comment about your thoughts on negotiating. I agree that not everything is negotiable, but I believe that everything is potentially open to negotiation. If I didn’t like something about a job offer or would prefer something changed, I would ask about it. Generally the worst anyone will do is say no as long as you’re not an idiot in how you go about (like these “kids”.)

      I will say the reaction you attribute to your boss puts him in a bad light unless you’ve been ha ranging him over something and bringing the same disagreements up again and again. One of the reasons to hire someone is to get their expertise and opinion. If people working for me never push back when they think they have a better way of doing something and never contribute to making things better, they become interchangeable cogs and that’s not what a good employer will generally look for in an employee.

    17. An Internship Coordinator*

      I feel for you as I’ve been an internship coordinator for a university, and I know how hard those jobs are to get. In addition to all of the comments above, I want to say that dress itself is a learned communication behavior. I teach it to my own students. Companies design their policies to fit their identity and culture. It’s important to learn how to dress professionally for the work culture in which you find yourself. This was a great chance to get experience doing it. I have known interns who stepped into offices that demanded stockings, skirts and heels. I worked with a company that would not permit denim or chambray in any article of clothing. I knew one that did not permit piercings beyond ears. Another insisted that tattoos must be covered. I knew one that would end an interview if a woman walked in with open-toed shoes. I myself set up a rule with my student workers that included no jeans, shorts, t shirts or flip flops, because I wanted people to feel the difference when they were coming to work. The age of jeans and t shirts has arrived at some companies and in some industries, but for many, there is a deep pride in being formal regardless of who sees you from the outside world. Dressing up makes some people feel different. It’s like putting on a uniform to compete in a sporting game. So when the petition was signed, you weren’t just pushing against a rule about appearance, you were pushing against an established identity. As the respondent said, it’s not the place for interns to try to change an established company culture.

    18. Vanessa Van Schoick*

      Chalk it up for experience. You learned a valuable lesson young. As a teacher the advice we give to newbies is, Do not disagree with administrators until you are tenured. I have worked with many interns and newbies and the admin prefers the ones that are agreeable and smile no matter what. I am not saying it is right, but the system is very political.

    19. DevilwearsPrada*

      I would’ve done the same thing the company did. Hopefully, the interns learn from this experience.

    20. Financial Samurai*

      AskManager.org’s response is SPOT on. Signing a petition? Really? I know one thing, none of the interns will get a job there, and many will have a tough time getting a job in the industry b/c industries are SMALL. Competitors talk.

      The best is to apologize, say you understand, and hope enough time goes by to live and learn.

      Sam

    21. D Hughes*

      Appropriate to fire all them! How many interns did not get the job?, and they abused their privilege and lost the respect of a potential future “real job” employer. It was very smart of the ONE person to not sign the petition. WOW- who ever thought the idea was a good one should be growing up real soon or face low wages and unemployment.

    22. Vicki*

      Oh, Katie, that was a bad manager you had.

      EVERYthing at work is open for discussion. You may not get what you wanted, you may not “win” or change minds, but discussion should never be shut down.

    23. Bob K*

      Unless there is more to the story (like the wording of the petition, for example), and there might well be, this was a brutal overreaction by management. They ought to be ashamed of themselves (unless there was more to the story). A simple no and perhaps, as the moderator suggests, a stern meeting and warning would have been enough. The interns could have been made aware that their method was inappropriate, and they could have been put on notice that further out-of-norm behavior would be penalized (e.g., by firing).

      1. JR*

        It sounds like both the writer and the other interns were already told NO by multiple managers. But they decided not to take no for an answer…write a proposal AND sign a petition. For a Summer Internship!? They should have been focused on learning for 3 months and got very distracted by trivial matters.

    24. Matt*

      The colleague who was wearing sneakers was a military vet who’d lost her leg and was given an exemption.

    25. Vee*

      Your supervisor wouldn’t have told if there was a medical reason because that is an invasion of the other employee’s privacy and the other employee could have sued the company if they had. Most likely your supervisor would have just been told they could not enforce that part of the dress code for the other employee or take it into account for performance reviews with no explanation other than HR told them not to. Only certain employees in HR who have been certified would know the reason.
      Just because you see one person do something at work, doesn’t mean it’s appropriate for you to do so. If they were not following the dress code this was none of your business as it would be dealt with by the supervisor or HR. Your job was to abide by the rules for the duration of your time as a guest and a student and to make sure you did your assigned job to the best of your ability.
      The group was fired because you all made an ill informed decision to ask for an entitlement while in someone else’s business. The only one of you who showed any good judgement in this situation was the one person who recognized it for the train wreck it was and refused to sign. I would have fired the whole lot of you because you were obviously unable to follow a simple set of guidelines. You not only owe the company an apology but ever other intern you talked into signing your petition.

    26. Jill*

      I agree with this but would like to make a point.

      As an intern a person fresh to the working world has much to learn, but ahveing accepted interns at all surely companies understand this.

      The company was right to call the interns together but I believe that as newbies they should have been told that they were out of line and the workplace does not work like this.

      If you don’t want to train interns don’t sign up for them. This was a faux pas and the company should have taken on their instructive role. They didn’t. So now they have to find a whole new stack of interns instead of simply teaching their ex-crop the proper work dynamic.

      I just love how many older people deride youth for being clueless about ‘the real world”. They may well be, but that’s why they go somewhere to learn – and the company – and those who deride interns – fail by criticising not teaching. Interns are not headhunted treasure workers, they are in effect apprentices and companies need to understand that they have to teach work culture as well as tasks.
      Were these interns working for free or for payment?

    27. Ron*

      One thing I believe you failed to address, any new employee is expected to aid the company in the business of that company. To start to compose an argument about their dress code could never be considered a good way of spending your time. How much of the time of these interns was spent on drafting this document? how much time was wasted by management in even considering the easiest course to deal with this? Otherwise productive employees, like the managers, had their time wasted.
      Even a minimum wage job, time is money. Please consider not wasting that time in the future. The faster you as an employee can become an aid to the objectives of the company, the better the company will succeed. Hopefully, as the company succeeds the employees will share in the success and profit.

    28. Sundar*

      This is strangely similar to a case we had at our consulting firm. 5 young ones were recruited. All 5 were fired for one reason or another within 6-12 months. They chose to exploit the fact that they all joined the company at the same time to form a girl group of sorts and collectively engage in activities which constantly violated the professional standards. They were such a pain that some staff named them the “bloody Spice girls” after the British band ‘Spice Girls’. They engaged in a whole range of activities from exchanging sexist/homophobic jokes via email to endless giggles to Youtubing at work to long group lunches and defying dress standards. The company tried to break the habit by training them (despite the fact they were already subjected to an orientation programs like everyone else) and subjecting them to a series of warnings. At a counselling session one of the 5 told the HR manager that she doesn’t mind getting fired if it came to that because her dad owns a Golf store and she could work there!. The practice manager was a patient man and chose to reason with them and train them. But all efforts failed in the end. Sad how some people just throw away opportunities because of their resistance to become more self disciplined for their own good.

      By the way I do not believe it is purely a generational issue but anecdotally everyone seems to think millennials are the worst.

    1. Artemesia*

      LOL. I am getting the vibe that this entire class of interns may have been viewed as immature PITAs; it sounds like there was a lot of high dudgeon about ‘someone being allowed to wear flats not of leather’ which meant a lot of gossip and non work oriented fussing. ‘It’s not fair, how come she gets to do that and I don’t’ is rarely a very compelling argument in the workplace and especially for interns who have no status and no right to demand workplace change. The exception of course is where it is safety related or involves exploitation of the intern. A good internship is a good learning experience and that involves a contract — even if oral, although preferably not– that makes clear what tasks will be performed that support learning. If THAT were seriously violated e.g. the interns were doing only scutwork and not projects they contracted for then push back is warranted — but still never ever a petition. This was a good learning experience of course and one hopes the gang will take away some organizational smarts from it. Tough way to learn though.

      1. Bwmn*

        As is often mentioned in regards to extreme dress codes, there are still offices in DC where women are expected to wear pantyhose during the summer. As someone who works in DC, that sounds like utter hell – but it also is what it is. And if anything internships are a great chance to learn that.

        But yeah, most dress codes – be they silly or otherwise are also usually something that offices and HR teams really don’t want to deal with at the best of times. Let alone with a large group of perceived unhappy interns.

        1. Anna*

          I work in an education/training setting and students frequently talk about how they want to revamp the dress code and every time staff has two thoughts. “Ugh, what a hassle” and “That is unlikely to never going to happen.”

          1. Bwmn*

            Exactly – not to mention our office’s HR recently went under a major dress code re-evaluation, and to be frank the end result was barely different. Maybe one or two tweaks that I notice, but it still took our HR team months of process, and it’s hard to imagine anyone was exactly excited with the process.

            For better or worse, I think that dress codes are largely established because HR/Management doesn’t want to have to tell staff what they should/shouldn’t wear. No matter what dress code, there are always going to be outfits inside the dress code that are completely business inappropriate and similarly outfits outside the dress code that are completely business appropriate. But having conversations on how people look and what they wear is always uncomfortable and I think dress codes are there to hide behind those discussions.

            1. Artemesia*

              I have had to have these conversations. I was the highest ranking woman in management in my organization and so got tasked with dealing with women employees inappropriately dressed. Such fun. I do understand why blind rule following is easier although the result is that the person who doesn’t practice hygiene still stinks and the person with trashy clothes still is wearing them. Managers gotta manage.

        2. Lea*

          I had to wear hose and closed toed shoes at a job in DC one year. (and I was working for a hotel, including another hotel 3 blocks away so there was a fair bit of walking between the two, in summer heat). It was not pleasant but it was a job.

          I wasn’t an intern but I sure knew they wouldn’t change the rules for me. These interns were stupid. They complained once and then when they didn’t get their way they got a petition together…I’m thinking the manager was highly ticked off that they didn’t accept the first no, for starters, and that they made them explain the medical exception for someone they probably actually liked who they knew had lost a leg was icing on the cake. Not surprised they were fired!

      2. Amber T*

        Anytime I hear someone complaining “it’s not fair!” (including my own little voice in my head), I think of Louis CK’s show. I never actually saw it, but pictures have popped up enough on my tumblr to make me really stop and read it, and appreciate it. His daughter(?) complains something isn’t fair because she didn’t get one, and he responds –

        “You’re never gonna get the same things as other people, it’s never gonna be equal. It’s not gonna happen ever your life, so you must learn that now, okay? Listen, the only time you should look in your neighbor’s bowl is to make sure that they have enough. You don’t look in your neighbor’s bowl to see if you have as much as them.”

        This was a wake up call for me in the professional world.

        2. DeskBird*

          Whenever I hear someone say “It’s not fair!” I think of Sarah in Labyrinth – who after yelling it throughout the movie finally concludes “No, it isn’t. But that’s the way it is.” So many lessons and such good songs.

          1. GirlBob*

            I always mutter to myself in my head after I think it —

            “You say that so often. I wonder what your basis for comparison is.”

            It does help pull things back into perspective.

        3. Liz T*

          You should watch at least that scene for how woefully unpersuasive his daughter finds it. It’s brilliant. (I think it’s the first scene of the entire show?)

          1. nutella fitzgerald*

            You mean I shouldn’t be closing my unsuccessful negotiations with “Can I have a calcium chocolate?”

        4. neverjaunty*

          I have to say that this routine and variations of this routine piss me off to no end. Sometimes things really are unfair and you should speak up about it.

          1. Ife*

            This is true on the broad scale, but in the realm of what little kids think is unfair… this is a totally appropriate answer 90% of the time [based on what I read here. I have not seen the whole routine]. The greatest injustices of my youth were things like “She got a pink one and mine is not pink!” and “He gets to stay up half an hour later than me!” and the great and relevant-to-this-letter, “Neighbor girl who goes to the public school gets to wear blue jeans EVERY DAY.” Kids definitely need to learn that “not fair” is different from “great injustice/systematic inequality.”

            1. Queen Gertrude*

              Exactly! People are always so quick to conflate “not fair” with “unethical” when often times life is just not that simple. And like the OP’s letter, the details of the case sample she wanted to use to prove her point was not only none of her business before they tried to make their case. It was still none of her business after. Honestly, OP is lucky to have gotten any clarification at all.

            2. neverjaunty*

              Yes, they do. And they can’t learn that when the response is always “life isn’t fair” or “don’t worry about unfairness, worry about yourself”, rather than simple and age-appropriate responses (like ‘he gets to go to bed later because he put all his toys away’). That is exactly how people grow up unable to distinguish between trivial differences and actual unfairness, and think that a petition is the right response to ‘no sandals at work’.

              1. Queen Gertrude*

                You seem to be making the assumption that all situations are being handled the same way 100% of the time. I can’t imagine why you make such a broad assumption. Most of the time kids (and even adults) cry “That’s not fair” and it’s over petty issues. Other times the complaints are valid, and deserve to be taken at varying degrees of seriousness. Why assume the worst in parents and people that they would automatically be dismissive? To me this quote shows that a parent is trying to teach his child the difference between a real problem and an inconvenience by pointing out that this isn’t a real problem.

        5. Pennalynn Lott*

          I have often snarky-joked that Boyfriend’s tombstone will read, “It’s not fair!” because that seems to be his go-to in life.

          We were once visiting his parents and his young niece and nephews were there at the same time. His mom served prime rib for dinner. Instead of just enjoying a nice meal, Boyfriend (who was 42 at the time) waspishly said, “**I** never got to have prime rib when **I** was a kid!” I sat there, aghast. Luckily, his mother replied with, “Well, your father and I never got to have prime rib when you were a kid, either!”

        6. Not So NewReader*

          My saying that I have used in a couple of heated moments is: “Life is not fair. Don’t look for it. It’s not there. The only fairness there is, is the fairness we GIVE. Do not expect to GET fairness. You will be much happier.”

          I get a little tired of “It’s not FAIRRR” because the problem with fairness is that people think that means “sameness” as in we all get the same thing. Now this could crash right into laws about protected classes and protected people, we are not all the same. Period.

          You know, once I dropped the expectation of fairness, I then learned just how much I truly DO have. And there are many people out there who have situations that are disturbingly and wildly UNfair. It’s wise to go help those people.

      3. Hooptie*

        I don’t know about anyone else, but if these were paid interns, as a manager I wouldn’t be happy that this proposal/petition is what they spent considerable work hours doing instead of value-added work. It’s a case of poor judgement and learning at the University of Hard Knocks, I guess.

        1. vivi*

          Very apt and perceptive comment, thank you. I recently attended a university graduation ceremony and only one of the six speakers had practical advice for the graduates – ‘arrive first and leave last.” “There are no stupid jobs, just stupid people.” The other five speakers were all talking about social justice and being a change agent and the value of disruption. I wouldn’t hire any of those kids on a bet.

        2. One of the Annes*

          This. The person had an internship at a good company in the field (s)he wants to work in, and this is what she chose to devote time and energy to in that internship? What a waste. (S)he could have been learning something valuable about the field or making connections or concentrating on doing stellar work that would lead to a great reference.
          I would have fired this person just for wasting time and energy (and other interns’ time and energy) on this crap.

          1. Not So NewReader*

            I tend to agree with the firing.
            They were not asked to write a dress code policy proposal.
            They were not asked to write ANY policy proposal.
            They were invited into that company under a very special and limited circumstance.
            It appears they used company time and company resources to do this task that was not assigned.
            They spent time rallying others into agreement.
            They encouraged people to argue with management on a group basis which assumes they needed the safety of numbers because they did not trust management to handle a one-on-one conversation.

            And then as others have pointed out, the idea of rewriting the policy in light of new information, shows a failure to grasp the policy should never have been written in the first place. No one wants a rewrite, just like they did not want the original.

  3. Leatherwings*

    Aw. Yeah, I would consider this a valuable lesson learned. I agree with Alison that firing everyone was over the top, but petitions and formal letters just aren’t the way you get things to change at work. And interns (or pretty much any entry-level folks), probably shouldn’t be trying to change things like this at all. Not until you’ve established a good reputation for working hard and being reasonable and flexible.

    I also think this is interesting when compared to yesterday’s letter about unshaven legs. In certain environments, you just need to read the room and make sure you’re going with the crowd regardless of how silly it seems or else you risk your reputation.

    Also a good lesson in not comparing your situation to others, like the former soldier, because you just never know what others’ situations and accommodations are.

    Luckily OP, this was just an internship. If you take this lesson and apply it at your next internship you have lots more chances.

    1. Christopher Tracy*

      I agree with Alison that firing everyone was over the top, but petitions and formal letters just aren’t the way you get things to change at work. And interns (or pretty much any entry-level folks), probably shouldn’t be trying to change things like this at all. Not until you’ve established a good reputation for working hard and being reasonable and flexible.

      This. They’d just gotten there and aren’t even full-time employees, and they started a petition over footwear of all things. That’s really not the hill to die on ever, OP.

      1. Artemesia*

        I don’t know if I would have done it but I think firing everyone was exactly the right thing to do. Would you want to hire any of these people? If not, why waste your time on them when they have already proved to be disruptive and annoying.

        1. Christopher Tracy*

          True. But I’m thinking about the lone intern who didn’t get fired. Is she now tasked with picking up the slack of the remaining interns who were let go? I probably would have kept the others just so we wouldn’t run the other intern ragged, and then gave the rest a failing grade (if the internship was for credit) and advised their school they would not be rehired. Ever.

          1. TootsNYC*

            well, in my company, interns aren’t supposed to be doing crucial work–especially if they’re not paid.

            That’s what employees are for. Interns are not free labor–they are here to learn. If the hands-on chance to learn turns out to be a little helpful, that’s gravy.

            1. Christopher Tracy*

              But even non-crucial work adds up. If I’m the lone intern who didn’t sign that petition and got to keep my internship, and now I’m running errands all day that could have been spread out amongst other people, to the point where I’m probably not even shadowing the folks who are actually doing the higher-level stuff, I’d be pretty annoyed.

              1. Queen Gertrude*

                From they way the OP’s letter was worded, it sounded like each intern had a manager that they were shadowing. So I highly doubt that that one intern is taking on the work of all the other interns. Also, the summer JUST started and I’m betting they all got this internship through their university which likely has a long list of applicants just waiting to take their place. I’m sure the spots will be filled in no time. Despite claims to the contrary, there are still plenty of people vying for these gigs.

                1. Christopher Tracy*

                  So I highly doubt that that one intern is taking on the work of all the other interns.

                  I don’t – I’ve seen it happen. And as for whether the company will get new interns right away – maybe. Personally, I have a hard time believing they’d request more interns from this particular school (if they all came from the same place/program) given what transpired with the ones who were fired. But maybe there are other students who are getting a late start/placement from other schools they can use. Who knows (I really want a letter from the surviving intern now).

        2. Anna*

          Eh. I don’t know. It kind of smacks of an overreaction. Chances are good they knew who the instigator was (the OP) and they could have fired her, had stern talks with the other interns, and gone about their business.

          1. AnotherHRPro*

            Actually firing them over this could have been the best thing for the Interns. Maybe they will all learn from this. There are consequences for actions and your employment is not guaranteed.

            1. Dynamic Beige*

              It will be interesting to see if there’s an update on this one. Because once these interns get back to class and it gets out what they did/what happened, it’s not just these interns who will be learning something. I imagine a whole bunch of other young adults are going to be brought up short by this (not to mention what the teachers are going to think about it). Whether it’s the ones that know better or the others who didn’t complain about _______ but wanted to. After all, if you can’t be a good example, you’ll just have to be a horrible warning.

        3. Jadelyn*

          Because it’s not a waste of time necessarily – I think it depends on how you look at it. If your primary concern is with being able to hire someone out of the internship, sure, firing makes sense because why spend the time on it? But given that these kids might well have had the potential to be high performers who just needed a wake-up call about the realities of a professional workplace, I think firing the whole lot of them is a straight-up waste of what could have been a learning experience for everyone involved.

          1. Amber T*

            I think the firing was the ultimate wake up call that company could have given them. I agree that it was harsh, and I’m with Alison that there was probably more reasoning behind it than just this petition. But here’s a really good example of an immediate consequence of a decision they didn’t fully think through. I don’t think the OP or any of the interns are ever going to make the same mistake again.

            1. Jadelyn*

              I’m not sure I share your confidence regarding not making that mistake again – at least from the OP, it sounds like either it wasn’t well-communicated or well-understood how their behavior was inappropriate (for example, the scare quotes around “unprofessional” when describing their behavior). So I’d be concerned, based on what the OP said and how they said it, that the lesson learned here wasn’t “spend your social and political capital wisely in the workplace, only on things that you have the standing to push back on, and for the love of god don’t do it as a freaking intern” so much as “expect employers to abruptly and unjustly fire you if you ever attempt to be proactive at work”, which I’m not sure is a lesson that’s helpful for them to have learned.

              1. sunny-dee*

                I think it’s the OP missing the point, though, not a problem with the employer. When someone tells you you had shockingly unprofessional behavior, just believe them. There’s no hidden message.

              2. Not So NewReader*

                If OP missed the point the first time around, I think the comments here will fill in the gaps.

      2. Edith*

        And it wasn’t even just demanding a change in the dress code– it was demanding a change to the rules on the basis of “well that guy gets to break the rules!” The gall that takes is astonishing.

        This is a lesson everybody learns in the workplace– you don’t know what’s going on with other people, and you don’t get to assume they’re breaking the rules or getting away with something. The person you’re incensed with for leaving an hour early everyday might be working on a special project off campus. Or she may have permission to leave early to make it to night school if she works through lunch. Or she may be coming in on Saturday to make up the hours. You don’t know. It’s not your right to know. And it is therefore not your right to be upset about it. Luckily most of us learn this lesson when a superior talks sense into us instead of getting the boot. But then again most of us don’t write workplace petitions.

      3. LadyMe*

        Recalling my intern days (which were not that long ago) I could see an intern being in the mindset of the dresscode *isn’t* a hill to die on, so management won’t be terribly invested in forcing the interns to do it their way and may in fact be open to changing the policy. Especially if it gets combined with the thought of “Wow, these people are stuck in the past. Who on earth wears suits to work anymore?” Then you become the helpful new young person who is informing management about new things (see all the career advice that tells young people to be social media gurus to get hired!) and the petition shows that you are not the only young person who thinks this way, therefore you are correct about the outdated norms! You get to be self-righteous but also helpful!

        Obviously, this is a very wrong mindset, but it’s a seductive trap to fall into.

        2. Three Thousand*

          I’m starting to see people like this trying to break into my field and it’s pretty galling. They want to talk over you and insist they know more than you with their zero years of experience and tell you how to do your job, because someone told them experience and knowledge don’t matter and you get ahead in the world by bullshitting people. Meanwhile I’m shaking my head at them and trying to get away.

          1. John Ringo*

            Field Marshall Viscount Sir William Slim, OBE, mentions more or less this same exact attitude frequently displayed by young lieutenants during his time as an Army commander in Burma in World War Two. (Albeit without the condescension.)

            In the military the phrase is ‘Young dumb and full of…it.’
            :-)

    2. Isabel*

      I would have fired them. It’s just much more trouble than it’s worth. What Allison said about thinking you know better is an important point to grasp, but also – best case scenario – several interns took up supervisors time with trivial questions about the dress code, and the petition took up more time, and editing and redistributing your proposed revisions would be more time. As an intern you are there to work and learn. What if every minute spent discussing, complaining and passing around the petition had been spent, say, looking around to see if there was something you could help with (data entry? refilling the printer? anything!) or perhaps observing part of workflow and taking notes for yourself.

      1. Leatherwings*

        Yeah, I see why they did it. I see the logic behind the firing absolutely, but I do think that since it’s a bunch of interns rather than employees a stern “final warning” conversation would have been fine. What’s done is done I suppose.

      2. TootsNYC*

        And how much energy are we going to waste going forward while all the interns grouse about how unfair it was, etc.? Interns can be a lot of work. It doesn’t need to be harder!

      3. Pwyll*

        I pretty strongly disagree. OP was 1,500% wrong and should be mortified, but the company shouldn’t have fired them en masse (unless, as Alison points out, there were a series of other events that precipitated this).

        Businesses need to be aware that bringing on interns (especially if you have more than one or two) is supposed to be a learning experience. The whole reason some internships are allowed to be unpaid is because teaching the interns how to function in a professional work environment is going to take up significant amounts of the time of supervisors to explain trivial questions. It’s literally the entire point. In exchange for taking the time to teach students, companies get both the goodwill and a pipeline to identify future entry-level talent.

        Assuming there weren’t other significant attitude/behavior problems, or that the company simply didn’t realize the time it was required to put in to train the interns, the company squandered a teaching moment here. The students definitely learned something, but I gather from the tone of the letter all they learned was that their actions have consequences, and not WHY their behavior was so inappropriate. Instead, the company would have been better served by incorporating this lesson into its ongoing training.

        My opinion is lessened somewhat if they were actually paying the interns, but not entirely. Too many companies consider interns to be free or low-cost labor without thinking through the obligations they will have to the student. At the very least, if the company is not interested in bringing on interns new to the work environment who will need to be taught professional norms, they’ll want to realign the types of students they bring in (switching to graduate students, for example).

        1. AD*

          It seems like you believe companies need to mentor their interns. That isn’t really the case, particularly if there are major behavioral or other issues, as happened here. It’s really not the company’s problem if the interns didn’t learn from this experience, after the massive mistake they made.

          1. VivaL*

            Wait, Im confused, isnt that exactly the point of an internship – to learn and be mentored? You’re not supposed to be doing business critical work so it seems (operative word here) like the company really missed an opportunity here…

            2. neverjaunty*

              Perhaps this is one of those companies that thinks ‘intern’ means ‘really really cheap labor’.

            3. Sketchee*

              One could also make the argument that firing is one way to teach and mentor. Not that the OP has yet learned that point, it will happen from this experience as they move forward in their career

        2. JB (not in Houston)*

          Whether it was right to fire them depends on way more than we know fromI bring in interns because I want to give my back to my profession, not because I’m getting free labor out of it. But an intern who did something like this would have to have a lot of good points for me to not want to fire them. Interns are so much work for me, I put in way more than I get from them already. I don’t have the time or the energy to spent on training this kind of thing out of someone unless they are otherwise pretty fantastic. This on top of the regular of the regular training on the job itself plus professional norms would be more than I could do.

          1. Pwyll*

            I really think it depends on the structure of the internship. If you’re bringing on 10+ interns every summer, you SHOULD have a structured program for teaching professional norms. If you’re bringing on ONE intern to directly learn about Teapot Marketing, I would agree. But to not be interested in teaching professional norms to an entire internship program when the company is aware that at least some (and I imagine most) of the interns have never worked anywhere before, seems to be a complete disconnect in expectations.

        3. AnotherHRPro*

          Actually, some companies look at interns as a big investment. When you pay them a very competitive wage, train and development them and give them housing stipends you are doing this as an investment. You are hoping that these interns will turn into great employees. Based on these interns behavior, I wouldn’t be planning on hiring them so I completely understanding letting them go.

        4. Ranting Monkey*

          This wasn’t just unprofessional because they wrote a petition and made a proposal. They were wasting company time on a rather insignificant issue, one several of them had already been told no on.

          Given their behavior, I’d wager that sitting them down and explaining why they were wrong to do this would not have ended the matter. They’ve already demonstrated a habit of gossiping and wasting time. What makes you think this would have stopped after a sit down to again tell them no?

          This was not a proposal to help the company. This wasn’t a recommendation on how to save time or money. It was “I want to wear different shoes.” That they made this big of a deal over the issue is a pretty glaring indicator of their priorities. They had nothing better to spend their time on?

          Firing them was the only rational business decision.

      4. Michelenyc*

        I do too! I think they got what they deserved in the end. All that time wasted when they could have been learning!

      5. Artemesia*

        This. Each of them ASKED their own supervisors and were told ‘no’ and they still got together in a little fuss of interns and drafted a ‘well thought out’ piece on why they policy should be changed. Learning to take ‘no’ for an answer is an important workplace skill.

        1. Serafina*

          A “fuss” of interns – yep, that’s going into my vocabulary! (Then again, a “fuss” of almost any workplace title probably qualifies.)

        2. harryv*

          I would be interested to see if they got another “no” after the letter. What did they have in mind, file a lawsuit? lol.

    3. Brooke*

      I have to believe that if the entire group of interns was fired that there’s a history of suboordination (or whatever you want to call it) not limited to dress code. This may have been the last straw and the office may have just decided they’re better off without that particular group.

      1. LawPancake*

        That’s my impression too, I doubt this was the first issue with this intern group. It’s one thing if it’s just an educational internship (in which case we’d have a long and serious talk about workplace behavior before escalating to termination) but I can’t think of a scenario that I’d be willing offer a permanent position to an intern after this. Considering how much work managing interns is, if I’m looking for job candidates, I think I’d cut my losses too.

      2. Anon Accountant*

        That’s my take on it too. There were some other issues and this was the final straw.

  4. Snarkus Aurelius*

    A workplace is not a democracy, OP, no matter how articulate your arguments are.  The sooner you learn that, the better.  

    It doesn’t matter what a majority of individuals think because a majority doesn’t always know best.  But you know who does?  Management.  Not only do they experience and skills but they have the pay grade, perspective, and authority to make such decisions.  You and your interns don’t have any of this. If majority rules were to take over workplaces, I doubt you’d ever see anyone in the office again because, hey, we’d all vote to not work and still get paid.

    That’s why you weren’t given a chance to address the dress code issue.  It’s not up for debate, yet you and your fellow interns assumed that it was.  (Seriously, where did you get that idea?  When I was your age, I assumed NOTHING was up for debate in my internships and first entry-level job.)

    Plus you really need to evaluate why one individual was an exception.  It was not your business or concern why she was wearing different attire.  In fact, that evidence alone should have clued you in that this was a unique situation that was most likely a private matter.  I wouldn’t have brought the real reason to your attention in order to protect that woman’s privacy, but my guess is that the reason management did was to teach you a bit of a lesson there.

    You really need to treat this like the learning experience it was.  Management might have been heavy handed, but they weren’t in the wrong at all.  All of you were, and you all need to own that because that’s what adults in the workplace do.

      2. Snarkus Aurelius*

        Yes, absolutely, but in this case, with someone who is so new, I thought it best to assume management knows what it’s doing about something as minor as a dress code. (We’re not talking SEC filings or quarterly earning reports.) I didn’t want to give the OP any leeway in thinking s/he could be right.

      3. Colette*

        By definition, management knows best. Yes, sometimes they might get it wrong, but they then have to deal with the consequences (which could include losing their job or the company going under). As an employee, you can give them information they don’t have, but once your manager makes a decision, there’s no option but to go along – continuing to fight will not end well.

    2. J.B.*

      Yes. It is fitting that Alison uses Game of Thrones characters as names often, because workplace politics can be just as complex (although not nearly as exciting or lethal!) The workplace is a very different world from school, and my husband went through a period where he was concerned about the fairness of things with bad consequences. Sometimes bosses are bullies, sometimes coworkers don’t do their job or get perks, etc. The main question is how does it affect you and can you find a way to live with it. If someone is preventing you from doing your job, the focus should be getting the job done.

      Often when decisions are handed down, it is without context. Sometimes they are bad decisions. There are ways to ask for the context, but it depends on knowing your office and whether you can outright ask for it or whether someone will get worked up about it…so can you find it another way?

      I’m sorry this happened. It will be a painful but hopefully very powerful learning experience. Once you get further on in your career it can be a great interview example.

    3. AnonyMouish*

      Yep, this:

      ‘It’s not up for debate, and yet you and your fellow interns assumed that it was’

      …is not only the point, it’s why you got fired. Put another way, you weren’t fired because you were questioning the dress code, you were fired because you were questioning your superiors. Some – maybe even most – things in the workplace are simply not up for discussion. Your hours, your assignments, how often you check in with your boss – they’re all assigned to you, at least until you prove you can manage yourself, but in some cases, indefinitely.

      But in your employers’ eyes, you took issue with, and threw a tantrum about, the very first thing you came across that you felt was ‘unfair’. That tells them you’re not ready to operate in the workplace where many things are legitimately unfair or inexplicable, even when nobody intends them to be – which is why they fired you.
      I’m not trying to be inflammatory by using the word ‘tantrum’, but if you think about it in terms of ‘kicked up a fuss’, it’s exactly what you did, in your company’s opinion, and they let you know they were not going to waste time dealing with it.

      All that said, none of this is intuitive, and training yourself to think this way is difficult and is why we have internships in the first place. But you have to think of it like they’re teaching you how things work in their world, not like you’re explaining about how different it is on the outside.

      1. Cathy*

        It is difficult to run smack into the Golden Rule this hard. This being: “Them that has the Gold, makes the Rules”.

        I have to admit, my jaw did hit the desk when I read the part about how they would have “factored” the person’s missing leg into their proposal. O.o

      2. Anna*

        Excellent point. The OP had already brought it up, been told it wasn’t negotiable, and then behaved like of course it was. I still don’t know if I would have fired ALL of them, but certainly the ringleaders at the very least.

      3. Argh!*

        I hope they haven’t ruined it for future interns. Having had a bad experience with spoiled, entitled brats (which is what the boss probably thinks) they may not want to be bothered in the future.

        1. Anon Accountant*

          Exactly. I really hope the company still is willing to take interns in the future.

  5. Guy*

    Curious if it was a paid internship. If not I side with the interns on this. Unpaid internship, but requiring employees to pay and maintain expensive clothing. All that does is exclude the poor and working classes.

    1. Leatherwings*

      While I totally agree with you that strict dress codes for interns are awful, that doesn’t necessarily make what the group of interns did right either.

      There are a lot of things in the workplace that are terrible but, in my opinion, the best way to change that is to work your way up until you have the standing to do something different and better. Pushing for change at the ground level A. Won’t change things (as we saw in this situation) and B. Will damage ones professional reputation in the long term.

    2. Ask a Manager* Post author

      Complying with a standard office dress code (which is what the one here sounds like) doesn’t need to be expensive. You can get the kind of footwear the OP described pretty cheaply at a whole variety of places, from consignment stores to Payless. Lots of poor and working class people dress professionally!

      2. AnotherAnon*

        Agreed, and you really don’t need to invest in that much clothing! For instance:
        – 1 pair of leather/vegan leather flats in black – ~$30-$60 if you shop around, find it on sale, and combine it with store coupons (I personally wear Merrell Dassies at work – the most comfortable shoe I’ve ever found. They retail for $100 a pair, but I buy them at Bon Ton stores online and use discount codes to get them for $60 a pair. Two pairs have lasted me an entire year.)
        – 2 pairs of dress pants, 1 black and 1 gray – $20-$30 each on sale/with coupons
        – 3-4 sleeveless or short-sleeved dressy tops – $10-$20 each on sale/with coupons (this is how much I end up paying for my Calvin Klein tops at Bon Ton stores)
        – 2-3 nice-looking cardigans or blazers – $20 each on sale/with coupons
        – as needed/as can be afforded – accessories like professional looking necklaces, earrings that don’t dangle, etc. – Kenneth Cole is my go-to brand; regular price is ~$20-$25 for earrings and $40-$50 for necklaces, but I never pay that much. I wait until they go on clearance (~$10 earrings, $20 necklaces) and then use a -$50/$100 purchase coupon to cut the price in half.

        So with those wardrobe staples, you can shuffle around combinations to end up with at least 10 different looks, and you’d be paying as little as ~$150 for the entire wardrobe (which you can buy a little as a time, as you can afford it, and build up as you go).

        1. Betty Sapphire*

          I get most of my professional fashion advice from AAM. Love it. Thank you, AnotherAnon!

          My personal go-to shopping store is Old Navy. As a plus-size female who can’t usually afford expensive stores like Lane Bryant, I’m always on the hunt to look nice and keep my wallet happy. Old Navy pants fit me the best, and the cuts on their shirts and dresses are modest enough that I’m not tugging on my clothes every five minutes. I’ve never heard of Bon Ton, but now I’ll check it out…

          I also heard of ThredUp.com here, and they have some nice sales! I got a nice ASOS black dress for $20.

          1. AnotherAnon*

            Bon Ton stores are the best! They have department stores in the Northern half of the US that go by different names (Carson’s, Herberger’s, Elder Beerman, Bon Ton, Bergner’s, Younker’s, etc.) but they all sell the same stuff in stores and online. I get >95% of my wardrobe (professional, exercise, casual) as well as most of my home goods from there. Their coupon system is fantastic if you learn how to best use it your advantage, but it can be confusing to beginners. You can find their coupon codes listed on their website, and you can also subscribe to their email list (they do email 2-3 times/day, which can be annoying, so I use an address I don’t check very often.) A few major rules:

            1) The best discount coupon generally available is -$50/$100 (there’s one that’s good through today online only!). There are some exclusions – “yellow dot” items (which are maximally discounted clearanced items), “incredible value” items (their prices end in $.98 usually), fragrance/cosmetics, electronics, and certain higher-end name brands (Coach, Kate Spade, Under Armour, etc.). You get the most bang for your buck by finding items on regular clearance.

            2) About 50% of the time (not right now, unfortunately) they have additional discount codes for yellow dot items – ranging from 20-30% usually.

            3) Shipping – I never, ever pay for shipping on their site. FREESHIP25 and FREESHIP75 are usually the codes they alternate between (meaning you have to spend $25 or $75 to get free shipping, but the $75 code has worked for me in the past if my pre-coupon total is $75+ but my post-coupon total is less than that – i.e. if you go for the -$50/$100 coupon today). As a store credit card holder, there are additional free shipping codes that work if you use your store card to pay. And if you subscribe to ShopRunner (which is a perk of an American Express card), you get free 2-day shipping on many (but not all) items sitewide.

            4) If you have a credit card with them, you earn rewards cards that are each good for $20 off a $50+ purchase. The best ways to earn them are to look for those rare emails (~4 times a year) where they offer 5 extra reward cards for making any purchase, in store or online, on a given series of dates. These coupons can be stacked (so if you have 2 codes, that’s -$40/$100; 3 codes, -$60/$150, etc.) are good on “yellow dot” items (which amounts to a 40% discount – better than the 20-30% codes offered otherwise). There also a lot fewer exclusions in terms of brands you can use them on – for instance Merrell shoes are an exclusion of the regular -$50/$100 coupon codes but not the reward card codes. The rules of these reward cards are kind of complex, but I can elaborate further if anyone’s interested.

            1. Amber T*

              Just looked up pixie pants and they look super cute! Me sees a trip to my Old Navy in the near future… thanks for the tip! :)

        2. Government Worker*

          The problem is that interns often can’t buy their wardrobes a little at a time and then build up – they start a job in June and need enough clothes to get through the week immediately. Some people know about internships well in advance, but others happen pretty last-minute or turn out to have a more professional dress code than expected. Thrifting takes a lot of time to get things that are actually in good shape and fit well, and the timing may not be right for sales or coupons at regular stores. And if you need plus sizes or tall sizes or to have things hemmed or altered because you’re petite, the costs increase and the available options go down.

          I just had to rebuild a professional wardrobe pretty much all at once when I got my graduate degree and started a new job (several years and two kids after my last office job). I was lucky that I had some time and my budget is flexible enough that it wasn’t a big deal, but it could absolutely be a concern for a college student starting an internship.

          1. TychaBrahe*

            An internship should not be a surprise. If you’re in college, presumably you’re there with the end game of getting out and getting a job, and getting internships along the way. In fact, from the day you’re accepted into college you should be preparing for what you’ll do afterward. If you have a summer internship at the end of your freshman year, you’ve had since early April of the previous year to prepare for the possibility of an internship. If you can’t figure out how to put together one week’s worth of clothes in 14 months, you should spend your summer working a job that pays.

            By the way, one black skirt or pair of slacks looks exactly like five identical black skirts or pairs of slacks. Says the woman who earns quite a bit better than minimum wage, but hates clothes shopping, and has four identical black skirts in one design and two of another.

            1. Will Lee*

              While I agree generally that students entering college should have some expectation that they’d be working some form of internship in the summer that demands professional attire, many don’t land internships until May or later. And when you do land that internship, you don’t always know how formal you have to dress in the office. After my sophomore year in college, I was having a pretty difficult time landing an internship (NOTE: DO NOT MAJOR IN POLITICAL SCIENCE) and didn’t land one until late May. The internship (working in the state office where my Senator was from) was unpaid and demanded business formal attire everyday. Luckily I had a few suits/shirts and ties that I could rotate, but the extreme dress code made no sense as the Senator rarely ever conducted any business out of the office and we didn’t do much besides sit behind a desk for eight to nine hours a day. I could imagine that internship being infinitely (and unfairly) harder on someone else who just found out about it in May and had to buy a new suit to be ready by June.

          2. Amy G. Golly*

            Agreed! Finding deals is a skill, and a process that can take a long time. Sure, we all know NOW where to find the best bargains on work-appropriate clothing, but we built that knowledge (and our wardrobes!) up over time. (Also: the LW mentioned wearing suits to work, which is a bit different, and pricier, than picking up some Old Navy slacks and a cardigan to throw over it.)

            I agree with Alison that plenty of low income people manage to dress professionally on a meager budget; but I also believe that the strain of complying with a strict, professional dress code on unpaid student interns is something employers should take into consideration.

            (Not that I think this was an issue for the LW, nor do I think she handled the issue appropriately! Just, you know: principles and stuff. :P)

        3. Riri*

          $150 is still very expensive for some people. For my first professional job I bought one dress shirt ($4), one pair of dress pants ($6), and one pair of dress shoes ($7) from a charity shop. I handwashed that outfit every night and wore it every day. It was literally all I could afford. My boss pulled me aside after 2 weeks and asked why I didn’t wear anything else and I explained. She gave me an advance on a bonus that I hadn’t even technically earned so I could have $100 to buy some clothes. And you can bet I worked my ass off to earn that bonus and show her how much I appreciated it.

          2. Nunya Dambinness*

            “$150 is still very expensive for some people. ”

            Not anyone who presumably paid for a college degree.

            1. Ask a Manager* Post author

              That’s not really true though. Plenty of people struggle financially in college, often because they’re in college, and get by only through financial aid and whatever else they can cobble together.

            2. AnotherAnon*

              Agreed. As others have posted out, you usually know about internships months in advance (even if you didn’t hear back from the internship you were offered until last-minute, you certainly applied for it before that). Even if you’re a broke college student, you can modify your spending to be able to set aside $5-$10 a week to start accumulating professional wardrobe pieces in your closet. Get a work study job, don’t buy coffee or energy drinks as much as you used to, go out to the bar less, don’t eat out as much, or save monetary gifts that relatives have given you. Create a savings account specifically for this purpose so you aren’t tempted to spend the money for a different purpose.

            3. Mookie*

              Not everyone does pay to enroll and, with very few exceptions, no one is paying for it outright.

        4. Basiorana*

          You know, as much as I know the interns were in the wrong, I’m really amused at the idea that $150 is a cheap wardrobe and not a barrier to the working poor.

          When I got my first job with a “professional” dress code I used a credit card at a thrift store and it took me two months to pay it off. The total was under $30.

          Interns aren’t the ones to change it, but we’re lying to ourselves if we don’t admit that strict dress codes in non customer facing roles are a form of classism, conscious or not.

          1. Nunya Dambinness*

            “I’m really amused at the idea that $150 is a cheap wardrobe and not a barrier to the working poor.”

            What does that have to do with these people who paid thousands of dollars for a college degree?

            1. JessaB*

              Some people get loans/scholarships, etc. for schooling. Those loans do not have enough extra money in them usually to even pay for books. Paying thousands for a degree does not mean you have $150 in the bank. Most people paying for a degree are counting on being able to pay it back when they get paying work, not when they’re in school still.

            2. Murphy*

              I know lots of people who went to University and also struggled to feed themselves. Education and poverty are not mutually exclusive. In fact, they’re actually really highly correlated. The difference is that for those in post-secondary education poverty is often situational and transitional rather than persistent. But it doesn’t make the reality of that situational poverty any different.

            3. Marie*

              I worked full time during both my bachelors and master’s, while also taking the fullest load of credits so I could get done in the quickest amount of time and minimize costs. My full time work covered rent, food, transportation to and from work (the bus does add up), textbooks, and paying down my school loans as I went to school. Loans covered tuition (at an inexpensive state school) and nothing else. Not only was money tight, but so was time — between classes and work and studying, I had to rigorously schedule time to shower, and had only a three hour block of “free time” once a week (which I used to cook meals for my upcoming week). Finding the money for a new wardrobe (especially as plus size and petite) and the TIME to travel and shop and wash and hem would have been almost impossible unless I was willing to skip work, skip school, or skip studying.

              Of course, in those circumstances, I never could have taken an internship. Because I grew up poor, the idea of taking extra loans to NOT work or NOT get paid never crossed my mind — you pay your bills immediately and on time and work as much as possible to avoid debt, because once you’re in debt you don’t get out. I would have had to have been raised very differently with more resources to ever consider a long term life plan that gambled unpayable debt against future potential earnings.

              You can imagine how frustrating it is for me to hear people insinuate that those who go to college must have plenty of resources. That is a tremendously outdated point of view. Very few people have the resources to pay for tuition outright.

              It is ALSO frustrating to watch the intern system play out. I had the skills and knowledge necessary for success in a workplace since I was fifteen, and I had to watch students with no experience or knowledge get opportunities I could never access. I didn’t blame those students; they didn’t create the intern system. All of us were just calculating our best odds for success under very different circumstances and opportunities. So please don’t lump us all in to one assumed experience. Very few of us don’t have to worry about money; most of us are gambling our unknown potential against an expensive future.

        5. JessaB*

          Plus honestly, at least in Ohio and Florida (the two places I’ve lived in the last 20 years,) the Job Corps/State Employment agency has an outreach. You can get one or two professional outfits to work for free. Many colleges/universities also have clothing swaps/places to get work dress through their social services units.

          Heck even though I hate them for a variety of reasons (sub minimum wages, expensive prices in stores, etc.) Goodwill and (poor treatment of LGBTQIA+ persons ) the Salvation Army, have programmes that will outfit people for jobs if they cannot afford clothing. The local St. Vincent dePaul chapter where I live will give you a voucher to their thrift store also.

          Many cities have business groups that offer work clothing as well, where professional men and women pass on gently used high end office clothes to people who are new to business.

          If you’re careful, have some good Google-fu and are willing to ASK for charitable help, you can probably get at least enough clothes to get you by if you’re work at it.

      3. Jaguar*

        I grew up poor and still deal with a legacy of poverty and this “doesn’t have to be expensive” stuff is always a huge barrier. “Unexpensive” expenses are massive when you’re broke, and that’s to say nothing of entering an environment where the culture – literally written into the rules – is that what you can afford matters. So when you buy as thrifty as possible, it’s easy to feel like you’re just barely scraping your way in (and it was still a huge expense to you) and that you don’t really belong. So not only is inexpensive professional clothing still expensive for poor people, it also has a serious self-identity cost.

        I’m not saying people should dress however they want in a workplace, that the OP was justified in his or her actions, or anything like that, but I also agree with Guy 100% that strict dress codes are a way (intentional or not) of excluding people. And it’s extremely frustrating, when you’re poor, to be told a purchase “doesn’t need to be expensive.” When you’re poor, you aren’t stretching discretionary income, you’re sacrificing other things to make it work. A “not-expensive” purchase you didn’t think you needed means you’re down to two meals a day for a while.

        1. Observer*

          You have a point. But, I’ve yet to see someone of that background with the kind of entitled tone the OP has. And that’s really the issue, regardless of whether I’m right or wrong on this.

          The issue here is that the argument the interns made was not “This is an extreme financial hardship, can you accommodate a bit?” but that they “felt the dress code was overly strict” (!) and that the other guy was allowed to do it, so they should also be allowed.

          1. Cordelia Naismith*

            This. If the OP’s argument had centered on the cost, I would have been a lot more sympathetic. As it is, it sounds like cost wasn’t the issue — they just didn’t feel like wearing those particular shoes.

        2. Red*

          Yeah. I can still keenly remember times when $30 for shoes would’ve meant significantly fewer meals in my immediate future.

        3. Roxanne*

          +1. If you are starting out after years of study and have student debt, getting the right clothes to fit a restrictive clothing policy would be very stressful.

          1. Koko*

            I completely agree with you who are saying this is exclusionary – but cynically, it’s like that an unpaid internship already excluded people who can’t afford business clothes, because they also couldn’t afford to work unpaid in the first place.

            Luckily DOL has tightened up in recent years and there are very few legitimate unpaid internships these days.

        4. nerdgal*

          I was quite poor in college and agree with this perspective. However, one thing that students can do, is to factor employment into ongoing clothing purchases. By that I mean, a semi-nice pair of black pants that can be worn to class and also to an office job. Things like that. It would be a kindness for counselors and advisors to mention this to new students.
          I’m 60yo and I still remember what it was like not to be able to afford the Frye Boots and Fair Isle sweaters. I like the phrase “self-identity cost” to describe this feeling.

        5. Ad Astra*

          Yeah, I grew up poor and am also sensitive to this “It doesn’t have to be expensive!” talk. I was well into college before I had more than one pair of pants at a time, and $30-60 still feels like a lot to spend on a pair of shoes, even though I know that’s on the lower end of what decent shoes cost. Combined with the fact that I was always a bit heavy-set (fluctuating between sizes 14 and 18), and kind of a hard-to-fit apple shape, comments like “You can look nice without spending a lot!” were really frustrating to me as a young adult.

          I got pretty good at styling jeans, shorts, and cotton-y tops to look put together, but even at 28 every outfit I have that fits “business professional” dress codes looks frumpy because I can’t afford nicer, better-fitting items. I definitely look more put together now that I work in a casual office.

          None of this changes how I feel about the interns’ behavior, but it’s one reason I’m not crazy about unduly formal dress codes.

        6. Artemesia*

          The OP was so CLEARLY not poor and struggling to be able to afford a pair of shoes that look vaguely like leather. This issue of internships and poor students is an issue, but it clearly isn’t relevant here and I suspect an intern who came to the supervisor with that concern would get a different reaction than this group of very entitled people who apparently think there is a Constitutional right to wear sandals in summer.

          1. Not So NewReader*

            Yeah, it does not seem to fit. If someone in OP’s group could not meet the dress code requirements they should have spoken to someone for advice. The question probably comes up frequently at school or at the company so people probably have answers lined up.

            1. Basiorana*

              In my experience the answer is usually “Oh, don’t be ridiculous! It doesn’t have to be expensive. You could do your whole wardrobe for $150, so just skip the morning Starbucks for a month!” (I was on food stamps).

              The sad part is, while OP was probably not thinking of the economics, she probably got some poor intern fired because that intern thought maybe this was a way they could afford the wardrobe better without being mocked and judged by their boss for being poor.

      4. Pam Adams*

        My campus career center has a clothes closet. Gently used and new interview/professional wear, that is free to students. (Usually one or two outfits per quarter, but more can be arranged)

        1. Pennalynn Lott*

          We, too, have a clothes closet. There are also at least a dozen charities in my town who exist solely to provide professional wear to people who can’t afford it.

            1. The Crusher*

              My community college has an ongoing drive for professional clothing and I was so pleased that (A) I had somewhere to donate suits I bought when I was slightly fatter and (B) they specifically requested plus sized women’s clothing.

    3. OfficePrincess*

      Normally I try to be very aware of the disparate impact that policies can have on varying classes, but it sounds like the reason for the firing wasn’t because they weren’t following the dress code but rather the extreme and aggressive way they went about pushing back. I still don’t know if I would have gone straight to firing, but it was very unprofessional behavior.

      1. Christopher Tracy*

        Exactly. And presumably, the dress code was shared with them prior to their start date, so if the cost of the shoes was prohibitive (which I doubt – see the Payless mention from Alison), they should have spoken up for accommodations then. Good interns are not going to be turned down by a reasonable company just because they can’t afford “leather” flats*.

        *Put that in quotes because you can find flats that look like leather, but are actually vegan (and cheaper).

        1. Basiorana*

          I agree the interns behaved completely inappropriately.

          However, please do not assume a $20 pair of Payless shots is not prohibitive.

          Or that good interns and employees are not turned down for being too poor for the dress code, since most people who have never been poor assume it is a sign of irresponsibility.

          1. Nunya Dambinness*

            “However, please do not assume a $20 pair of Payless shots is not prohibitive”

            It’s not. It’s nothing.

            Especially when you just spent 30k on an education.

            2. Some Sort of Management Consultant*

              You don’t know that. You have NO IDEA what other people’s money situations look like.
              For a lot of people, even college educated people, $20 IS prohibitive.

            3. Anxa*

              This is sarcasm, right?

              I charged $200 on interview clothes in 2008, thinking it was a small price to pay for entry into an interview, after having just spent a small fortune in school. Yeah, it was ‘nothing’ compared to the cost of education, but I didn’t have any other cash and of course there was interest and I never got a job that required a suit to interview. It doesn’t fit quite the same, 8 years later. I will have to wear an ill-fitting suit or self-select out of jobs I’d have to wear a suit to for the next few months while I save up again.

              What you fail to realize is that student loans can be deffered. Out of pocket money that you already spent is ALREADY SPENT. That $20 or $200 or heck $2000 that you haven’t spent yet? That can make the difference between making rent or not THAT MONTH.

              Yes, $20 is a small amount to help leverage the money you’ve already spent, but landlords, grocers, and creditors don’t care about how much money you’ve spent on your education already.

            4. Oryx*

              You seem really, really, REALLY hung up on this portion and it has zero logic. The fact that someone paid a certain amount of money for school has absolutely nothing to do with their financial resources outside of their education.

      2. AMT*

        Right, and I’m sure there would have been more flexibility if OP had addressed it like, “I’m having a lot of trouble affording the wardrobe, is it okay to wear these cloth flats a couple of days a week?”

          1. JB (not in Houston)*

            I have a lot of sympathy for that, but that in no way makes what happened here ok. Part of being a professional is knowing when to set aside your pride, in everything from going to your boss to admit you made a mistake to telling your boss you can’t afford new shoes so you don’t get fired. Your coworkers don’t need to know. Most of the time, your boss doesn’t need to know. But if it’s tell or get fired, you tell. Sometimes you just where the shoes you have and see if you get pushback. But you don’t get a petition going when you’re an intern.

            1. Jaguar*

              You’re assuming a lot. I’m not saying this is what happened (it doesn’t sound to me, from the letter, that this was a money issue) and I’m certainly not trying to justify OP starting a petition. I’m just giving AMT (and other readers) a better perspective on AMT’s suggestion. I agree that if everyone was awesome, you would go to your boss, explain the situation, and find something that works for all parties.

              That said, here’s what actually happens. You admit you’re struggling financially to someone (boss or otherwise, co-worker or otherwise). They’re understanding, and they allow you special privileges. And they also know you’re poor, so maybe you don’t get invited to lunch when you otherwise would have been. Or invited to an after-work event. Maybe people start to pity you (THE WORST), and suddenly you’re being offered food because it looks like what you brought is really inexpensive. Maybe someone else sees you being allowed to wear something that nobody else is allowed to and brings it up to management (for an example of this, see OP’s letter), and now you have to watch people complain (about you!) to your manager and either your manager spills the secret or they don’t and you have to watch this person that’s sticking up for you deal with shit because of it. Maybe, maybe, maybe a huge list of things, which, if you’re poor, you’ve had happen to you repeatedly in the past, so you don’t ever bring up that you’re poor. If you admit you’re poor, you’re poor for life if other people’s eyes.

              1. Observer*

                Yeah, but if that’s the deal you do NOT go to the boss with a complaint based on what the other guy is doing; write a “well reasoned” proposal and petition asking that you can significantly downgrade the dress code after being told no to your first request; discuss the matter with a bunch of other people and get them to sign your petition.

      3. TootsNYC*

        Good point. If the problem had been that one intern had to wear the same blazer over and over, or else wear a cardigan on some other day, that would have been a very different thing.

    4. Artemesia*

      Few dress codes are about expensive clothing. Appropriate professional clothing can be obtained from thrift shops as well as inexpensive stores. You can’t expect to work in a professional environment and not conform to the workplace expectations.

      1. Isabel*

        There are also a number of organizations that help provide professional clothing to low-income people entering or re-entering the workplace.

        If money was the issue (and based on the OP’s entitled tone, I’m guessing it was not) the time spent whining about getting signatures could have been spent compiling a list of local resources (thrift stores, Express, etc.) where fellow interns could find appropriate work clothes.

        1. Felicia*

          Not necessarily the tone, but the not having had a job to focus on school made me think money wasn’t the issue, since low income people don’t have that choice.

          1. Anon Accountant*

            +1 to low income people don’t have that choice. Several friends, myself included, worked 2 jobs while attending college full time. A work study job plus an evening/weekend job simultaneously. There wasn’t a choice financially. It was a need.

            And completely agree that was time that’s could’ve been spent compiling resources for low cost clothes and shoes if costs were a concern.

    5. LBK*

      I don’t see any indication that they were expected to have expensive clothing – the OP says the dress code was business casual and the only part of the dress code they really objected to were the shoes. I’d be surprised if most people didn’t have a pair of work-appropriate shoes by the time they were in college from attending any number of formal/semi-formal events (weddings, graduation, etc.).

      1. Koko*

        I think it was actually more business-formal. The shoes were the big focus, but there was also mention in the letter of suits, which are indeed expensive if you aren’t finding them at charity shops.

        …but we also incorporated a request that we not have to wear suits and/or blazers in favor of a more casual, but still professional dress code.

        My first professional job was biz-cas, but my second job a year later was biz-formal. Even already being in the workforce and having been on salary, it was still entry-level salary in a city with a high COL and I remember what a difficulty it was for me to scrape together enough money just to buy a blazer with pants that matched. Luckily we were only required to put the blazer on when we had guests in the office, which was never more than once a week, so I was able to get away with just the one suit set.

        I had maybe one or two pairs of dress pants I’d worn to church as a teenager and also made do with some stretchy black pants that I had bought to wear to the club, and I paired them with whatever solid-color shirts I already owned. In other words, I *barely* adhered to the dress code for the first year or two. I slowly bought actual dress pants for work, blouses and camis, and eventually a second suit (my hand was forced on this one earlier than I would have liked because I was sent on a business trip where I would be representing the company in a suit for multiple days), but it took me 1-2 years to really be able to afford putting together a complete biz-formal wardrobe.

        1. LizM*

          On top of that, business professional clothes are expensive to maintain. I interned in the Senate while in college, and a pretty hefty portion of my stipend went to dry cleaning bills. That doesn’t always get factored in when coming up with “budget” solutions to helping people find work appropriate clothes.

          I’m not arguing that we get rid of dress codes for interns, but I also don’t think it’s reasonable to expect a 20 year old to open up about her finances with a boss she just met.

          Not saying what these interns did was okay, but it’s something to consider when setting dress codes – it seems that they’re often set and approved by HR managers and supervisors that are much higher on the pay scale than the employees it apply to.

        2. Observer*

          According to the OP, they could wear blazers, as well. Makes it MUCH easier and cheaper to maintain the look.

        3. BananaPants*

          I had to buy a blazer and dress top for a presentation at work, and even going to a cheap place like Dress Barn I still had to spend around $125 on two pieces that I’ll likely never wear again. Since I’m at the low end of plus size I’m much more limited in my options; I can’t just go into Kohl’s or Target and find suiting pieces in my size. On the rare occasion that Goodwill or the Salvation Army has plus sized suiting it will be something like a lilac purple skirt suit with huge shoulder pads, straight out of 1984.

          For my 21st birthday (when I was a size 12 – those were the days!) my parents bought me a suit in anticipation of upcoming interviews during my senior year of college. My mother took me to Talbot’s and their salesladies found me a charcoal grey all-season wool pants suit and two wrinkle-free Oxford shirts that fit me beautifully. I decided that when our daughters reach college age I will do something similar for them; buy a nice, serviceable suit to have for job and internship interviews.

          1. LizM*

            This is what my mom got me for my college graduation (I was going on to grad school, so no need for an interview suit my senior year of college, but would need a suit for internship interviews in grad school).

    6. Katie the Fed*

      I’m down with unpaid internships for that reason. But assuming they knew it was unpaid, they should have made an effort to get the proper shoes. They’re really not THAT expensive.

    7. LawBee*

      You can get leather shoes (or shoes that are fake-leather but can pass) pretty cheaply, tbh. And paid or unpaid, the interns screwed up.

      I would be surprised if this was an unpaid internship; it sounds like it was pretty corporate, and those – in my experience – tend to be paid. Poorly paid, but paid nonetheless.

    8. INTP*

      The only part that caught my eye was the “No non-leather flats.” If anyone who isn’t able to wear heels is required to buy genuine leather shoes, then that’s potentially costly (and morally objectionable to some). But I suspect that if you came in with a pair of polished-looking faux leather flats, no one would say anything, and it’s more about the appearance of not wearing more casual fabric shoes.

      1. Artemesia*

        No one is going to be looking at labels in shoes. Plastic shoes in fake leather are going to be just fine. They don’t want sandals, trainers, canvas flats etc.

      2. Anon for this*

        I agree. And I think, if that’s the case, the interns could have talked about affordability or “does it really have to be leather?” and not banded together weirdly.

      3. Not So NewReader*

        I used to sell leather goods and I know most people cannot tell fake leather from real leather. Keep the shoes clean and neat and there should not be any problem.

    9. Temperance*

      I disagree. As a former poor person, I would say that unpaid internships and internships in general do discriminate against poor and working class folks, because we’re often working crap jobs instead of resume building. However, a professional dress code is not that.

      You can easily ebay or thrift work appropriate clothing. If anything, requiring professional dress is a good thing, because it’s a lesson in how this stuff works to those who haven’t been exposed to it.

      1. Anxa*

        I don’t know. I think that even the cheapest clothes, if they have to purchased when you don’t have them, is a hardship. In fact, these cheap shoes add up. I guess $10-20 doesn’t seem like much to some people. But that could still be skipped lunches.

        That said, they didn’t approach management asking to relax the dress code so that they could reduce their expenses.

        1. Jen*

          I agree. The other thing about professional clothing is that it is if often dry clean only. These things really do add up when you don’t have a lot of funds.

          1. Temperance*

            I really do disagree with this point, too. My only dry clean only work clothing is my suits and the shells that go with them. My everyday stuff is machine washable, and it wasn’t that hard to find.

            1. Koko*

              My suit jackets for a long time were also the only dry-clean-only items in my wardrobe when I was first starting out. I joked that “Dry Clean Only” meant “Keep it dry and clean” because I never actually had them dry cleaned. I think I was 30 before I ever used a dry cleaner.

              In my experience expensive professional clothing is dry-clean-only, but inexpensive professional clothing is not. A good example of this is Ann Taylor and LOFT. The styles are very similar, but the Ann Taylor label is more expensive than the Ann Taylor LOFT label and virtually everything at Ann Taylor is dry clean only, while the only LOFT garments that need dry cleaning are typically suit jackets. LOFT is a more budget-friendly label and they know their customers aren’t the sort to do dry cleaning.

            2. Jen*

              Maybe in your experience, but I have worked at places that have very strict dress codes, buy nearly all of my clothing from discount/outlet stores, and nearly all of my slacks and blazers are dry clean only. I’ve had some luck with dresses and sweaters, but if they require you to wear a jacket (as many very strict dress codes do), it is more than likely to be dry clean only. Combine that w/ the fact that if this is a summer internship in DC or NYC, then sweat and grime is inevitable.

            3. Talvi*

              Depending on the material, I would probably risk gently hand-washing things even if the tag said “dry clean only.” (Unless it’s rayon. Rayon is a fragile fibre.)

          2. Girasol*

            I read once that the test of appropriate professional wear is whether it can be laundered at home. If it can, it’s not professional. (By that definition I’ve never dressed professionally except twice in interviews.)

            1. Temperance*

              This is definitely not the case! It might be easier because I’m a woman, but plenty of professional dresses and skirt sets are machine washable!

    10. Bwmn*

      For better or worse, the whole unpaid internship system inherently benefits wealthier students over ones without the means. This isn’t just about whether or not a student can afford to take a summer when they’re not working, but also whether they can afford to be physically placed where the “good” internships are. Cities that are niche areas for highly desirable internships (i.e. DC or NYC) often require students to find some kind of housing/living arrangement – and for students without means/connections – that alone can prevent accessing the majority of high caliber internships.

      Very strict dress codes that are unreasonable for the summer largely brings to mind Capitol Hill DC internships. It is about as formal as you can get in dreadfully humid weather, but it also is what it is.

      1. Dan*

        I went to school in DC, but studied Engineering. While my friends were off to Capitol Hill to donate their services over the summer, me and my Engineering buddies were making $17/hr. One of the reasons I went to school in DC as opposed to somewhere else is that my parents lived in a rural area without many internship opportunities. I figured that DC had a lot to offer — while DC certainly has a reputation for politics and international affairs, there are plenty of tech and engineering opportunities too.

        Granted, most of my friends were “of means” so they weren’t complaining too much about their lack of a paycheck, but I was one of those who needed the money.

        Getting this back on track, I’ve made plenty of my own mistakes as an intern/early career professional, including the dress code boo-boo. So whenever someone writes in about “I goofed up my internship”, I just nod my head and think, “yup, that’s kinda the whole point. Lots of us have.” You pick up and move on.

        1. Bwmn*

          There are lots of ways that students can and can’t approach schooling based on their means. DC and NYC is utterly inaccessible for many students for loads of reasons based on means and having a professional culture place certain values on internships – many of which remain unpaid – continue to favor those with means. The UN has many prestigious internship programs, but they’re all unpaid and demand being able to support living in cities like New York or Geneva without a salary.

          It’s not that there aren’t alternative approaches or professions that don’t require this – it’s just that it’s a system that favors those with means. Regardless of whether or not leather shoes come into play.

    11. Annalee*

      I’m actually 180 degrees from you on this. If it was a paid internship, then what they were doing was organizing to improve their working conditions, and firing employees (which they were) for doing that is a legal can of worms the company should not have opened. I don’t personally think shoes should have been the hill they chose to unionize on, but if they were paid, then that’s what they were doing, and they may very well have legal protections.

      If they were unpaid, however, then they weren’t employees, and legal protections don’t apply. There’s a separate conversation to be had about how 1. unpaid internships disadvantage working-class folks and 2. most unpaid ‘internships’ do not meet the necessary criteria to be exempt from minimum wage laws. But if this was a legal unpaid internship, then learning about standards of business dress (and starting to build a business dress wardrobe, which they will need for future interviews) is part of the package.

      1. Leatherwings*

        Nah, I really doubt that signing a petition to wear sandals at work would give them legal standing to argue they were attempting to unionize. Not a lawyer here, but I seriously doubt it.

        1. Pwyll*

          Actually, if they were paid employees, this likely could have been considered a violation of the National Labor Relations Act. Discussing working conditions and advocating for changes to them is protected even if the employees are not specifically seeking to create a union. It’d be pretty shocking for companies to be allowed to wipe out entire classes of employees for presenting a proposal to management to change working conditions.

      2. sam*

        I was going to ask about this – if they were employees (regardless of the “intern” title), how does the petition/mass firing comport with labor law rules around discussions/organizing regarding workplace conditions?

        Don’t get me wrong – I think interns choosing dress codes as the hill they want to die on is really stupid, and regardless of short-term outcome is going to ruin their prospects in the long run because they don’t understand the point of being an intern – namely to learn how to operate in a business environment, including how to comply with things like office norms and dress codes, but just from a purely legal perspective…

        1. Ask a Manager* Post author

          From a purely legal perspective, if the interns were considered employees, firing them for the petition itself would be a violation of the NLRA if they’re in the U.S.

          1. Sad, Sad Grad*

            That’s what rubs me the wrong way about your response. You are telling this person to apologize for organizing for better working conditions, a legally protected activity. Workers’ rights in the US have been suffering from decades and you’re suggesting something that would actively make it worse. I know you get a lot of letters from people who think they have legal standing when they don’t, but the NLRA is very clear that retaliating against protected activity is illegal. Apologizing could jeopardize any case LW or their former colleagues might want to bring.

            1. Ask a Manager* Post author

              I am assuming the company handled the firing in a way that was legal (as I note above).

              And that’s not even getting into the fact that legality doesn’t make something inherently reasonable, wise, or warranted. Facts matter.

            2. Jb*

              I have to disagree with you on what constitutes “better working conditions.” I don’t feel that dress code is something that is detrimental to the health and safety of these workers. Now, I’m no expert on worker’s rights, but I feel that Alison’s response was fair based on the situation.

              1. AF*

                Yes – it’s not like they’re not being allowed lunch breaks or something more egregious. Also, if dress code is so important to the OP and other interns, they could ask about it during future job interviews. But depending on their industry, they may find that their opportunities are limited if they’re not willing to dress more formally.

            3. Temperance*

              I think your use of the phrase “better working conditions” is off-base here. A relaxed dress code doesn’t really fit within that paradigm and workers’ rights in general.

            4. Oryx*

              You realize this whole thing was over shoes, right? Comparing that to the bad working conditions that were fought over for years is a little tone deaf.

              1. Katie the Fed*

                thank you. We’re talking about shoes here, not 18-hour workdays with no breaks.

            5. Zillah*

              I’m not convinced that bringing a case over being fired from a summer internship because you pushed back on what shoes you were allowed to wear is likely to go anywhere in the first place.

            6. annonymouse*

              Better working conditions normally relate to safety and security of the people involved.

              I don’t think wearing running shoes and sandals in a corporate environment meets those grounds, do you?

    12. AW*

      Folks are downplaying how difficult it can be to find clothing that works for you & your situation (which happens every time this comes up) but it doesn’t sound like that was why the interns were protesting the dress code.

      Also, Temperance makes an excellent point that a kid working their way through college likely can’t afford to take an unpaid internship in the first place.

    13. Chriama*

      I feel like this argument is a lot like “not everyone can afford sandwiches”.

      OP presumably knew the conditions of the internship before she started, and the petition was primarily about shoes. I literally wear the same shoes every day in my professional job – black flats, they go with everything, and it’s highly likely that OP has a pair since the conversation was “we want to wear less formal stuff” rather than “I don’t have the appropriate wardrobe and I can’t afford to get one.”

      Unpaid internships already exclude the poor and working class, but I don’t think expecting a reasonable dress code (I’m assuming dress pants, blazers or cardigans, etc) is the primary reason or even has that much of an impact on things.

      1. Bif*

        It appears to me that they were sold the job as Business Casual and found out later it was Biz Formal. I can see where that would be an issue.

        I disagree with how they handled it, but I can see the problem if that was in fact the case

        1. Rusty Shackelford*

          It appears to me that they were sold the job as Business Casual

          Where do you get that?

          1. Bif*

            You know what, I’m sorry, I was confused! I think I got a poster confused with the OP.

        2. Chriama*

          Even if that was the case, does that matter? As it’s described here, the petition was about preference. They wanted to wear slightly less formal clothing. This isn’t a bait-and-switch like finding out you only get 10 days of PTO including sick time or a lower salary than you wanted at first. I don’t think many companies go out of their way to ‘trick’ people into accepting a job by hiding the dress code, of all things.

          1. Bif*

            Well, I would entertain a job that was Biz Casual whereas I’d run like hell from Biz Formal. I’m completely unwilling to buy an entire wardrobe that cannot be used 18/7/365. (With notable exceptions for safety gear.) Not how I run my life, and it’s a deal-breaker for me.

            And you’d be surprised by the methods companies that know they have serious onboarding/retention issues use to coax people into thinking they are or are not something. I have absolutely scene a company misrepresent a dress code before.

    14. neverjaunty*

      Except it’s pretty clear from the OP that the issue was not about cost, it was about a more ‘casual’ style: Our proposal requested that we also be allowed to wear running shoes and non leather flats, as well as sandals (not flip-flops though) and other non-dress shoes that would fit under a more business casual dress code.

      1. BananaPants*

        We have a business casual dress code in my office and sandals and sneakers/running shoes are explictly forbidden. You can wear flats, pumps, oxfords, boat shoes, etc. – just not sneakers or sandals. There have been exceptions made for what I assume are medical reasons.

        I have a coworker with a pair of fabric Burberry ballerina flats; no one is going to argue that those aren’t equivalent to leather dress shoes! Either a pair of $20 black pleather flats from Payless or those $350 Burberry ballerinas are certainly a different level of formality from a pair of Tevas or Keens.

    15. Alex*

      What a crock. If that really was the reason, it would have been in the letter above and would have come up immediately when getting hired as an intern. Additionally, buying a pair of slacks, two dress shirts, and business shoes with socks can all be gotten for a ONE TIME total of $100, $200 if you’re of odd size. I’m sure each and every intern has a celllphone, with an average monthly recuring bill of $70, that even your “poor” (there are no real poor in America, just relative poor; that’s why the official definition of poverty in the US is relative to the median income, without regard to what can actually be bought and consumed by these so called “poor” people) and working class (who often make as much if not more than white collar, which people like you oddly don’t consider “working class” despite the fact they work more hours, on average, than blue collars).

      What actually happened is what was stated: they saw someone else who wasn’t conforming to the dress code (didn’t know why and didn’t care why, but somehow because someone else was doing it, this was important in their lives too), so, in true kindergarten fashion, claimed they had the right to be exempt, too.

    16. Financial Samurai*

      Expensive clothes? Plenty of cheap clothes at Target, Walmart, and Ross Dress For Less.

      Half the battle of looking good is just being fit. Semi-formal dress does not have to come from Gucci, Prada, and Armani! It doesn’t even have to come from J. Crew or BR.

      Sam

  6. really*

    Alison’s answer is right on. When you are the bottom of the totem pole you work hard and learn. Even if the dress code was overly strict there is no way that running/athletic shoes would be appropriate outside of an athletic environment. And personally there are very few if any sandals these days that are work appropriate either.
    And on a personal note I like suits and blazers but have no problem with the typical business casual of good pants and polos and modest dresses. But too many people seem to think that as long as the erogenous zones are mostly covered they are good to go.

    1. Amber T*

      I’m sure there are people in the middle of the totem pole, and even towards the top, who would love to wear whatever they want. As Alison said, there’s a reason for the strict dress code. It could be because clients have the potential to see you. It could be because forcing you to dress up makes you remember you’re at work and not home. It could be one high level person in charge laughing maniacally behind a desk saying “dance, puppets, dance!”

      I think your best bet is to let this go, and reach out again next year apologizing, saying you’ve learned a lot in the past year and have matured, and you understand what you did was inappropriate, and you valued your time there. The worst (and most likely) scenario is they just ignore it, but maybe, if otherwise your work was positive, it could lead to something good (networking, connections, etc.).

      You may not feel like that now (if you’re anything like me, intern level me would read all the responses here and scoff because no one here REALLY understands the situation), but I promise you, once you get more experience, you’ll change your tune. You’ll eventually be able to laugh this off as a “how ridiculous did I used to be?” story and move on.

    2. LawBee*

      The pedant in me is dying to point out that the person at the bottom of the totem pole was actually the most important, and put there so you could see him, and the people at the top were the least important.

      The pedant won. :D

      1. SophieChotek*

        Tangent.
        I was surprised when I read about the origins/true meaning of the totem-pole.
        But I think “low person on the totem-pole” seems to have lead to a new meaning for that…

        1. MyFakeNameIsLaura*

          The actual meaning never changed though. The term was used incorrectly due to a misunderstanding of indigenous/Native cultural practice. In my case, I just heard wrong for years and assumed it was correct, only to become abruptly aware my willful ignorance was a racial microaggression while listening to a podcast I love (Another Round). Thank you so much for pointing this out for others, LawBee.

    3. Mkting Gal*

      I had a marketing internship in college. I always dressed up for class on days that I had to go to the internship afterwards. Once, I work nice black jeans, a top, and booties. (It was a firm where the women dressed very fashion forward).
      I was taken aside at the office later that day and told that jeans were inappropriate for the work place and against their dress code with the exception of Fridays. I was MORTIFIED and had a friend meet me with slacks. I’d naively thought that *black* jeans didn’t count like in the rule of “no blue jeans except on Fridays,” because, hey they were black?
      I changed, wrote a profuse letter of apology and was embarrassed to show my face for the rest of the day (partially because my friends slacks were 3 sizes too big and I looked like an idiot).

    4. Zillah*

      I do want to point out that this is highly dependent on the work environment – there are plenty of jobs where running shoes and/or sandals are work appropriate. This just wasn’t one of them.

  7. Sir Alanna*

    From a fellow intern, I understand the frustration and the confusion. I think it’s pretty common to have rules spelled out in the handbook and then have nearly everyone not follow them. Here’s an important thing: some of those exemptions have been earned. Maybe senior staff wear sneakers on the days they don’t have meetings. Full employees have likely proven themselves capable of following the dress code, and now they are allowed to choose, with good judgement, to carefully break some of those rules.

    As interns, we haven’t earned anything. We are new, to the company and to the workforce, and we need to prove ourselves capable of being professional and following the handbook. So when my coworkers use their downtime to browse Facebook, I read professional publications in my field. Some people in my office duck out early; I make sure to stay until the end of my shift. Just because others can push boundaries doesn’t mean we should. We’re there to learn, and I think this is an important part of that process.

    1. AdAgencyChick*

      You sound like an awesome intern. Brava. (Also brava for the Tamora Pierce reference.)

    3. Temperance*

      Can I clone you, so you can replace my interns? I leave early for PT appointments a few days each week. I reprimanded one of my interns for his constant lateness (“but the train doesn’t get there until 9:00!” was his genius excuse), and I caught him complaining to the other intern about me leaving early after calling him out.

      He also thinks that he’s going to get an offer … LOL ….

      1. Not the Droid You are Looking For*

        He also thinks that he’s going to get an offer …

        My one bad intern experience was a young woman who was late every day and then went to HR when she wasn’t offered a position. Nevermind that it wasn’t just me who spoke to her about arriving on time, but my boss and my boss’s boss…it still never sunk in.

        1. Temperance*

          Why is it that the truly worst interns are the ones who have no idea how much they suck? So bizarre.

          1. Not the Droid You are Looking For*

            I think it’s people in general. It’s like the person who behaves abhorrently on a date and then gets upset that you don’t want to go out again.

            It’s like the worse people are, the less self-awareness they have.

            1. neverjaunty*

              It’s because they don’t think of other people as having their own thoughts and opinions – at least, none that matter. Terrible people think they’re awesome, so it genuinely doesn’t dawn on them that others might think otherwise.

          3. Cordelia Naismith*

            I feel like that’s one of the hallmarks of incompetence — if you’re truly incompetent at something, you have no idea what competence even looks like, so you overestimate your own skill (or lack thereof). Unconscious incompetence.

            Once you’ve learned a little more, you’re better able to appreciate just how much you have left to learn and you begin to really understand your incompetence. A lot of people give up at this stage when they’re learning something new, but this is actually a positive sign! You now know how much you don’t know! You’re learning! You’ve achieved conscience incompetence.

            Then comes the stage where you’ve learned enough to be competent, but it still feels kind of forced. You can do it right, but you have to think really hard about each individual piece of the process and work at it to get it right. This is conscious competence.

            Lastly comes the stage where you’re good enough at it that you can do it in your sleep. You don’t have to think about it anymore, you just do it. You’ve achieved unconscious competence.

    5. TuxedoCat*

      This is great advice. I’m not intern, but my more junior coworkers get envious when others can get away with things like setting their own hours and working from home but it’s because they haven’t earned it. It hasn’t boded well when they’ve pushed back.

    6. Isabel*

      Exactly, Sir Alama. The veteran’s disability ratchets up the cringe factor exponentially but regardless of that fact, perhaps that employee has proven herself indispensable by bringing in record sales, dazzling everyone with creative presentations or saving the company substantial money by cleverly reworking budgets.

    7. Betty Sapphire*

      “As interns, we haven’t earned anything… We’re there to learn”
      Sir Alanna, I agree with you 100%. I feel that this mindset is what helped me move to my current job role less than two years after graduating. (I also feel that the incredible support from my bosses at my internship had a big role in this.) Even with my current position, I KNOW I do not know everything and I still learn from my higher-ups while fully committing to my job duties. I also work really hard to distance myself between my age and the “Millenials are lazy, entitled, etc.” stereotype…

    8. Turtle Candle*

      Earning exemptions is a great way to put it. My company has a rule about no flash drives/portable hard drives being connected to the work computers, for two reasons: one, it’s an easy vector for viruses and malware, and two, they’re concerned about people stealing our IP (for obvious reasons, we’re very protective of our server code!).

      But there was a time after I’d been working for the company for a couple of years that I needed to do a lot of moving of files from one site to another, and my boss told me that since I’d been there long enough, I could be given an exemption and permitted to just use a flash drive (as opposed to the more cumbersome workaround using the FTP site, shared network drives, etc.). She said that I had earned the privilege of an easier workflow, because they knew that I was smart enough not to accidentally virus-infect our system, and trustworthy enough that they weren’t afraid that I was going to dump a bunch of code on the thing and vanish into the night. I got it put in writing, even, to avoid any potential ‘gotcha’ moments later.

      I could definitely see someone going “why do I have to do all this validation crap and use the FTP site and have IT put things on a portable drive and on and on when she can just get a flash drive and go?” But assessments like “is this person savvy enough to know not to just plug any given random USB into the computer? is this person trustworthy enough that we will give her access to the code?” can take time to make.

    9. Julia*

      Didn’t keep Alanna from complaining in her first week in Corus. :D I love those books to pieces.

    10. Financial Samurai*

      YES! The easiest thing an intern can do is come in before everyone and leave after everyone because she wants to learn and help as many people as possible.

      Please folks… you must LEARN BEFORE YOU CAN EARN. Don’t ever forget this.

      Sam

  8. B*

    This, so much of this! As an intern you are there to learn about a workplace, ask questions, and soak up as much information as you can. Unfortunately, you just learned a few very hard lessons. 1) Because you see someone doing something that is what you consider “contrary to the dress code” you do not know the full set of circumstances. It is none of your business what someone does or does not do when it does not affect you. 2) As an intern you do not have the power or understanding to give your managers a petition about a dress code that is specifically written out. As Alison said you could have spoken to your manager to understand the reasoning, if they even wanted to tell you, and then moved on.

    1. Adlib*

      “It is none of your business what someone does or does not do when it does not affect you.”

      I know grown professionals who still need to learn this.

  9. Jeremy Stein*

    But this is exactly the sort of thing that might get results at a school. I wish schools would do a better job of explaining the difference between school-life and work-life. There can be a bit of a culture shock. For me, the two biggest changes were that my assignments couldn’t necessarily be done in the time allotted (unlike class assignments) and the fact that I have to work through summer — what’s up with that? :)

    1. Artemesia*

      LOL I remember one of my kids coming from the first week of work and saying “I have to get there at 7:30 to get a project done by 10 and I don’t leave till 6 pm — can you believe that?’ Uh yeah. You don’t get spring break either.

      1. Edith*

        I had the opposite– my parents insisted it was unprofessional and unwise to take advantage of the relaxed approach to schedules* at my first job, arguing that I shouldn’t do it because I wouldn’t be able to do it at other jobs. To me that’s all the more reason to take advantage of it while I can. And I’m still at the same job nine years and several promotions on, so I must be doing something right…

        *The official day is 8-5, but they’re perfectly fine with people who want to work 7:30-4:30 or 9-6 or whatever. I generally work 9-5:30 with a shortened lunch break.

      2. Cordelia Naismith*

        Oh, Lord — I remember my very first job and what a shock it was we had to be there every day. Even at Christmas. (I mean, not Dec. 25, but the whole time leading up to it.) Even over the summer. Every. Day.

        I have no idea why that was a shock. I knew that nobody got a summer break or a spring break outside of school. But for some reason the actuality of it just blew my young mind.

        1. MillersSpring*

          Reminds me of the recent letter from the intern who wanted to take I think two weeks off for a family vacation. Yeah, too damn bad. Childhood is over, and you have to get past that sense of entitlement to a summer vacation.

        2. TychaBrahe*

          I spent my summer breaks at camp when I was young, transitioned to a junior counselor as a pre-teen, then started doing summer school (extra classes, not makeup–I graduated high school with five years of math) and working for my parents during school breaks to keep me out of trouble. When I got to college and actually had a week off between semesters, it was really, really weird.

      3. BananaPants*

        I’m in grad school part time and the program I’m in is split around 50/50 between full time, on-campus grad students in their early 20s and part time distance students who are generally working professionals in their 30s, 40s, and beyond.

        One of the full time grad students this semester has a summer internship and halfway through this summer’s course he publicly complained to the professor that we were given an assignment on Monday and it was due on Thursday night because, “Work makes us zombies and we’ll basically have no downtime in the evenings early in the week.” Dear 22 year old single full time grad student working a summer internship, my heart just BLEEDS for you. You want to see lack of downtime, come walk in my shoes for a while as I work a 45 hour week on a different schedule than my spouse, wrangle 2 small children, volunteer, and take a grad class.

    2. JMegan*

      Yes, absolutely. OP did what she had been taught to do, which is to present a focused, reasonable argument supporting her position. Nobody told her that this is not how things are done in the workplace. Getting fired is a tough way to learn that lesson, for sure, but the good news is that this is likely the kind of mistake that you only make once.

      Further good news is that it’s an internship, and this mistake won’t follow them for the rest of their careers – it’s very much a “learn from this and move on” kind of experience.

      1. themmases*

        I don’t want to pile on to the OP but this is something I noticed about the letter too. In school, you follow an example and you may even get a rubric to follow, and if your work product follows the rubric then your work is “good”. This is really not very much like work or life.

        Outside of school, you are not the judge of whether your argument is a good one. Your audience is the judge, and if you don’t convince them then your argument wasn’t good. A good argument doesn’t just have the internal components you may have seen in the rubric, like being well-organized and clearly explained. There are external parts too, like being appropriate in context and incorporating what you know about your audience. As a new intern it’s almost impossible for you to make such an argument because the external components are missing. You don’t know your audience well yet and it’s probably inappropriate for you to be arguing about anything yet at all.

        A good argument for special accommodation in life happens outside what you write and can take a long time to build. It’s the many policies you cooperated with before asking for an exception to this new one. It’s being good at your job and earning your boss’s trust so they listen when you say “we have a problem”.

        1. Liane*

          As someone who scored essays, I can tell you that rubrics alone are not enough. You had to see lots of examples of every point in the rubric in question to be able to score well. The rubrics, created by educators, alone make you think, “WTF does that even mean?”
          Our hapless OP just made a spectacular example for the lowest scorepoint on the Work rubric.

    3. Snarkus Aurelius*

      My dad is an academic. He’s just as clueless as an alien when it comes to everyday workplace norms because he’s never had a job like that.

      Academia is more about molding minds than job prep, which probably explains why you don’t see teachers making those distinctions. They either don’t know them or it doesn’t occur to them to say something.

      1. Not a Real Giraffe*

        One of my grad school professors was an ED for a major nonprofit, and all of his assignments were designed to mimic how he expected employees to present new ideas/proposals/etc. Though I had already been in the workforce for 5+ years, I was endlessly grateful for this approach. Way to combine school-life and work-life!

        2. OpheliaInWaders*

          Our old CEO (we run like a non-profit, but we’re employee-owned) now teaches a graduate practicum about our profession, and once a semester I get to come in and pretend to be the client as they present proposals, and then give them feedback–it’s absolutely fascinating to talk to the students about which things matter, and why, and how to address them in context. It’s not something I ever experienced in school, but it would’ve been great.

          1. Ask a Manager* Post author

            Slightly related: Last night I got to Skype with a college class who had read my “how to get a job” book as part of a class assignment, and wanted to ask follow-up questions about job searching. (Their professor is a reader here.) Their questions were great and it was super fun — I want to do that nightly now.

            1. Trout 'Waver*

              I would be interested in seeing a transcript of such a Q&A. It might be insightful to those of us who hire fresh grads.

            3. TychaBrahe*

              If you really love the work, do set it up to be an occasional thing. And ask if you can record them and start a YouTube channel. First of all, it would really be an excellent resource. And second of all, you’d probably get enough hits to get a revenue stream.

        3. OfficePrincess*

          One of my favorite professors had worked in the field for years and was teaching while he worked on his PhD. Before we all started our internships (required for graduation), we all had to come to class dressed as we planned to for a normal day at our internship. We all had very different internships, so there was a wide range of outfits, but he was well known in the community for our field and wasn’t going to let us embarrass him. We also had a weekly seminar during out internships where we talked about what was going on – what we were learning, any issues that came up, etc. On top of learning about the particular work environment we were in, we got to hear about the places our classmates were as well.

          He also brought other workplace norms to the table, like telling us he was only reading the first 2 pages of our papers for certain assignments and if we couldn’t say what we needed to in that space to re-write it until we did.

          1. lowercase holly*

            nice. the teachers at my grad school almost all had “real jobs” and only taught 1-2 classes/semester. it was pretty great because they could discuss a lot of actual issues and how to deal with them.

          2. Recent (Employed) Grad*

            I recently graduated with my bachelors from a large business school. One of the required classes for all business majors and minors was called “Career Preparation “. It covered almost all of the important points of navigating the business world, from resumes, to dressing to impress, even dining etiquette. The best part of the class was a required practice interview, where upper class/ graduate student were the interviewer. They offered feedback in the entire process, from the greeting and clothing to the closing and follow up. This gave great insight into any flaws or tics in interviewing, as it was recorded for our benefit. It helped immensely when I went through my interview process, and I was able to be offered from one of the largest firms in my field. Having this class experience helped me anticipate the professional expectations. When I gave a capstone presentation to freshmen, it was highlighted as one of the most beneficial classes I took.

      2. CMT*

        I would argue that it’s not really the job of say, the classics professor, to teach students about workplace norms. If for no other reason than the classics professor likely knows *nothing* about them.

        1. Fade*

          Agreed on this point. If colleges want to offer classes in White Collar Business Norms, that’s fine, but the last thing I want my professor of Ancient Greek to be doing during a tightly scheduled class on Hesiod is to stop and go, “Now let’s talk about business wear expectations if you work at an office with a dress code!”

          Now, my high school actually had a mandatory semester-long class for seniors that was all about preparing for the real world. How to rent an apartment, set up utilities, pay the bills, balance a checkbook, account for taxes, avoid credit card debt, spot cult recruitment strategies, conduct a successful adult relationship, etc. But high school is pretty much mandatory, and Life Skills is a valid thing for it to be teaching. College has a very different purpose. Unless you’re getting a business degree, business norms aren’t their responsibility to teach.

          1. Serafina*

            Dang, I wish I’d gone to your high school. We had a “Life Management Skills” class that did teach us a little about things like CPR and general concepts of decision making (i.e. making pretty colorful charts), but spent a ridiculous amount of time on abstinence-only sex education and “anti-suicide campaigning” via watching It’s A Wonderful Life. Biggest waste of a semester ever!

            1. Fade*

              Well, it was a mixed bag. This was a very religious private high school, so part of the “life skills” seminar was things like a lecture on how having sex before marriage would ruin your life, or explaining how The Gays would try to recruit you with these specific lies about how homosexuality was okay and here was how to refute them.

              Some of my growing up was unlearning the things that school taught. But they DID give me very good advice about avoiding credit card debt, and gave me exactly the checklist I needed so that I could see when a campus group I joined in college was being manipulative and unreasonable.

              2. Serafina*

                Heh! Welp, I guess I avoided the lecture about The Gays. My experience was also pretty mixed – public high school in a college town in a generally rural, religious region of the state, so half the population was ferociously conservative, the other half fiercely liberal. So we got “if you don’t abstain, you’ll ruin your life, but if you simply MUST ruin your life, use condoms.” (snerk)

                Going back more to the topic, what was aggravating was the anti-work attitude that a lot of teachers had. Some insisted passionately that work obligations were NOT an excuse from any school obligations because “students shouldn’t be working anyway.” (It was also a generally wealthy area, so the notion that some high school kids might need to help their families make ends meet never occurred to quite a few of them.)

                1. Kelly L.*

                  With sex ed, they mostly just tried to scare us with diseases. “If you ever have sex, you will get gonorrheasyphilAIDS all at once!”

          2. LQ*

            Holy wow that sounds like a useful class!!!

            I am well into adult and there are some days I feel like I could use that class.

          3. Kelly L.*

            We got some of that in high school, though it was scattered among different classes–for example, we learned how to write a resume and a business letter in English, how to write a check in a special unit put on by Junior Achievement, how to see through deceptive advertising strategies in something else entirely…

            Some of that could be done in college too, though of course the caveat in either high school or college is that info can become outdated without instructors realizing it, as we’ve seen over and over in threads about career center advice.

            1. Fade*

              Yeah, it was one particular teacher’s hobby horse, and a low-grade fear for a lot of parents, so he would do the checklist for one of the class sessions.

              The “funny” thing is that the checklist for cult recruitment strategies is pretty much the same as the checklist for abusive romantic partners, plus or minus a few details. Isolating you from your support structure/friends/family, love-bombing, slowly increasing sets of rules, double standards for you and the other person/leaders, telling you that you’re so special for being involved with them but no one else would understand, demanding control over your finances/other relationships/schedule… I’d say I got more use out of that one lecture than any of the ones on balancing checkbooks and how to set up a phone line at a new apartment.

              That, and the one teacher coming in and just telling horror stories of credit card debt in his youth.

            2. Chinook*

              ““spot cult recruitment strategies” – really?!?”

              I did this as part of a high school world religions class where we learned about 6 different religions and then I ended with “how cults are different from organized religion.” I knew it was successful when, for a final assignment where students could chose (among many other things) to create their own religion on paper and one student perfectly described the rise and fall of his own (fictious) cult.

              Then again, when I introduced this topic to this particular group of notoriously bad kids, I joked that I would be more worried for the cult leaders if they were ever recruited (because they could never be manipulated!)

          5. Meg Murry*

            We had an (optional) seminar that was specifically for freshman about how to get a summer internship – there were sessions in resume writing, and then some peer editing, session on interviews and then mock interviews with critiqued feedback, a career fair with [paid!] internship opportunities only for that program, etc. It was a partnership with alumni, and they were given some suggestions on how to mentor your intern, etc. It was honestly probably one of the most useful experiences of my whole college career, because that first internship the summer after my freshman year put me in the running for a better one the next year, and so on.

            1. Christopher Tracy*

              The university I attended required us to take a 10 week co-op readiness course where they did all of what you mentioned above (the mock interviews helped a lot).

      3. Adlib*

        I had a college accounting prof lock the door after class started. If you weren’t there on time, you weren’t getting in and had to go to the office and hope to get an excuse approved for missing class. He did it to mimic work life and to teach kids about being on time. Fortunately, he stopped doing it my freshman year, but he was scary enough in other ways!

    4. BRR*

      My husband’s dream job is professor. I’ve let him know how I don’t think school fails in certain ways in preparing students for the working world. My mom was a teacher and she had trouble figuring out why the rest of the family couldn’t take off whenever they wanted.

      1. Sophia in the DMV*

        To be fair, grad school/PhD actually doesn’t prepare people to be teachers. They prepare people on how to be researchers. Most of us profs are probably awkward in part BC we likely weren’t taught how to teach

        1. BRR*

          I do agree with you with the slight exception that he’s humanities and his program was slightly less research focused.

      2. Zillah*

        That’s bizarre on its own to me – my mother was a teacher for 30+ years, and she definitely couldn’t just take off whenever she wanted.

    5. Tomato Frog*

      This is indeed so, but… even in school, I waited until I had built up credibility and a reputation as a serious student before I tried to bend rules or rabble rouse.

    6. Kira*

      Same as some of the other commenters, I don’t think teachers/professors have the right experiences to explain workplace norms in non-education fields. In the same way I can explain what it’s like working in small nonprofits, but I’d be useless at explaining how to work within a union environment or in an engineering context (or in academia). I just don’t know how their workplace roles are set up.

  10. Marketing Grad*

    Oh, OP, I still don’t think you quite understand why you were all let go. Take this as a major lesson learned. Choose your battles wisely throughout life. Dress code in your internship is not a fight worth fighting. I’m assuming you knew what the dress code was before your first day. If that strict of a dress code isn’t going to work for you, then don’t take the job. Simple as that. You can’t go in, especially as an intern, and think you have the authority to organize a petition. Self-awareness is a very important skill. Also, in your professional career, you will always see others get “benefits” you don’t have access to. You never know the full story and it’s none of your business unless it’s directly impacting your work. Do yourself a favor and focus on what’s important- like your tasks at hand. That’s how you will get ahead (and what you want!) out of your career and life. Alison’s response was on point.

    Sorry this happened to you. I’m sure it’s jarring and embarrassing. But take this time to reflect and move on.

    1. Christian Troy*

      I agree with you. It’s hard for me to really get where the LW is coming from because prior to graduating college, I had already been working at mall stores and fast food. I knew enough by that point that there are rules about dress code and how to do things and you don’t need to agree with them, but that’s part of the job so you do it. I think LW has gotten a really unrealistic view on the professional workforce based on what happens at college, which is completely different. Colleges have a financial interest in retaining and attracting students so they have a benefit to listen to petitions and hold town hall meetings.

      1. Snarkus Aurelius*

        Plus higher Ed is the appropriate place for such discussion, although ironically it’s administration who decides what to do anyway.

      2. Marketing Grad*

        I agree. I don’t think OP has had much experience in the real world. And while college is great for learning and exploring boundaries, an internship is not the same. OP sounds like she could be one of those people who would have really benefitted from a part-time summer job. In fact, if OP is now jobless for the summer, I encourage her to go get a summer job. I can pretty much guarantee the grass is not going to be greener on the other side when she has to wear khakis and a work-issued t-shirt to work every day.

        1. OpheliaInWaders*

          Yes. OP, if you’re reading this, I think you might actually learn more this summer about what you really need to know by taking in retail/etc than you would’ve at your internship.

      3. Turtle Candle*

        And it’s not just the financial issue, either–good teachers often want to be questioned, hear arguments, be presented with logical reasons why thing should change, because many of them see critical thinking and reasoning as an end unto itself. Even if the student loses or is wrong, many good teachers will be pleased that they put the thought and effort into making the argument in the first place, because fostering that kind of critical thinking is a big part of their goal.

        But that isn’t a primary goal for workplaces, which makes it very different indeed.

        (I also started off with retail-type jobs early, which means that I learned pretty quickly that working required following rules, some of which made sense and some of which didn’t, and you’d better damn well pick your battles carefully. I mean, I also learned that some battles are well worth picking–the cashiers at the grocery store where I bagged were unionized, and I’d seen them make exactly that assessment about things like health insurance coverage or preventing ‘clopening’ shifts–but definitely that many of them are not.)

    2. AnotherTeacher*

      “Do yourself a favor and focus on what’s important- like your tasks at hand. That’s how you will get ahead (and what you want!) out of your career and life.”

      This is a terrific lesson to learn now.

  11. AdAgencyChick*

    OP, take this as a lesson: Just because someone else gets to do XYZ, doesn’t mean you get to do it. Maybe the worker who always wears the non-dress-code-compliant shoes has some kind of medical need to do so. Maybe she is a rockstar who brings in a ton of revenue to the company, and her manager has decided her value to the company is enough to allow her to deviate from the dress code.

    As Alison said, you guys were guests who tried to protest what is clearly part of their culture and important to them. A rainmaker can do that without repercussions. Interns cannot. I might not have fired you, but I actually don’t think it was too extreme a response. Interns are not the easiest people to manage. You spend a lot of time training them, and then they’re gone at the end of the summer. Add into that a group of interns who complain and try to change office culture, and I can see a manager deciding that having interns at all is more trouble than it’s worth.

    1. AdAgencyChick*

      And now, having read the letter more thoroughly…Yup! Sounds like they had an exceptional reason to make an exception to their dress code! Not that I think any less of the company for not having told OP this before the firing.

  12. Dana*

    The hippy in me is right behind you. Stand up for yourself and the whole bit. However AMA is right on this one. There are better ways to argue this. Work places aren’t really democracies and the lower you are on the totem pole the truer that is. With that said I applaud your take charge attitude but I hope you find another way to use it.

    1. Florida*

      I, too, applaud your take charge attitude, but hope you find another way to use it. Yesterday, the discussion of one letter was about making waves – when to make waves and when not to. OP, I hope your take-away from this is learning to choose when to make waves and when to go with the flow. Please don’t let the take-away be to never waves. There are times when it is appropriate to push back and there are appropriate ways to do it. Unfortunately, you usually have to screw up a few situations to figure out when to do what (coming from someone who has learned this the hard way.)

      I’m really sorry that you and our colleagues were fired over this. Yes, you made a mistake, but the point of an internship is first and foremost a learning experience. I’m sorry that they chose to eliminate everyone rather than use it as a teaching opportunity. (I guess they taught you something, but there were better ways to do it.)

      1. neverjaunty*

        Yes, this. If the OP and her fellow interns had been raising concerns about (say) blatant safety violations, that’d be one thing. “We want to wear sandals!” is not, however, a hill to die on.

  13. EJ*

    I think that’s a pretty rude and ballsy move to be an intern and petition a new dress code. You don’t run the show, you’re job is to follow it and learn.

    I’d suggest for any future position — bring a pair of appropriate shoes with you to the office (or clothes if that’s a problem), you can change them before and after you leave.

  14. Bwmn*

    OP – Being fired sucks. It’s embarrassing and I totally get your perspective on wanting to repair this – but I think just like AAM said that this was not an appropriate way to address the situation, sometimes a termination is just a termination. I think that you can send a letter to your manager apologizing for misreading the situation, but I really do see that as the only option left.

    This all being said – take this as an amazing opportunity. You learned something and you now know what it’s like to be fired. This is an internship and while I’m sure it would have been better to not be fired, professionally no one ever needs to know about this. You have lots of time prior to the coming school year to try and negotiate a fall or spring internship or other volunteering/work experience prior to graduation. And while there will always be people who knew what they wanted to do at a very young age and have had internships since high school – it is ok if you don’t have that.

    If the company went to the position of basically terminating all of their interns, I think the chance of reconsidering is very slim. I think taking this time to take a deep breath, maybe try to temp for the rest of the summer to get some work experience, and think about what to do senior year. It will be ok, but this opportunity is likely entirely over.

  15. (Another) B*

    “I have never had a job before…”

    Reasons why I think all teens should have a job. Summer, part time, whatever. There you will learn skills and to appreciate the good job you hopefully get when you graduate. When I graduated at 21 I had already had 7 years of work experience. Mostly retail but that showed me how to appreciate my career!

    1. Katie the Fed*

      I agree! One of the things I have to remember when dealing with my new employees is that for many of this, they’re not just new to this kind of work. They’re new to working, period. EVERYTHING is new. I often assume they know basic norms but they don’t.

      1. LawBee*

        I have a friend whose two daughters have never worked outside of school in their lives. One is 20, the other is entering college. I am very interested in seeing how they adapt to the workplace.

        1. fposte*

          Most people in that position are just fine. It’s not like ballet, where you have to start at a certain age or else you can never be really competent.

          1. Christopher Tracy*

            Exactly. I never held a job in high school, and I was pretty good in my first real job in college. I was quiet and observed what the people around me were doing and modeled myself after the ones who were considered top performers. Even though I was pretty “meh” in my first unpaid internship, I rocked the second one. So the success of the student worker really does depend on whether the student comes in willing to listen and learn.

          2. some1*

            Sure, but if you made this mistake as a 15-yr-old working at Panera, getting fired would not be nearly as consequential.

            1. neverjaunty*

              On the other hand, chances are you are less likely to make certain mistakes at 20 as you are at 15.

          3. Jinx*

            Yeah, I’m an anecdote to that. I never worked while I was living at home, and I got my first job in college. I’m in a professional office setting now, and honestly I don’t feel like lack of high school work experience was a barrier. This type of job is so, so different from the hourly student jobs I worked in college that it was still a major learning curve.

            Sure, working in college can teach you the obvious stuff – show up on time, follow the dress code, be polite, etc. But unless you work an internship in college (which I didn’t, I needed $$$), those environments don’t really prepare you for the office. Heck, I spent my first six months not realizing that I could communicate with my boss about my workload or prioritize my own tasks, because I was so used to jobs where they said “do x,y,z”. Independence is incredibly difficult to get used to. It doesn’t surprise me that some professional newbies take it too far the other direction.

          4. Anna*

            I think for some people it puts them behind on the learning curve. I worked full time during the summers in an office setting during high school and I know it helped me out immensely. Where some people don’t get the lessons I got at 14 until they’re 20, I was ahead of some of my peers in that. It doesn’t mean they are forever marred and behind, though, it just might help in the early part of work-life.

          5. Zillah*

            Yep. I got my first job just before I turned 19, and while I made some boneheaded mistakes, I wasn’t a disaster by any means.

        2. SL #2*

          I never had a real job until I graduated college. I like to think I turned out fine… like fposte said, it’s not like you’re going to be an awful employee unless you waited tables in high school. Lots of people adapt just fine. It requires flexibility and being open-minded to new/different norms, but people like the OP are rarer than you’d think.

      2. A Bug!*

        Every once in a while I remember some of the things I did in my first arm’s-length job, and I mentally roll my eyes at how little I understood about the adult world. Especially my interview. I’ve bombed interviews since, but those have been your pretty bog-standard bad interviews. That interview, though. I am very grateful that the hiring manager chalked my idiocy up to inexperience and took a chance on hiring me.

    2. Artemesia*

      Teens who have worked get one very important experience that prepares them for the future work world. Bosses get to ‘boss you around’; that is what it means to be the boss.

    3. EJ*

      I agree too!

      Unfortunately, my parents wouldn’t let me get a job after school or during the summer in high school. They didn’t want to drive me, nor did I have money to buy a car. But there was no public transportation, no side walks, and not close enough to ride a bike… :(

      1. GOG11*

        I was in a similar position (living in out in the middle of nowhere). I did work while in college, but my employer was at the university where I went to school and was very flexible and laid back. With my student employees now, when I have them do something that differs from what they’ll encounter in other professional offices/work environments, I explain how it differs, why we’re doing it this way, and what is more likely to happen elsewhere. I definitely would have benefited from it when I was a student and want them to have a better foundation when they leave than I had.

      2. INTP*

        I was in the same situation. They “made” me get a job one summer when I was 18, then forbade it after that. I did get a hostessing job once as a rebellion and was an absolutely horrible employee, calling out all the time because I didn’t need the job.

        Luckily through their connections I was able to start interning early and was fairly polished by the time I graduated. My first intern boss, though, was accustomed to supervising only very high level independent professionals (she was a program manager), so I got used to a lot of freedom day-to-day, no strict hours and little supervision, and had to be reined in by subsequent managers.

      3. Kyrielle*

        Me too. And that, and this, means I plan to make sure my kids do get some early experience working. (Unless we move, that will be easy transportation-wise, but if it weren’t, I’d figure something out.)

      4. Jayn*

        I feel like this assumes getting a job too. My parents would have let me have the car, but I didn’t get any of the (admittedly few) jobs I applied for in high school. They hired me themselves over the summers, but I don’t expect my experience there to reflect other workplaces I’d encounter.

    4. K.*

      Totally agree. You need to hear “because I said so” at some point, because when you get into the working world, that is very much a thing. I heard it at home from my parents, verbatim, but I also started working a taxes-taken-out* job at 15 (started babysitting well before that), so I was quite familiar with the concept of doing what you’re told by the time I started working full-time.

      *You also want to get used to that “Wait, where’s all my money?” feeling early. It stings less that way.

      1. Amber T*

        Hahahaha oooh the first paycheck woes. I had a few jobs before my first real one, but it never hit me until my first real, post college, salaried job. I remember mentally dividing my year salary by 24 (we were paid twice a month), and subtracting a little bit for taxes and stuff, and thinking, oh my god I’m going to have so much money. Then I got my paycheck. Oh. Yeah. Womp womp…

        1. K.*

          My work experience prior to my first taxes-taken-out job was babysitting, so of course I had no frame of reference for taxes. (I babysat all through my tweens, teens, and early 20s, even when I was working other jobs.) My parents did warn me about taxes for that reason. I can’t remember what they said exactly, it was something like “You make $X but you aren’t going to bring home $X.” But you can’t really prepare for it until you see the cold, hard numbers.

          1. Zillah*

            When I got my first paycheck from my first real job, I thought I was being underpaid and almost called my boss to explain the mistake and ask her to fix it.

            Thank god I googled “taxes” before that.

        3. Turtle Candle*

          Haha, yes. My high school job was in the late 90s in a state that followed the same minimum wage as federal (I want to say $5.25/hr gross pay?), and after withholdings and so on I felt so deflated! Like, “I spent twenty hours this week bagging groceries for this?” (On the other hand, it did make me a lot more careful with my money; I was assessing “is this worth four hours of smiling at jerks while attempting to arrange their bananas to their satisfaction? probably not” before every purchase.)

      2. Karo*

        When I started my first real job, I got my first paycheck and was stunned by how little I had made.

        Turns out they had only paid me for 1 week instead of 2. So after that shock any amount of withholdings seemed reasonable.

    5. fposte*

      I’ll dissent slightly, in that I agree that it’s good to have work experience, but you’ve got to go through those first job pains sometime no matter when you start work. You generally get more slack at 16, but internships have a lot of leeway too.

      1. Turtle Candle*

        That’s true. We have (paid) internships at my job, and it’s sort of understood that they will probably have some rough edges at first. Many of them pick up on the norms all by themselves (I can’t tell you how many interns show up the first day in a not-wildly-inappropriate-but-definitely-borderline outfit, and immediately self-correct and show up every day thereafter correctly attired, just from having seen what everyone else is wearing), but those that don’t, yeah, we’re not going to clobber anyone for not picking up on workplace norms instantly. Those that don’t self-correct quite quickly get a gentle but firm “this is how it goes” talk from the intern coordinator.

        (Now, if they argued back after the gentle-but-firm talk about no flipflops or how meeting times are generally non-negotiable without a really good reason, that would be another matter. But we haven’t had that problem.)

    6. Snarkus Aurelius*

      My brother never had a job until he was in his 30s because he spent his life in school. He almost got fired at his first job when he learned that you can’t get a project assignment and then disappear for a few weeks like he could when he was a PhD candidate. His PhD deadlines were sometimes years into the future!

      1. blackcat*

        Ha, this is the thing I love most about being a grad student. If my work gets done in a “timely” fashion, I can come and go as I please. It’s a HUGE perk. At the same time, it’s always hard to judge how much time off is too much time off.

        The nebulous deadlines of “finish a dissertation in 18 months” are actually the worst thing about the PhD process. There’s simultaneously so much work AND so much time to do it.

        1. Kira*

          Agreed. My husband is getting his PhD. It’s a 5 year program, and the first time his advisor ever (ever!) discussed the timeline and milestones for completion was at the end of the 4th year. It was ridiculous.

          1. blackcat*

            My husband finished his PhD while I was in the 2nd year of my program. I learned a lot of how to manage deadlines from what he *didn’t* do. My advisor is also pretty good about periodic “are you on track with the dissertation” discussions, which he started at the start of my 3rd year. I’m grateful for that. My department also has a “are you on track w/ graduation milestones” form that we fill out periodically. The “Approximate percentage of dissertation research completed” box makes most people get creative until they are about 90% done. At least in my field, until you’re that close, it’s hard to know exactly how close you really are…

            Also, many PhDs are “5 year programs.” 5 years is generally taken as a goal to shoot for, with many people finishing in 6 or so. That’s normal in my field. An MS is generally received along the way, so some folks describe it as a 2 MS + 3 year PhD.

            1. Sparrow*

              Ha, yeah, my program (in the social sciences) was pushed as 5 years, but in reality it was more like 8. Sadly, that is still faster than the national average…

    7. AnonNurse*

      I included something similar in my reply. Having a job while in high school taught me about time management, money management, dress codes , managers, and basic chain of command. All great lessons that I took with me when I moved in to more professional positions.

      1. Pandra*

        Yes. This. A thousand times this. I maintain that I learned more valuable life skills in my part-time high school coffee shop job than I did in most of my high school classes. How to take direction from a boss, how to manage your time/plan your tasks during a work shift, how to deal with difficult coworkers, how to put on a happy face and give good service to your customers even on days when you’re really not feeling it….so many important life lessons in there. If and when I have kids, I will 100% make sure they have part-time jobs as teenagers.

      2. One of the Annes*

        Yup to all of this. And I think it’s really valuable to have a service industry job at some point in one’s life.

    8. Nye*

      When picking interns last year, I only considered students who had some kind of real work experience (not just other science internships). The two I got were wonderful, I think in part because they already had a working understanding of professionalism. Frankly, if you’re a college-level intern, I don’t think it’s my job to teach you everything about working – you should already have some experience. That way we can focus on the specifics of working *in science*, you can hit the ground running, and I can write you a fantastic letter of reference for your future endeavors.

    9. Washington*

      Yes! If I’m hiring someone right out of college, they have to also have worked somewhere doing anything in the past. The basic requirements are college degree in X field and have previous work experience of any kind.

    10. Liz T*

      Agreed! My parents also wanted me to focus on school during the school year (and we were privileged enough that that was fine), but I still had some summer jobs.

      Also in college I had a job that was only a few hours a week, and I could study while I was there, and I still learned valuable lessons about professional norms.

    11. Anon Accountant*

      Yes this. Working as a grocery store cashier and bagger taught me a lot. How to work with customers, be very polite with difficult people, and take orders from management even when you didn’t want to.

    12. Anxa*

      I think this viewpoint is well-intented and valuable.

      One concern I have about the attitude that all teens should work is that there’s often an undercurrent of working-class or menial-job tourism. There’s also the assumption that a teen with no experience can easily just get these jobs (and maybe it IS easier as a teen).

      But keep in mind that for many people, 2008 never ended. People are frankly desperately for any part-time, minimum wage job they can get; people with education and experience and with a jump-how-high attitude to keep themselves housed, fed, and alive. The idea of part-times as an extra-curricular really rubs me the wrong way.

      I don’t mean to suggest that your comment has that undercurrent at all. But I think if we’re serious about encouraging more teens to work even if they don’t need the money, it’s important to consider that these jobs don’t exist to teach teens about the workforce.

      1. Iphigenia*

        I agree completely. I’m one of those adults working a part-time job that doesn’t require a college degree and nothing infuriates me more than people treating it as though it should be a job tourism experience for high-school/college students.

        Yes, some of the people working this job are students who live with their parents, but at least half of us are adults who need this income to live on. The ones who treat it as stepping stone on their path to post-college glory tend to be the worst co-workers, too. I and the other adults at this job not here to provide a learning experience for clueless students, and I’d thank people to remember that.

    13. Megs*

      I tend to agree – unfortunately, there’s some pretty solid data out there that getting a job as a teen is increasingly difficult for a range of reasons. Link to follow.

        1. Zillah*

          Yeah, this is a major issue and one that I think people often don’t take into account.

        2. Wade*

          In the DC area, pretty much all the jobs that teens used to do in the seventies and eighties are now done by adult immigrants. I don’t know how teens are supposed to earn money in Northern VA anymore.

    14. Felicia*

      I never had the privilege to not have a job and “focus on school” while working, both in my last year of high school and all four years of university. I used to be jealous of the people that did have that privilege. But now I realize though having a job as a teen was forced on me, I was able to make my first job related mistakes , that I realize looking back were so ridiculous, as a cashier at Walmart, or at a fast food place I worked, rather than at my first internship, because the consequences at my high school jobs were much less severe and didn’t have the same direct career impact. Not that you can’t come back from screwing up an internship, it’s just easier at a retail job when you’re in high school

      1. LQ*

        The best job I ever had for teaching me norms was a job I had in 6th grade at the school. The lunch ladies were really happy to tell me lots of things about being professional. The main lesson? Show up when you say you’ll show up. It served me very well. I had jobs (usually multiples) for the rest of my forever. But those lunch ladies rocked!

    15. Betty Sapphire*

      The best job I ever had was working as a housekeeper at a sleazy Jersey Shore motel for three years. It barely paid the bills but you best believe I have the cleanest bathroom and my bedsheets are impeccably folded.

      1. Betty Sapphire*

        Also, I greatly appreciate my office job now. I can look nice for work! And I’m grateful for my health insurance!

    16. Ad Astra*

      It may not be possible for all teens to get jobs before they enter their professional field of choice, but this is definitely a lesson that many people learned a bit earlier in life because they had jobs doing food service or life guarding or what have you. Not every office norm comes up in these sorts of jobs, but the idea that work is not a democracy is certainly something kids learn in their first jobs. Assuming your family isn’t relying on your salary, getting fired from Pizza Hut for circulating a petition about the dress code is a much smaller price to pay than getting fired from a professional firm where you’d hoped to build connections and learn important skills.

  16. Torrance*

    It doesn’t help at this point but they probably did you a favour.

    If the world didn’t collapse when they allowed exceptions to their ‘overly strict’ dress code, it calls into question the necessity for one. The fact that you weren’t singled out, but let go as part of a larger group, allows you to control the message about the internship better– firing all the interns save one reflects more on the culture on the company than on the quality of your work. And you’ve learned that in today’s world, sometimes you just need to keep your head down, your mouth shut, and do what you’re told. ‘Money makes the rules’.

    1. Katie the Fed*

      “If the world didn’t collapse when they allowed exceptions to their ‘overly strict’ dress code, it calls into question the necessity for one.”

      The person who had the exception had a medical reason for it. She also worked at the company and presumably had a solid reputation.

      This is just poor logic. The world doesn’t collapse when one person misses work for a day, but it doesn’t mean everyone can skip out on work.

    2. Newby*

      Training interns takes a lot of work. The fact that they organized themselves and protested the dress code may have made the company decide that it was not worth putting extra effort into teaching them workplace norms.

    3. Snarkus Aurelius*

      The culture of the company requires a professional dress code — something that is neither scandalous or rare.

  17. LQ*

    One of the really important things in the work world is to realize that you almost never have all the information. Sorry but when you are brand new to the workforce (this was your first job ever) you really don’t have all the information on something like that. Pulling back and managing to look at things from a broader view is one of the most valuable things you can do for yourself and your company. This is a great opportunity to do just that. (As is the AAM site as a whole.)

    1. themmases*

      Definitely. Even after several years of working, I’ve had my eyes opened when I brought a problem to my manager that, as far as I knew, had no good solution– and they suggested something right away that solved everything. They have more experience than you and, because of their role, they know what is going on with other resources and divisions that you’re just not aware of. It’s a shame this happened so early in the OP’s internship because if they’d lasted a little longer, there are other less painful ways to learn humility.

      The fact that every intern in the OP’s class was getting the same answer from different managers should have been a big red flag. When something is not that important, or only situationally important, different managers and divisions will handle it differently. If all these managers had the exact same take on the dress code, that indicates it actually is important for some reason the interns just don’t know about.

      1. LQ*

        Oh yeah, I’ve had a lot of OO OO OO I have a great idea moments! But when I have them I try to step back and think about why might it not have been implemented yet. I’m not the smartest person ever so chances are good someone else had that idea and may have even tried that thing. Sometimes I work through the things in my head and come out with oh that’s why. Sometimes I don’t, and I try to seek out information, and have absolutely proposed things that have gone over like bricks, and sometimes things that people are like, huh…maybe…give it a shot.

        And when the answer is no? You can ask why, but you really have to be genuinely curious about why, and the person who is going to tell you needs to think you have a reason to know, you will listen and not argue, and don’t ask them when an entire system is down. That’s always a bad idea.

  18. Blurgle*

    The OP and her fellow interns did mess up, but I tend to see this as yet another unexpected pitfall of the American education system.

    Too many young people, usually very privileged ones who can choose to ‘focus on school’ because someone else is paying the rent, never have a job until they’re in an important internship that could influence their long-term career choices. They have no experience, no ‘work smarts’, and they’re thrown into a situation where if they do mess up it could do long-term damage.

    If the OP had worked during the summer she would have made her first boneheaded mistakes (aand let’s face them, we all make them) on jobs that don’t matter in the long run and would have been better prepared to shine during this internship.

    1. Temperance*

      In all fairness, her obvious privilege is also what allowed her to get an internship in her industry without any previous work experience. She probably spent summers volunteering or doing other resume-building.

      1. Rusty Shackelford*

        My teen is volunteering this summer. She still has a boss. She’s still learning “work smarts.”

      2. Anna*

        I don’t see a problem with volunteering. As Rusty Shackelford said, someone is still relying on you to show up and so the job you said you would do. There are still valuable skills and relationships developed through regular volunteer work. And if you can’t find a paid position (as it is getting more and more difficult for young people to do, especially only during the summers), volunteering can do as much if not more than a paid position could do.

    2. Turanga Leela*

      I’m not sure about that. As you said, everybody has a first job, and it’s always a learning experience (whether you get fired from it or not). If the OP had been a lifeguard or a cashier to pay the rent, she would have learned some of these lessons earlier. But those jobs have different norms than an internship in an office, and she would have had to learn new professional norms in her internship anyway. She might not have written a petition, but she might have made other mistakes instead, like thinking she could clock out at 5 or get paid overtime for the evening.

      2. Annonymouse*

        There are still some norms that you learn on any job.
        1) rules are made to be followed (even if they seem silly to you)

        2) there’s probably a very good reason why the rules exist in their current form.

        3) seek clarification from your boss if you don’t understand/agree with something – don’t try to argue them into your way of thinking. (assuming it’s not a legal issue. then bring it up in a “hey, not sure if you’re aware of this law which means we have to ensure / can’t do that”)

        4) your boss gets final say.

        5) other people might not follow the rules and it’s because 1) there’s a damn good reason or 2) because they’re jerks. If it doesn’t impact you or your work: let it go.

  19. Temperance*

    I just cringed reading this. OP, wearing appropriate footwear for a summer isn’t going to kill you. A petition though … ouch. I work with interns, and if they gave me a petition to change something, I’d probably fire them, too. An internship is a foot in the door to future work, and this is showing that you are all a bit too high maintenance for that.

  20. Serafina*

    Sorry, but I’m coming down on the employer’s side even to the point of firing the lot of you. I think your behavior was over the top enough to warrant it. Seriously, the first thing you interns decided to invest your time and energy in (rather than, you know, actually doing the job you were hired to do) was “reform” for the dang dress code? Wearing sandals and/or complaining that it wasn’t faaaair that one other worker had an exception was that important to you? If I was your boss, I’d be headdesking and thinking, “Is this going to be the pattern all summer long, our little band of activists trooping around writing petitions about workplace injustices? To heck with it, we don’t need this nonsense.”

    Yes, chalk it up to an important lesson – rules aren’t always up for debate, and life is about priorities. If you show that you don’t get those facts, your employer may well decide you aren’t worth the hassle no matter how good your GPA is. A “strict” dress code does not warrant pushback or petitions or “reform”. Pick your battles in the workplace carefully, especially when you’re at the bottom of the totem pole. Adult professionals are there to do jobs, not rally the oppressed masses over the right to wear sandals and/or khakis and tattle on more senior employees who you see not following the rules to the letter. Given that your letter is all about how unfair your dismissal was, it sounds like you still don’t get it. Please engage in some self-examination and/or some counseling from your school career center about how to conduct yourself in the workplace.

  21. INTP*

    While firing the whole group of you was a pretty extreme reaction, it also makes sense if this was a true internship where the company is investing in your educations as much as they are getting work out of you. If they had already decided they wouldn’t hire anyone that signed the petition, then why would they continue to invest time in training you?

    While I get that this totally seems unfair coming from a more egalitarian school background, the fact is that you had a limited amount of time to soak up all the knowledge and experience you could from the job, and instead you chose to spend your time on changing the rules about footwear. Maybe this all happened outside work, but your employer doesn’t know that, and I’m sure it took a lot of time and energy to recruit coworkers to your side, formulate arguments, and draw up the petition. From your employer’s perspective, you cared more about wearing sandals and sneakers to work than you did about the actual work. It makes sense that they wouldn’t consider you a good hire after that. In school, your professors are supposed to continue supporting you unless you do something absolutely terrible, but in work, your employer is allowed to fire or cease supporting you as soon as they realize that you aren’t the single best employee for that position that they might find.

    Also, for future reference, if someone is getting a break on the rules, assume that they have a personal or medical situation that makes it valid. Your employer is usually not going to tell you your coworkers’ private business, you just have to suck it up and trust that there is a valid reason.

  22. Anonathon*

    I think the real difference here is student behavior v. intern or employee behavior. Creating a petition to change the dress code is 100% something that would and does happen at, say, a high school. Students who organized in this way might even be commended.

    But your relationship to a school principal is totally different than your relationship to your employer. With school, you have to be there and are entitled to your education. With a job, they pay you to show up and you aren’t inherently entitled to the position — and if you dislike it, you’re free to leave. There’s no obligation for your boss to consider your perspective on issues like dress code — especially if you just arrived and have zero capital.

    I feel for the OP though because this change in mindset is not easy or intuitive. It’s why I really think teens should have at least part-time jobs as soon as possible.

    1. SJ McMahon*

      I just wish that OP’s employer had taken the group of interns they fired aside and explained this to them in detail rather than firing them, starting with “Guys, this thing you did? Is Not Done” and going from there. It’s the employer’s right to fire them, of course, but it seems like a wasted opportunity to me.

      1. Con Reeder*

        Disagree. If they are that clueless, you aren’t going to change them in one conversation. In fact, by validating their actions, you are just encouraging them to do more of that crap.

  23. CeeCee*

    In general, I think that the best approach to any situation where you feel unfairly treated should first be met with: “I don’t have all the details. This may not actually be as unfair as I think.”

    I think too many people instantly jump to “It’s not fair!” without actually taking a step back and noticing that, the majority of the time, they don’t have all the facts.

    1. Dan*

      You know what? It may very well not be fair. But the mistake that many people (included seasoned workers) make is that they assume “fairness” is actually a corpororate or org goal. It’s not.

      The other thing is, “fairness” is in the eye of the beholder and lots of times isn’t objective.

      The employer has a business to run. That’s the objective.

  24. TootsNYC*

    This is a tough lesson to learn–I hope Alison and the rest of us can help you truly understand it.

    Yeah, the first big problem is the “who do you think is in charge here?” problem.
    At work, it’s your boss.

    But this also struck me:
    ” other non-dress shoes that would fit under a more business casual dress code. It was mostly about the footwear, but we also incorporated a request that we not have to wear suits and/or blazers in favor of a more casual, but still professional dress code.”

    There’s a huge difference in “communication by wardrobe” between suits/leather shoes and sandals/casual dress. Huge.

    In business, it’s not about what’s fair to the employee.
    It’s about what achieves the business’s goals.
    That’s the first really, really important lesson here. Far beyond “your boss is in charge.” It’s about what the focus is.
    When you’re at work, it isn’t your life anymore. Your employer has purchased your time and attention and effort, and it is theirs. Dress falls under that.
    Your employer has also purchased your adherence to the business’s goals, and the methods it’s taking to achieve those goals. If you don’t go along with those goals, you need to leave–and they will fire you.

    And if a business has gone so far as to specify leather shoes and suits/jackets, then they are VERY serious about communicating a level of seriousness and professionalism. There’s a HUGE gulf between those. For all the loosening of “acceptable dress,” the power of a suit is still HUGE.
    It will not be possible for the company to achieve their goal if any large number of people are dressing differently. And that goal is probably very tightly tied to the bottom line.

    Just this morning I had a convo w/ a neighbor who is going on a cruise; “George is going to have to dress up, he’ll complain,” she said. My reply, “He’ll probably enjoy it once he gets there and everyone is equally dressed up. It can be fun spiffing up.”
    It’s the effect of the GROUP. I told her that I always feel sorry for people who get really dressed up to go to a Broadway show; they’re in the line, the intermission, etc., w/ people in jeans and shorts, their touring clothes, etc. It’s just not as fun.

    You guys were totally oblivious to all that, and you were only seeing yourselves. You weren’t seeing the business at all.

    1. EJ*

      “Your employer has purchased your time and attention and effort, and it is theirs.”

      I love that explanation! And it’s SO true!
      If you’ve accepted their contract of employment (intern or employee), they have the right to the dictate rules (within the law of course)!

    2. TL -*

      Eh. I don’t really get a huge kick out of being too dressed up, even in a group. Or, if I did dress up and others didn’t, it doesn’t dampen the experience, such as it is, for me.

      That being said, dressing appropriately for the occasion is important (mostly as a sign of respect).

  25. AnonNurse*

    This is an excellent example of how many college campus environments these days are not preparing young adults for the real world. Not only are basic office procedures and politics (such as following the dress code) not taught but students are getting the idea that if their voice is the loudest, then change will happen. And that’s not generally how the real world works. The lowest person on the rungs doesn’t band together to effect change – she gets her work done, proves herself, and when finally in a decision making role, is able to reevaluate things like dress codes and how important they really are. Until you’re in that position, petitions and banding together means little other than being aggressive and unreasonable. This is one reason I think having a fast food or similar job as a teenager is a good thing. You get no choice on dress or many other things in that type of job. It’s an excellent lesson on basic rules and hierarchy in jobs.

    All that being said, this was a hard lesson but one I hope you are taking away so many learned things from. Being in an entry level job is where most people start. This has shown you that assuming “special treatment” about other workers is NEVER a good road to go down, talking about something you’re unhappy about at work with fellow co-workers instead of management will probably get you no where, and trying to band together with those same fellow coworkers can often times end in severe discipline up to and including termination. I think reaching out to your manager to express regret and apologize could go a long way in you being seen as having learned a huge lesson here and potentially keeping this from being a closed door in the future.

    1. Mike C.*

      This is an excellent example of how many college campus environments these days are not preparing young adults for the real world.

      The vast majority of these stories are overhyped and published by folks who are looking to embarrass folks for clicks and viewership.

      1. AnonNurse*

        Actually I have been in college fairly recently (second career decisions – getting ready to go back for further continuation as well) and have seen this first hand. I also live in a college town (huge nationally known campus) that my husband also works for. I see it all the time.

        I see young people who don’t have a clue how to dress for an interview but if they get a B on a test want to take it to administration. Instead of accepting responsibility for their grade, they would rather debate it and negotiate a better one. Allowing this to happen does not prepare people for the work world, it prepares them to have a lot of problems with authority and basic workplace norms. I have seen students who were going to receive an “F” for not completing the qualifications to pass a class who complained because they were at a protest and it shouldn’t be help against them. When they are then allowed to complete their work and get a passing grade, all that does is teach them deadlines don’t matter and personal causes are more important. It’s a rude awakening in the professional world when those things suddenly mean very little.

        1. TuxedoCat*

          I’ve seen a mix of students of both very hardworking and those who think everything is up for negotiation.

          The problem, at least as I’ve experienced it as a grad student and an instructor, is the powers that be are really into letting things slide and not mentoring. For example, I would remind students that an essay due date was coming in a month. I would do this weekly. It was also printed in the syllabus, we discuss time management and keeping calendars… Lo and behold, a week before the due date, they all had stuff to do and wanted it pushed back. The chair insisted I do that, and even if they hadn’t, I would’ve considered just to keep my job because course evals are weighed heavily…

          I’m now facing an issue with a research student can’t deliver things on time, and I suspect the issue is poor mentoring and being allowed to get away with this behavior all the time. I’m fairly relaxed about not literally being on time, but going on 3+ weeks and no product, no word at all. Student is cut from the project, because the project is grant-funded and grants have expiration dates. I was told by the student’s PhD advisor that this is common behavior for the student, and I’m under the impression the advisor has never chatted with the student about this behavior.

          1. TL -*

            Some advisors approach mentoring with the attitude of “if they want it bad enough, they’ll figure out why they keep on failing.” It can be…interesting.

          2. AnonNurse*

            Absolutely. There is supposed to be time management but then it seems like in the end when people don’t make the deadlines, exceptions are made. The only thing that teaches people is rules and deadlines don’t matter. So sad because it doesn’t ever help that person in the world outside of academia.

          3. Sparrow*

            I totally agree with this, as a former grad student instructor and current college administrator who works with undergrads. I make an effort to take on that role and to call students on things that are inconsiderate or unprofessional. Most of the time they’re just ignorant and how else are they going to learn?

            I’ve had conversations ranging from “setting up a meeting with someone and no-showing without communicating with them is not ok” to “if you pull out of this internship you committed to, you should be prepared for the possible repercussions” to ” the tone of this email to your prof was completely unacceptable and you’d be jeopardizing your job if you sent it in a professional setting.” And you know what? 90% of the time, they listen and adapt their behavior accordingly. They just didn’t have the experience to recognize the issue on their own.

            I also think that faculty should take more responsibility in this kind of mentoring and always hope that students can find someone (reliable!) on campus or in their workplace who is willing to give them this kind of feedback.

        2. Florida*

          AnonNurse,
          I bet you have also seen students who work their butts off and get A’s. You’ve probably also seen students who put in half effort and get a grade that reflects that. They don’t protest. They quietly accept it. I bet you also see students who get an F, protest it, and don’t get their grade changed.

          You can find a few examples to defend anything. But can you really say that the MAJORITY of students who get a B on a test want to take it to the administration? Or that the MAJORITY of students try to negotiate for a better grade?

          1. Pennalynn Lott*

            Yeah, this. I’m back in school as a middle-aged adult and I see equal amounts of students taking it to administration when they get a B+ instead of an A [in one student’s case, she bragged to our group that her boyfriend actually wrote two of her papers, and she never came to any team meetings, yet she was *incensed* when she didn’t get an A], and students who work full-time yet still bust their @ss in school [on that same team was a kid who got a bad grade on his first paper and was offered a much harder “replacement” assignment. . . which he approached with gusto. He worked hard and knocked it out of the park.]

            But I will say that I’m seeing a LOT more leniency and hand-holding from professors than I did in my first go-round in college back in the late-80’s. If you screwed up or missed an assignment. . . tough luck. “No makeup work” on the syllabus meant “no makeup work.” Period. But that’s not at all what I’m seeing now.

      2. Manders*

        I think the truth is somewhere in the muddy middle–I wasn’t a walking Millennial stereotype when I graduated, but my college really did make some mistakes when it came to preparing students for the working world. From what I’ve seen, a lot of colleges expect their students to already know professional norms from watching their parents, which can make it difficult for students whose parents didn’t have traditional office jobs to catch up.

        I was actually encouraged by my coworkers to do something similar in my first job out of college. I decided not to, but I totally see how people who are professionally inexperienced and have seen petitions work in a different context could think this was a good idea.

        1. Turtle Candle*

          a lot of colleges expect their students to already know professional norms from watching their parents

          YES. Very much yes to this. Which backfires in a few ways. One, as you say, is that people who do not come from a white-collar background don’t have that experience at all. But another is that it often means that the young people are trying to model their first-job-first-impression behavior on someone who has probably been in the industry, and quite possible in the same job, for many years. But I get a ton more leeway and freedom now after eleven years in my industry than I did when I was fresh out of college, and that really does make a difference.

          (I also had a lot of classmates whose Boomer parents expressly discouraged them from mimickry of that nature, “don’t be an office drone like me, be ~an individual~, make ~your mark~! you should only do passion projects! you should stand up for what you deserve!” It was well-meaning but ultimately… not helpful. Especially post-recession.)

          1. Dan*

            My dad is a manager in retail. I can get away with stuff that even he can’t. Sometimes we talk about work, and he’s like, WTF?

            I’ll give my dad credit for the job advice he doesn’t give — because he knows our work enivornments are on completely different planets, he doesn’t bother forcing useless advice down my throat.

          2. TootsNYC*

            a lot of colleges expect their students to already know professional norms from watching their parents

            Or, the kids don’t really see their parents at work.

            Mine didn’t. They only saw me at home. They perhaps heard me talk about work, but they didn’t hear that much, to be honest.

            And yes–by the time my kids were born, I had a job that didn’t care if I was late every day (because I worked through lunch and into the evening). And it was business casual.

      3. Con Reeder*

        Do you think this particular story is over-hyped? To me, it is illustrative of the problem. And it is a *big* problem, and it is widespread.

        In fact, most of these stories are variations on a single theme — lack of humility.

    2. Anonathon*

      I’d push back just a little, in that students and employees have very different roles in the power structure. Students are paying to be in school (either via taxes or tuition) and are like constituents or shareholders, so the school has some obligation to consider their perspective. Employees are getting paid to be at work and can leave anytime. The employer doesn’t need to consider their perspective until they’ve built up value.

      I totally agree that “real world” education is an issue, but I wouldn’t blame it on colleges per se.

      1. AnonNurse*

        Oh no, I don’t blame it on colleges completely, just feel they don’t tend to help these issues. Like I said, I also think it doesn’t help when younger workers don’t have jobs like fast food or other areas when in high school. These first types of jobs can teach excellent lessons in preparing young adults for more professional environments. Not being in the working world until an internship in the middle of college can lead to this so much more often because people haven’t been exposed to work norms prior to that time.

    3. Grapey*

      Most of your comment talks about how retail prepares young people, more or less (and I agree), but your first sentence has a very “college kids these days!” mentality.

      College, back in “my day”, also didn’t prepare me for working in the professional world other than don’t wear open toed shoes in a lab, which is relevant for my field. I got my ‘how to be a professional’ knowledge from retail and my parents. (They aren’t even office workers but they got the idea across that the boss is the boss!)

      I guess the college argument COULD be true if you’re implying that professors “these days” are lax on deadlines and can be swayed by a good sob story, but that wasn’t the case when I was in school and I have no metrics to measure now!

    4. Isben Takes Tea*

      It’s off base to blame the American education system because there are plenty of people educated in that system who have no problem adjusting to the working world. It’s also very debatable (and we shouldn’t debate it here, I’m just pointing out that the debate exists) that the job of the education system to “prepare students for the real world.”

      It’s not on topic to blame other people or institutions for the OP’s behavior…it’s to advise the OP.

      1. AnonNurse*

        I was in no way trying to blame anyone else but the OP, as they are the ones that did not look at the office politics and norms. What I did was point out that this behavior tends to be seen from “students”, just as many others have observed. The OP took their college norms in to the professional world without realizing their are different levels of expectations.

    5. LBK*

      I think you’re confusing a symptom of being in the current generation with a symptom of just being new to the working world in general. Look back at the work mistakes open thread – there were hundreds of stories from people of all ages about the stupid things they’ve done at work. It has nothing to do with modern college campus environments; by definition, inexperienced people are those who lack the experience to help them navigate these situations. You aren’t magically imbued with workplace savvy when you turn 35 – you’ve figured it out by then because you’ve been working for a decade and you’ve made mistakes and learned lessons.

      Unless there was some form of widespread life skills education at colleges in the past (which I’m pretty sure there wasn’t), I don’t see how modern colleges are doing anything to make this problem any worse than it ever was. If you want to argue this has something to do with an increased interest in social movements among college students and a decreased focus on education, I’d ask you to look at who was on the front lines of protests against the Vietnam War decades ago (hint: they were college students, many of whom are probably your age now). And for the record, my company uses a ton of college students as co-ops/interns and with the exception of one, I’ve never had a bad experience. They’ve all been consummate professionals and many of them have been asked back or hired into full-time roles. My experience does not at all reflect your assertion that college students aren’t prepared for the real world.

      If you want to blame any age group, blame the previous generation for raising kids who’ve been taught that when you get a bad grade, you argue with the teacher about it instead of studying harder next time (Millennials surely didn’t invent that behavior but rather learned it from their parents doing it on their behalf). Blame the previous generation for screwing up the economy so that minimum wage jobs are now filled by underemployed people who couldn’t get anything else, so now there’s nowhere for teenagers to build early work experience. My generation is a product of the generation before us, so if you want to argue that all Millennials are ill-prepared and don’t understand how the world works, blame yourselves for raising us that way.

      1. AnonNurse*

        Blame yourselves? Ha! I’m sorry but that makes me laugh. People who were college age during the Vietnam War are not around my age right now – I was born AFTER the war ended by a few years. I do not have millennial age children and the children that I do have are being raised to have a sense of personal responsibility. There is no arguing with a teacher in my house. If my children (young elementary age) don’t do their homework or were to get in trouble in class (doesn’t happen), they would pay the price. We teach them that very explicitly.

        I actually have seen a big shift in colleges, having gone 15 years ago and then returned a few years ago, graduating 3 years ago. 15 years ago there were requirements that you attended most classes, you didn’t come in late, you didn’t turn in work late, and you respected your instructors. These days I see administration/instructors that do not hold students to these types of standards at all. Attendance requirements are fought all the time. Work is turned in late and is still accepted. Tests are being made up because people planned poorly but that shouldn’t be their fault. Expecting a level of work that holds consequences if not met does help prepare people for rules and consequences in jobs. Not holding people to the same rules and continually making exceptions teaches people that they are a special snowflake who doesn’t have to do what everyone else does. That is only going to lead to disappointment and failure.

        Of course at the end of the day all of these things come done to personal responsibility. And if you enter the work world at 15/16 instead of 20/22 then it makes it a whole lot easier to get those experiences to make them workplace savvy. Yes, there are a lot of older people working in fast food but I know a lot of teenagers that have no problem finding a job and working right along side them.

        1. Florida*

          Your beef seems to be that young people aren’t learning personal responsibility, and the cause is they aren’t joining the work world at 15/16. Do you really think that working is the only way to learn personal responsibility? You even use an example of your children learning personal responsibility by doing homework. I think that’s true. That is one way kids learn responsibility. But it has nothing to do with the age a person gets their first job.

          1. AnonNurse*

            No, I don’t think that’s the only cause at all. It’s one example of ways to learn personal responsibility. I couldn’t begin to list all the ways so I gave an example. The point about the age is that when you haven’t been told you need to have personal responsibility until you’re in your 20’s, you’re already behind so many that have been taught it, potentially in a myriad of ways.

            1. Florida*

              OK, I guess my point was that if you have been taught about personal responsibility since you were little and that was taught through homework, sports, chores, etc. But you haven’t held a job until you were 20/22, you will be a responsible employee. (Obviously, this is a generalization, as all of the comments are, so work with me here.)

            2. LBK*

              But what does any of that have to do with the current generation versus any other generation? Sorry for assuming you were a Boomer but that’s usually the age I see grousing about Millennials. And I still point this back to parenting – just like the workplace shouldn’t be the first time you encounter personal responsibility, nor should college. The age of 18 is more than enough time for your parents to have instilled a sense of self-motivation in you. And I still think your experience is far from universal – I only graduated college 6 years ago, and there was definitely none of the hand-holding or leeway you insist colleges are doling out. It was very much on each student to decide if they wanted to succeed or fail, and what’s more, far and away most of my classmates chose to succeed. Unless some absurdly dramatic culture shift has occurred in the last few years, I just don’t see the things you describe – and like I said above, I also don’t see them from the current college students I work with on a daily basis.

              1. Florida*

                I think all generations think that they worked harder, were more responsible, more ethical, more all that is good in the world than the generations that came after them. The WW2 Generation said that about the Gen Xers. The Boomers said it about the Millenials. It was just better in the good old days. Every generation says, “Kids these days have it so easy,” about the generations after them.

                Also, a person who is in college at 40 will have a very different perspective than a person who is in college at 20, not because college is different, but because their view of the world is different. So if someone says, “I went to college at 20 and it was hard. I went back at 40 and they are treating these kids like babies,” it’s possible, maybe even likely that it wasn’t the college that changed. It was the perspective of the student that changed. I’m not saying there is nothing different about college now, but the American education system has changed very little over the years. We aren’t exactly on the cutting edge in terms of how we educate people from PreK-college. I’d say more of the changes are in your perspective.

        2. SJ McMahon*

          Wait, though. The same criticisms were leveled against our generation – Generation X. From middle school to high school, college, and well beyond, we were told that we didn’t respect authority, talked back to teachers, had never been made to obey rules and were allowed to get away with anything in school and at home, etc, had no sense of personal responsibility, no work ethic, and so forth. It was a false generalization then, and I feel quite strongly that it is now also.

          1. Turtle Candle*

            I kind of feel like this is one of those “he’s crazy, you’re weird, I’m eccentric” things. The prior generation was reactionary; my generation is forward-thinking and cutting-edge; the next generation is a bunch of entitled weirdos. No matter what generation you are.

  26. Turanga Leela*

    I’ve never heard of a leather shoe requirement before! Closed-toe shoes, yes; leather shoes, no. I wonder if they made exceptions for people who didn’t wear leather for religious or ethical reasons.

    1. Ask a Manager* Post author

      My assumption is that it’s a way of saying “formal footwear,” not necessarily leather (since there are plenty of vegan shoes that appear to be leather but aren’t and how would anyone know?).

      1. Turanga Leela*

        I was wondering how they would know! You all are probably right. I’ve just never heard it expressed that way before.

        I worked at one place where the rule was that you could wear sandals, but there couldn’t be a strap between your toes. It was a very specific anti-flip-flop policy.

          1. Rusty Shackelford*

            But that’s a slippery slope, because I could use it against my coworker with squeaky shoes, or someone who wears mules (in a business casual office) which can also make a flappy sound. And the rule against a strap between your toes could actually leave out some shoes that aren’t really flip flops at all, since many leather, strapped-down sandals also have a toe strap. It’s so hard to codify common sense. :-)

          3. Daisy Steiner*

            The tone of our dress code is somewhat tongue in cheek. I think the full text might be something like “No shoes that make noises when you walk (that means no flip-flops!)”. I’m guessing it’s because some sandals can be quite flappy too, even if they’re not strictly flip-flops.

          4. SpaceySteph*

            Every pair of heels I’ve ever had make noise when I walk. So is it rubber-soled flats-only?

            1. Daisy Steiner*

              Nah, it just means don’t wear shoes that go ‘slap slap slap’. People seem to be kind of upset about this, so maybe I got my tone wrong in the original comment. It’s not a waggy finger, strict kind of dress code. We can basically wear pretty much anything – it’s just an amusing (?) way of saying ‘no flip-flops’.

    2. EJ*

      It think it’s probably leather style material. You can buy shoes anywhere that look leather, but are fake! As a vegan, I don’t wear leather and have never has a problem finding shoes that fit the description!

    3. Amtelope*

      I suspect they mean “shoes that look like leather,” and that anything that looks like a standard leather dress shoe will be fine even if it’s actually fake leather. But no canvas, mesh, etc. It sounds like their dress code is business professional, not business casual, and traditionally that does mean leather closed-toe shoes.

    4. Temperance*

      I don’t wear leather because it’s expensive and I don’t like wearing animal products. Target makes decent pleather knockoffs. I’m sure that the leather requirement is to keep interns from showing up in shiny patent flats or Toms.

      1. Rusty Shackelford*

        I don’t know why patent would be an issue. I think they’re specifically aiming at shoes like Toms and other casual canvas flats. I’m trying to think of a professional style of shoe in canvas, and honestly, I do have a pair of linen-like heels that (IMHO) are completely work-appropriate, but work-appropriate shoes that don’t look like leather are few and far between.

        2. Anna*

          That’s what I was thinking. Or the Sketchers that are kind of flats, but are made of mesh stuff.

          1. Rusty Shackelford*

            Or the Sketchers that are kind of flats, but are made of mesh stuff.

            Which are THE BOMB. I wear them at trade shows and I don’t care what anybody thinks. :-)

        3. Temperance*

          I’m in the legal field, and patent is frowned upon unless it’s nude. I realize now that this may not be universal.

    6. Marzipan*

      Some non-leather shoes look so much like leather that no-one would be able to tell the difference, short of checking the label. My favourite boots recently disintegrated and I was thinking about whether I could have them re-soled, and it wasn’t until I really looked at them, that I realised they weren’t actually leather at all. I’d always just assumed they were!

    7. Daisy Steiner*

      I remember seeing in many school dress codes the specification that shoes had to be ‘polishable’ – I’m guessing this requirement would have a similar effect. Leather or ‘leather-look’ is probably fine.

    8. my two cents*

      I’ve seen a requirement for leather shoes, but only when there is manufacturing, there’s a large shipping warehouse, or in the one case when I got to tour the cleanroom of a IC manufacturer and I also had to wear the full bunny suit.

    9. Sarahnova*

      I interpret it just to mean smart, non-athletic flats, ie loafers and brogues are acceptable; Converse hi-tops are not.

  27. Beckajo*

    Sigh. This is very “student” behavior. A petition and proposal of this kind is the thing you do in high school, when you’re not an adult. It really needs to be discouraged at the university level, and it’s definitely not appropriate in the workplace.

    1. Mike C.*

      Why should it be discouraged at the university level? It might not be a good thing to bring into the workplace but there are many states where laws are made in this fashion. It’s not a useless tool, it’s just that like any tool, there is a time and a place.

      1. LQ*

        I do think this kind of thing as a tool is valuable. Like if this same thing had happened over really bad working conditions? There would be a different conversation here. If there was harassment, or unsafe workplace, or lots of unpaid hours? People would react very differently. Shoes is not the hill to die on (I say this as someone who actually would have an EXTREMELY hard time finding the shoes outlined in the code, like they do not exist for me, or if they do would be several hundred dollars, still not the hill to die on).

      2. Beckajo*

        But this isn’t a law or legal situation. It’s a workplace norm. They went through the professional channels, they were told no, it could have ended there. (If this had been an example of an actually unfair labor standard, fine – start with petitions to form a union, or take a complaint to the labor board, or steps like that. Presenting a petition to the boss was just…ridiculous. The situation was closed on that level, and it wasn’t going to change with a petition. The workplace is not a democracy.)

        As for why it needs to be discouraged at the university level…it’s like something that just happened recently at one campus I work at. Students decided they wanted to push for more diversity in the curriculum. Great! Excellent idea!….but instead of actually doing something like finding out how curriculum gets changed, or getting in touch with the (well publicized) faculty task force who was actually working on this process – the presented a petition to the university administration. Then when the university admins said, “yeah, thanks, this isn’t our purview,” the students involved threw what can best be described as a temper tantrum and began demanding that the administrators meet with them 24/7….literally proposing that the administration should drop everything whenever a student wants to meet with them.

        This did not go over well.

        The students approached this situation with the same sort of expectation of results as the OP did. They wanted something, and assumed that their wants were the be-all and end-all of the situation. It’s not.

    2. Anna*

      Everything has a context where it can be used, even petitions. The only thing is that in this context it was wildly inappropriate.

      1. Beckajo*

        I did not say that petitions are not useful. This kind of proposal and petition is really not appropriate as communication between adults in the workplace. They weren’t presenting a petition to the government, this was their boss!

  28. JMegan*

    Also, I want to call out one thing that I don’t think anybody else has mentioned. The proposal and petition was not the first time the interns had had this conversation with their managers – the OP and at least two others had already asked about the dress code, and been told it was not flexible.

    So it wasn’t just a proposal and a petition, it was a proposal and a petition that came *after* at least three people had been clearly told that the answer was no. I can see why the managers were getting pretty annoyed. They may have felt at that point that it was the only way you (*collectively) would listen, and they almost certainly did not want to be having this conversation multiple times over the course of the summer.

    1. Newby*

      Yep. It demonstrated that they are incapable of following directions. They were told the dress code. They asked their managers if they actually had to follow it and were told yes. Instead of accepting that, they decided to write a petition. I would not want to keep an intern that questioned basic directions.

      1. Florida*

        I don’t think it demonstrated that they were incapable of following directions. As best as we can tell, they all followed the dress code.
        I think it demonstrated that they wanted the rule changed and went about it in the best way they knew how. It happened to be an inappropriate method for the circumstance, but I don’t think it demonstrates a lack of following directions.

    2. Engineer Girl*

      I came here to say just this. On top of that, petitions are the nuclear option. I’ve only done it once in my life, and we knew we could get in trouble for it. We had a very, very, very abusive manager and all of us went to our senior manager as a group about it. Only then did he take it seriously. Even then, there were repercussions – I was blamed for it even though 2 other employees were the ones that filed the ethics complaint.
      Petitions and group push back are reserved for the very serious issues. Not sandals.

      1. TootsNYC*

        Remember in “Band of Brothers,” when the NCO’s decide they can’t serve under Sobel anymore, and they all resign at once? it was a huge deal.

    3. Turtle Candle*

      Yeah, it has a strong whiff of the “‘no’ just means ‘keep pushing!'” mindset, which would bother me quite a lot more than the request itself. Which, no. (Especially since I associate the ‘yes means yes but no means let’s talk’ with either pick-up artists or pushy salespeople, neither of which is a positive association.)

      If we’ve said no to three people, and they respond by asking again in an even more aggressive way, I’m going to wonder if the entirety of this internship is going to be telling them they have to follow the dress code over and over and over because they can’t or won’t hear a ‘no.’

      1. TootsNYC*

        Or what other thing will they argue about, instead of listening and learning, because they (in their “wisdom”) think we’re doing it wrong?

  29. LawBee*

    That one intern who didn’t sign the petition is either sitting pretty, or is absolutely terrified.

    3. Donna*

      That intern was probably someone who has had a job before and knew when to keep his/her mouth shut.

      3. js*

        yeah, we have an intern in my department this summer who is returning from last summer because he’s awesome. at some point a couple weeks ago i was walking through the break room and saw him having lunch with the other interns and waved. last week my boss tells me that the intern came to her to say that he ‘knew things travel fast in the office and some of the other interns were discussing inappropriate topics at lunch (think underage drinking, etc)’ and he really wanted our boss to know that he’s aware it wasn’t appropriate and he was not participating in the discussion, and he’s really happy to be there and learn, etc. we started laughing when i told her about how i’d walked by that day and that must be why he had a weird look, thinking i’d overheard the discussion. i hadn’t and wouldn’t have cared, but we absolutely love the fact that he felt the need to be so conscientious about his professionalism.

    5. Trout 'Waver*

      I’m curious about the one intern who didn’t sign as well. Did they try to warn the rest that they were playing with fire?

    6. valereee*

      That intern probably texted Mom from a bathroom stall asking whether this was a bad idea, to which Mom replied “Under no circumstances should you join this madness. Call me after work if you need an explanation.”

  30. Jessie*

    One of the hardest things to come to terms with going from school to the rest of the world is that there will always be some things that are (or seem to be) extremely unfair. In college you’re essentially a customer. If there’s a policy that isn’t equally applied you get together in student organizations, you put together petitions, you write about it in newsletters. But that doesn’t translate into the workplace at all. It’s not about what they can do for you but what you provide them as an employee.

    The thing that struck me most about the letter is this line: ” You can’t even tell, and if we had known about this we would have factored it into our argument.” in response to learning that the one person who was allowed to wear tennis shoes had a legitimate medical reason.

    It was never your business as to why that person had an exemption. It could have even been something along the lines of “this person refuses to wear the proper footwear but because he’s such an amazing worker we don’t care.” Because they don’t have to be fair (as long as they’re not discriminating against race, gender, etc.) I have a coworker who has a pass to the “inside” parking area, something nobody else at his level has (or even the next level up.) Why? Because he negotiated for that perk with the job offer and they wanted him enough to say yes.

  31. Roscoe*

    Haven’t read all of the comments yet. But this sounds like an extreme reaction from both sides to me. As interns, yes, you guys were definitely out of line. Realistically, you don’t have the capital to do that. If an entire sales department wanted to do a petition like that, its one thing. Companies can’t afford to lose that. But if they basically only have summer interns, they can absolutely operate without you. It seemed you tried to force your hand and it backfired.

    However, the company seems a bit aggressive as well. I don’t know that the behavior was unprofessional necessarily, just not a great idea to do. Sometimes the rules are stupid (we have always done it this way is something that comes up often), and if it truly was brought up in a professional way, I don’t know that questioning stupid rules is bad per se. Firing all of you also seemed to be a bit much, because if it really was just a signature on a piece of paper, it seems like a crappy thing to do to someone who may have been an otherwise good intern. Also it just seemed like a power play on their part (which is unnecessary because everyone probably knows they have the power).

    I’m curious, did the one intern who refused to sign stay on?

    1. Not the Droid You are Looking For*

      In reading some of the other comments, I think the firing was less about the petition and more about the time spent on this. The LW remarks that they had raised this with managers and were told no, then continued to pursue this.

      I worked with a woman who didn’t like a lot of our company rules and spent the first six weeks or so of her employment in and out of HR arguing the semantics of sentences in the employee handbook. When she was let go (she was rather surprised by it) they told her it was for lack of focus on her duties. I see the intern firing as a similar situation.

      1. Roscoe*

        Sure, and with that, I could even see firing the ones who had already gone to their managers about the issue. But it seems that they fired EVERYONE for what one or 2 people spearheaded and they just signed. It just seems excessive for someone to be like “Yeah, wearing gym shoes would be great. I’ll sign that” and then they are fired for what may not have been any more time than it took to sign something.

        1. Christopher Tracy*

          It just seems excessive for someone to be like “Yeah, wearing gym shoes would be great. I’ll sign that” and then they are fired for what may not have been any more time than it took to sign something.

          That’s another good point and why I personally wouldn’t have gone through with the firing.

          1. AnotherAlison*

            The followers learned a good lesson, too, though. The lesson was either to put some critical thought into an issue before signing a petition for it, or to not allow your peers to pressure you into signing something you don’t want to sign.

            The type of person who randomly signs something is the same careless person who tells competitor X all the competitors we sent and RFP, and possibly their prices. They are asked, they answer, without thinking. The type of person who goes with the crowd doesn’t have much to offer, either. “Dave, what do you think about Issue X?” “Sounds like you have a good plan to me.” Thanks. Parroting every thing I say is fairly useless.

            1. Christopher Tracy*

              The type of person who randomly signs something is the same careless person who tells competitor X all the competitors we sent and RFP, and possibly their prices. They are asked, they answer, without thinking. The type of person who goes with the crowd doesn’t have much to offer, either. “Dave, what do you think about Issue X?” “Sounds like you have a good plan to me.” Thanks. Parroting every thing I say is fairly useless.

              I think that’s a little hyperbolic. People sign things all the time without thinking about it (e.g. group birthday cards at work) and don’t suddenly start divulging trade secrets.

  32. BRR*

    I’m sorry this happened. I would be miffed as well if I was your manager but I do at least want to offer up that this sucks and I’m sorry. I definitely understand the irritation at an unreasonably formal dress code. At my last job I had to wear a tie everyday for no reason. During the summer men could wear polos but for some reason during the winter we needed button downs and ties.

    I think you should consider this as a learning experience with some points I’m able to pick out of as a third party and what I’ve learned 3-4 years into the working world (all depressing):
    -I hate to say this first one but not everybody has a voice and not everybody has a voice on every issue. You cannot challenge anything you want and you don’t always get to discuss things.
    -Sometimes there are reasons some people can get away with not following every rule and it’s best to leave it alone. Like this coworker or a coworker who has a different schedule. There will also be plenty of times where people don’t follow the rules and don’t suffer repercussions. Unless it impacts your work, it’s often best to let it go.
    -Was this the hill to die on? Was the dress code a deal breaker for the short time you were at the internship? Maybe yes. But you have to pick your battles. After your manager said no was the time to drop it.

    You shouldn’t ask to be reconsidered. Firings are almost always final. Your best bet going forward is to try and find another internship and stay as long as you can. I wouldn’t list this internship on your resume unless you can find a good reference. I also agree with Alison to write a note apologizing and thanking them for the learning experience because while this was unpleasant, it was a learning experience.

  33. Wendy Darling*

    “I feel my dismissal was unfair and would like to ask them to reconsider but I’m not sure the best way to go about it.”

    I think if you try to argue that your dismissal was unfair and they should therefore reconsider, what you’ll be showing them is that you learned nothing from being fired and in fact the problem for which they fired you is ongoing.

    You got fired because you (incorrectly) assumed that the workplace is, or should be, fair. It is not fair. It’s not even SUPPOSED to be fair. You got fired for trying to demand that it be fair, which is both unreasonable and, as an intern, totally overstepping your bounds. Coming back with “But it’s not FAIR that I was fired!” is just going to reassure them that they made the correct choice. :/

    Getting fired sucks but I don’t think there’s any coming back from this one.

    1. Rusty Shackelford*

      I feel my dismissal was unfair and would like to ask them to reconsider but I’m not sure the best way to go about it.

      Presumably not by petition. ;-)

    2. baseballfan*

      I don’t think this is even about the workplace not being fair. There’s nothing unfair about a reasonably professional dress code. Some people may not like it, and they’re entitled to their opinion, but I wouldn’t call a dress code unfair by any stretch.

      1. Wendy Darling*

        IMO the “But Lucinda gets to wear non-leather flats!” thing makes it about fairness.

        1. Student*

          Lucinda, the veteran missing a leg, has a disability accommodation. If the interns would like to undergo a limb downsize, then they can have the same disability exemption for shoes. That sounds fair to me.

        2. Seianus*

          There’s nothing inherently unfair about different people abiding different rules. “Everyone must be the same” is a fairness understanding of a five years old, who doesn’t get yet, how many nuances there may be in real life. And I am not even talking about the elephant in the room that it’s not up to intern to decide what’s fair what’s not in their new workplace.

  34. Mike C.*

    I’m kind of pissed off on behalf of the OP. I don’t agree with the petition, but the whole point of an internship is to learn how to work and someone should have taught them why they were wrong and to never do it again. That the OP’s sin didn’t cause any real harm further makes the firing rather extreme. No data was lost, no damage was done, there was no public embarrassment, no one was harmed, nothing.

    Interns aren’t supposed to be cheap laborers, they’re supposed to be folks who are learning the ropes. They’re going to screw up, especially if ground rules and expectations and culture aren’t set or discussed in any serious manner. The OP and her fellow interns are used to one set of standards, if they’re not taught anything else, what does anyone reasonable expect?

    1. Ask a Manager* Post author

      That’s why I wondered toward the end of the post if this was more like the last straw and there had been other issues previously. Managing interns takes up a lot of time, and if they’re creating more hassles of this sort of than most interns would and this was the latest issue in a string of them, I could see cutting them loose over this.

      2. Jessie*

        It may have also been the fact that their petition ended up targeting the woman who ended up being the epitome of someone who should have an exemption. A combat-wounded veteran amputee. Yeah, that’s going to piss some people off. I’m really surprised that not a single one of these interns knew. There aren’t a huge number of female combat amputees and they tend to get a lot of media attention.

        2. Kelly L.*

          I’m betting there are more than you think. I only know one famous one by name, because she’s a major political figure in my state, but I know there are lots more out there whose names I don’t know.

      3. fposte*

        I’m thinking about the information that everybody asked their managers about the dress code, everybody got told no, and then they banded together to write a petition. Did management feel this was the only way to finally stop hearing about the damn dress code?

        I confess also to being slightly chagrined that this was their cause for justice. Not labor rights, not even internship pay, but sneakers.

        1. Ask a Manager* Post author

          Yes — if you’re going to band together to fight for something, there are so many more compelling things you could take on. That’s the judgment piece that really would bug me if these were my interns.

          2. AnonAcademic*

            This is just anecdata, but in high school a bunch of the other camp counselors I worked with formed a “union” because they didn’t like the rules about having to sign out for lunch. The sign out process was a legal requirement to ensure we had the right ratio of staff to kids, so they were shot down. I later overheard this same group making plans to do various drugs before a camp trip to the zoo. They did not sound like they were joking so I let a director know and I believe they were spoken to before the trip about how they were being closely monitored. I remember as a 16 year old being horrified that these yahoos were in charge of other people’s children and that they weren’t fired for this behavior. They were all extremely immature (as judged by my own 16 year old self which is saying something) and the “union” was definitely a symptom of a larger problem with lack of judgement.

        2. Not the Droid You are Looking For*

          I’m thinking about the information that everybody asked their managers about the dress code, everybody got told no, and then they banded together to write a petition.

          I agree that internships are a learning opportunity, but at some point, you run out of grace. The interns were told no by multiple people and continued to spend time on this.

          1. Not the Droid You are Looking For*

            I forgot to close my blockquote:

            I agree that internships are a learning opportunity, but at some point, you run out of grace. The interns were told no by multiple people and continued to spend time on this.

      4. Wendy Darling*

        I feel like you have to be pretty darn fed up with your interns for your response to this to be “screw it get rid of them all”. That’s a lot of disruption and paperwork for a single offense. I guess potentially management could have a hair trigger, but I do find it more plausible that management was pretty fed up with the interns already and this put them right over the edge.

        1. Dot Warner*

          This is one of those letters where the other side of the story is just as interesting as the OP’s, like the person who said they’d get arrested if they contacted a certain employer again. If the OP’s bosses or the intern who didn’t get fired happen to be reading, we’d love to hear your side!

    2. Temperance*

      I really disagree with you. The intern wasted time gossiping and drafting a memo and petition (!) about something as truly insignificant as a dress code. I would also argue that she learned her lesson, and won’t ever do this again.

      There absolutely was harm here, and public humiliation, for the staff managing these ungrateful interns. Interns are supposed to be a give and take; they get necessary experience while also providing necessary labor to the business.

      As someone who manages interns, including one who is so awful that I’m considering shutting down my intern program, I also really disagree with your take on what people who manage interns should be doing. Basic knowledge like “don’t write a petition in an office because you want to wear flip flops to work” isn’t something that I should have to teach you. I’m happy to give advice on what to do when meeting someone new for the first time, what to write in a thank-you after someone takes you to lunch, etc. But I’m way too busy to sit down and spell out all possible dos and don’ts, especially ones that are, IMO, so egregious as to be ridiculous.

      1. Mike C.*

        If you aren’t taught the rules, how can you be expected to follow them? It’s easy to say that something is “basic knowledge” if you already know everything.

        I was the first in my family to attend college. I went to a really expensive place on scholarship where my fellow students were driving luxury cars where my family had a used minivan. Their parents were doctors and lawyers and my folks were blue collar through and through. Can you imagine that going from one world to another had just a bit of a culture shock to it? That there was a massive and unspoken change in expectations, from basic interactions to classwork to internships to the types of jobs I was expected to have once I was done?

        If people had presumed I was being “ungrateful” rather than simply being ignorant and inexperienced, I would have likely been in the same place the OP is. Instead, people actually talked to me, understood where I was coming from and taught me what I needed to know. I don’t the OP’s story, but I certainly know what it’s like to transition from one world to another and how that can be helped along by a good mentor.

        Presuming that everyone has the same baseline of “basic knowledge” is really going to screw some very valuable people over.

        1. HRChick*

          But they were all already told “no” by the managers when they inquired after the dress code? It really shows a lack of common sense to be told no and push on up.

        2. fposte*

          I agree–you learn that stuff by making the mistakes and finding out they were mistakes. I’ve been in the workforce three decades and I still learn stuff that’s presumed to be “common sense.”

          But I can also see why somebody doesn’t necessarily want to do that level of teaching for an internship. Even when I’m hiring students, I will pass on applicants who are lovely but would require more training than I have time for. I think that’s kosher for a supervisor to decide. It just doesn’t mean that the people who don’t know stuff are necessarily horrible for not knowing it.

        4. LQ*

          I had a similar situation. I called my first boss and asked what the dress code was. What she told me was so far out of my financial league I didn’t even know how to make sense of it. So I asked another question. I got more information. And I was able to manage to fit the dress code. I didn’t make a petition saying it was unfair that her example was out of my price range. I just asked a follow up question. I didn’t spend hours writing up a proposal when I clearly understood it because I didn’t like it. (And I did all this BEFORE the job even started, and it was a temp job, she could have totally told me to not come in and gotten someone else, but it was a reasonable question, and I was reasonable about asking it.) As someone who came from blue collar parents that doesn’t mean that people are going to be jerks and go in and fight with management. People with blue collar roots might need an additional example of the dress code, but you’re acting like they are all jerks. Not true. Plenty of people are thoughtful and considerate and think about things before launching into an attack on the business they are working for.

          The OP clearly understood the dress code. This isn’t about not understanding. This is about not liking something.

          1. TuxedoCat*

            I grew up blue collar, too. Your story reminds me of how I had to figure it out. Did a lot of thrift shopping and the like to find suitable clothes.

            The other thing is that the letter didn’t state anything about the dress code being too pricey, just that it was too strict and unfair someone else got to wear different shoes. It could very well be that the OP thought it was too costly, but it’s not clear to me that was the issue.

            1. LQ*

              Right. I think that the assumption that the clothes are too expensive is reading into the letter something that is not there. It can be really hard to do clothes that are financially feasible, but then you talk to your supervisor about wearing the same blazer a couple days a week, or ask other interns if they have a good source for cheap shoes, or whatever the need is.

              1. Mike C.*

                This isn’t about the cost of clothes, I’m simply giving a personal example of how being the fish out of water can mean not grasping what everyone else considers “common sense”, thus not knowing or understanding isn’t some personal deficiency.

                1. LQ*

                  I’m giving a personal example of how being a fish out of water doesn’t make you a horribly bad employee who is insubordinate. Especially after being given the dress code, had the dress code explained, and asked more questions. Not knowing isn’t a personal deficiency. But continuing after those steps? That’s not appropriate. And plenty of people (even blue collar people) know that. I don’t think that it is ok to act like this is an acceptable thing because you think that this might be culture shock. It gives a bad name to lots of people who do a great job of finding ways to work in white collar environments. Don’t make things harder by saying that they’ll be insubordinate because it is different. Especially when there is nothing in the letter to suggest blue collar background.

                2. Sophia in the DMV*

                  But they asked, were told it was non negotiable. At that point, the intern thought it was better to go ahead by petition rather than listen

                3. Felicia*

                  There’s a difference between not being aware, which is not the case for the OP, and being told no, but deciding you don’t have to listen to the no. I think training people on norms they aren’t aware of is much easier than dealing with someone who won’t take no for an answer.

            2. Lindsay J*

              I feel like growing up in a blue collar family would have made them less likely to question the dress code, rather than more, to be honest.

              The issue with these interns wasn’t that they didn’t understand the dress code and needed more guidance. The issue was that they didn’t like it.

              Most blue collar jobs, IME, have a strict (often company provided) uniform, and you know and expect that you have to wear it. Along with appropriate (i.e. provide enough protection) shoes. If you come in not wearing the uniform, you get sent home and/or written up.

              Another thing I remember being discussed in the blue collar to white collar thread awhile back was that blue collar workers were less likely to approach their bosses (or other authority figures) for accommodations/clarification/whatever because they perceived there to be a gulf in status that made it inappropriate for them to do that.

              It seems to me that as long as they understood the dress code (and were able to afford it) someone from a blue collar family would be less likely to try to petition and change the dress code than someone from a white collar family. And if they couldn’t afford the follow the dress code they would likely try their best and keep their head down and hope that people wouldn’t notice that they were – say – wearing black sneakers rather than dress shoes or pants and a blazer than don’t exactly match, not loudly protest the dress code and draw more attention to their inability to pay for it because A. they would be afraid of being fired for it, and B. they don’t want to explain that they just can’t afford it because even though there’s nothing wrong with that it’s still embarrassing to be in that situation.

              (I say “they” here because I grew up with one pink-collar parent, and one who was a restaurant manager which is kind of borderline between blue and white collar I guess.)

          3. Mike C.*

            I’m not saying that “growing up blue collar” means “acting like a jerk”, I mean that going from one environment to another means that sometimes you aren’t going to implicitly understand the culture. That you picked up on it doesn’t mean that other folks are somehow deficient for not doing so.

            1. Zillah*

              I agree – but this isn’t a zero-sum proposition. There’s a broad range of behaviors between implicitly understanding everything about the culture and understanding nothing about the culture – either due to SES growing up, simple inexperience, or both – and most companies will draw the line somewhere in the middle. I would see drawing the line at confusion about the dress code to be incredibly unfair and punitive, for exactly the reason you’re saying, but the OP and their fellow interns took the entire thing several large steps beyond that. I can understand a company seeing that extent of tone-deafness as something they don’t have the bandwidth to deal with.

        5. Temperance*

          I grew up in a trailer, and now I’m an attorney. I get the culture shock. Completely. That’s actually why I have no sympathy for this LW. She presumably grew up in a while collar world, and should know basic professional norms. Even if she doesn’t, the best way to pick these up is by observing what others who have their stuff together are doing, and emulate them. I don’t know why it would even cross her mind that dress codes are negotiable, or that it would be a good idea to rally the other interns and fill out a petition. That’s above and beyond not knowing office norms.

          I don’t have the time to coddle every intern who crosses my path. I had to learn on my own and was able to do so pretty easily. I definitely didn’t have a “mentor” who taught me office basics.

          1. LQ*

            I think it can be great to have a mentor. My first boss functioned as a mentor in a lot of way for what business place norms were. Thing was when she said, hey, at this meeting you need to listen and pay attention I didn’t say no and start talking in the middle of the meeting. If I wasn’t sure I’d ask (privately – which is sounds like several of these interns did) and then when she said something I’d listen. Not write a petition about why I shouldn’t have to do that thing.

            I’m super pro-mentoring people who come from blue collar roots, but there are plenty of people who managed to make it through without writing a petition or doing these kinds of things. (And I’m entirely with Temperance on thinking this person grew up in a white collar world. But even if they didn’t? Unacceptable behavior.)

            1. Temperance*

              Just her social class and upbringing. If she had grown up poor, she would have had to work for pay.

              1. Roscoe*

                Maybe, maybe not. Maybe her parents wanted her focusing on school and she got a scholarship. You have no idea, yet you are projecting this stuff

              2. CMT*

                Yes, and those are huge assumptions that you are basing on nothing, so they’re really not helpful to this conversation.

          3. Rat in the Sugar*

            “She presumably grew up in a white collar world”

            Why do you assume that?

            1. Temperance*

              Because she’s in college and this internship is her first job. Blue collar kids don’t get to skip out on working for a paycheck into their twenties.

                1. Temperance*

                  Sure, but she says this is her first job. Meaning that she’s never worked in the past for a paycheck.

              2. Christopher Tracy*

                I was raised by a single parent who has worked white collar jobs my entire life, and yet, we were always poor. I didn’t have to work until I went to college – mom preferred me to focus on my schoolwork and fifty million student activities, the things she knew would get me into college and, hopefully, out of the same cycle of brokeness she kept finding herself in. Yeah, OP sounds extremely privileged in this letter, but you don’t really know that she came from money. White collar doesn’t necessarily equal loaded.

                1. doreen*

                  And not loaded doesn’t necessarily equal poor. When people say things like ” If she had grown up poor, she would have had to work for pay.”, they aren’t talking about kids who come from families that can afford the necessities like food,housing, clothing and electricity and even a bit of spending money but don’t have many luxuries. They’re talking about kids who come from families where the kids have to come up with the money to commute to college, because the parents don’t have it. Or the ones where the high-school aged kid kicks in half their paycheck toward the household expenses. Or the ones where the kids are discouraged form going to college in the first place, because the family needs another income.

          4. Mike C.*

            I grew up in a trailer, and now I’m an attorney. I get the culture shock. Completely. That’s actually why I have no sympathy for this LW.

            Pulling up the ladder after climbing up yourself isn’t cool. :(

            1. matcha123*

              I wouldn’t call it pulling up the ladder. I grew up poor and if I were in a position where a fellow student asked me to sign something that could possibly cost me my job, I would decline. That’s because the fear of losing income would overcome any thirst for justice I might have.

            2. OlympiasEpiriot*

              Pulling up the ladder refers to doing things to cut people out of access to something desirable. That is *not* what Temperance is saying.

              T’s advice is to learn the norms of the culture the interns entered.

        6. Total Rando*

          I agree that one can’t assume that everyone has a “basic knowledge” of workplace norms and class-based expectations for behavior.

          HOWEVER, I disagree that the onus for teaching this information is in an internship. When I have interns, I expect that they come in with gaps in their knowledge but that they observe and ask questions when they are unsure on something. I don’t expect to have to spell out each and every little social/professional procedure to them. Universities, high schools, mentors, etc should be responsible for bridging these knowledge gaps, NOT employers.

          1. Mike C.*

            The idea that you can change company policy with a petition seems like a gap in knowledge to me, but reasonable people can disagree.

        7. Student*

          There is a limit on how much basic knowledge you can afford to teach someone. There’s also a limit to how much coaching you can give someone in a few-months internship. It’s one thing to teach somebody a couple points of office behavior. It’s another thing to teach someone who needs a couple points of office behavior, has terrible grammar, is rude towards full-time staff, is goofing off on the internet, and argues with your advice all the time. There’s a limit to what someone managing interns can reasonably tackle, and internships are often competitive positions where you have a choice from many interested candidates.

          We have no idea where the OP fell on that scale from “a couple issues” to “everything is an issue”. The people who fired the OP are in a position to determine that, and they opted to fire the OP. Let’s not second-guess that decision without more information (especially based on testimony from someone who is, understandably, not giving us enough context to know whether there were other issues).

          1. Zillah*

            There’s a limit to what someone managing interns can reasonably tackle, and internships are often competitive positions where you have a choice from many interested candidates.

            This is really well-put.

        8. Observer*

          For many situations, I would agree. However, there are some basic things that an internship manager or employer should not have to tell someone. They SHOULD know these rules, and the boss doesn’t need to assume that they don’t.

          1. If you are at least one year into college, you should know that accommodations for EXCEPTIONS exist, and that the people who make the accommodations don’t have to share the reasoning with everyone else. In fact, this is the one thing that school is MORE likely to teach than the workplace, especially low end retail and food service.

          2. “Because I said so.” and “My house, my rules.” Even in school that’s some times reasonable, and it certainly should happen in a family dynamic as well, unless a child is unusually compliant. I’m not suggesting that parents should be uniformly autocratic, but that they need to know when argumentation is just not viable and enforce those limits.

          3. When you are new, you can’t have all the information you need. You almost certainly can’t have enough information to make a “well reasoned” argument for making significant changes.

          4. When requests from multiple people for a specific change are refused by multiple people, it’s almost certainly significant. Even if it isn’t, it is certainly SEEN as such by the people making the decisions.

          5. “No is a complete sentence, even ESPECIALLY when it’s your boss that says it.” You don’t always get a chance to discuss it.

        9. Grapey*

          I was that person too (first born in the States, first to college etc), grew up on food stamps and went to a cheap state school but I had no trouble figuring out professional norms. People with rich parents and expensive diplomas don’t have a monopoly on that.

          I’ve kept my professional job for 9 years after graduating college and though the daily wardrobe is ultra casual (thanks, software engineering), I KNOW when to wear the fancy stuff. Conferences, consultant meetings…etc. There’s something to be said for having the ability to figure out context and honestly that’s a valuable job skill right there. You *ask* if you really don’t know something and can’t figure it out. Asking, then being told “you just can’t wear tennis shoes” and THEN starting a petition to wear tennis shoes is ridiculous.

        1. Temperance*

          Because she rallied those other interns. Gossiping probably isn’t the best choice of words, but she wasted work time on drafting a memo and petition, and getting them all on board. (Even if she did it on her personal time, it’s going to look like a waste of resources.)

          1. Roscoe*

            How is doing something on personal time a waste of resources? Hell, even if it was done on lunch breaks, its pretty ridiculous to say that she can’t bring it up to her fellow intersn

            1. Temperance*

              If one of my interns presented me with a petition and memo asking me to revisit something as silly as the dress code, I would be irked that they wasted work time to do something like that. Even if they only did it on lunch breaks. Because my first thought would be that they wasted work time on something silly, and that they thought they knew my job/firm better than I do. Which is an offensive attitude for an intern to have.

              I get complaining about the dress code. I hear the secretaries in my office complaining on the regular about how X wore sneakers that day. I sometimes work in my gym clothes for the last hour of the day, because I run to PT right after work. I take issue with the inherent insubordination and disrespect of drafting a petition.

              1. Rabiosa*

                How arrogant to think you get to decide what things are worth of pursuing in my non-working time. If I want to count flies in my own time, my boss doesn’t get any vote or voice about it.

                1. Temperance*

                  It’s not arrogance. If you want to count flies, have at it. I don’t care. If you’re going to spend your free time/non-working time being insubordinate and trying to usurp a directive, we’re going to have issues.

                2. Seianus*

                  Depending on your field and contract, your boss may very well have a vote and voice about it.

      3. Spanky*

        I’m not so sure that she learned her lesson because she wants to argue that she was wrongfully dismissed.

    3. some1*

      “there was no public embarrassment”

      I think if I was the direct supervisor or the soldier, I’d be embarrassed.

            1. some1*

              Does it seem farfetched that someone who would petition their internship to change the dress code would not have complained about the dress code to friends & family?

                2. Mustache Cat*

                  Mike C isn’t really speculating though. He’s giving his personal experience as an example of a young person who may not understand workplace norms, but he’s not saying that the letter writer shares his story.

      2. Daisy Steiner*

        I think they might have meant ‘public’ as in ‘outside the company’ – public-facing.

    4. Rusty Shackelford*

      I might agree if it weren’t for the fact that they had already pushed against the dress code, and had been told it wasn’t going to change. So it wasn’t about them asking for change, it was about them refusing to take “no” for an answer. From their bosses. People get fired for that kind of shit.

      1. Liz*

        This, exactly. If this was the first time that they’d brought up the dress code, I’d think the firing was a bit harsh. But after repeatedly pushing the issue? I completely understand why management reacted the way they did.

    5. LQ*

      Eh, I could absolutely see firing them. Because they clearly aren’t trying to learn the ropes, they are trying to leap over them. The ground rules, expectations, and culture were laid out. This is what you wear, they all knew it, they all understood it, they just didn’t like it.

      If someone seems unwilling to learn I can see going, I’m not going to continue to waste my energy trying to help them. I want to help people who want to learn.

    6. Engineer Girl*

      The problem Mike, is that it wasn’t about making mistakes. It was about rebellion. Someone that is rebellious and pushing back probably isn’t going to listen to instruction either.
      In short, it wasn’t about actions as much as attitude.

    7. Marisol*

      Well, some people learn fast, and some people learn slow–they learn the hard way, in other words. The same argument could be made for college students. They don’t know the material before they take the course, but if they fail to grasp the material adequately, they fail the course. These students failed their “internship course,” and now they’ll take it over again somewhere else. The standards were explained to them, but they failed to respect them. It’s not like they were permanently banned from the workforce–they just got an F this time around.

    8. Turtle Candle*

      I dunno. I usually am inclined to be sympathetic to employees, but… in this case, they had already been told no individually, and responded by upping the ante–and not on an issue of safety or social justice but of footwear. I’m sure this is partly my own bias, but I associate the ‘no means just keep pushing, but more aggressively!’ with, say, pick-up artists, or people who think that as a friendly-looking woman I can be shoved around easily. I’d be inclined to shut it down hard, too.

      I probably wouldn’t have fired them. But I think “no one was harmed” is… well, I mean, certainly time was wasted, social pressure was exerted, and yeah, that can be harmful to one’s workplace experience. If I was already putting extra time and effort into managing a group of interns and what I got back was the feeling that if they just kept shoving I’d eventually fall over and give them their way, I wouldn’t say that was harmless to me either professionally or as a person.

    9. ASM826*

      Someone did teach them it was wrong and to never do it again. The OP didn’t even learn the lesson at this level, how would something less have worked?

  35. Rachael*

    I’ve noticed about the younger generation that they have been raised in an environment that encourages “social action” and leads them to believe that if they rally behind their cause with reasoning and signatures then their action is just. The younger generations are taught that their voice matters and to raise it when they feel that they need to take action. (Have you SEEN the Disney Channel commercials that come on every 10 minutes?) Unfortunately, this outlook does them a diservice when they go out into the real world. I have had to pull trainees aside and tell them that, while their thoughts and opinions are important, that they just need to sit back and listen when being shown the ropes. You don’t get to shout your ideas out and expect people to take note and make changes. You need to work for respect and earn your place in the workplace. Everyone is not equal and, no, you cannot tell the CFO how to run the Treasury department because “you read about the market conditions that morning”.

    1. Mike C.*

      Why do you say it’s only this generation when one could easily point to the labor movements of the turn of the last century or the civil rights movements in the 50s and 60s? Social action has been around for a long, long time.

      1. Megs*

        Well put. Heck, I grew up in the apathetic ’80s and ’90s and we still had Rock the Vote and ACT-UP!

    2. J.B.*

      Can you maybe dial back the kids these days? Baby boomers were not well regarded when they were young, and were I believe a bit into all sorts of things including drugs and social activism.

    3. Kelly L.*

      This wasn’t the hill to die on, but there are plenty of things that are worth social action.

    4. Jessie*

      I don’t see anything wrong with encouraging kids to get involved and I don’t think it’s a disservice at all. It’s just that it needs to be combined with teaching older kids (and college students) that it’s not all ponies and rainbows and not everything can be solved by starting a petition and spending $3000 to go read to children at an orphanage in Africa.

    5. GigglyPuff*

      Yes, please don’t say, kids these days.
      I totally know there’s a time and place for certain things.
      [and I was totally going to mention something about tech having an impact on how younger people are perceived, but this probably isn’t the time or place. ;) ]

    6. Anonymous Educator*

      I don’t think it’s a generational thing. I’m from an older generation, and we did petitions and protests and social action… in school. Frankly, you can do it at work, too (think unions and strikes), but you have to organize properly (not a petition), have some standing at the company (not a group of summer interns), and be willing to put your job on the line (strikes/scabs). If there’s a problem, it’s some people not translating that “School is about me and I can petition stuff for my education” into “Work is about someone else, and that’s why they’re paying me to be there.”

      I had students who didn’t get it. They’d complain to me about writing one paper, and I’d tell them about how many papers I’d have to grade. Their response: “But you get paid to do that!” My response: “But you write the paper for your education. The grading isn’t primarily about me—it’s about you.” Some of them got it… others didn’t.

      1. Former Student*

        Your comment about grading papers is ridiculous. As a not so recent graduate I recall being incredibly overwhelmed by the amount of papers or projects I had to complete. I never complained to a teacher about it, because I understand it’s part of the education process, but it is exactly what you are paid for. I wouldn’t EVER say to a client that i’m doing work for them “for their benefit”. No. You get paid to be a teacher, you aren’t doing it out of the goodness of your heart to educate the world. And students rarely had to write ONE paper, it was usually one per class, and midterms, and projects, which adds up to a lot more work than I imagine your grading papers does.

        1. Anonymous Educator*

          which adds up to a lot more work than I imagine your grading papers does.

          Since I’ve been both a teacher and a student, I can assure you grading papers for students is way more work than writing them for teachers. But you do you.

          1. Pennalynn Lott*

            Sorry, but put me on the side of absolutely zero sympathy to professors who complain about “all the papers they have to grade.” Because, yes, that’s your job, and yes, that’s what you signed up for.

            I had one professor last semester who turned practically every single class into a personal pity party about how overwhelmed she was because she had three classes’ worth of video projects, formal papers, group presentations, and group proposals to grade. . . all of which were 100% under her discretion to assign in the first place. So what did she do? She just gave everyone an A-. Didn’t matter if you worked hard or barely turned anything in. So I basically busted my @ss to do — and do well — three papers, one video, one PowerPoint presentation, one business proposal, and four minor writing assignments FOR ONE CLASS, all to receive the same grade as the person who turned in about a paragraph’s worth of material in total.

            So my “payment”, which would have been in the form of an A+ and some good feedback on the kind of work I was churning out, was nonexistent. Yet she still collected her paycheck.

            1. Fashionista*

              And when you registered for classes, that is what YOU signed up for. Papers, tests, video projects, etc. That is what is required of you as a student, and that is what you signed up for. Not for the grades, BTW. For the education. Which is not a grade.

          2. Cranky Mom*

            Ha, absolutely. I have been a student, I am a teacher, there is absolutely no comparison to writing 3-4 papers a semester at 10-20 pages each and grading 300-500 10 page papers. Not even close. I understand the feeling of overwhelm, I really do. I remember being a young working person and being totally overwhelmed by my schedule, and cleaning my little adorable apartment, and making time for my work out, and having to do dishes, every single day, and all of it. And now I look at my house, and yard, and job, and 3 kids, and second job, and think: “what the heck was I complaining about?” I was overwhelmed, but it is also true that I was doing almost nothing and being overwhelmed by it was ridiculous. Life is funny that way.

        2. Jess*

          You realize teachers have to grade everyone’s papers, right? You have to write one; they have to grade 30. You’re taking five classes and have to write five papers; they’re teaching 3 and have to grade 90. Sure, grading one paper takes less time than writing one, but grading 30 takes hours and hours and HOURS, especially for a conscientious teacher. And that doesn’t include lesson planning and prep, evaluating homework and tests, actually teaching classes, office hours, their own research and writing…

          Teachers are chronically underpaid and underappreciated and most DO go into it out of a desire to educate. You weren’t writing those papers out of the goodness of your heart, either.

        3. AGirlCalledFriday*

          Not to get too off topic, but I don’t think the comment was ridiculous at all. Yes, you had to complete papers and projects. So did Anonymous Educator when she was in school, so did we all. We complete them in order to showcase concepts that we have learned or are learning, and the teacher is grading such work in order to determine how much you have learned. That requires creating a plan using numerous assessments based upon criteria from the school and from state standards, teaching the content to the class, determining your assignment and creating a rubric for it which includes planning out which skills displayed in the paper will be aligned to which grade/point system/etc, making sure each paper or project (perhaps 20-100) is collected and accounted for, reading each paper, critically thinking over each and editing the work – not just grammar and punctuation but also for analyzation, arguments, etc – assigning a defensible grade for each paper , creating a record for the work, and evaluating the results which will in turn lead to more work for the teacher as she plans more lessons and tweaks content. In some cases the teacher is writing a report or doing a presentation based upon the final result. Yeah, the teacher gets paid, but most of what she is doing is during her own free time; not when she is at school, but when she is at home with her family. She is taking time away from her own children and other family, friends, hobbies, whathaveyou, to give you timely feedback in order to show you respect for the work you did – you are showing zero respect for the sacrifice that takes. You have to write a few papers – the work a teacher has to do for those paper is astronomical. In essence, a teacher is doing the work of two or more jobs and getting paid for one.

    7. LBK*

      Yes, it was Millennials who were out protesting the Vietnam War or segregation or supporting LGBT rights or suffrage or the labor movement. How impressive to have pulled that off decades before they were born!

      I mean, come on. Sorry to be so snarky, but this is just a ridiculous position. Social action has been around forever, it isn’t a new idea that the current generation invented.

    8. LawLady*

      “The children now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise” – Socrates

      (There is some indication that Socrates did not actually say this and it’s an urban myth, but it still makes the point. The older generations have thought the younger generations lazy and ungrateful for hundreds of years.

    9. Rachael*

      To everyone decrying my “kids these days” comment:

      I’m generally referring to the encouragement that we give them to “stand up and take action”. There have been plenty of dress code protests at high school level recently to show you that parents are telling their children that it is okay to wear whatever they want on purpose to make a point in order to make the school change their policy. My comment wasn’t broadly about “millenials” or “kids these days”. My point is that we are encouraging them to behave in certain ways. I am a younger parent of young children and I am constanly trying to remind my child that there are rules to follow and sometimes you just follow them. You can’t always question. My comment was more about how we are raising our children – not about how horrible the children are.

      1. Mustache Cat*

        Dress codes at high schools often support a gendered double standard that make teenage girls feel self-conscious about their bodies (not something they need to feel at their age). I’m glad that more high schoolers are challenging those dress codes, honestly. And I doubt that it’s fueled my parents “telling their children that it is okay to wear whatever they want on purpose to make a point”, students can have minds and wills of their own.

        And apart from the subject matter being protested, I don’t see what difference these student protests have from the protests of students gone by. I think this is a product of being a student, not of the current generation or how they are raised.

  36. wet gremlin*

    Sorry OP, but I would question the continued employment of even a long-time employee if they were unprofessional enough to drop a freaking *petition* on my desk, and I’m pretty casual and relaxed in the workplace. As an intern, you’d be pretty easy to let go of at that point; at least my long-time employee is an asset to me, while you’ve indicated that you’re possibly more trouble than you’re worth.

    Consider it a tough lesson in both appropriate workplace behavior and the idea that you should generally be “mouth shut/ears open” when starting out.

  37. Terey*

    Yeah, this is what is called a Real Life Learning Experience. Not everything is going to be negotiable – I guess better to learn that in an internship than get fired from your first real job.

  38. some1*

    “The worst part is that just before the meeting ended, one of the managers told us that the worker who was allowed to disobey the dress code was a former soldier who lost her leg and was therefore given permission to wear whatever kind of shoes she could walk in. You can’t even tell, and if we had known about this we would have factored it into our argument.”

    But nobody owed you this explanation, though, even when you went to your managers and pointed out that she was wearing tennis shoes which are supposed to be against the dress code.

    For one thing, her medical issue isn’t your business. Secondly, managers enforce some reports to follow rules and codes and not others ALL. THE. TIME. My counterpart and I support two different business units in the same location – she gets away with tons of things that I do not. If I drafted a position every time it happened I would never get anything done.

    The best thing I learned at work was how to pick my battles.

    1. Temperance*

      I am more offended that she was going to “factor it in” instead of, you know, abandon the whole thing. Just, WTF.

      1. some1*

        Yeah, that’s a good point, too, but I really, really wanted to reiterate that the LW wasn’t owed any type of explanation as why the coworker was exempt from the dress code.

      2. Rusty Shackelford*

        And how would you “factor it in” anyway? “We know Jane is an amputee, so we understand that’s why she gets to wear non-code shoes. And this applies to use because…” Because what? How are you going to make that work for you?

          1. Rusty Shackelford*

            I hope you’re right, because anything else is kind of mind-boggling, but “factored it into our argument” sounds to me as if they would have used this information somehow, rather than realizing it weakened their case.

          2. Oryx*

            But then what argument do they have left? If I’m reading the letter correctly, they were citing this ONE employee who got to break the dress code as their whole reason for why they should have been allowed to break the dress code.

    2. Allison*

      Right, I would bristle at an intern, or a very new employee in general, going “come on, why do I have to follow the rules when so-and-so doesn’t??”

      1. some1*

        I’m an admin, and I used to work at a huge company where the order in our dept was:

        employee -> supervisor -> manager -> director -> AVP

        I reported directly to the AVP, but many of the employees used to say try to invoke me when their supervisors talked to them about the dress code. 1) I didn’t report to their supervisor 2) my boss was actually more strict about my dress code than the sups were.

    3. Mustache Cat*

      Yeah, I was taken aback when I saw that she considered it “the worst part”. To me, that would be the worst part because I was ashamed of myself, not because I felt that I had been owed a deeply personal and medical explanation beforehand.

  39. K.*

    I cringed reading this. OP, years from now I guarantee you’ll do the same.

    Honestly, I think the firing is warranted. You were there to do a job; instead you decided that wearing sandals was the hill you wanted to die on. How much time did the petition take to put together, and were you doing it during work hours? You don’t get a vote in the company dress code. You don’t really get a vote in what you’re assigned, unless you can’t physically perform the work or they’re asking you to do something illegal.

    (I have to say, it has never occurred to me to question the dress code. Certainly, if a place required me to wear something that I didn’t like (e.g. nude pantyhose; I loathe them and don’t own them) I might try to work around it (wearing pants instead for the pantyhose example) but to actively push back like “I don’t wanna!” would never occur to me to do. You have to wear certain stuff to work because they say so. Even casual offices have some limitations, usually; it just is what it is.)

    You learned this lesson the hard way, but that’s the way lessons stick. Write them a letter of apology but do not ask for your job back. The bridge is burned.

  40. animaniactoo*

    OP – some things to consider for future when you’re pushing for stuff:

    1) How valuable are you to the company? The more valuable you are, the more seriously you’re likely to be taken.
    2) How important is what you’re pushing for?
    3) How well do you think it is likely to be received, based on what info you already have?
    4) How are you framing your proposal or pushback?

    One thing that I think got missed here some is that it sounds like you asked for leeway for the interns on a company-wide dress code. If that’s correct, it’s pretty egregious in that you basically asked for special treatment for the shortest term least important category of workers. Over something that would be nice but you were prepared to deal with until you saw one person getting away with not following it.

    Sometimes we can think things are such a great idea that we lose sight of the big picture. In most environments outside of school, arguing or pushing back on stuff is a kind of capital. No matter how great your argument or point may be you only have so much of it to spend, and you have to be willing to accept a negative outcome. Because while we talk a lot about freedom and individuality and reasonableness, this is another truth about working for someone else: You have sold your time to that company. Whether for cash or learning experience, you’ve sold it. And that means that you no longer own it. They do. And within that time, they get to tell you what to do with it (provided it’s not actually illegal) – including how to dress for it.

    Ultimately, what that means is that you need to look hard at how your argument is likely to be received, and how worth it is to fight for it. Here you had appropriately inquired into possible leeway – and gotten a response from multiple sources that gave you a pretty hard “no” on it. With only one visible exception – when something’s an outlier, you start looking for why it’s an outlier. Whether you’re given the info or not. Spitball the possibilities and figure out what’s most likely. Because those possibilities have to be part of informing your decision on whether this is something that is really worth spending your argument capital on, what the likelihood of success is, etc.

    I’m not saying you should never stand up and push back or argue for stuff. Just that you need to evaluate pretty carefully when it’s a worthwhile risk for you – based on your own value to who you’re pushing back against, how important it is to you, what you’re willing to risk to get it, and how open they seem to be to it.

    2. Anonymous Educator*

      Definitely #1 and #2. It’s funny—the longer I’m in the workforce, the more stupid clichés make sense to me. I’ve learned that “Pick your battles” and “Is that the hill you want to die on?” are great mantras to have at work when lobbying for changes.

    3. J.B.*

      I love this comment! Sometimes you push back because you need to. But there is always a cost.

    4. TootsNYC*

      Add in this to consider:

      “Will this change actually damage the company?”

      There are industries in which a switch to a more casual dress code would destroy some of their credibility in their clients’ eyes.

      If I’m investing money, I don’t want to walk into an office in which the people predominately wear polos and khakis. I do understand that it’s a fallacy to think that wearing suits = financial acumen.
      But the wearing of suits signals a deliberate choice of professional appearance. It says something!

  41. Karyn*

    The only thing I’ve ever petitioned for was, actually, in undergrad, for the removal (or at least retraining) of a professor who was woefully underprepared to teach (e.g., assigning homework that took hours to complete that he never collected, losing an entire batch of term papers, losing another batch of exams, and sending mass emails at 10pm changing assignments due the next day). That petition worked, and was appropriate for the circumstances.

    This one was not.

    As others have stated, the way management probably viewed it was that you spent your time (possibly on the clock) writing a petition for something that a) you had no basis to complain about; b) you didn’t understand the reasons for, and c) you’d already been told was non-negotiable. The good news is that you get to learn from this experience and leave it off your resume – the best possible outcome!

    I concur with the idea of writing an apology letter – mea culpa, etc. And also, I would invest in a couple good suits for the future anyway. You never know when you may need them!

    1. Anxa*

      Now that I think about it, a group of my classmates and I did something similar (although not by petition I don’t think).

      We had an instructor who was woefully unprepared. Who didn’t follow the syllabus even though we had to take a quiz on the ten-page thing. We’d have to tell him what homework we had. Labs were totally disorganized. We started slacking off because there was no point in trying. And it wasn’t just about grades. It was infuriating. I remember almost walking out of class twice because it was so frustratingly disorganized.

      We got tuition reimbursements and the class was canceled. With all of the qualified, un/underemployed science PhDs and Masters out there, I feel no guilt that this guy lost his Saturday morning add-on job.

  42. DCompliance*

    I think you got what you wished for: “…was hoping to gain some experience before I graduate next year.” You got a great learning experience out of this.

    I don’t understand getting so bent out of shape because you have to wear blazer and aren’t allowed to wear running shoes, but at least you had this experience as an intern and not as a young professional.

  43. AW*

    I wonder if the petition had some harsh consequences for the person(s) who chose the interns? That might explain why they were fired as opposed to just read the riot act. Wasn’t there a letter recently from someone who had to fight to get an internship established only for the person they chose to work out so poorly that they won’t be doing it next year?

  44. HRChick*

    The thing is: You were not fired for your proposal. You were fired for your cheek – in the workplace, that’s called insubordination.
    Strike 1: You asked about the coworker for whom the exception was being made. Know that if a company has a strict and enforced rule and you see someone not following it, there’s usually some documentation behind that and it is NONE of your business why that exception is in place. You were rightly told to move on.
    Strike 2: You organized the other interns against company policy. That creates a hostile environment and can really affect workplace moral. If the workplace culture doesn’t suit you, you can suck it up and ride it out or you can quit.
    Strike 3: The petition. This is not government. You were told no. You are an intern. As far as influence, interns really have negative value. You are there to work for the business, not change the way it functions.

    I hope things move forward for you and you are able to learn from this mistake and move on!

    2. Roscoe*

      I don’t necessarily think organizing interns against company policy in istelf is bad. There are plenty of bad policies that don’t get changed until people speak up as a group. I’m in no way saying this was one of them, but I hate the idea that organizing against a perceived wrong is a mortal sin

      1. HRChick*

        Yeah, maybe it’s better say “Organizing interns against company policy that wasn’t destructive or abusive” rather than organized at all.

        1. AnotherAlison*

          What could the interns possibly observe in 2-3 months that should be organized against by them?

          They wouldn’t have the information around most policies and practices after a few months. Sure, if something is flat out illegal, report it, but that’s not the type of thing to sit around and organize a movement around.

    3. Observer*

      Actually, the organizing thing is a protected right in the US. The problem with it here is not organizing per se, but the reason and context. ie They chose to organize over an annoying and inconsequential thing that they did not like, with no information or context.

  45. Allison*

    Interns are often held to higher standards than full-time employees, at least when it comes to thinks like adhering to the dress code or working hours; full time employees are given flexibility because they’ve developed good habits and have proven themselves to be trustworthy. Interns, on the other hand, are new to the working world, and the common thought process is that they need a little more structure to help them grow into professional, career-ready adults. Having you adhere to the dress code, even though it didn’t seem necessary all the time, was supposed to help you get used to dressing professionally every day.

    Keep in mind that professional clothing isn’t just about image. That’s a big part of it, sure, but wearing “work clothes” can help people get into the right mindset to work. And by dressing professionally, it shows that you take your work seriously – that you’re there to work, not just put in your 8 hours before you can go hang out with your friends.

    Depending on your industry, you may be able to take dress code strictness into account when looking for jobs someday. If you can’t adhere to a strict dress code, you can look for offices that have a more relaxed dress code, or at least have relaxed standards for employees that aren’t generally seen by the general public. This could have been a good opportunity to find out if the dress code they had you adhere to is standard or overly strict for your industry.

    I agree with the others that you were out of line in petitioning to change things. Not only are lower-level employees expected to follow the rules without putting up a fight, but interns are only there for a little while. Like AAM said, you were a guest at that company! Employers need interns who can come in (on time) with a positive attitude, eager to work and to learn, and willing to follow the rules, and NOT rock the boat on established practices.

    1. Megs*

      WRT the higher standard dress code, I was waiting for my husband in the lobby of his law firm a couple of weeks ago when a group of young people came out, all wearing black suits, all but one of the women wearing skirts and heels. Summer associates ahoy! And of course, then one of the partners comes out in a pink and yellow sundress. That’s how it works, folks. I remember being one of four externs during law school and feeling like a flock of crows whenever we went out as a group.

  46. Isabel*

    I confess that I find this post singularly infuriating in a cliched “young people today!” way. So millennials, I apologize. I’ve worked with incredible interns with work ethic to spare. And I’ve worked with interns whose level of pouty entitlement blew my mind.

    I would love to know if the OP talked to parents or other family/guardians about what happened. I’m examining my own assumptions here.

    1. Kelly L.*

      I’m wondering why this is pressing so many kids these days buttons for people! :) Especially since I distinctly remember doing or at least plotting things like this myself.

      1. CMT*

        Right! It’s not a “millenials” thing, it’s a young people thing! Everybody was young once, I’m certain of that!

      2. some1*

        And I’ve worked with people in their 40’s and 50’s and working in offices for YEARS who think dress codes are the hill to die on.

      3. Roscoe*

        Yep. I remember at a high school job being super close to petitioning or walking out over someone who got fired

    2. Allison*

      I’ll admit that, as a millenial, I was totally ready to fight the bathing suit policy at the arts camp I went to as a teen. They had a rule against bikinis that I thought was super unfair, but once I got there I realized that most people only used the pool once or twice, if that, so it wasn’t a huge issue. And in hindsight, it was ridiculous how gung-ho I was to start some sort of bathing suit revolution at a camp I hadn’t even been to yet!

      I was . . . 15? 16?

      By the time I hit my early 20’s, I was still critical of rules and dress codes that seemed unnecessary, but I’d learned when to start a fight and when to go with the flow.

      1. Fade*

        My high school had a rather strict dress code, and there were petitions circulated by the students to have it modified about every two to three years. And I’m not a millennial. This had been going on before I got to that high school, to the point that teachers who’d been there for twenty years would nod sympathetically, and tell us to go ahead and do up the petition, probably wasn’t going to change this time either, any more than it had back when they first arrived, but at least the administration would know we cared and were trying to go through polite channels of protest.

        It’s not ‘millennials’, it’s just the age group. Young people agitate. It’s part of being young! And I’ll take petitions about dress code over “Here’s where the Athenians started a stupid, destructive war because all of the young men didn’t remember the last one and thought it’d be fun” any day.

      2. Marisol*

        But you were paying for that camp, right? Or were you working there as a counselor or something? If you paid for it, I’d say you had a right to “fight” to wear that bikini. If you were working there, then no.

        1. EJ*

          I’ve paid for dance classes and summer dance programs…. you adhere to the dress code, or you get kicked out of class for the day! You sign contracts agreeing to certain things when signing up and it’s one of those things where if you can’t follow/respect the rules, don’t sign up!

      3. Anonymous Educator*

        I don’t think it’s that ridiculous. I’ve worked in schools a long time, and I’ve never understood some of my colleagues’ (at various schools) obsession with enforcing the dress code, especially in a way that seems sexist and overly sexualizing of teenage girls.

        1. Allison*

          Oh absolutely, my middle school had a fairly strict dress code and some of the older female teachers seemed obsessed with making sure no girl ever showed skin between her jeans and her shirt. Even if you were sitting down or getting something out of your locker, the tiniest bit of midriff would get you a talking to about covering yourself up. I could see not wanting girls wearing cropped tops or other shirts that were cut to intentionally show belly, but they took it too far.

      4. Isabel*

        I think petitioning as a student or camper is different. In those cases (whether you or your parents are paying tuition or not), you are the population the organization serves. Interns are not a population that companies are set up to serve.

        1. Allison*

          That’s a good point, and I do applaud high school students that fight unreasonable dress codes. But the difference between a high school code and camp rule is that you’re in high school 180 days a year, at camp you maybe wore a bathing suit a few times a week, for an hour or so. Also, my point was that I shouldn’t have been planning a fight when I was still just packing for a camp I’d never been to! When I got there the rule wasn’t a big deal, no one cared and no one had the time or energy to get involved in activism anyway. The camp had other silly, conservative rules, like if two campers were dating they weren’t even allowed to hug or hold hands – that one may have been worth fighting. Maybe.

    3. Laura*

      I’m a millennial and I was cringing at OP… It’s a compounding of factors that result in an individual, not generational…

      Respect for authority is important and definitely a factor that was lacking here.

      Also guess what, you can break shoes in! They get more comfortable.

  47. MindoverMoneyChick*

    Hi OP- something that jumped out at me – you said that if you had known the person who had an exception of footwear was dealing with an injury you would have factored that into your argument. But really the thing here is not that you should have factored that in, but that this is a great thing to have witnessed so early in your career. The thing being the fact that you don’t know what’s going on between your manager and your other colleagues. It’s so un-intutive to many of us that learning it early will put you way ahead of the curve.

    This will happen over and over again in your career – something will look unfair, someone will look like they are getting away with something. Remember this and always assume there might be something you don’t know about the situation before approaching your manager. The doesn’t necessarily mean don’t approach , but it does mean approach with that caveat in mind and maybe even saying “thee could well be a reason for this situation that I don’t know about.”

    I know -great learning experiences are rarely fun, but someday you will look back on this and see it as useful. I know I sound really old saying that :)

    1. some1*

      This is what I was trying to say upthread but you put it better than me.

      My mom passed away suddenly last winter. I took the week off and didn’t bother to update my email or voice mail at work because it was the last thing on mind, tbh. You have no idea how many angry messages I came back to from clients thinking I was ignoring them . . .

      1. Temperance*

        I went on an unplanned, emergency medical leave in February and returned in March. I got reamed out on the day that I came back because someone wasn’t able to attend an information session the next day, because I didn’t register him when I was unconscious in the ICU. He was made to apologize and reamed out by his boss and mine.

        2. alexalapitica*

          The opposite of this has happened to me – I was an intern for an organization in college and I got severe food poisoning, to the point of needing medical care, during the organization’s yearly fundraiser that I was working. I obviously had to leave, yet the founder/CEO reamed me out and gave me extra tasks once I was well, despite witnesses telling her how sick I was. Even when people know the reason, sometimes they’re just myopic assholes.

    2. Anonymous Educator*

      Honestly, this is true for school, too, and life in general—not just the workplace.

    3. some1*

      Also another point: the manager who mentioned in the firing meeting that the soldier had an exemption to the dress code may have actually been the only one who KNEW the reasons why. The other supervisors probably assumed there was a good reason for the exception but never bothered to ask.

    4. Student*

      I must say I have a ton of empathy for the employee who has a legitimate exemption to the shoes dress code. I am sure she probably got flack from her colleagues because her exemption initiated a summer intern revolt. If it was me, I’d be mortified by all the attention paid to my shoes and my disability, and deeply saddened by a group of people banding together to call the exemption “unfair” and petition management over it.

      1. fposte*

        I think that’s a YMMV. I’d just roll my eyes if I were her, and I’d be surprised if anybody gave her serious flak, because it’s not worth it.

        1. Turtle Candle*

          Yeah, at my workplace the chances of her getting flack would be slim to none. It’s more likely people would have been defensive on her behalf (which can be awkward in its own way, but is very different than ‘you are the reason our interns revolted’).

      2. Observer*

        I agree that I doubt that the employee got flack. But, it’s still an uncomfortable situation, and I fee bad about it.

      3. The Strand*

        There’s a chance that as a veteran, it reinforced some beliefs she may have had about civilian students, and how entitled and myopic they are. And I say that as someone who has heard these sentiments from many veterans who are 10-20 years my junior, who have come back from war. I would bet that her feelings would be angry, rather than mortifying.

    5. anony-mouse*

      This is what we used to teach the 4 year olds when I taught preschool. Yes, Henry gets a different snack, but that’s because Henry is allergic to peanuts. Or yes, Alicia is allowed to play with a toy during circle time, because it helps her regulate her actions. You don’t have a peanut allergy or ADHD, so you don’t get these things. Equality vs. equity.

  48. Former Retail Manager*

    I can only assume that the internship was this summer, and not a prior summer, so more than likely, best case scenario, this person and their peers have been employed for less than 45 days, and this is what they are using their time at this employer to do? Alison’s advice is great and I hope the OP takes it as a learning opportunity that there are MANY, MANY, MANY things that you will not like at future jobs and reacting the way you did was not the appropriate reaction. At future interviews for actual jobs, dress code may be something you want to inquire about after you are at a certain point in the process if this is really a sticking point for you, but once you take the position, you have to play by their rules. Best of luck in future endeavors and try to focus less on these little things at future internships and more on the skills that you can learn in your short time there, although I do believe this was probably a great learning experience for all interns involved.

  49. MindoverMoneyChick*

    Actually the whole exception thing just reminded me of a situation I had to deal with repeatedly at my old job. One of our most creative and productive workers, just would not adhere to our very lax dress code. Specifically she would wear tank tops with narrow straps so her bra straps showed. She was in her 40s, not someone new to workplace norms.

    She was pulled aside and counseled multiple times for this in no uncertain terms. And still she continued. Not every day but often enough. Eventually we just gave up; we weren’t going to put her on a PIP over it, we certainly weren’t going to fire her over it. But that was only because she really was that good and we decided it was eating up more management time than it was worth trying to get her to comply without success. But we would have been much harder on a less otherwise stellar employee.

    So you just never know what the reason for exceptions are.

    1. Anonymous Educator*

      I’m assuming, too, she wasn’t just a stellar employee in other ways but that she’d been there a little while and wasn’t just a summer intern…

      1. MindoverMoneyChick*

        Exactly – I don’t remember her even doing anything like that in the first year or too (but I wasn’t a manager then). I really think she just knew her worth to the company and decided she wanted to spend some of her considerable capital on showing her bra straps. Would not have been how I expended mine, but hey I used mine to come in late a lot. I stayed late to make up for it but we were supposed to work core hours. I just hate mornings.

        And now that I think about it at least one employee told me he watched how often I came in late – who knows how many other people were bothered I didn’t follow core hours. I actually had been specifically told by my boss I didn’t have to (this was after I was already doing it) which I’m sure most people did not know. She probably didn’t think it was a hill worth dying on with me.

        1. Anonymous Educator*

          Honestly, I’m that person, too, in a different way. I’m supposed to wear dress shoes (I’m not a summer intern), but I wear sneakers. No one has ever called me out on it (including my boss), and I’m assuming it’s because I do stellar work.

  50. AW*

    There was an image circling the Internet a while back:

    There are people: One tall adult, a teen, and a child. They are trying to see over a fence. In the left half of the picture all three are standing on a box of equal size. The adult and teen can see over the fence but the child cannot. In the right half of picture the adult does not have a box, the teen is standing on one, and the child is standing on two. All three of them can see over the fence.

    The left hand side of the picture has the caption “Equality” and the right hand side of the picture has the caption “Justice”.

    We conflate sameness with fairness and they aren’t always the same thing.

  51. sparklealways*

    First of all, I think the way OP handled this was way out of line, but there are a few things that jump out at me that I think aren’t being addressed….

    The OP says that a part of the request was “that we not have to wear suits and/or blazers in favor of a more casual, but still professional dress code.” Are they actually being expected to wear suits every day? In this case, it is not reasonable to expect interns (paid or not) to purchase multiple suits to wear to the office every day. Most people, even those out of school for decades, only own one or two and ONLY use them a couple of times, mainly for job interviews. This would be a very costly expense that someone would have to take on for just a summer internship.

    The second thing that jumps out at me was their request for running shoes. Is this a job where they are on their feet all day? Were the shoes they were being expected to wear hurting their feet and causing them physical problems? In that case, maybe that request was reasonable.

    Again – The way the OP handled it was not appropriate, but I do question if the employer’s dress code was unreasonable for the circumstances.

    1. FD*

      Dunno that I agree with that. I had to wear business professional for a couple of years for a job. My whole business wardrobe was maybe $60-$100. Everything came from Savers or Goodwill (and I was always getting compliments on looking sharp). Home dry cleaning kits were the most expensive part, that ran about $15/month. Compared to the other costs of living during an unpaid internship, it probably wouldn’t be the largest part.

      I do think that unpaid internships are a big problem, but more for the expectation that people must be able to live at home, or fund costs of living for several months out of pocket than for the costs of the wardrobe.

    2. Leatherwings*

      My significant other moved to DC, did an unpaid internship full time and had to wear a full suit every single day. It really was a financial burden, neither of us had any money (and we weren’t lucky enough to get financial support from parents), but that’s just what was required. He accepted the job knowing that. We sucked it up and ate rice for a few months knowing that. Signing a petition isn’t the right way to go about changing that requirement even though I completely agree that it’s a burden for interns.

      I suppose there’s a possibility they had a job that required running shoes, but the way LW explained it made it sound more like they wanted to wear running shoes because one of their coworkers did sometimes and that wasn’t fair.

    3. Not the Droid You are Looking For*

      Most people, even those out of school for decades, only own one or two and ONLY use them a couple of times, mainly for job interviews.

      This is field specific. The men I work with wear suits every day and the women wear suits or suiting separates. Likely, the internship is in a field where not only is this standard, the expectations are clear. Within my first year in my field, I was up to ten suits and knew how to creatively mix pieces to rotate them through.

      The second thing that jumps out at me was their request for running shoes. Is this a job where they are on their feet all day? Were the shoes they were being expected to wear hurting their feet and causing them physical problems? In that case, maybe that request was reasonable.

      Again, field specific. Up until a few years ago, my employee handbook stipulated heels for women (though many of us wore flats without question). If/When you see someone wearing a more casual shoe, it’s a medical exemption.

      1. sparklealways*

        I agree that it is field-specific, which is why I said most (and most of those specific fields are paying their employees enough that they can afford dozens of suits).

        The OP also said that they don’t have any interaction with clients or customers, so given that situation, I am questioning the reasonableness of the company’s dress code.

        2. Megs*

          My first summer in law school I had an externship where I had to wear a suit four days a week. I paid $3500 to the school for the pleasure of that experience and took out an extra loan to buy a new wardrobe. That blew biscuits.

          1. TootsNYC*

            I had an internship in a publishing office back in the 1980s, well before “business casual.”

            I took out a loan to cover airfare, housing, AND wardrobe. I considered the wardrobe to be my tool for the job, much like book to go to college. My banker did too.

            The thing is, our OP didn’t say, “and some of us were finding it a hardship to have enough suits.”

            An intern could wear the same suit every day, as long as it didn’t smell.

        3. Not the Droid You are Looking For*

          I definitely started in a low-paying but suit-expecting field. As other people pointed out, there are inexpensive ways to procure professional clothing.

          Just because an intern is not sitting at the table with a client, doesn’t mean that they won’t be seen by a client.

          Maybe it’s because I have always worked in places that have a professional dress code, they have never seemed unreasonable to me, or it’s because I spend a lot of time thinking about brand and brand identity. Studies have shown that people make judgements in milliseconds, and if a company wants to present a professional, polished image…that seems pretty reasonable to me.

        4. TuxedoCat*

          This may sound silly, but it wasn’t clear if clients or customers enter the office where the interns are visible. The letter just states that they weren’t interacting with clients or customers. The office could want their employees to all look a certain way, even if customers just get a quick glance.

        5. JenVan*

          It could be that interns (and employees) in the past have dressed so poorly, now it’s just an across the board rule. Kinda like “one bad apple ruins it for the bunch” type deal. I know I’ve worked in very large and very small firms and it amazes me what people think is professional attire. I work in a very casual office right now, and one of the employees dresses some days like she could leave work and go straight to the beach without changing.

          I laugh at a sign on my city-issued recycle bin that says, among other items, “Do not put dead animals in recycle bin”. You know why they likely put that notice on there? Because on at least one occasion, or more likely several occasions, some genius put a dead animal in the recycle bin.

          Whenever an edict doesn’t make any sense to me, I think of the dead animal/recycle bin deal. Somewhere along the line, someone made that rule necessary.

    4. Rusty Shackelford*

      It’s entirely possible that the dress code was unreasonable. But the letter doesn’t address that. The letter says nothing about the dress code affecting their ability to do their job, or causing them financial stress. It basically says “Jane gets to wear canvas shoes and so we should get to do that too.” If the petition was done the same way (and we have no reason to believe otherwise), it doesn’t sound like the petitioners made the point that they wanted to improve their performance. It sounds like it was just kind of whiny.

      1. Anonymous Educator*

        Yeah, I fully understand the impulse to give the OP the benefit of the doubt (and that impulse is one of the things I love about the AaM site), but if money was the primary concern of the OP and her or his fellow interns, it would make sense for that to be mentioned in the letter.

        1. sparklealways*

          Actually, my impulse was that the OP and other interns were way in the wrong… which they were, when it came to their approach. However, the more I thought about it and re-read the letter, the more I questioned whether the company’s expectation was reasonable.

          1. Temperance*

            I have an insubordinate and jerky intern. My gut feeling here is that it was the last straw.

              1. Temperance*

                I’m thinking that it’s inherently insubordinate. The interns had approached their managers in the past to request permission to wear casual footwear and were denied, so they organized and wrote a petition. From where I’m sitting, the petition itself could have been perfectly written with citations etc., and I’d still be pissed.

                1. some1*

                  I’d be pissed, too, I was more wondering if we are getting the most accurate picture re: how the petition was presented if they were pissed off enough to fire everybody involved.

    5. AnotherAlison*

      Running shoes? It’s 2016. There are numerous options between leather pumps and running shoes that they could have bought for comfort and still complied with the existing dress code. I know, because of my aging feet, I only wear comfy leather flats.

      I’m also wondering if someone had just pushed the boundaries a little, if they wouldn’t have been fine. Maybe you have some cute dressy navy canvas flats you wanted to wear in the summer. Try it once & never again if you get reprimanded, but maybe you’re not going to get busted on it anyway. I would let interns slide with a little leeway. Maybe their management would have, but I understand they’re young & don’t have a full professional wardrobe. I worked at a call center in college, but I tried to pass off my black jeans with white piping (nineties), khaki jeans, and engineer boots and doc martens as business casual. My managers never said anything. It wasn’t as professional as the OP’s office, but you know, they paid $8/hr, they got it that we weren’t spending entire paychecks on new wardrobes.

      1. Not the Droid You are Looking For*

        I only wear comfy leather flats.

        I invested in a pair of Tieks and they are my favorite pair of shoes! I also get so many compliments on them at work.

        1. Jb*

          Would Tieks be comfortable for someone with foot issues? I’ve been wanting a pair, but they seem like they don’t have much in the way of arch support.

        2. EmilyG*

          Sneaking in a question deep in the comments, then… how do they hold up? I’m looking for something lightweight to wear to/from work and sometimes around, but I pretty easily do 10-12k steps on a nice days (that’s over 5 miles, I think) and I have a tendency to wear shoes down to nothing fast. IIRC Tieks are kind of expensive so I’d be wary of disappointment because usually shoe repair people can’t do much with rubber athletic-type soles.

    6. Amtelope*

      It is an expense, but if you’re working for a company that requires professional dress, that’s part of the cost of taking that internship. I’d recommend advocating for paid internships before I’d recommend asking a company with that kind of dress code to allow business casual dress if the standard is suits for everyone, or to allow running shoes if the standard is dress shoes. That’s just not realistic for a company that’s invested in presenting a traditional professional image to clients.

      And if you want to work in a field that requires professional dress, but most dress shoes hurt your feet, barring significant medical problems that might need to be accommodated as disabilities, you will need to find some kind of leather dress shoes that you can tolerate for the length of an active work day. (And keep emergency comfortable shoes in your purse/bag/car, in case your feet are killing you by the time you leave work.) This is a pain in the ass, but is also part of the deal.

      1. sparklealways*

        But they aren’t working with clients. The OP specifically says that they are not client-facing. I am a fan of paid internships (I was lucky that all three of mine almost a decade ago were paid), but even at $12 an hour (maybe $20 if you are in Engineering), it would be unreasonable to expect all of the interns to go buy multiple new suits.

        1. Christopher Tracy*

          They don’t need multiple new suits. They could wear the same suit (or two) with different shirts/shells underneath. I was dirt poor growing up and in college, and I managed to do this because it was required for the co-op. And if I couldn’t somehow swing it, I could have spoken to the manager about my financial situation and gotten an accommodation since I worked for reasonable people. Seeing as though OP’s internship company allowed an accommodation for a medical issue, I have a hard time believing they wouldn’t have worked something out with the interns if money for clothes was a concern. And even if I’m wrong, the time to have addressed this was before taking the internship, not while they were in it and supposed to be focused on working.

          1. Temperance*

            I sometimes think that growing up without makes a person more resourceful. As an adult, I can now clothe myself and dress decently well at minimal cost due to years of not having enough to survive on. Although I have to say, not having to handwash socks in the bathtub because I couldn’t afford enough pairs to get through a week is nice …

            1. Christopher Tracy*

              Or being able to have socks, lol. I’m still not quite used to the fact that if I have holes in mine I can *gasp* go buy more. I don’t have to walk around in holey socks! (I still do sometimes because I’m lazy and don’t want to go to the store.)

                1. Christopher Tracy*

                  Lol! If I knew how to sew, trust me, I would (my mother dies a little inside that I never quite picked that up).

                2. the gold digger*

                  I finally told Primo, after I had darned his favorite socks three times, that it was time for him to throw them away – that I was not doing that any more.

        2. Jb*

          I have been able to find some really great suiting separates at thrift stores. It just takes a little extra effort and a decent eye.
          I do understand that it cant get very expensive if you are going with brand new suits, but sometimes you have to get creative.

    7. CC*

      I kind of wonder if this was a finance industry job, because the dress code and strong reaction seem to line up with that.

  52. Kyrielle*

    OP, I think this has mostly been said very well above, but I also wanted to note that you said: “We weren’t even given a chance to discuss it.”

    You’d already discussed it, each of you, with your multiple managers. You’d written it out in the form of a petition (which is, as others noted, really not done).

    Management had no intention of changing it, was not open to changing it, and wasn’t willing to discuss it. Your refusal to stop discussing it is, in fact, probably at the heart of your being fired.

  53. FD*

    I feel for you here, LW. I wonder if this is what’s going on. You may have read other AAM articles where she instructs people to push back on unreasonable items as a group, and you’ve probably heard other advice recommending people advocate for themselves. You probably feel frustrated because you tried to do that in a professional way, and it backfired.

    Here’s the thing. Organizations have a lot of inertia, as a rule. Unless you’re hired specifically to be a change-maker (think a new CEO brought in to try and save a failing company), you have to have some kind of leverage to try and induce change in a whole organization. Now, you can build that kind of leverage, but it takes time. Usually, you have to build leverage by having a year plus of highly exemplary service, forging connections with other major players in the company, and so on. You also need to be in a position where it makes sense–an entry level teapot coordinator might be able to suggest changes in how other teapot coordinators are trained after a year of really amazing job performance, but no one will take you seriously if you suggest changes in the accounting department.

    As interns, you’re very new, so you don’t have very much natural leverage. Now that, by itself, doesn’t mean you couldn’t have suggested change, but to do it, you’d have needed a lot of secondary leverage, such as backing from multiple highly-placed managers.

    For comparison, when Alison suggest people push back on things such as required gift collections, or a ‘jamboree’ on election day, there are two underlying assumptions. One is that these are reasonably experienced LWs who have been at the company for a while, and likely built some leverage. And second is that these are things within their sphere of influence.

    The other issue, unfortunately, is that you did try the professional method first. Bringing it up with your manager and sounding her out was the right way of handling it. It wasn’t inherently unreasonable to ask if there could be any flexibility to the dress code (although comparing it to other people who don’t have to follow it isn’t a good idea). The problem is that you followed it up after a hard ‘no’ from multiple managers with pushing the issue in a method that doesn’t really belong in he workforce.

    You made a mistake, and it’s understandable you feel angry and frustrated and that you’ve been treated badly. I wouldn’t be surprised if part of that is to cover embarrassment. I think a lot of us have been there–I know I pulled some amazingly stupid stuff when I was an intern. The good part of this is that this was an internship, and while that sucks, it’s way better than it being your first real job. Write the letter Alison suggests and move on.

  54. Nonnie*

    To play devil’s advocate though – why DOES the dress code specifically require leather shoes? That seems like a degree of micromanaging that I’d be uncomfortable with (and I’m much older/more experienced than intern age). I agree that the way they went about this was wrong, but if my workplace required and enforced that I specifically wear leather shoes, I would be making some noise about that.

    1. Not the Droid You are Looking For*

      AAM mentions it above, but they likely use it to mean formal shoes.

      I have a rather strict dress code at work and often get complimented on my “vegan” leather heels.

    2. Leatherwings*

      Why play devil’s advocate though? I’m not being snarky – what good does that question do for OP, who clearly didn’t handle this in accordance with professional norms? I think that this kind of thinking (make some noise) is exactly what got OP in trouble in the first place.

    3. K.*

      As mentioned above, I assume “leather” is code for “formal footwear.” My friend is vegan and doesn’t wear leather, but she has lots of pleather shoes that would be fine in an office (she’s a teacher so the dress code is a bit more relaxed). She wouldn’t mention that they’re not real leather and, given that they’re professionally appropriate shoes, I doubt anyone would ask.

      2. AnotherAlison*

        I’m just about 100% certain that it wouldn’t apply to the OP’s situation, but there are times when synthetics aren’t allowed. (chem manufacturing, oil and gas, safety boot type scenarios).

  55. Elle*

    I don’t know too much about the NRLA, but is there a possibility this would have been protected activity? I’m not sure whether a dress code would fall under “working conditions,” or whether interns would even be included. Anyone have more experience with this?

  56. CMT*

    I’m definitely not as new as this intern, but I’ve only been out of school for a handful of years. Reading things like this makes me terrified I’m breaking some unwritten rule that I have no idea about. I’m probably not. I think I’m pretty good at understanding workplace norms. And I read AAM! But there could still be unknown unknowns!

    2. 39281*

      If you’re worrying about breaking unknown unknowns, you’re probably aware enough to not be breaking them :)

    3. Temperance*

      Not that this will make you feel better, but my boss, who has been an attorney for almost 20 years will still admit to me that she doesn’t know everything. For example, we were meeting with a client who is an observant Jew, and neither of us knew whether it would be rude to offer a handshake. So there will always be things that happen that are baffling.

  57. Joseph*

    “I spoke with my manager about being allowed some leeway under the dress code and was told this was not possible, despite the other person being allowed to do it. I soon found out that many of the other interns felt the same way, and the ones who asked their managers about it were told the same thing as me. ”

    This is where it should have stopped. Unfortunately, in an office environment, it isn’t a democracy or petition. Here’s the thing: Whenever a manager says no to something, there’s usually a good reason. They may or may not have the time or inclination to explain it immediately, but there’s a reason. This goes double when other interns with different managers all hear the same answer – it’s not like other interns were allowed and you weren’t.

    Firing everybody may have been over the top, but I’ll bet the fact you initially heard no, but then organized a petition is a huge factor in the decision. It’s a direct challenge to the chain of command and (depending on who received copies) might even be insubordinate as it looks like you’re trying to go over your boss’s head.

    It’s a rough lesson and I hope you learn from it. On the plus side, as an internship, it’s not nearly the black mark on your resume that you’d get later in your career.

  58. Abax*

    What jumped out most at me was “The proposal was written professionally like examples I have learned about in school, and our arguments were thought out and well-reasoned.” I’m wondering if these interns spent a lot of company time working on this proposal, instead of the work they’d been assigned to do.

    2. HRChick*

      That’s an interesting point as well – if this was done on company time with company supplies, that’s even worse.

      Another thing I thought when I read that line was “If you proposal at all mentioned the exceptions made for one employee, it was not professional, not thought out and not well-reasoned.” In fact, it was very unprofessional.

      OP, in the future, when writing a proposal of ANY kind, (1) if you were told “no” already, drop it unless it’s abusive or illegal policy, (2) do NOT make it a petition, and (3) limit yourself to sound business reasons and avoid any finger pointing. Management wants to hear about how these changes would save money and increase productivity, not about how their rules are unfair.

      2. Petronella*

        Oh, you know they gossiped about it during work time, composed the petition and collected signatures during work time, and used work paper and printers for it.

      3. Meg Murry*

        Yes to #2 especially

        I think a big part of what got my hackles up was when I saw OP using the word “petition” – because in my experience, a petition is very often written as a list on non-negotiable demands, not a polite request. For instance, there is a small liberal arts school in my area that has made the news more than once for petitions that students have circulated electronically and signed – and while the original intent of the petition is in a spirit I agree with, the actual demands of the petition (including demanding the firing of specific employees, granting tenure to others, and a lot of other very expensive demands), the tone of the demands (all using the words “WE DEMAND” in all caps) and the number (there were more than 50) made it very over the top.

        If OP’s petition was presented as a list of demands (that by it’s nature implies a ‘take it or leave it’ attitude) after they had already all been told no by their managers, I completely understand why the company chose the ‘leave it’ attitude and told the interns to go.

    3. ToxicNudibranch*

      This is actually what would bother me most. You’re at work to work, and, in the case of internships, to learn about work.

      A close second is their decision to invoke “but so-and-so gets to” as a major point of their argument. That’s just churlish and inappropriate.

      1. OlympiasEpiriot*

        +10 for ‘churlish’. I was trying to think of appropriate words below. This one definitely is a feeling in that letter.

  59. Anonymous Educator*

    It’s funny—I’m fairly deferential at work and always have been (I’ll speak my mind when it’s appropriate and, I think, practical to get what’s accomplished, but I generally have an approach of “If the boss says X, we do X”). One time I was chatting with a former boss and talked about what a cheeky backtalker and troublemaker I was in school, and she couldn’t believe it.

    She asked me what the difference was, and I told her the honest truth—in school, everything is about you… if you fail, you feel the primary effects of the failure… at work, you are secondary, and your failure directly affects the company/school/org.

    Your primary purpose in being at work for you is getting a paycheck (fulfillment is secondary) and your primary purpose in being at work for the company/school/org is to have the company/school/org success (your personal fulfillment again is secondary).

  60. Marisol*

    Well, an internship is meant to give you experience, and the OP got a very valuable experience. It wasn’t *work* experience so much as *life* experience–but obviously the latter informs the former. This was a hard knock that the OP will come to appreciate. The earlier you learn life’s lessons, and rules, the easier life is for you!

    I have a friend who was so coddled by her family that she was still getting help paying her rent while in her forties. Now she’s in her fifties, her mother has passed away so there is no one to lean on financially, and she struggles with the basic life skills that most of us master in our twenties, if not earlier. I pity her, rather than envy her, for the ease she experienced early in life. Seriously, it’s better to get the hard knocks out of the way while young.

  61. Argh!*

    At least you can say you learned something.

    As for the people with special permission to wear different shoes for what might be a medical reason, I bet they’re glad to see you go.

    1. Smitty*

      Yes – this was mostly likely a group decision by upper management and long-term employees who said, “best get rid of them now.”

  62. Bend & Snap*

    Oh dear.

    So the quickest way to annoy an employer is to work there for a hot second and then start relentlessly complaining about the working conditions.

    Especially for an internship–to AAM’s point, internships are a heavy lift for managers, and going to the mat for something like the dress code just makes it that much harder.

    I really can’t blame the managers in this case, and OP, hope next time you’ll learn the job, keep your head down and really dig into your role.

  63. Employment Lawyer*

    “And beyond standing, you don’t have enough knowledge as interns to push back so aggressively — knowledge of their context, their clients, and their culture.”

    This. Google “Chesterton’s Fence.”

    2. Argh!*

      I never heard of that before! Excellent! From wikipedia:

      “History is full of examples of negative outcomes that resulted from the failure to understand this admonition”

      …literally! Like, people who drive around railway gates & “Road Closed Due to High Water” signs.

      1. fposte*

        I don’t think that would be Chesterton’s Fence, though. I think it would be the person saying that the railway gates and high water signs need to be taken down, because usually there’s no train or high water.

        1. Turtle Candle*

          We had a literal fence issue in my rural hometown, actually. A big swinging gate and one of those grate things (you know the kind, that goes over the road and that humans can walk over but hooved animals can’t) that was considered an eyesore and that appeared useless (and was left wide open) ten months out of the year. Every year, people who had newly moved to town wanted to get it removed because it was ugly and bumpy to drive over. “You say it’s for livestock but I’ve never seen livestock in there! Do we really need this eyesore just for one and a half months of the year?”

          It wasn’t until they’d been there for a spring (when the otherwise-empty field was used by the local university’s ag school sheep farm for lambing) that they understood that yeah, actually, even though you only have to keep lambs from wandering out onto the main thoroughfare for one month out of every year, for that one month it’s important.

  64. LizB*

    OP, you saw one permanent worker wearing shoes that didn’t fit with the dress code, and decided on that basis to ask that the company-wide dress code essentially be changed to from business formal to business casual? I really don’t understand the logic there. Just because something is Not Fair (or appears on the surface to be Not Fair) doesn’t mean it’s worth pushing back on. There are many things in the work world that are unfair and should be addressed — pay gaps, discrimination, worker exploitation, even some dress-code related things — but one person being exempted from part of the dress code for reasons unknown to you is not the hill to die on. Making such a big deal out of such a tiny and common thing feels, frankly, petty and juvenile. “But SHE gets to do it!” is something I expect to hear from the 8-year-olds I work with, not from grown adults in my workplace. And then to expand it from the shoes all the way to not having to wear suits is baffling. Yes, it would be more affordable, comfortable and convenient for most people if all workplaces were business casual or had relaxed dress codes… but some companies and industries have a particular dress code, and that’s just the way they work. If you want a workplace where you don’t have to wear suits, you need to seek out a workplace that already allows that, not demand that whichever one you pick change its policies to suit your preferences.

    All that said, I probably wouldn’t have fired you over this, but I would want to be sure you really, really understood why this wasn’t appropriate, and any further problems would have been the last straw. I think you should count yourself lucky this happened during an internship and not a “real” job, because you can take the experience and learn from it without it having much of a long-term impact on your career.

    1. Seianus*

      > Just because something is Not Fair (or appears on the surface to be Not Fair)

      More often than not it’s latter rather than former. One of the very important things that comes with being grown up is realizing how much you don’t know and how eager is the brain to fill these gaps in knowledge with assumptions, often without you even consciously noticing it. There could be a bazillion of legit, fair reasons why that one employee was allowed to wear different shoes and none of them should concern a clueless intern. Learning what is your business and what is not is also very important in life.

  65. Hotsaucenmybag*

    Internships can be really great learning experiences and it looks as though you and a host of others gained a pretty significant one, albeit not one in which you were anticipating. Truthfully, a big portion of the working world is putting up with stuff, other people’s stuff, while still being professional. I do think it was pretty heavy handed to get rid of the lot of you, but there’s a lesson to be learned from that. Unless you’re pretty high up, your scope of a company’s functioning will be pretty limited. For all you know whomever hired or managed your group never wanted summer interns to begin with but was pressured into the situation by a board of directors or something and was relieved when a situation presented itself and they felt they had legitimate cause to fire everyone, heavy handed though it was. Or maybe the company is particularly busy this summer, and they don’t have time to debate a dress code petition and monitor who is and isn’t adhering to it. Ideally, they would’ve gathered you all together and heard you out, or at the very least squashed the whole thing by explaining that the dress code was not up for discussion and you were all expected to follow it and sent you back to work. But they were within their right to handle it as they felt necessary. Allison is right that there are times when it is 100% necessary to push back on a policy, this just wasn’t that time. Don’t beat yourself up about it, it’s one misstep, everyone has made them, but there’s lots to learn from this. Write them a note thanking them for the opportunity and explain that you understand your error, then move on. All the best!

  66. eplawyer*

    In high school I walked out after our beloved principal was fired. High test scores, low discipline problems but wouldn’t kiss up to the school board. None of the students who walked out and marched to the board offices were marked absent by the teachers who hated the firing too.

    In college I circulated a petition to replace the food services company. Timed it just right, they were negotiating the new contract (Honestly I didn’t know I was just sick of the same 3 meals every night).

    Having said that, I would never as an intern tell my boss how to run the company. Especially after being told that things weren’t going to change.

    Time and place people. As noted, a job is not a democracy. (that needs to go on an AAM t-shirt too).

    1. OlympiasEpiriot*

      Right. I circulated a petition to try and keep a teacher at my school. She was a known tough grader but a great teacher and even people who got C’s and lower in her classes signed it. The principal wanted her gone anyhow (she wouldn’t give richer families’s kids higher grades…funnily enough, some of those girls signed the petition, too).

      But, this is not how to deal with a dress code.

  67. Jb*

    I don’t know how I feel about this. While I am a recent college grad, I was also in the military for 6 years, so my desire to push back against perceived “injustices” has long since been squashed. I personally don’t find the business formal dress code to be painfully unreasonable, so I have a hard time feeling sorry for OP. I worked sporadically in college and I was lucky to have been mentored by a wonderfully professional lady whose style I just copied and adjusted to my personal taste.
    I think OP should take this as a life lesson and try to get another job this summer and maybe another internship in the fall, this time with a more realistic world view.

  68. Rusty Shackelford*

    We were shocked. The proposal was written professionally like examples I have learned about in school, and our arguments were thought out and well-reasoned.

    You know, when you do something you’re not supposed to do*, no one is going to be impressed by how well you do it.

    *Pushing back against the answer you’d already received

  69. Bag of Jedi Mind Tricks*

    @OP- You all learned a lesson the hard way. For future reference, in the workplace, don’t concern yourself with what someone else does if it doesn’t affect your pay or workload.

  70. Mimmy*

    The proposal and petition were definitely out of line, but this line from the letter makes me wonder if the OP learned how to draft such proposals in a class and generalized it to the work setting:

    The proposal was written professionally like examples I have learned about in school,

    I’ve been on both sides of the “exception to the rule” dilemma, though under very different circumstances. I’ve had certain exemptions and accommodations due to my disabilities, and I can understand when others view it as unfair, even if I’m technically entitled. Ironically, I’ve also had a similar mindset as the interns in this letter when I see people in the workplace getting a pass on certain policies. So I understand the frustration from both perspectives.

    While I think the interns overstepped their boundaries, I do think firing them all (was the one who didn’t sign the petition also fired?) was extreme. I know many will disagree with me, and I respect that. No, an employer should not have to sit down with each student/intern and go over every little rule and their nuances, but the meeting should’ve served as a very stern warning, not a mass firing. The caveat here for me, as Alison pointed out, is whether or not there were other performance or conduct issues.

    Bottom line, I hope this serves as a good lesson for the OP and her fellow classmates as they near graduation.

    1. LiveAndLetDie*

      was the one who didn’t sign the petition also fired?

      The OP’s letter implied it was only those who signed the petition. Which is right and fair, as the one who declined to participate made the right choice.

  71. Lora*

    It’s true that college is not really meant to teach you how to be a good worker bee; it’s there to teach you to be a good learner, and those things often are at cross-purposes.

    However, at schools where General Studies or Liberal Arts Education Requirements or whatever they are called are a requirement, clearly the history professors have not been sufficiently discussing labor history: Yes, low level people DO frequently band together and make demands on management. It’s called a union, and when you are deciding whether or not to form/join a union, it is a big decision you should put a lot of thought into: you might not only get fired for it, you can be blacklisted for entire industries and geographic regions. Historically union organizers and strikers have been shot at, killed, fought battles (literally, companies would hire private “security” agencies to set fire to people’s homes and shoot everyone in the area). Even these days, forming a union often means you’ll be fired or otherwise punished. It’s not legal, at ALL, to punish someone for exercising their legal right to organize, but that is the reality.

    The unions I’ve been in were founded mainly around worker safety – employees getting severely injured or killed on the job and the company refusing to implement safety precautions. In grad school, it was based on work hours and substituting grad students for faculty. You want to think carefully about which hill you want to die on.

    1. Fade*

      I think this is a very good point. The message to take away from this isn’t “Just do whatever your employer says without questioning it under all circumstances,” the message is “Collective action from employees pushing back against management is a significant move that should be used for issues that really matter.”

      1. fposte*

        Very well put. Not as snappy as less useful sayings, but all the more important to learn it then.

    2. EmilyG*

      Thanks, this seems like an important point. The message isn’t “put up with anything forever.” It’s all about context.

  72. GigglyPuff*

    I know several people are pointing out that the OP says they don’t deal with clients or customers…but that doesn’t mean the clients/customers don’t see the interns. I can think of several places where you may not have conversations with the clients/customers but you’re still around them, thus the business wants a professional looking office.

    1. Manders*

      I’m in the same position at work. I’m mostly working with other employees in a back room, but I don’t want to be the person who’s responsible for giving a bad impression to a client. Shoes are not the hill I’m willing to die on (although my office does allow me to wear sneakers on my commute and keep work-appropriate flats at my desk, which makes my commute easier and keeps my work shoes looking good for longer).

    2. Dee El*

      I mean, it really doesn’t matter. The rule is the rule. Mgmt doesn’t want to look at an office full of people in jeans and t-shirts all day. You see management and co workers and that is all that matters. Even if they have a dress code for JUST THE INTERNS, that’s what you abide by, especially if you already asked for clarification or change and was denied.
      Many times the dress code is strict because otherwise employees may interpret it too loosely, so to avoid having to draw a line that moves all the time, they set the bar high.
      At any rate, walking into the place where you’re working temporarily and demanding that a long standing policy change for you is … jaw droppingly appalling.

    4. AW*

      You not being a good citizen of this community by making the comments section unnecessarily hostile to the OP. This is a site that welcomes engagement and follow-ups from the OPs and they won’t do that if they feel like they’re being held up for ridicule.

    5. Liana*

      If by “bad person” you mean not following the commenting guidelines, as well as being unnecessarily mean to the OP, then yes. You are. This whole comment section is rife with people sharing stories of times they did something similar, or times they were a nightmare to manage, so it’s not like the OP is the first person to have ever done this. Don’t ridicule them for not magically knowing how professional norms work.

  74. Bob*

    I have been guilty of similar behavior when I was that age but luckily have learned better. The second you hear a fellow employee (or intern) trying to get everyone whipped up about an issue, you should just walk away. If nothing else, I would at least pause to consider if you actually care about the issue or just agree that the other person “sort of has a point”. The same goes for my personal life – I’m not looking to be recruited into any causes. My philosophy is if I have an issue, I will speak directly with my manager. If I’m not satisfied with the answer, I will follow the chain of command, but still only speaking on my behalf. Exceptions to this would in a union shop (I suppose I would talk to my union rep) or if the issue is serious like sexual harassment or embezzlement (I may go straight to HR unless I trust my manager).

    Also, I don’t know if interns fully appreciate that they often bring very little value to the table. I’ve only had one intern I would consider worth the effort it took to mentor them (in terms of pure output). I’ve fired an intern in the past (for playing with keylogger on his work computer – not a person I trust to have access to sysadmin computers) but I just absorbed his tasks into our junior staff and it didn’t affect us at all. Cheap labor is not why we have interns so I’m not complaining but I think a little perspective might help adjust their attitudes.

  75. Geekster*

    I’m hoping I can express this in a way that doesn’t make the OP feel like I’m beating her up.

    You asked your manager. That’s reasonable.

    She said no. That’s reasonable.

    You didn’t accept her decision. That’s not reasonable. If we’re talking about safety or legal issues, then yes…push back. But because as the newest employee you simply don’t *like* something? That’s never a reason to push back.

    1. Anonymous Educator*

      Yes, unless your manager is doing something illegal, pushing back (especially when you’re an intern) after bringing up the issue already… not productive.

    2. I'm Not Phyllis*

      Yes – this. I feel like it’s completely reasonable to question things (especially when you’re new to a company) but if you’re manager tells you no, you should accept that unless you have a very good reason not to, from a professional standpoint.

  76. Student*

    I’d have fired the whole pool of you too – mainly because of the time-investment issue. I’d rather be teaching a good intern to be great than teaching a substandard intern to be mediocre. Given that there’s presumably several of you involved, it’s just a huge time sink to get you all up to par and police you closely to make sure you stay at par all summer. Most interns come to the job very eager to learn about the work we do, instead of being very eager to rouse populist opposition to minor, always-unpopular rules like the dress code.

    I’ve found that teaching a substantially sub-par intern to be mediocre is usually not very rewarding – most of the very sub-par interns tend to assume they already know everything and ignore a lot of advice or guidance. I think the best life lesson I can give many interns like that is a swift kick out the door – teaches them to reconsider their approach without me spending a lot of time on it. It’s a completely different issue than when an intern comes in eager to work but unfamiliar with some professional norms, like ones that miss the mark on the execution of the dress code – those I’ll work with. That’s a little normal adjustment. Leading intern revolts against the rules is not normal.

    1. AdAgencyChick*

      “I’d rather be teaching a good intern to be great than teaching a substandard intern to be mediocre.”

      BOOM. Well said.

    2. Temperance*

      Oh this is so true. I have one thoughtful, brilliant intern who is asking good questions and has made himself an asset, and one who has decided that he has superior skills that I am not “utilizing” properly. Those skills do not include proper spelling, grammar, presentation or office conduct. I bet you can’t guess which one gets special tasks and interesting work.

  77. Matt*

    I’m just shaking my head at the audacity, but then again, OP said s/he had never had a job before. Maybe you should have, because one summer working at McDonalds or Old Navy or your local miniature golf course would have taught you more about the workplace than all of your classroom training combined. I think it’s a huge disservice to our future generations to shelter them from the workforce until it smacks them in the face in their early 20’s. Either way at least you didn’t lose a paying job and now you know.

    1. EmilyG*

      I don’t think this is necessarily their fault. My much younger cousins have had a hard time finding jobs in this economy compared to me in the 90s (and I didn’t even have a car–I was limited to jobs I could bike to!). One of them has done all right but the other has only had a crappy mall job where she’s on call for hours and hours that she doesn’t necessarily even get to work, which prevents her from having any other jobs. She doesn’t even get that many hours of experience out of it.

      1. fposte*

        And people would have been just as annoyed if she’d put together a petition there. It’s not like that work doesn’t count and this work does.

        1. EmilyG*

          I’m not sure I understand your point. All I’m saying is that there’s a tendency to blame young people’s laziness or parents’ protectiveness for them not having work experience, but among my family/friends that’s not the case at all.

          1. Fashionista*

            Society’s overprotectiveness. Kids have been legislated out of the workforce, in my not at all humble opinion.

      2. Katie F*

        I am attempting to imagine the look on my parents’ faces if I was fired from a paid internship for a reason like this.

        The look that comes to mind is… definitely a magical one.

      3. Kelly L.*

        Yep, a large part of the problem is that with the economy not being great, a lot of what used to be stereotypically “teen jobs” are filled with adults. It’s not that they’re being sheltered from the workplace on purpose, it’s that there aren’t enough jobs, across the board.

        1. Turtle Candle*

          Very much the case, yes. And honestly, a lot of the advantages of a high school job can be achieved with structured high school volunteering. (Where by ‘structured’ I mean a volunteer job where you’re answerable to someone and have distinct responsibilities and a commitment for a certain amount of time, not so much “I pick up trash in the park when I feel like it.”)

    2. Smitty*

      I would say it is unlikely the OP learned anything at all and instead will let her anger try it again in the future.

  78. FascinatedLurkerToday*

    I admit to wanting to hear from OP/LW to see if they have anything else to add after all these comments.
    Is there more to the story we might know about?
    Are they seeing the other side, based on almost all the AAM Community comments?
    (Like I appreciated when the poster that was upset her daughter got in trouble for bringing in child to work/photo to HR did stop by.)

  79. OlympiasEpiriot*

    I am writing this as someone who is always the fly in the ointment: You were so in the wrong we can’t even see you anymore.

    Petitions are rarely for the workplace, you were on the bottom and there to learn, and you could have simply asked that person who got to wear flats about the shoes. You could have used your words and discussed this with people more senior to learn more about the dress code, when it could be bent and why it was in place. This sounds like there was a pool of interns who spent too much time talking with each other and not interacting with the company.

    My first summer job (previously was delivering groceries for tips after school) was working at a labor union — you know, an entity that has officers who are elected and who are usually professional Flies In The Ointment Of Management — and even they wouldn’t have put up with this. And I would most certainly not have been rude enough to do that to them.

    Please learn from this. I’m afraid your tone in the letter is ‘affronted’. Maybe ‘piqued’, too. Please try ’embarrassed’ and ‘genuinely humble’. Learning how to switch from indignant to repentant with grace is a great skill; use this event to practice it.

  80. WittEWriter*

    Well, I am now paranoid on my clothing choices for my own internship.
    Thankfully, I intern in a pretty casual environment, so I’ve never been too worried about my choices. It never even crossed my mind to try and change anything in the office. I’ve always just went with the notion “I’m here for 3 months, I conform to their rules.” Might also help that I don’t like making waves in general.

  82. Socal tech*

    I have a feeling they were not fired for this specifically, but it is a straw that broke a camels back think. The thing that really stood out to me was them thinking sandals and other open shoes, but not flip flops, was appropriate attire.

    They already approached the manager and he said no….. The pension was over the top. I wonder what else they were oblivious to.

    Another thing to remember is that paid internships and unpaid internships are two different things. In my company paid internships are a recruiting tool with the intent to hire people on after they graduate. It’s a head start into getting a job at the company. Paid interns are for the benefit of the company.

    1. Liz*

      I wondered that, too. We regularly have interns in my office and each summer varies – we’ve had amazing groups, groups that had some bright stars, some average, and then once or twice we get a group that – as a whole – just isn’t very good. Usually it’s about a collective attitude more so than a collective aptitude. And we’ve even had some in that latter group challenge office rules/norms in a way that I found very shocking. We’ve fired individual interns a handful of times, but a whole group…I can’t imagine they took that decision lightly.

  83. AnotherHRPro*

    I was hoping to gain some experience before I graduate next year.

    OP – You are gaining experience from this. I really hope you learn from it.

    1. Meg Murry*

      Yes, while this whole situation stinks, OP, it could have been worse. This could have been your first full time job out of college that you were counting on to pay your rent and student loans, not an internship. Learning a lesson like this now is important – and you will continue to learn lessons with each job, although hopefully they will not be quite so dramatic as firing.

      Everyone fails at something at some point – in fact, a situational job interview question that many people stumble over is “Tell me about a time you failed”. OP, if you can learn from this, and explain not just how you failed but what you learned from the experience, and how you would proceed in the future instead, you now have a very good answer to this question.

      Failure feels terrible. Being fired probably really hurt. But how you bounce back from this situation and what you take away from it is the most important part.

    2. Dot Warner*

      Agreed. All I could think while reading this letter was “oh, my dear sweet summer child…”

      OP, the bosses at your internship were likely hoping to teach you something very important about the way you conduct yourself in the workplace. There’s a lot you can learn from this experience and from the comments here; I hope you can do that. For the remainder of the summer, I suggest you get a retail or food service job to help you learn some of the workplace norms you’ve missed out on.

      Good luck, and please keep us updated.

  84. sjw*

    I think firing them all, while extreme, was within the range of acceptable responses. They will NEVER forget that lesson.

    1. Ad Astra*

      Yeah, but I think being dragged into a room and told “Uh, this is not how the working world works” would have also been a memorable lesson at a much lower cost.

      Mostly, I’m surprised this business was able to fire all of its interns this late in the summer (assuming they’ve been there for 3 weeks or so). Sounds like they’ll be rearranging some tasks among the full-time employees!

      1. Turtle Candle*

        At my workplace, interns are all put on not-crucial-but-would-be-nice-to-have projects, because they’re there to learn and get experience, not to sub for full-time employees. Especially since in our industry it’s hard to cover crucial work with less than a year of experience anyway. (And to a significant degree, it’s a recruitment tool: we want them to feel happy and fulfilled in the job because, assuming their internship work is good, we like to hire former interns for full-time positions once they graduate. So they get interesting but not mission critical tasks.) So we could drop them at any point and then the ‘would be nice’ project can just sit in stasis until there is someone with the time to do it, without hurting our productivity at all.

  85. Erin*

    Wow that is ballsy. But you didn’t know that, because you were an intern, there to learn, and had never had a job before.

    You were in the wrong but again, *you were there to learn.* Firing *everyone* was a harsh overreaction.

    Even if they were not up for discussing the dress code (which is fair) they should have opened up a different discussion on why this was inappropriate – because clearly no one knew that and y’all thought you were handling the matter professionally. I can’t believe they just showed you all the door when you’re literally there to learn how to navigate work norms in the industry. It wasn’t like you punched someone, or some other fire-on-the-spot offense. Good luck out there in the real world!

    Well, at least now you know, and can take this with you as valuable experience. Also, it didn’t just happen to you but others as well, which is (somewhat) comforting.

  86. Brooke*

    Success at work is all about relationships and partnerships. People like to work with those that collaborate, not those that are adversarial. You are there to learn and the longer you think you and your group were in the “right” the longer you are putting yourselves at a serious disadvantage for the rest of your careers.

  87. Bag of Jedi Mind Tricks*

    OP said “The worst part is that just before the meeting ended, one of the managers told us that the worker who was allowed to disobey the dress code was a former soldier who lost her leg and was therefore given permission to wear whatever kind of shoes she could walk in. You can’t even tell, and if we had known about this we would have factored it into our argument.”

    My question to the OP is, Why didn’t you just ask the person why she’s allowed to wear casual shoes (when everyone else isn’t)? She probably would have explained to you why. And even if she didn’t, as I stated in my earlier post, you should not concern yourself with something that someone else does unless it affects your pay or workload.

  88. Ad Astra*

    The interns were out of like as Alison explains, but it sounds like an easy mistake to make for someone who’s still learning about professional norms. I suspect that’s why most of them went along with it — in school, petitions are often how you get things done. Even the format of the letter reminds me of a school paper, where you argue your case based on the info you have.

    So I wish the company, or whichever employee was involved here, had seen that for what it is. It could have been a good learning opportunity. They could have said, “Well, as interns, you don’t get to make the rules here. We have these policies because [reasons], and I have to tell you that a signed petition is not a good way to get things done in the workplace. A better approach would have been to [alternative].”

    Then they could have considered the interns’ requests or not, but at least something good would have come out of this misstep. I have to wonder… how is the company functioning this summer now that it’s down to just one intern?

      1. Ad Astra*

        I guess I just come from a newspaper background, where interns kind of are crucial to the work and make up a sizable portion of the staff (especially at papers that manage to secure outside funding for these internships). But that’s not necessarily the best business model, and of course newspapers don’t have particularly stringent dress codes. :)

      2. Katie the Fed*

        Yes. In general, our interns are a net negative on the organization – far more work goes into them than goes out. But – if we can hire the good ones, it’s worth it.

      3. LiveAndLetDie*

        Interns are also, by their very nature, pretty easy to replace (since they are by definition people with no prior experience in the profession). If the company needed to replace these interns with other interns, I’m sure they wouldn’t have a problem doing so.

    2. Joseph*

      The blunt truth of the matter is the company is probably doing fine.

      Keep in mind that at many companies, they have more summer interns than co-ops in fall/winter/spring. If we can survive 9 months a year with just our permanent staff, it’s unlikely that we’re going to fall to pieces without summer interns.

      It’s also worth remembering that interns usually require close supervision with their assigned tasks – so while you’re losing that 40 hours of intern productivity, you’re gaining back a few hours of mid-level staff productivity. Also, interns are usually given tasks that are easily replaceable and/or low priority rather than project-critical items.

      1. TootsNYC*

        And these interns might not have been that productive, so they’re not really giving up that much.

    3. Student*

      I am boggling at the “easy mistake to make” bit, not just here but in many other comments. Is this genuinely something you’ve heard of other people doing? I’ve never heard, first or second-hand, of anyone doing something like this, in work or in school. By “this”, I mean interns having a populist movement over a triviality.

      These folks decided that they wanted to fight over, and die on, the smallest molehill they could find – they’d make General Custard proud. The strategic blunder is worse than the glaring workplace etiquette blunder. It’s like leading a sit-in protest over the lunch counter not having your favorite flavor of ice-cream, instead of over civil rights. It’s almost a mockery of historic organized labor efforts in its sheer irrelevance, combined with the apparent seriousness with which the OP has presented the whole case (and written in for advice on how to overturn the firing!).

      It’s one thing to have an uprising over something that matters, even if we disagree on the specific merits of the cause, execution, strategy – this is more like someone (a whole group!) who wanted all the trappings of an uprising without bothering to have a cause.

  89. Lauralk80*

    It seemed like employees are not permitted to wear flats which does seem extreme to me. I couldn’t comfortably wear heels each day and actually walk around in them. If it was truly just that main issue I would have approached my boss privately about that for myself only. Otherwise I agree that all of this was wrong. Something I’ve learned over the years too is to seek out more experienced workers and run things like this by them first. Often they tell you if you are on track or completely off the rails.

    2. Turtle Candle*

      I read it as that flats had to be leather or a leatherlike material rather than cloth/mesh or sandals, not that flats were prohibited outright.

  90. Observer*

    You’ve gotten a lot of push back, which I hope you take to heart.

    Most of what I would have said has already been mentioned, so I won’t repeat. But I do have some thoughts that I didn’t see (or only partially).

    You write: ” The worst part is that just before the meeting ended, one of the managers told us that the worker who was allowed to disobey the dress code was a former soldier who lost her leg and was therefore given permission to wear whatever kind of shoes she could walk in. You can’t even tell, and if we had known about this we would have factored it into our argument.”

    I’m having a very hard time wrapping my head around this. Do you really think that your manager has ANY obligation to to give you the information to make your case? This is not school, nor a lawsuit in which discovery is mandated. And, how on earth could you expect to factor this in to your argument? The only thing this information could have done for your argument is to take this particular employee’s dress code “violations” our of the argument.

    The worst thing, to me, though, is that you don’t seem to have any recognition of what a faux pas (to say the least) you committed. It never occurred to you that there might be a specific accommodation in place. And when you did get told about it your reaction is to complain that you didn’t have a chance to factor it into your argument somehow not “OMG. I had no idea that she lost a leg! That’s awful and I’m sorry I brought it up!” Have you considered the possibility that this was a rather upsetting and humiliating experience for the person you pointed fingers at? I don’t know what that person’s position is, but if she got to see your petition, it must have been highly unpleasant. I’d be willing to bet that she’d gladly trade her accommodation for a healthy pair of feet.

    You claim that your proposal and petition were well reasoned. How do you even think that’s possible, when they were completely fact free? As you have pointed out yourself, you have already found out one relevant fact that you didn’t know when you wrote these up. This is very important – you CANNOT make a well reasoned case for change without having a solid grasp of the facts involved. This, by the way, is a rule that holds true in life in general, not just on the job.

  91. Jon*

    Interesting that they not only went for the shoes but went all in and asked for what were effectively wholesale changes to the dress code. Icarus flew too close to the sun.

  92. LizM*

    There are some dress codes I have a problem with, especially where they’re applied in a sexist way, or otherwise inconsistently. I had a friend work in an office where the “no sleeveless tops” wasn’t enforced for the attractive women, but an older employee was written up for violating the rule. Dress codes requiring heels for women generally bother me – there is research that shows that certain types of shoes can do lasting damage to women’s feet and backs, and I don’t feel like I should have to get a doctor’s note to avoid wearing shoes that make my legs ache at the end of the day.

    That said, I don’t think that’s the issue here. This intern didn’t write anything that implied the dress code was being applied in an unfair way, except one person was allowed to wear shoes that violated it. But there’s no indication there was a broader unfairness. To me, it’s about the fact that *multiple* interns asked their supervisors, were told no, and instead of dropping it, took work time to create and circulate a petition.

    Even if there wasn’t a medical issue, it’s not uncommon for dress codes to be relaxed for more senior employees who have proven themselves. I feel bad that this intern had to learn this lesson in such a harsh way, but reading between the lines, it seems like this is something she just couldn’t let go of. It makes me wonder whether she had a mentor in the internship program who could have told her to knock it off.

    1. Anonymous Educator*

      It makes me wonder whether she had a mentor in the internship program who could have told her to knock it off.

      Based on the little we know from the letter, it’s possible that the mentor (if there was one) may have had no idea a petition was in progress.

    2. LizM*

      I’ll add – letters like this make me so grateful my college had a 2 credit course on how to exist in the professional world that you could take your junior or senior year. It covered things like resumes, basic etiquette in business lunches and dinners (including key take aways like, don’t drink so much that you get drunk, and don’t order things that are inherently messy to eat, like ribs), and how to handle disputes with your supervisor in a professional manner.

      Now at 32 years old, I roll my eyes that my friends and I had to be told all of those things, but I can see 19 year old me, ready to take on the world, complaining that “it’s not faaaaaair” that I can’t wear leggings and a tunic to my professional job because, “I work better when I’m comfortable.” Thank goodness I had a decent mentor at my internships to run stuff like this by before going to my manager.

  93. LiveAndLetDie*

    Honestly, a group of interns getting so heated up about the dress code and what is “fair” re: another employee sounds like a bunch of interns not working. If you can take the time to write a proposal and a petition about the dress code, and you’ve spent enough time worrying about other people’s shoes that you’ve noticed someone’s don’t quite fit in the parameters of the code, your time has clearly been badly spent, and you’ve been wasting resources.

    While I agree that it’s important that OP learned that the workplace is not a democracy and that firing OP and their colleagues over this petition seems harsh, I don’t think it was wrong of the company to do so. OP learned their lesson in a particularly harsh manner, but as someone who manages a team of people, if I was presented with this much concrete evidence of my interns wasting time and not doing the work I’d given them, I’d be questioning why I was even wasting my own time having them in my office in the first place.

  94. fight the power*

    I’m team intern on this one. They tried to disrupt ~the way things are done~ and when it comes to soulless corporations, that’s always a good thing. A business is rarely structured for the benefit of its employees, so any attempt to rearrange things in their favor–even something as trivial as a dress code–is a cause worth fighting for in my book. Not saying that this approach is great for your job stability/career outlook, but in my personal experience (your mileage may vary), the pain of poverty is way more bearable than the pain of corporate power structures.

    Plus, these “you should have known your place” and “you should just be thankful you have an internship at all” arguments are the same mindset that breed anti-union sentiments and generally oppressive workplaces.

    1. SirTechSpec*

      Totally agree with you on the last point, but see my post below for some reasons this might not have been a good specific idea, even if you’re for this sort of thing generally.

    3. LQ*

      A for-profit corporation is by definition not structured to benefit its employees, it is structured to benefit the owners or shareholder (owners). That is the actual reason for it to exist. But if you want to fight that then work for coops or nonprofits (though those are designed to benefit the people it is designed to benefit, which should NOT be the employees) or government. You can (and I’m all for should) push back. But you don’t get to act shocked when it doesn’t work out in your favor. You should already have a plan in place for when it doesn’t work out in your favor. You mean a place that is a paper factory produces paper and I’m expected to produce paper at the paper factory? If you hate paper factories and you want to fight from the inside then going in and immediately holding up a NO MORE PAPER banner is likely to only get you kicked out. Going wait, why are you firing me and kicking me out? I don’t get it! Doesn’t make sense.

      Go in, work for the paper factory, turn the business toward making linen cloth instead, but putting a paper banner up on your first day that says NO MORE PAPER is not going to promote your cause.

      This isn’t promoting the cause of pro-union or the horrors of oppressive workplaces.

    4. Student*

      I strongly disagree. This whole exercise by the interns was a mockery of unions, even if it was not intended as such. You don’t fight the power by doing things like this, you just embarrass yourself and get locked out of decisions.

      Can you imagine an good Union boss deciding that the issue of our time to fight over is freedom of shoe choice? Wages – nah, benefits – we’re good, profit sharing – nah, inequality – nah, working conditions – nope, sneakers – now THAT is the winner.

      These are classic rebels with no cause. They have nothing to fight over, they just want plain old power that they have no idea what to do with. They want the shining armor without having to slay a dragon. Let them rage about the dress-code machine in their parent’s basements where they won’t get underfoot; the rest of us have real issues to fight over.

      2. Anonymous Educator*

        What they’re bargaining for is irrelevant since they have no bargaining power. Real unionized workers are actual workers with a lot of training who, collectively, offer a lot of value (in experience) to the company. Interns offer very little to the company and are expendable. They have nothing to bargain with. “Give us shoe choice or we quit?” So quit then. What does the company lose by some interns quitting?

    5. Smitty*

      When it comes to “soulless corporations”…..sigh. Guess what, corporations are made up of living, breathing, soulful human beings. The “corporation” doesn’t exist without them. The corporation is what provide jobs, food, healthcare, etc. If anything comes close to a “soulless corporation” it is the union. Unions are nothing but sickeningly political constructs that interchange management regularly and take actions that do very little to benefit the employee and instead are geared towards the perpetual enrichment of the union administration.

    6. sunny-dee*

      The business is structured to benefit its employees through paying them with money (the biggie) and paid time off and insurance. A business isn’t a benevolence organization that parcels out alms to begging masses. It is an agreed-to and fair trade – I give them time, they give me money.

      Your argument is *exactly* the same as a company complaining that their employees don’t structure their entire lives and all decisions around what would be best for the company. I don’t exist for my employer; they don’t exist for me.

  95. SirTechSpec*

    So apparently I’m in the minority in that I don’t think you’re fundamentally in the wrong here, OP – just wrong in how you went about it.

    As someone who finds uncomfortable clothes *really* uncomfortable, and is frankly shocked by the sorts of things (especially shoes) women are expected to wear on a daily basis, I think shoes absolutely could be the hill to die on. People seem to forget that work is where you spend at least half your waking hours for most of your life – it SHOULD be an environment where you can feel comfortable.

    The standing issue I think has more merit – not because young/new workers don’t have the same rights as anybody, but because it takes time to get a feel for why things are the way they are (someone else mentioned “Chesterton’s fence”) and figure out how to accumulate social capital and spend it with the best effect.

    I have never yet encountered an organization or environment where everything was the way it was for a good reason. Some things are there for good reasons, some for bad reasons (but still strong ones that are tough to change), and some for no particular reason other than that nobody has gotten around to fixing it yet. If you feel the need to make a change, you want to start by carefully listening to your co-workers who’ve been there a while, identifying things in the third category, and pushing on those, starting with ones that a) you can mostly fix yourself and b) have fairly immediate and low-impact results. If the results are negative, you’ve learned something, but will probably need to stick to doing what you’re told for a while before you try again. If the results are positive, people will be impressed. Keep doing that until people respect your judgment enough to listen when you bring up the bigger issues.

    In this case, it doesn’t sound like you’d built up enough social capital with anyone except your fellow interns. As someone who thinks we should pretty much abolish dress codes that aren’t related to health and safety, I still wouldn’t have taken on this challenge without at least, oh, a third of the workforce behind me (in either the department or the company, depending on who set the policy you’re trying to change).

    As somewhat of a “change agent” myself, I’d say your mistake here wasn’t in trying to make a change (if you don’t, nothing gets better), nor in the subject matter – working conditions are working conditions, and they affect your quality of life. But you did make several mistakes:
    1) Not, as far as I can tell, finding out/thinking through exactly why the dress code was in place, and what the objections to changing it were likely to be.
    2) Bringing up someone else’s apparent exemption – this is about you, not someone else. If *no one* except you appeared to be following the dress code, that’s the only time you might use that as evidence it’s not necessary for the work, if ever.
    3) Based on their reaction, I’m guessing you hadn’t already established a reputation as someone they definitely wanted to keep around based on your good judgment and work ethic. People are more receptive when you have a history of sharing ideas that will benefit the business, or at least the employees generally, not just you. Speaking of which…
    4) After being there for something like a month, you’re asking for a significant policy change, knowing that you’ll be gone in another 2 months, while they’ll have to deal with the consequences indefinitely. Again, not that new workers deserve to suffer, but there is a significant mismatch in your investment and risk vs. what you’re asking from them. In a short internship, you probably need to stick to things that are in your immediate domain (like improving processes you’re responsible for executing every day – and still, keep #1 in mind.)
    5) Circulating a petition when your managers already told you no. I won’t tell you this is never appropriate, but it is an inherently adversarial move, qualitatively similar to protests and strikes. If you’re not willing to face consequences (and asking to be re-hired suggests you’re not), you’re not ready for this step, as others have pointed out. Whenever possible, stick to submitting well-thought-out *proposals* and making your case to the appropriate people. This may mean not getting the result you want – but you do need to pick your battles and how far you want to go.

  96. Biff Welly*

    While it seems we are all in agreement that the OP was out of line, I think the company reaction was out of line. As a group of interns this seems like the perfect opportunity to sit them all down and explain why how they handled wasnt the right way to handle, and have some discussions about priorities, professionalism etc. Thats why the interns are there is to learn and get job experience.

  97. Bikirl*

    What do people think about a company that uses such harsh tactics against its employees? This could have been an opportunity for a discussion, and instead this firm looks like it retaliated. I don’t support this.

    1. Leatherwings*

      A company that uses the “tactic” of firing them?

      I actually think that I wouldn’t have fired the group of interns and settled for a really blunt “final warning” type conversation.” But I understand why they did – the group acted in an entirely unprofessional manner. If you feel like you can’t effectively manage someone, you need to let them go. That’s not harsh in itself, that’s just work.

      As for retaliation, I don’t think they retaliated here either. That’s like saying a boss letting a low performer go retaliation because they missed deadlines. I see where you’re coming from, but given that a petition and formal letter was sent around? No, that’s totally out of line and a manager is perfectly within their rights to fire interns that cause that much drama over such a small thing.

    2. Katie the Fed*

      I STRONGLY suspect that this wasn’t the first issue with this group of interns.

    3. Observer*

      I don’t think that the company had any obligation to have a discussion at this point. The point for discussion was when the issue came up, had the OP asked about it without dragging in the other person.

      At this point, given the attitude the OP exhibits in the letter, I think that Alison is right in speculating that this came on top of other issues, and so convinced management that this was just not worth their time.

      I also suspect that even had management tried to discuss this with the OP and her cohorts, it would not have gone anywhere. Think about it – they find out that there is a really, really good reason for the ONE exception they’ve seen, and her only reaction is “it’s not faaaaiiir”. No recognition of the fact that there might be other facts they are missing, no recognition that they might have stepped on some toes, not even a flash of passing sympathy for someone who lost a leg! And she STILL thinks that her original piece was “well reasoned” and that she has a valid argument.

    5. Snarkus Aurelius*

      There were opportunities for that discussion: the time when the OP brought it up to his/her boss and when every other intern did the same.

      Even then, the OP and the group sincerely believed they were in the right because they had a petition that said so, and the only reason management disagreed is because they weren’t persuaded enough.

      If after all that, the OP doesn’t understand the reasoning behind what happened, and this letter is evidence of that, then what’s the point in further discussion?

      Workplaces aren’t schools or charities. This employer was under no obligation to help a group who not only thought they knew better, but dedicated their time to undermining the very place that hired them rather than working for that employer.

  98. EmmaLou*

    Dear OP, if you make it this far. Pick yourself up and take a deep breath. Yep, this was bad, but take heart, there is a whole thread on this site of hilarious, cringe-worthy, appalling, omigoodness-you-did-not! stories of people here who made enormous, jaw-dropping, cola-snorting mistakes when they got their first jobs. There is another I believe on shocks people received when they learned what things are true about working vs. school, etc. I don’t think it’s the same thread. They are worth a read. Over and over. I hope someone can find them for you. Then go forth and show the world what you’ve learned. (Like “Don’t take all the pizza”)

  99. vivace*

    This scenario reminds me of that “pain letter” approach to job hunting. Perhaps OP genuinely thought the act of rounding up her fellow interns for the sake of “improving” the company would be considered a good thing. Sorry OP had to learn the hard way that most of the working world is not into these kinds of approaches.

  100. Chris*

    I’ve seen a lot of comments that boil down to “management knows best”, and I kind of take exception to that. Now, to be clear, the petition was ridiculous, and the firing, while extreme, is justified enough to just make me consider it “harsh”, not “unjust”. It’s absolutely true that in many situations, you don’t have the bigger picture, or know details, especially in the case of individual exceptions.

    That said, I think that it’s dangerous to have the attitude that the bosses are always correct. Because, c’mon, everyone knows that’s not true, and that kind of attitude can keep real, necessary change from happening.

    OP, while I think your petition was wildly inappropriate for the situation, I think you need to take this as a valuable lesson. When workers go against the management for ANYTHING, particularly without a union, it is highly confrontational, and dangerous. At least now the danger is that you’ll be fired, not beaten with clubs by thugs, so I guess that’s an improvement. But you need to understand that if you formally take grievances to management, you need to be prepared for the consequences. I think you would agree that “different shoes lol” is not an issue to risk being fired. “Let us take breaks” or “pay us a living wage”? Maybe so. You need to be pragmatic, and pick and choose when it’s worth facing up to the beast.

    1. LQ*

      If they were full time employees, people who had been there for a while, I’d think differently, but they were interns. The job wasn’t a forever job, or even a year long contract. I don’t think that management knows best.

      I think that for people who are brand new to the work world (the person who wrote this says it was their first job ever) to think that they know best is arrogant and misinformed.

      Management doesn’t always know best. But your first idea at your first job? Deeply unlikely to be the best.

    2. Smitty*

      Um, whether or not you think “the bosses are always correct,” one thing is always consistent – – what the boss says, goes. “Correct” in this story is entirely up to what management believes to be necessary for their particular business. You are free to disagree. And free to find work elsewhere. No business is required to listen or adopt its employee’s opinions, let alone interns.

  101. Critter*

    For what it’s worth, OP, I wouldn’t like you to feel as if we’re all jumping down the throats of young people, dumping on the millennials. I know people RIGHT NOW who are more than twice your age, with that many years of experience, petitioning to have their supervisor fired. Over silly things completely without merit. While the kind of behavior your group exhibited is generally more common in young people, it’s not unheard of in older people. A poor choice is a poor choice no matter the age. Just don’t be them.

  102. PrimaryCareDoc*

    Well, I’m not sure what this internship was for, but I’d venture to say that whatever it was, the OP probably learned more by being fired than he would have if he’d lasted to whole summer.

    Life lessons: Priceless

  103. Tracy*

    I’m curious to know what industry this internship was in…I can’t imagine a lot of industries that stray away from a strict dress (relatively speaking) so I find this petition kind of silly.

  104. Eric*

    I’m actually surprised by the responses to this story. Internships are all about learning business acumen and best practices. Their managers did these children an injustice. It was a perfect learning opportunity. I would have sat them down and said the following. “This is not a democracy. The answer is no. Please return to work.” They would have received no explanation … period. Any temper tantrums would have been met with instant dismissal. The over reaction seemed more an issue with the managements ego.

    1. Sophia in the DMV*

      These are not children, they are adults and were out of line when they initially asked, were told no, and then wrote the petition

    2. LizM*

      I get the feeling this conversation may have already happened. When multiple interns asked their supervisors and all got the same answer.

      I don’t want to bash all interns, because I’ve had some fantastic ones, but I can think of one or two that thought “no” meant “you haven’t presented a good enough reason, but go ahead and keep arguing.”

      Maybe it’s because I honestly can’t imagine working in an organization large enough to have “many” interns that would fire multiple people for this if it weren’t an ongoing issue. The fact that the intern still doesn’t see what she did wrong tells me she’s not good at hearing the word “no.”

      1. LizM*

        To be fair, I’ve also had coworkers that were full time employees that were not good at hearing “no.”

    3. Observer*

      Good heavens!

      Firstly, these are NOT “children.” Secondly, most of what went wrong here is not unique to the working world. Thirdly, anyone at least one year into college should have been well aware of the both the possibility of an accommodation at play and the likelihood that management wouldn’t discuss it with them.

    4. Smitty*

      No. When you do that, you validate the “me me me” theory that has been hammered in their heads since their first college course. No explanation you provided would have been good enough for them – haven’t you been watching college news reports over the last 10 years?

  105. July*

    So many comments on this post that I am sure every single thing I wanted to say or could thing up has been said in more ways than one. I’m going to curl up on the couch with my tea and a blanket and dive into the comments before bed. lol

  106. eric76*

    One of the early things I learned in the business world was that it was up to me to adapt to the culture of the company where I worked, not for them to adapt to me. If you can’t or don’t adapt to the culture of your workplace, then there is no reason for you to be there no matter what your skills. They aren’t going to adapt to you.

  107. Manager-of-100*

    Presenting a petition was unwise, as any experienced worker could have told you. Interns, junior, and even senior people do not petition the management. If one has a concern this is addressed respectfully and privately with one’s own manager. If the manager is the concern, an even more private and respectful meeting with HR is the first choice. To launch a collective action and, in particular, to invest the time and effort in a matter so inconsequential shows real absence of judgment. Management almost certainly regarded the petition as insolent and, more importantly, a demonstration of lack of purpose on the part of the petitioners. Interns generally cost companies much more than they return to the business. Internships are an investment in future employees and permit the company to screen out those who are likely to be non-contributors or disruptive. Unfortunately the petitioners provided early evidence that they were not suitable candidates for employment and the consequent sacking was entirely foreseeable. The one who did not sign showed some sense and could likely continue the internship without prejudice. As for the rest, allowing them to depart early in the summer was an act of mercy.

  108. MYS*

    It would be even better if this resulted in not satisfying internship requirements and delaying graduation.

    You can thank your professors and administrators for creating an environment that has failed to educate and prepare you. You can look in the mirror and thank yourselves for being dumb enough to buy into the lies they were selling.

    The university system is failing on many levels. This is just one example.

    It’s quite odd that ‘the greatest generation’ spawned the generation that created the mess on campuses around the nation, and now they are breeding dysfunction and failure, like the OP’s internship.

    1. TootsNYC*

      “It would be even better if this resulted in not satisfying internship requirements and delaying graduation.”

      This seems really vindictive and hostile!!
      And they didn’t even directly offend you.

      1. jas wats*

        This is quite the funny statement when you consider that it is EXACTLY these people and the ones responsible for their failure that are permanently offended as well as being the most vindictive and hostile group I have ever seen. Can you really be that unaware?

        1. EmilyG*

          It’s not unawareness, it’s that Allison has asked us not to be nasty to letter writers; otherwise no one would write in.

  109. KM*

    I think it’s weird to create a petition about this, but I’m kind of creeped out by all the authoritarian comments about how, when you’re at the bottom of the totem pole or whatever, you should shut up and learn. Admittedly, I work at a place that doesn’t have a lot of arbitrary rules, and that’s what I like about it, but I can’t imagine a scenario where it would make me angry that the interns created a shoe petition. Like, it might not change anything, but it’s not that upsetting.

    I do kind of wonder whether the petition letter had an aggressive tone. Partly because of the reaction it got — especially the part where it seems like one of the managers snapped and revealed personal information about one of the other employees — that she lost her leg, etc. But, even if the tone was inappropriate, that’s really all you have to say in response. Internships are kind of built with the idea that people don’t know office norms, and I don’t think the office norm we should teach them is “STFU, you stupid noob.” It’s a good opportunity to talk about appropriate ways to air a grievance — it’s not actually a situation where you have to alpha roll them all before they usurp your position as pack leader.

    1. Observer*

      This goes way beyond not knowing about office norms, though. They failed to understand some fairly basic concepts and they STILL apparently don’t get it, even after being shown how little they know about what they are seeing.

  110. Beto Ochoa (@Beto_In_Austin)*

    I remember when I was very young and the only job available was digging giant ditches with a pick and shovel. I Know..right..
    Anyway, there were a couple guys who didn’t have to dig and I thought that wasn’t so equal so I asked my boss and he said if they didn’t get a paycheck nobody did…and shut the hell up.
    They were probably guys who worked for a local politician.

  111. magfirefox*

    The kids were idiots. Their behavior was like the first step in unionizing. Of course HR would order them fired. If it’s a non-union shop, they don’t want any actions like that. And, beyond that, what the heck gives the kids the ideas that people who have been at that company “forever” should even listen to them. It’s really strange and bizarre. Actually, the company did them a big favor in firing them – it gave the kids a taste of the real world.

    1. Observer*

      Actually, “the first step in unionizing” is the one reason to NOT fire them. In the US that’s protected activity. If that were the reason they got fired, the NLRB would come down on them like a ton of bricks.

  112. MD*

    I haven’t seen this mentioned yet, but I’m curious if anyone had the reaction I did, which I think might be part of the company’s reasoning to fire them all: not only is the petition ludicrous in itself, but also the thought that my interns would have spent working hours crafting it in the first place instead of actually working would really anger me. That they thought this was more important than the actual jobs they were hired to do.

  113. KL Fiddelke*

    1. You made it about you.

    2. I almost feel sorry for you. All your life your generation has been told youre special and you are encouraged to go out and change the world.

    3. “Fair” is a county pig show in August.

    4. Take some time and reflect on your role as an employee. As an intern youre there to learn an absorb. See number 1.

  114. Naughtius*

    It’s simple, really. At university, writing petitions and making demands of the faculty to meet your desires is the status quo; take a look at what’s been going on at every major institution here in the US. This is simply what happens when ridiculous higher education concepts like petitioning a business to meet your demands runs into the reality of the business world.

    Protip: You’re an intern. Welcome to how the real world operates.

  115. Anne*

    OP, I have messed before too. My very first job was the summer between my freshman and sophomore years of high school. I was fourteen. Anyhow I was a camp counselor. I was supposed to supervise a group of six year-old children as they did various activities throughout the day. Adults were definitely around at each activity, but it was my job to engage and corral my group of kids. There was a tight, meticulous schedule that each group was supposed to follow. One day after lunch my group was scheduled to go play Putt-Putt. IIRC, several, but not all, of the kids did not want to go play Putt-Putt. I could not blame them either. As we piled into the hot van I heard all kinds of complaints about how it was too hot to play, they were tired, they would rather go swimming in the pool, or watch tv, or do arts & crafts, or go to the lake, or go just about anywhere other than Putt-Putt. As we were waiting for my boss, the head of the camp, to come and drive us to go play Putt-Putt the kids continued to complain. Then I did it. I made my huge mistake. I organized a mini-revolution. I really didn’t want to go play Putt-Putt either and the idea of swimming in a nice cool pool sounded delightful to me. By the time my boss arrived all the kids were shouting, “NO, NO, WE WON’T GO! TAKE US TO THE POOL!!!” I was leading them in their chant, I am ashamed to say. We did go to the pool that afternoon. And my boss spoke privately to me and pointed out:
    1.The camp had self-imposed an occupancy limit on the pool that he did not want to exceed for safety concerns. Other groups were scheduled for pool time that afternoon and with my group added on, the pool was too crowded.
    2. The parents had paid for their children to participate in certain listed activities, including Putt-Putt.
    3. There were numerous groups of children, counselors, and adult supervisors. There was a master schedule that he and others had devised after a lot of time and energy. Numerous factors had to be taken into account. I, the counselor, was not aware of all the factors involved.
    4. I was not a camper, but an employee. I was not there to be entertained. I was there to entertain the children. It was part of my job to encourage the kids to enjoy each and every activity. I needed to tell them how awesome Putt-Putt was going to be.
    5. Numerous hs students had applied for my job. I could be replaced instantly. If I did not like the job I could leave.

    My reaction was that I was stunned, ashamed, mortified. I was so very young. It was my first job. I apologized profusely. I was so thankful that he did not fire me on the spot. I worked really hard at that camp for the rest of the summer and the following summer as well. I was never, ever insubordinate again. Not to him, not to another boss.

    The point is, when you have a job you are there to provide some sort of service. You are there for the benefit of the employer, not the other way around. For the most part you have to do what you are told, unless it is immoral or illegal. I have never been asked to do either of those things in my entire working life. I have been working for nearly 40 years and not once has that ever happened. Sure, I did not feel like playing Putt-Putt on a hot summer’s day, but it’s not like I was being abused. You are there for the employer, the employer is there for the client. You are not the client.

  116. Randy*

    “The fact that they did fire all of you for it makes me wonder if there were other issues too and this pushed them over the edge.”

    My first thought was that the petition may have been presented as a demand, not just a request for reconsideration.

  117. Sean Riley*

    The fact that this college age man never held a job speaks volumes as to why he didn’t understand that they were out of line or were surprised by being fired. I don’t buy that you need to focus on your studies argument for not getting a job. These interns are the stereotype of the negative image people have of millennials. There is no reason to not have a part time job at some point between 16 and 21. I’m in my late 30’s and when I was in college I had played soccer on an athletic scholarship and worked a part time job. After graduation I got a full time job and then got my work to pay for me to get my MBA in the evenings. No one needs to not work to focus on their studies, its just a tell that they grew up being given everything and being told they can do anything they want.

  118. Good Lt*

    Another thing the OP didn’t seem to have apply to her particular situation, but that will most certainly apply to any paid full-time positions she might have going forward, is the concept of at-will employment. She and her comrades had better learn it quick.

    When you sign a contract with an employer, stating essentially that they can fire you without cause at any time (as most standard at-will contracts do), you have very little recourse if they do in fact decide do that. Most HR departments have taken great pains to ensure that they are complying with labor laws for their contracts before they offer you anything in terms of something binding on them, so you should know that going in. They have been here longer than you, doing what they’re doing, and they aren’t coming to you for advice on how to run the company (again, unless explicitly stated). You “organizing” and petitioning, short of forming a union, will most likely be taken as insubordination, which is a one-way ticket out of most jobs. Nice managers might give you a warning first, but many won’t.

    When you’re low guy(s)/gal(s) on the totem pole, you don’t get to tell the management of the organization what they’re to do, when, why and how. It’s not about you. It’s not about your feelings. It’s not about your high-minded notions of “fairness” that you learned from teachers during your formal education. It’s not about your satisfaction. It’s about what the company gets from you in exchange for what they are willing to pay you for your skill set for a given set of tasks (if they pay anything at all, in the case of interns). It’s about what you bring to the company. That’s it. It’s not a democratic forum, or a congress, or a legislative body.

    There’s a line of candidates and interns waiting to fill your spots as soon as you’re out, so just remember that you’re replaceable. This OP doesn’t seem to have grokked that yet – she seems genuinely baffled at the notion that she was let go, along with her comrades that participated in this little episode.

    As the old 90s movie title goes, reality bites. She should consider herself lucky it bit her in college instead of in her life when she had bills to pay and rent due.

  119. reader*

    I wonder what that remaining intern said to the rest in explanation for not signing. That might have been chance #1 to learn something – to consider carefully that the people against your plan might have a point.

  120. Ashley*

    I think this is really sad. As adults what are we saying here. It sounds like we have all been jaded by the corporate world and we are telling her.. This is life just deal with it. Is this really the world we want? Just because someone pays you for a service doesn’t mean they should get to dictate every part of it and it doesn’t mean you don’t have a right to change policies. The policy was written by a person or persons not an all knowing corporation. I think the fact that they banded together and mobilized was a great thing that could have been very valuable to a company. When they an issue they came up with a solution, they executed and took action. That is exactly what companies need. Instead they were met with rigid bureaucracy.

    1. Anne*

      In what way could it have been”very valuable to the company”? If changing their dress code would have been “very valuable to the company” I think the LW would have mentioned in the letter that the company would be losing XX amount of money by not implementing the brilliant change the dress code plan. Also, yes, when you work for someone they do indeed get to dictate every part of how an employee conducts themselves while at work. Some places of employment are more relaxed than others. If you do not want to work for a place with strict policies don’t work there. If you find yourself working for a place with policies you do not like, leave. That’s why it’s called employment and not slavery. If the employee doesn’t like the employer they:
      a. Do not have to sign up to work there in the first place.
      b. Can walk away if they are dissatisfied with the terms of employment.
      c. They do not get to debate very petty (dress code of all things!!!) with their superiors.
      d. The way to go about changing long established policies at a place a business is not by being confrontational, if you truly value your job.

      You are there to work. You are not there to be a PITA over every minor thing you happen not to like.

    2. GigglyPuff*

      I didn’t really get that at all. I think what most people are saying is you have to pick your cause, and know where you stand in the workplace.
      If this had been full time employees with longer time put in with the employer, it’s possible this might have been a feasible thing to ask. Alison recommends all the time, getting a group and pushing back on unreasonable policies (not saying if this policy was unreasonable or not, but in general terms).
      If they had mobilized and come up with a solution that would have impacted the company in a positive way, I’m sure it would have been appreciated. The interns didn’t really use their “powers for good”, they used it for a minor issue that in the scheme of the workplace when you’re only going to be there a couple of months, was personal.

    3. MaureenTheTemp*

      They aren’t dictating every part of the interns lives, just the parts the company is paying for. Why would their “mobilization” benefit the company??? Did it bring the company new clients? Did it make the company more efficient?? What problem did the ***company*** have that the interns petition on the dress issue solve? If the ***company*** doesn’t have a problem with the dress code, how is signing a petition providing any sort of “solution” — it isn’t the company that has the problem, it’s the interns.

    4. Observer*

      Actually, they didn’t find a problem and a solution. They found an annoyance, and tried to force the company to accommodate them, with no facts at hand except their own dislike of the policy.

      What problem do YOU see, that requires a solution?

      What value do you see in people asking for “modest” changes that are actually NOT modest changes at all? (The OP characterizes the dress code changes they were asking for as minor, but they were in fact asking for a major shit from somewhat formal to casual.) It’s one thing to ask for a major change. It’s another to be totally oblivious to the fact that it is, indeed, major or even significant.

      What value do you see in demanding changes with absolutely no knowledge of the facts on the ground. That’s generally an incredibly dangerous way to operate.

  121. Seianus*

    Talk about entitled youngsters… Without knowing the exact situation is hard to tell whether firing was really extreme thing to do. But I lean towards thinking it was warranted. Anything milder would probably have been met with another petition. But now the message was extremely clear, in real life nobody caters to your whims, especially before you really deserved it. It’s probably the most valuable lesson you ever had in your life, learn from it.

  123. steve*

    Those of us who have served in the military know that “dress codes” are not just about appearance and impressions that may be gathered by clients/customers. “Standards of Appearance” as we call them, indicate if an individual is meeting the very basic standards asked of them. Invariably, those who cannot adhere to the very simple rules of dress also fail to adhere to other policies of the organization.
    This group volunteered to the boss that they were unable to comply with the most basic of rules and they recieved a real life lesson.

    2. Marisol*

      To me this is sort of like having a typo in your resume–unless you’re applying for the job of proofreader, it doesn’t directly speak to how well you can perform the job duties per se, but it does show that you couldn’t be bothered to double-check your work, and that IS telling.

  124. cncx*

    All my feels for you OP for a hard way to learn a lesson. All my sympathy.

    Late to the ball game on this one (1000+ comments) but if anyone reads this, i worked in a law firm and had an exemption from HR for my shoes due to a medical problem with one of my ankles. If you see people breaking dress code and they are all alone…there could be a reason HR knows about and has signed off on.

  125. Lona Manning*

    Did the intern write the proposal and petition on her own computer, on her own time? Maybe that was part of the issue.

  126. Macedon*

    Day late to this, but really don’t feel comfortable not mentioning how disturbing it is to see so many people rush to cast assumptions about OP & Co as special snowflakes, sorely needing a taste of the real world, stupid, brought up entitled, so on.

    OP & Co messed up by assuming the dress code was subject to consideration based on employee, rather than employer needs. OP & Co have (hopefully) learned a valuable lesson, now that Alison has taken the time to explain to them exactly why this was inappropriate — which is something I feel the employer should have done in greater detail, in line with the responsibility of treating internships as teaching experiences.

    I hate to add to the choir of voices complaining about the recent hostility in the comment section, but it’s getting to the point where I always notice strong prejudice against letter writers who disclose they are young or in their first work position. It’s frankly disheartening, unhelpful and inappropriate — which characterizes OP’s attitude in this episode, but at least OP didn’t know better. What’s our excuse?

    1. gmmay70*

      There is nothing “disturbing” in these comments. There is also no “hostility”. This is simply overwrought language that could belie your own problems with emotional control, rather than any sort of realistic appraisal of the commentary here.

      As many managers here have pointed out (and, as a manager, I echo them): the interns joined the company, the company didn’t join them. If you don’t like the perfectly reasonable internal rules and policies that govern an organization, you’re free to find another. That this sort of entitlement is prevalent among young people, as well as the unwillingness to grasp the lesson to be learned. This is not a “prejudice”, it is simply an observation. Plain language english should not have to be explained in great detail to one who is presumably educated. These adults were little more than small children who continually ask “why” to every single simple explanation offered to them about their everyday surroundings.

      Using direct, frank language to point out what at one time was considered common knowledge fails to fall under any of the hyperbole to which you resort.

      1. Macedon*

        Okay – let me pick out some actual quotes from the comments:

        “pack of special snowflakes”

        “This sounds like the typical product of modern universities, people raised to think they are exceptional when they aren’t, and who have “earned” nothing other than participation trophies rather than first places.”

        “shows an absolute lack of social skills and common sense”

        “I almost feel sorry for you. All your life your generation has been told youre special and you are encouraged to go out and change the world.”

        “Talk about entitled youngsters”

        If you don’t see these as hostile, then I don’t know what to tell you. And, yes, I fully side with the employer’s right to fire these interns, because they behaved inappropriately.

        1. jas wats*

          Lol. Way to prove that MOST of today’s college grads/students ARE snowflakes. If these words(lol) are hostile, what would you call silencing free speech with violence that is all the rage these days? I’m doubting you call that “hostile”.

          1. Macedon*

            If you find “hostile” hyperbolic, I will grant you that. I meant it in the sense of “adversarial” and “antagonistic”. The poor word choice is mine entirely, and I will own it.

            But the likes of those comments are not remotely helpful to the OP and to their situation. We’re not here to throw stones at letter writers, or to make social judgement and tell them to “GROW THE HELL UP” (actual quote again). The purpose of this comment section, as I always understood it, was primarily to help the LWers.

            I take the point that sometimes it’s helpful for OPs to see that they were wrong and that commenters have intense opposed reactions to the LW’s anecdote (some incidents where LW’s described situations of discrimination come to mind). But I feel some commenters are taking this letter as an opportunity to vent their frustrations at recent grads, more than they are to help the LW.

        2. gmmay70*

          If you see those as hostile, then I don’t know what to tell you (See how easy that is?). Your mischaracterization of them is not the problem of the people who made them.

          1. Macedon*

            As said above, you are right to question my use of “hostile”. I meant it in the sense of “adversarial” / “antagonistic”. Which I stand by and think that those comments are.

            You disagree — and that’s your right.

        3. OlympiasEpiriot*

          I’ll grant you the sweeping generalization comments — like ‘your generation’ and ‘modern universities’ — I don’t grant you ‘entitled youngsters’. Those two words really seem to sum them up.

          The commentor way above who wrote that it seemed like UBS’s dress code probably was right and, although it is not universal, the majority of people with access to Big Finance jobs including the internships are pretty much the definition of entitled.

          Perhaps the firing should have been a stern talking-to with clear lessons; but, this piqued tale from the LW glosses over some bits that make it seem to me that it was likely there were multiple lessons that could have been picked up if ears were more receptive. Sometimes some people need the proverbial baseball bat to get a point.

          –Signed, someone who really is *not* the embodiment of tact, diplomacy and humility but, hey, this story is way out of line.

          1. Macedon*

            I think the employer should have provided a more detailed explanation of why this was an inappropriate thing of OP & Co to do, because I view internships as learning experiences, with the employer taking on the duty of introducing the intern cohort to work norms. I assume that means taking them from ground zero. So, since the interns didn’t violate a social norm (swearing, stealing, etc), I think the employer could have told them straight up, “This is what you did wrong, this is why it’s unacceptable.”

            That said, again, I don’t question the firing. OP & Co handled a lot of things poorly: they thought that, as interns, they were in a position to demand special privileges that were not due to them for legal/health reasons. They thought they could go over what a manager told OP ( that dress code changes would not be possible ). They chose to go through with a petition without approaching a manager a second time and saying that, as a group (versus one specific individual), they had a certain request. They went through with a petition and took it upon themselves to propose a series of specific dress code allowances they wanted. I mean, it got to the point where the employer felt compelled to disclose there was a medical reason why one intern was allowed different shoe wear — I can’t imagine this entire episode going remotely smoothly.

    2. Katie the Fed*

      Agree with you, Macedon. To me, this is a question of youth and inexperience. Let he among us who never did something stupid due to youth and inexperience be the first to cast stones.

      1. OlympiasEpiriot*

        Fine, but I didn’t crash a motorcycle on the job.

        I think a lot of people on this comment thread are reacting to the tone of this letter. The tone doesn’t give one the impression they have learned any lessons, nor that they think they need to.

      2. Macedon*

        That, and I don’t think calling OP & Co “idiots” and “precious little darlings” and telling them to “GROW THE HELL UP” is particularly constructive.

  127. jas wats*

    Unfortunately, this is a clear example of how the education system in America has “dumbed down” the populace. The OP doesn’t sound like she learned anything at all, and the fact they all signed it proves the point. It’s no wonder companies are desperate to import workers when this is what they have to choose from over here.

    2. OlympiasEpiriot*

      Imo, this is a clear example of what you get when you raise your kids in a gated community, push their teachers to give them better grades instead of beg the teachers to help them after school so the kid performs better, and buy them out of DWI’s and disorderly arrests.

      But, I’m projecting and making as much of a sweeping generalization as you are…just from a totally different class perspective.

      2. Anonymous Educator*

        push their teachers to give them better grades instead of beg the teachers to help them after school so the kid performs better

        Begging teachers to help after school isn’t going to work. Teachers who have a ridiculous teaching load will not have the bandwidth to do it (so begging won’t help, because the teacher is willing to help but just can’t), and teachers with a lighter teaching load are usually more than willing to help students who ask for help. That energy would be better used “begging” your own child to do the work… or to take advantage of tutorial/office hours/flex periods to meet with her teacher.

        1. OlympiasEpiriot*

          Good point. I wrote that from the my-personal-experience-anecdote angle. I went to a school long ago in the dark ages where and when the teachers didn’t have office hours or flex periods only after school time and when — sad to say it — I had at least two teachers who actually didn’t want to answer (or perhaps couldn’t, HS chem teach, I’m looking at you) any additional questions properly. There was one in particular who would open the door a crack and shove the answer key book at me. Sometimes that was enough if the publisher put in the full solution instead of just the answer, but not always.

  128. Jeremy Ames*

    Substitute “newly hired college grads” for “interns” and “accommodated” for “fired” and you have essentially what has happened at many of the world’s workplaces…especially those located on the West Coast of the U.S. and in some global cities of innovation. So here are the teachings: a) The intern shouldn’t despair and should realize that the workplace is literally turning over as we speak and there will be plenty of progressive places to work (potentially even that one, though it may take longer) b) both interns and newly hired college grads should use tactful ways of influencing that change, none of which include petitions and c) companies need to realize that in order to attract and retain employees, they need to listen and change, lest they become dinosaurs and die off.

    1. gmmay70*

      Nonsense. First of all, this has nothing to do with “progressive”. Codes and rules are the result of progress after decades (sometimes centuries) of trial end error. They are a natural evolution. The arrival of less educated, inexperienced, less mature workers demanding change (no matter how tactful) is disruptive and counterproductive. Consider the loss in productivity and learning time of the intern who wasted time circulating a petition that had nothing to do with productivity. It’s certainly not “progress”. Chesterton’s Fence applies here.

      1. Jeremy Ames*

        Some “codes and rules are the result of progress after decades (sometimes centuries) of trial end error.” Others are nonsense and a reluctance to change for no better reason than a reluctance to change. When I said “progressive” I was by no means implying that every change is progressive. There are plenty of companies that have completely screwed this up and let the inmates run the asylum. However, there are others that have held too steadfast to their code. Your reaction, however, hints that you could be one of those that blocks change rather than listens to whether reforms actually make sense?

        1. Observer*

          I think you are missing the point, though.

          Nothing about what the OP describes hints at all of a company that is a dinosaur in the way to project. While it’s possible the the company’s dress code was too strict, we have absolutely no way to know that.

          What we DO know, because the OP told us, is that she demanded a fairly significant change with no knowledge of the reasoning or facts related to her demand. And, when presented with evidence of her knowledge gap, refused to acknowledge that she might be operating without sufficient information.

          No well run organization can allow something like that. This is true no matter how progressive the organization may be, or how willing the leadership is to listen.

  129. Sj*

    What you could have done was to say, “Would you talk to us about the dress code and explain why it’s important? We’re sure we’ll run into this again in future jobs, but coming from the more casual environment of school, it’s not intuitive to us why so many businesses have formal dress codes. We’d appreciate getting a better understanding.”

    —–and as an extremely busy supervisor, wasting time explaining the dress code to interns ranks right up there with stapling my own hand repeatedly

    1. NK*

      If you’re *that* busy, then you shouldn’t have interns, especially not undergrad ones. As a couple others have pointed out, interns are typically a net negative on an organization, and part of the agreement to take them on is to provide some professional training. If you don’t have time for that, you should not have them.

    2. Ask a Manager* Post author

      Really? I’d welcome that kind of thing from interns. And if you don’t, you probably shouldn’t hire interns because answering well-meant questions that come from a place of genuine desire to learn is part of the package.

  130. Kay*

    I hope the OP takes your advice. Her letter reinforces a long-standing belief of mine that teenagers should get at least some work experience prior to college, preferably while wearing a uniform. Once you’ve worn a Piggly Wiggly uniform for two summer, getting to choose your OWN clothing feels like heaven, if if there’s a dress code.

    I have a second, more recent belief as well, which is that we should be mocking, rejecting, and doing our best to wipe out the mindset that anyone can get anything they want via public shaming, “going viral”, or banding together with petitions and demands. When it’s so easy to kick up a public fuss about anything, no matter how trivial, the lessons about consequences, perspective, learning opportunities, seeing things from the eyes of others, and figuring out what hill you want to die on are even more important. The OP here has a tragic combination of entitlement, motivation, lack of insight, and short-sightedness, and I hope it doesn’t continue to impede her career.

  131. Shannon*

    With regards to the letter the OP wants to send, another way that schools and workplaces differ is that non-unionized workplaces usually don’t have an “appeals process”. If you’re fired, you’re fired, end of story. Schools usually do have ways of protesting a failing grade or appealing a disciplinary action (suspension/expulsion) like a meeting with the principal, professor, making a case to the Dean or school board, etc. It may not work in the student’s favour, but the process is there and they have to at least go through the motions of hearing you out. The workplace doesn’t, so if you’re thinking that your former boss is going to somehow be obligated to read this letter and give it any sort of consideration or you can then take your case to HR or the boss’s boss, instead, no. They made their decision, and they don’t have to go back and review it again just because you asked them to.

    1. Observer*

      Given what the OP described, it’s pretty certain that even if this is a company with a process (which is likely), it wouldn’t help. This wasn’t one manager acting off the cuff. The was an organized and thought out action.

  132. TacoWednesday*

    Maybe a job at the mall is more appropriate for this individual? I have no sympathy, especially with “I feel my dismissal was unfair” showing that she hasn’t learned from this experience.

  133. Henk*

    The proposal was written professionally like examples I have learned about in school
    Good basis.

    Signed Petition
    …..

    It is your job. You won’t for example get a job at McDonalds and expect not to wear McDonalds’ clothing.

  134. gmmay70*

    I disagree that the intern should have tried a different approach. She hindered not just her own productivity by placing her desires above the needs of the company.

    Rather than make a good faith effort to learn why a policy exists, she felt the need to adopt an adversarial approach. Without knowing which company this is, I can rattle off at least four excellent reasons for this dress code with little thought.

    What I can surmise from her letter and the situation is that this intern currently lacks the ability to prioritize. She does not display a willingness to learn. She is also difficult to train since she quite obviously didn’t learn the lesson that the loss of the position should have taught her. She does display some leadership skill, but her ability to work on a team is questionable since she subordinates the goals of management to her own superficial wants.

    As managers, we have all observed the type of person to generate negative conflict within the workplace, and this former intern fits that profile to a tee. Hopefully this thread will have imparted the lessons necessary for her to succeed in the future, regardless of the candor of its tone.

  135. Jank*

    I have never had a job before (I’ve always focused on school) and I was hoping to gain some experience before I graduate next year.

    Congratulations! It worked. You did gain some valuable experience.

  136. Robert Gendron*

    immediately asking for “special consideration” when you’re not special at all is highly unadvised.
    a company expects you to focus on the concerns of the company and working toward the economical success of the business. it’s not a day care center, a fashion boutique, or a little social gathering place for chit chat. that’s the world that has always been and none of this is new, at all. good luck on your next job, if you ever get one after writing something like this.

  137. Honolulu*

    Good job! Not only have they failed to gain much needed experience, as they’ve written a story to garner support, but now they’ve developed a reputation in the industry! Great luck finding a job in that industry in that state, people talk.

  138. JuJuBee8*

    Why didn’t this intern simply ask her direct supervisor (or HR) for clarification about the dress code? No company on earth is going to fire anyone who respectfully asks, “I have a question about the dress code, I want to make sure I have this right.” It doesn’t sound as if the ringleader learned anything useful, she’s still a special snowflake. I notice she doesn’t tell us what feedback she got from the other interns on her effectiveness as a “leader”. The one intern who didn’t sign the petition has my admiration. That young person is going places.

    1. JoJo*

      They did ask about the dress code. They were told “no”. It’s not the manager’s responsibility to explain corporate policy in detail to an intern.

  139. I'm Not Phyllis*

    I hate dress codes, from a personal preference standpoint. From a business-minded standpoint, I understand the need for them. OP, I’d just take this as a valuable lesson about company policies in general. Some of them make sense, some of them don’t, but they need to be followed. If you have concerns, raise them with your manager. If they tell you that they support (or at least will reinforce the policy) it’s usually better to drop it (unless it’s a safety/human rights issue).

  140. D. N. Nader*

    There were solid reasons to terminate all of the interns. First, employing interns for many businesses is an investment, meaning that interns slow production in the present because they don’t know anything. Interns are a cost that only pays off down the road. About all that an intern can contribute to the workplace is energy, enthusiasm, and reasonably good judgment. Second, signing a petition over a dress code was not a “proposal” as OP says; it was a demand. And anyone who signed it was in effect screaming “Me, too!”. Everyone demonstrated horrible judgement, especially the manipulative intern who organized the petition drive. Third, OP is clueless (for me that would mean “unemployable”). S/he says the submission was a “proposal”. Please. A proposal would be submitted by one person who is seeking to make a positive impression writing up, for example, an idea for increasing efficiency of a particular task that one has learned during the internship. Such a proposal might be dismissed as to the company, might even be viewed as presumptuous; but it would also be viewed in the context of someone who was thinking of ways to make a contribution to the enterprise.

  141. Sewer Urchin*

    Kudos to the one intern that presumably had the sense not to follow the herd and was spared the axe.

  142. Ask a Manager* Post author

    Y’all, this morning this piece has attracted some rude comments from new commenters with no history here (I think because the piece got a lot of play on social media yesterday). I’m deleting them.

    If you’re new to the site and tempted to be rude or snarky, please (a) resist and (b) read the commenting rules:
    https://www.askamanager.org/how-to-comment

      1. Ask a Manager* Post author

        Uh, no. I’m deleting comments that are hostile to the letter-writer and other commenters because we have very clear rules here that we’re polite to each other.

      2. Wesley Long*

        She means me. I was pretty incensed at the reduction of the military service to “a factor” and the appropriate response required I step outside the boundaries of “polite.”

        Also realized I haven’t been on here in a while, and used a different email address than last time, so I’m probably showing up as “New.”

      3. animaniactoo*

        You can be class conscious and still be polite and speak in a way that is designed for the LW to feel that you are on their side in helping them learn this, rather than condescending and dismissive because they haven’t gotten it yet.

        The purpose of this site is to help the letter writers, and speaking to or about them in a way that is likely to make them defensive rather than open to being able to hear what you’re trying to say doesn’t help them.

        Personally, I’ve had a rough couple of months and had a few comments of my own that crossed the line – but when I was called on it, I accepted and acknowledged it. Kind of like people are pointing out that this LW should have done when they heard “no” from the boss. In the perspective of this site, Alison is the “boss” of it, no matter how much debate goes on or opinions are welcomed. So if she says “frame it nicely”, frame it nicely.

  143. Katie the Fed*

    Alison, can we put a moratorium on the phrase “special snowflake” here? It’s nonconstructive and obnoxious.

      1. Anonymous Educator*

        I actually think “special snowflake” is less offensive than “millennials,” because in some cases people actually do suffer from “special snowflake” syndrome, whereas nobody behaves a certain way simply because she is a “millennial.”

        2. Ian The Finance Guy*

          I agree with Anonymous Educator. I am a millennial and I have fully understood the power, productivity, expertise and seniority dynamics of the professional work environment. I don’t think I’m special and I always listen to my superiors. A “special snowflake” attitude is an adequate description of the OP in my opinion. It’s harsh, but there’s a good chance that they will learn from this mistake and start to understand that school does not really prepare you for the social dynamic in professional life.

          Live and learn :)

    2. Grizzly907LA*

      Triggered by the word “snowflake?” You Millennials are extra sensitive. The thought of your generation being the future leaders of this country terrifies me to no end.

  144. Steve, the Sergeant Major*

    I agree with the firing.

    The OP was actively stirring up discontent.

    “I felt the dress code was overly strict but I wasn’t going to say anything…”
    ” I soon found out that many of the other interns felt the same way…”

    So she is spending some amount time, time that this Company is paying her for, complaining about the Company to a large audience at the Company. I doubt this complaining was restricted and contained solely within the intern group. Some complaint spillage to full-time employees is a reasonable assumption. Perhaps the full-timers were getting fired up about the issue as well but only after the interns complained, first vocally, then formally.

    The only way to restore order, in that case, is visible consequences.

    In the military this is called a good order and discipline issue. The complaints and public bitching undermine the authority of the Company. If the Company wishes to maintain the previous dress standards specifically and all other standards of conduct generally, firing at least the ring leader was warranted.

    That all of them were fired makes me think the issue was already sowing unacceptable levels of discontent in the ranks of the full-timers so the Company brought out the ban-hammer for all signatories.

    That certainly sent the message to the full-timers that the Company is serious about enforcing the employee handbook. I am certain that message was received.

  145. Susanna*

    I work on a college campus, and this young person’s behavior is exactly what has been taught in college. Here, if you don’t like something you send a petition to the president, then skip class to have a sit-in in his outer office with a full complement of media in attendance. He then scrambles to accommodate. Students have power! Also, the most common clothing for young women on campus is leggings with a hip-length or shorter t-shirt and whatever shoes their feet found first. For young men, it’s loose nylon or cotton shorts with athletic shoes or sandals and whatever t-shirt was least dirty. So it would be quite the shock to enter an environment where grooming doesn’t just matter but is regimented, and you have zero power, nada, zilch. In fact, you are pretty much disdained for your ignorance, grooming failures, and sense of entitlement. It is indeed a major transition from powerful hope of the world to warm body grunt, and some students don’t navigate it well. Perhaps they should all be required to go through boot camp and suffer its indignities and ego-breaking activities before they are allowed to begin work in an average office. Then they might be grateful for a nice comfortable suit, non-muddy closed-toe shoes, and a quiet chair in a corner. ;) (I will note that I do not mesh well in a highly regulated office environment, which is why my career has been primarily spent in government, college campuses, and non-profits. You have to know yourself and what environments you can thrive in. Having to wear a suit daily would be a deal-breaker for me, but I wouldn’t take a job in a company that required it and then tell them I’d just rather not wear one.)

    1. Anonymous Educator*

      Having to wear a suit daily would be a deal-breaker for me, but I wouldn’t take a job in a company that required it and then tell them I’d just rather not wear one.

      I think this is pretty key, though. I definitely prefer a more casual dress code, but that doesn’t mean I just wear whatever when I work in places with more formal dress codes. You obey the rules, build up enough clout to disobey the rules with impunity, or leave.

      1. Cranky Mom*

        To a point, but if I read the OP correctly they were requiring interns to wear heels. Unless all the men are required to wear heels, that’s blatant sexism. Obeying the rules only really goes if the rules are just. Requiring some employees (women) to wear heels while not requiring that of others (medical exceptions notwithstanding,) is actually unjust. Now, we, as adults, know that the most efficient way of handling injustice in the adult working world is not a petition, but in high schools and colleges a petition is both efficient and often even rewarded. I think the attitude throughout this thread of obey the rules or off with their heads is deeply disturbing. Some rules are unjust. I don’t think we actually have enough information to know here if this was a just or an unjust rule. Also, I’m fairly sure case law supports female employees not wearing heels, check the feet of your next airline steward in case you would like an example of this case law in action.

  146. Danny*

    These college kids. They don’t realize that nobody cares about your opinion. And nobody cares about your drama. The only reason colleges allow you to get away with this nonsense is because you’re paying them $50k / year to do so. In businesses where you aren’t paying them $50 / year. They will expect you to stfu and do what you’re told.

  147. Hiring Manager Mitch*

    As a hiring manager I can tell you exactly where you went wrong.
    First of all, as low man on the totem pole, the absolute FASTEST way to find your way to the door is to go around your manager when you’ve already spoken to them about something. You talked to your manager, you were told no. So did your counterparts.

    Second of all, this assumption that work is “fair”? Let me break this down for you real fast: you are not a special little butterfly and you are not owed a damn thing. You are the new guy. You follow the rules that you are told to follow. You want to change the world? Admirable of you…but not something you’re going to do at the very beginning of your career (or possibly ever in the private sector…maybe look for work in a not-for-profit…which brings me to point 3)

    Third, you need to realize that there are rules for a reason. Those reasons may be good, and they may be bad, but they exist in any organization you’ll ever work for in your entire life. Some of them are good, some of them are not. Some fair, some not. Writing up a “professional petition”? I’m sorry but that’s not actually how the real world works. You want to know how your managers viewed this? They viewed it as you trying to go over their head, you ignoring what they already told you and, perhaps most importantly, you wasting time that should have been spent WORKING to write up a petition. You will find that same attitude in EVERY organization beit a fortune 500 right on down to the smallest not-for-profit.

    In short (and in recognition that this is your first job), you need to understand that the working world is not a college campus. You may write a petition to form a new cheese tasting club on campus, but you’re not going to get very far scrawling petitions to go against established rules at your job…ESPECIALLY if it seems the biggest thing you have to complain about is the shoes you have to wear.

  148. HR director*

    The funny thing is with the Obama NLRB the fact they signed a petition and presented it to discuss terms and conditions of employment could entitle them to protection under section 7 of the NLRA should any of them have filed an unfair labor practice with the NLRB concerning the dismissal. The company’s decision in this case was fairly heavy handed and could’ve been used to have a reality check discussion with these millennials to help educate and prepare them for the future rather than an outright dismissal. It’s hilarious nonetheless

  149. leslie knope*

    really disappointed in all of the disparaging comments about interns here. these are people who aren’t getting paid to do work that in most cases approaches what paid employees do (it certainly did in my internships). it’s a way for companies to increasingly get out of having to pay entry level workers, and to see people here acting like they are incompetent and stupid and deserve not to get paid for being pains the ass is frankly disheartening. it’s not an easy climate for people entering the workforce.

    that said, LW was obviously out of line and getting fired may have been harsh but im not quite sure what else they were expecting.

    1. Dust Bunny*

      Internships are supposed to be a way for pre-grads or new grads to get a feel for what it’s like to work in the given industry or discipline. We have internships at my office: Most are paid, and we do not use them as grunt labor (they do get entry-level projects, but it’s because most come in without any experience and aren’t ready for higher-level work. If they can do more, we give them more).

      However, these interns are here voluntarily. They knew they weren’t going to get paid when they signed on and they agreed to that by accepting the position. They’re there because they think they want to work in whatever area this was. Trying to opt out of the industry culture at least partly defeats the purpose. So, no–minimal sympathy. If they need this experience so badly to get jobs, they need to act like it and not expect to be held to a lesser standard than rest of the industry they wish to enter. That straight-up makes no sense.

  150. Tech Employee, Weighing In*

    Reading through the comments and having the majority say that “your workplace isn’t a democracy, get over it” just seems to me to miss the point. Yes, fine, there could have been intermediate steps, but the company didn’t actually do its job of teaching interns by firing them – they abdicated. Interns are in it to be taught, not just as resources to be used, and that was going way too far.

    It is true that most workplaces aren’t democracies. It is not true that you can’t ask for things to be different … depending upon the environment. In this case, I would have simply gone ahead and quit, because frankly, nobody has any right to decide what I wear without a compelling reason (e.g., steel-toed boots for construction areas). Dress codes are petty tyranny, mostly, and sensible companies have given them up.

    Of course, I’m in California, in the tech industry, so perhaps I’m seeing the world through a different (e.g., “modern”) lens.

    1. dg54321*

      Yes, this is only in California. In the rest of the world, dress codes exist. As a fellow IT guy, there isn’t a company I’ve worked or applied for in my entire career that didn’t have a dress code of some sort.

  151. JoJuniper*

    OP, life is full of lessons. This is but one of many – absorb, understand and move forth. The important thing is that you learn from this so your new knowledge helps you in the future working world – and it will. You will look back on your younger self and be amazed at how far you’ve come, years from now.

  152. Mike, Civil Engineer*

    You are an intern. You are literally the most replaceable person in the company. You were given a task to carry out and instead of doing that job, you spent any amount of time on anything else. Then you had the bright idea of coming forward and telling your superiors that you had spent company time NOT DOING YOUR JOB. What did you think was going to happen? Next time you are lucky enough to find employment, whatever it is, DO. YOUR. JOB. You were an intern. You were not hired to make the office a better place. You are there to file papers and get coffee.

  153. Lab Manager*

    Oh boo hoo kid. This wasn’t school and there are rules to the real world. Interns are there to learn not demand privileges. my labs had a strict dress code for safety reasons and I was known to disallow entry to administrators, bosses, auditors, employees and especially interns that did not meet the minimum dress code for safety reasons. at a minimum no shorts or skirts above the knees, no low cut tops, no open toed shoes, no sandals, shoes must have a full leather foot. For certain operations lab coats, gloves, eye protection, steel or composite toe shoes/boots. These were NASA manufacturing labs where safety was paramount and most interns just aren’t all that bright when it comes to stuff that can maim or kill you if you don’t respect it.

  154. Cav Vet*

    Cut the kids some slack. I read some pretty harsh judgemental comments about college students and the education system from people who can’t spell the word Business (ie bunsisness owner or however he spelled his name), don’t know the difference between tack and tact, or that the proper word usage is not “here, here” when applauding a comment but “hear, hear”. Let anyone who is without fault in their (not there or they’re) career throw the first stone. It was commented that internships are designed as a teaching or learning experience for the intern. Supporters of the fire them all approach of teaching would likely have the court systems execute all traffic violators – or at least the ones driving faster than they are.

  155. Noah*

    Not to pile on, but the petition was particularly inappropriate because these people’s managers had already said no. Not taking no for an answer is usually a terrible trait in an employee.

    1. animaniactoo*

      I think I’d revise that to say “Not taking “no” over things that are relatively unimportant” is usually a terrible trait.

      One of the fine lines I still struggle to figure out where to walk is in how hard to push on some stuff that is important. If I give up and don’t push when it is important, I get blamed for that too. Because just letting everything go when it’s wrong and is significant is also usually not a good trait.

  156. Office Ali*

    I bet the manager was super pissed that they were spending valuable work time gossiping about an employee and drafting the petition, instead of focusing on the opportunities the internship was providing them. Also, the manager does not owe them an explanation as to why/who has special accommodations and it’s appalling that the LW thinks she is owed an explanation to “factor into her argument.”

  157. Rob*

    As a person that has had to task a few of the interns at our office over the years, I work to be cordial and informative to them during their initiation. In our company’s case, most of them have a parent or partnership in past history with our company and we are very selective with selecting interns to be involved. As a result, I make sure to let interns know that I’m a willing resource for any questions they have about the office and that I’m more than willing to give advice about anything they don’t understand. After all, they aren’t just there to work but to also learn.

    This being said, without exception, I have had to coach almost every one of them on the one core concept that really trips them up: You are not equals in the office. No one is. Experience, responsibility, performance, seniority, culture, leadership, trust and many other factors play a hand in the work that goes on. You may have equal rights but you don’t have equal value. That’s a lesson that too many of the Millennials were not taught. As a bonus, I also tend to point out that just because you are unique it does not equate to being useful. Sometimes you need to just focus on taking care of what you are tasked to do.

  158. blank*

    > The proposal was written professionally like examples I have learned about in school

    Really? She learned about writing dress-code proposals in school?

    She should petition for a refund when she gets back to school or at least pick better classes.

    Also, petitions over work-rules are negotiations with worker groups, ie unions.

  159. Ask a Manager* Post author

    Y’all, I’m closing comments on this post for today, but might open it back up tomorrow.

    This post has gotten a bunch of attention elsewhere on the internet, and it’s attracting a lot of new commenters who don’t know/aren’t abiding by the commenting rules here, and it’s taking too much time for me to deal with the influx of unpleasant comments.

    I may try opening it back up tomorrow and see if that’s died down.

    1. Ask a Manager* Post author

      Okay, comments are back on today, but all comments on this post are set to go through moderation first. Please follow the commenting rules, which basically means be kind.

  160. globaloppsguy*

    I would have let them go as well.
    It’s not explicitly mentioned but it sounds like they wrote this proposal at work and gathered signatures at work. If that is how they invest their work time, then what is the point of keeping them on as interns?

    I can just imagine a group of employees wandering around to get signatures at my office. Odds are management saw them coming before they ever received the proposal.

    Demanding a different dress code when you are an intern is silly, wasting company time to try to make those changes would result in termination at many businesses.

  161. Windy Wilson*

    My first job out of high school also had a very strict dress code. During our “internship program” our manager went so far as to make us get the same haircut from the same barbershop, made us wear the same clothing and footwear, and would check our footwear every morning for proper shine.
    I’m trying to imagine his reaction if we “interns” submitted a petition to relax the dress code. We wouldn’t have been “fired”, but I’m sure he would have made sure we wished we were.

  162. PatriciaH*

    I’m not surprised they were all fired. It sounds like they were far more work than they were worth. The most blatant issue to me, was even AFTER this, the OP didn’t understand that he had done something wrong, and was STILL looking to petition himself back into the position.

  163. Reasonably Big Boss*

    Greetings,
    I’m a EVP of a fortune 500 company, I started out as an intern at Western Electric a long time ago (practically a galaxy far far away) When I was on-boarded as an intern back in those days I was given a small lecture by the staffer that walked me around the building .. In short he said “You are here to learn, you are even lucky that you’ve been selected. Your one job here is to listen, learn, ask questions, get answers and do what you are told. If you don’ like that, leave, as thats your only option if you don’t like something, otherwise deal with it as its called work for a reason” a few decades later and its exactly the same speech I give interns today ..

    I’d have fired OP, without further explanation. Your entire actions, justification and rationalization of them spells out the vast amount of entitlement and narcissism that you’ll need to shed if your going to succeed in the workforce. Your opinions begin to matter as you build credibility in the workforce, but the actions you took seemingly indicate that you felt like they mattered more than the company culture or decisions which were made long before you wondered in off the street and certainly before you earned any “corporate respect” . Hopefully you’ll learn from this experience, and learn from the comments here. Changing a corporate culture takes time, credibility, influence and a goal that looks accretive to the bottom line of the company. But in your actions not only did you exhibit all the signs of a spoil entitled brat, but if there was ever a chance that the company was on the verge of such a change, you set that change back even further.

  164. C B*

    I deal with a lot of interns and students and am often stunned by their sense of entitlement. I’ve had many of them say that they demand an explanation for orders. And they frequently want to handle things collectively, which I think is probably because they think it gives them a stronger position but also because they’ve been doing that since high school and don’t have much experience standing up for themselves individually.

  165. toastengineer*

    I think the best way to describe it is that at university you are a customer. At work, your employer is the customer; you’re selling them your time.

    At your university, a petition might just get something done – because the university is there for you, and if you leave they’re out a hell of a lot of money. Just like Burger King will put whatever you want on your burger, because they want you to buy their burgers.

    But going to work and demanding the dress code change is like Burger King coming up to you and demanding that you eat a Whopper with mayonaise on it.

  166. Scott M.*

    Cudos to the one brilliant intern who declined to sign the petition. That solitary person knew intuitively and apparently couldn’t turn the others from their ridiculous path. Just shows the power of not following the crowd.
    Their also probably getting a job offer at the end! :)

  167. Walter*

    Dear Reader, I’m sorry this happened to you. But the company was not unfair. I can tell you that what you did was wrong, but yes I have seen worse. I did worse at one of my first jobs, but was saved by an older employee who helped me. I will never forget that and will always try to pay it forward. However, what you did was wrong and until you admit it you cannot learn from this. You can ask your manager for a rule change, but they told you “no” once and that should have been the end of it. But you kept pushing. If I had to guess, the speed and the totality of the firings probably meant that you ticked off your boss’ boss, the same people who set the dress code. Your boss probably ran your petition up the corporate ladder and someone higher up made this call. Upper management probably holds the former soldier in high esteem so they viewed your comments about a current employee as offensive. And sometimes it does not matter that you didn’t know the particulars of the situation. Interns cannot cause problems for current employees. Upper management also has better things to do with their time than dealing with intern grievances and do not want their lower management to be bothered with stuff like this. People have actual work to do. Start by admitting that YOU blew this opportunity. Talk to someone at the school to see how you should handle this on your resume and if asked about it in an interview. Get another job or internship quickly-and be a lot more humble and just thankful to be there. If you are planning on working in the same town as this company, get advice on whether a written apology and follow-up call might help smooth things over so you can say hello at a conference without it being so awkward. Once you become established, remember how tough it was for you starting out and help the new people when you can. You chose this industry and I have a feeling that this may be an expectation across this industry. If you can’t deal with it, you may want to look at doing something else. And on the bright side you can wear whatever you want now. Sorry, couldn’t help myself! :-) Seriously though, I wish you the best of luck.

  168. ChangeAgent*

    What interesting timing. I am an executive for a small (110 employees) consulting firm that is approximately 8 years old. We were just getting a good laugh out of our own dress code today. When the partners started the firm they hired somebody to write the policies including the dress code. Oddly the dress code is 3 x’s longer than any other policy in the employee handbook. That alone tells you there is something amiss. Whomever wrote it took a very conservative approach and they were so busy trying to close deals they barely reviewed it. The current dress code includes references to “synthetic fabrics” as being acceptable for slacks. Well synthetic fabric includes latex, polyester and spandex all of which we would not want employees wearing. It also goes into too great of detail and needs to be a guideline and we need to assume that people are adults and can address professional. We will manage the exceptions vs. trying to appear controlling.

    Should they have gone with the petition approach absolutely not. However, to fire them seems a bit excessive. An internship is not just free or cheap labor. This was an opportunity for the leadership to pay it forward and educate the interns how they might want to approach it in the real world. Focusing on the dress code as an intern seems like a waste of time. I don’t think getting in line and not challenging the way a company or a department is the right answer.

    True a company is not a democracy, but research shows that the more successful leaders and organizations are ones that are open to new ideas and perspectives. To grow, prosper and remain relevant a company needs to continue to change including re-evaluting the dress code from time to time. Just like consumers are causing disruption for companies in the products and services they offer the younger generation is also causing companies to rethink how they attract and retain employees. The old school mentality that many of the respondents expressed will not work for much longer. Those are the types of individuals that will not make it past the 1st interview.

    Just because somebody started their own business doesn’t mean they have all the answers. Kudos to them for their great idea and all the money and sweat getting the company off the ground. However, there will come a point that you can’t do it all the decision making yourself and different perspectives bring better results. Sure if it’s their business they can dictate whatever they want, but an interview is a 2 way street. The potential employee should be interviewing the company and the hiring manager just as much as they are interviewing the candidate. I want to work for a company that is open minded and looks for ideas from everybody not just based on their role or title.

    1. Aster Z*

      I doubt you’re still reading, OP, but let me just agree with a few others that you’d be extremely well advised to take Alison’s advice about writing a letter of apology. Given that your feelings are still raw, you’ll want to have a trusted elder (maybe a counselor in your college career office?) look it over for you to make sure the aggrieved tone you take here doesn’t creep in.

      It’s not just that it’s the right thing to do. If your industry is anything like mine, the whole is huge and anonymous, but each sub-field is a small world. It’s well within the realm of possibility that you’ll be a candidate for a job in seven or eight years at a different company–perhaps a thousand miles away–and have your application land in the lap of an HR or department manager who was involved with your internship. He or she will be much more inclined to laugh this episode off as youthful insolence that you’ve probably grown out of if your final gesture is one of contrition.

      ChangeAgent:
      “To grow, prosper and remain relevant a company needs to continue to change including re-evaluating the dress code from time to time.”

      I don’t think anyone disputes that, but it’s all about context. An employee with a proven track record of performing for clients and management is in a good position to argue over whether the enterprise’s interests can be served well with everyone in canvas sneakers. A summer intern and her peers who just don’t feel like wearing dress shoes are not, especially when motivated by their own convenience rather than a desire to add value to their internal or external customers. Part of being a grown-up is doing unexciting but necessary things with a good grace. Once the child has learned that lesson, we can advance to the one on how to mobilize for change when warranted.

  169. Tim McConnell*

    Not all of the interns were lacking common sense. According to the article, one of the interns refused to sign the petition. I bet that kid is doing just fine with his /her summer gig, as well as getting to learn from multiple people that would have otherwise been helping all the interns.
    Good job kid, going along with the crowd makes great lemmings, but poor business people.

  170. Elliott*

    In my line of work having an intern stand up and contribute a view for something intended to improve the working environment for employees or develop the business as a whole would be most welcome. We encourage interns and new graduates to do exactly that whilst recognising that for the first 2 years they are in learning mode and should be cut some slack, not fired. After the two years would be a different matter.
    If the company has such poor management that they are unable to nurture and develop people in a job for the first time or just views them as slaves or cheap labor then it would be better to only take on experienced-hires and not have any interns at all.
    If you’re an intern and you end up at a company with such a poor workplace culture then leave and go somewhere where your views are respected by the leaders and you can learn, without the fear of being fired for making a mistake.

  171. snflwrz*

    I work with children and teens and I believe the issue here really starts with parenting. Often kids are raised with the idea that they have a voice and say in every decision. Mom and Dad’s rules become flexible with push back. Kids develop a sense of entitlement. By the time they’ve reached college, they are so used to getting their own way they don’t know what to do when they encounter something they don’t like other than fighting the decision. I think OP had the best of intentions and tried to approach the situation in what she thought was a professional manner. But, the tone of her letter sounded like she was expecting the comments from people affirm she was in the right. I don’t think anyone has commented that she handled it appropriately. She is in for a wake up call! However, we learn through consequences. If you get burned, you won’t touch the hot stove again. Hopefully, this firing was a hot enough stove to help her learn from this. Bottomline…Parents need to be the parent. Set the rules and follow through. Don’t let kids push back and argue. Then, when they get in the workplace they won’t have this sense of entitlement.

  172. Larry Collins*

    How presumptive! You weren’t even regular employees, you were interns – summer guest workers. You applied to work there and then complained about the dress code! Had you never noticed how everyone dressed there? It made you look childish and ungrateful – and you were. Interns are, basically, interruptive. They take a lot of time and are both an investment AND essentially an on-the-job training and interview. Some interns are offered jobbs later. This was a hard lesson in the realities of real life. It’s called The Golden Rule of Corporate Life:
    “He who has the gold makes the rules.”

  173. Chicken Philly*

    I would have fired you as well. Technically you were not a part of the company, you’re just there to get experience. Things do not work that way in the real world.

  174. Riley Neigerk*

    A) Did you learn anything from this? Or, B) Are you now emboldened to work harder to effect change. If you answered “B” you can expect a very short stay with your next employer(s). That is until you “A”.

  175. Connie Smith*

    “It turned out the worker who had been excused from following the dress code was a veteran who had lost his leg and was permitted to wear whatever footwear was most comfortable.”

    Let’s get the whole story! Don’t like the rules? Establish your own company, and then you can make your own rules.

  176. Connie Smith*

    “It turned out the worker who had been excused from following the dress code was a veteran who had lost his leg and was permitted to wear whatever footwear was most comfortable.”

    From *Reason* — this is the rest of the story. I wish you the best in establishing your own company, so you can make your own rules, that you hope your employees will follow.

  177. Kevin K. Murphy*

    Stunningly few people seem to view this as a teachable moment. We hire interns with the clear understanding on our part that we’re taking on the obligation to help them understand how the world of work operates. The notion that these interns represent some kind of “rogue” band about to destabilize their workplace is bizarre. They’re kids who need to learn lessons–and the lesson they learned was the wrong one.

  178. William Ames*

    Hey kid…

    Obviously, your parents never gave you this lecture, so I’ll pick up their slack.

    You want to know the reasons why your were summarily dismissed? As an aside, though, you really weren’t an employee…you were auditioning for the part.

    …but the reason you were asked to leave is two-fold:

    1. Your first major action on the job was to organize labor into a protest. If you act this way when you don’t like the dress code, what happens when you have a real beef? You going to start a union? Go on strike? Yeah, you’re going to get canned for stuff like that…that is, taking on an adversarial position to management and organizing labor. Guess you never had that class in college. Duh.

    2. You were focused on this nonsense when you should have been WORKING. Yeah, I know, it was in your spare time, yada yada. You know when I work? ALL THE TIME. I am always thinking of ways to better serve my clients or to improve my marketing, whatever. You’re focused on your damned shoes. The dress code is what you choose to act on instead of improving processes, being productive, or just no making waves. Start your own company if you want to do these things, but when you’re on the payroll, be productive. Prove your worth.

    Someday, kid, you’ll realize that business and life are hard. It’s not a little game. You’re getting paid by other people to perform, not to live out your Working Girl/Legally Blonde fantasy. I blame your parents, though, for your incredible naiveté. You can overcome their failure as parents, though if you’re willing to learn as much as you can from your superiors and elders.

    My advice to you: Consider how you may actually be to blame for your situation, use this analysis as data to improve yourself and then try to do better next time. Where did you fail? Why did you fail? What can you do to improve the situation? That’s what successful people do. Unsuccessful people never realize that they are the cause of their own problems because they can’t see past their own noses.

  179. Joany*

    You are so very lucky to have been offered a summer internship not everybody gets the opportunity. There is something with your generation that has a sense of entitlement. The company’s rules and protocols are theirs if you don’t like it especially as an intern leave. It was a short term job that could have been a long time career. You all blew it because your immaturity and lack of office etiquette caused you to question a non-important rule. If you don’t get your way it is like a tantrum and you always have to question instead of just going along and accepting what is a rule. As an intern you are in no position to be questioning the office protocols. This was a time when you should have been learning, watching and listening. It was a privilege for you to have been offered the internship and you all blew it. Hopefully lesson learned. Now you all just look like you are non-team members and difficult people to work with it and added controversy to a well established office.

  180. bbbb*

    The dress code being overly strict would depend on the industry. Companies have investors, big clients and such randomly walk through with out prior notice. Not knowing what industry this is, it is hard to judge.

    That being said, I would most likely fire them as well, and reconsider my company’s relationship with the university. these interns would be a constant problem all summer long and not worth the time and effort if they are going to complain about shoes.

  181. Aster Z*

    Alison:
    “The letter-writer’s generation is far from the first to bridle at dress codes or misunderstand office culture or start out with little knowledge of how things work in offices. This is about being young and new to the work world, not about what generation they belong to.”

    Thanks–that’s an important point. But I do think that one reason this particular topic may have struck a nerve is this: the ether is full of stories about millennial workplaces with unlimited flex time, non-hierarchical meetings, mini-spas, game rooms, and the like. What many of those entering adulthood seem to take from all that is the idea that anything that makes their lives easier and more entertaining is inherently good for the company. They’re not to blame for the messaging they receive, but it can be hard not to conclude that they’re taking entitlement to a level that really is new.

  182. Kimberly*

    These interns should have been focusing of their own jobs and not be comparing what others “got away with.” It doesn’t sound like they’d ever asked why one person was allowed to wear footwear which didn’t meet the rules. But the letter writer’s comment that “if we had known about this we would have factored it into our argument,” indicates that they still would have gone ahead with their self-centered request.

  183. LizM*

    It’s all about balance. I wrote above that the problem I see is that they asked, were told no, and responded with a petition. But I’m noticing a troubling trend in these comments that interns should have no say in their working conditions.

    But I’m also not totally willing to adopt that stance that interns should shut up and do what they’re told. I was part of a fellowship program to bring new grads into my organization (I’m a fed). Normal practice is that people start much lower on the totem pole in our regional offices and work their way up. I was hired into our headquarters office. I know there are people that feel I was given too much influence too fast, and who role their eyes when I question typical practices. As a young woman in a field of mostly older men, it was hard to strike a balance between deferring to people that were more experienced, but also recognizing that as a relative newcomer, I had a different perspective and that perspective added value to the conversation. And, not to toot my own horn, but now that I’ve been here for a while, I have a track record of my projects surviving court review and public scrutiny, something that this office struggled with when I was hired.

    Again, I totally agree these interns mishandled this issue, and it’s not hard to imagine why firing was justified in this case. But I don’t want to give the impression that interns or new hires should never speak up when they see a process that they think should be improved. And if we don’t adopt their recommendation, or dismiss it outright, we owe it to interns to take some time to explain why, and new hires and interns in professional programs should be given a way to bring suggestions forward. To me, that’s a sign of a healthy organization. Maybe I’m an entitled millennial (age wise, I’m right between Gen X and millennials, depending on who you ask), but I wouldn’t want to work somewhere that my input wasn’t valued. I also think, as others have pointed out here and on other letters, learning office etiquette is a challenge, and if the working world wants to hire interns, they need to help teach them how to exist in an office setting. If you don’t have time to do that, you shouldn’t be holding this out as an educational opportunity.

  184. Tim*

    I like the note at the beginning. We were all young once. We may not have made the exact same mistakes as this person, but we have all made them. Everyone enters the “real world” with different experiences, training, and knowledge of etiquette and professional standards.

    I have had interns. I would not be opposed to an intern putting together a proposal to change something — even a dress code. The right way to do that is to produce a formal proposal or presentation (ideally on your own time) explaining why your suggestion is a good idea *for the business and organization as a whole.* Offering a formal proposal for a more casual dress code could be fine, but it needs to be a well-reasoned business case, not a statement of grievances by the individual presenting it.

    The petition was way out of line. Accompanying a proposal with a petition turns it into a personal demand, not a suggestion to improve the business.

    Hopefully the writer learned a professional lesson here and will be better off for it.

  185. Pistachios34*

    I don’t think it’s fair to comment on what these interns “are” (immature, self-centered, etc.) or what they “should have been doing,” that’s not necessarily a helpful tone. It sounds to me like this group of interns truly thought that what they were doing was normal and OK. A mistake, yes, but this just tells us that they have learning to do and do not yet understand how the professional sphere works. Also, the fact that the OP knows that Askamanager exists (I only found out about this site when leaving grad school and needed guidance with job applications), and cares enough about the issue to write in and be willing to take some tough commentary, tells me that the learning process is definitely in place. There is nothing immature about that. When I was in college studying in a humanities-based field, I can tell you that professional development was not presented well enough at all. The importance of office etiquette, the basics of professionalism, were never taught or discussed beyond various flyers for job fairs, which were pretty much only marketed to the seniors. This is what internships should help do. I’ll be honest, it was the wrong move, but I also think firing all of them is extreme and not helpful to them. A firm talking-to (hey, a straight up hour long lecture) would have been helpful, requiring them to explain WHY they thought signing a petition would have been useful, and then following up with an assignment regarding professionalism would have been great.

    1. LoriW.*

      The one question I have (which could have been answered in the comments; I haven’t read them all) is, was this internship paid or not? I think that’s a crucial piece of information we’re missing. If it was an unpaid internship, the value is all in the learning; I’d argue the interns deserved the solution you present. If it was paid, I think that’s a different story.

    2. Frank Powers*

      I’m curious why you think firing them was an overreaction. According to the letter, several of the interns had already asked if they could wear different shoes and been told no. There response to being told no was to make a proposal and sign a petition. You’re telling me you’d just sit and explain why their conduct was unprofessional at that point? You’re a lot more forgiving than I am.

      We’re also taking this person’s word for it that their proposal was written professionally. Given that their grievance is based on someone else being allowed to wear different shoes I’m having a hard time swallowing that. From what we know, they never once asked why an exception might be made. They just assumed they were being oppressed and decided they knew better than the people who had already told them no.

      You are right, we all have made mistakes. But I’m willing to bet that as an intern you were never so arrogant as to think you could tell the boss how to run things, especially after already being told no. That’s where the generational part comes in. College kids today are being taught, directly or otherwise, that if enough of them complain they will be listened to, regardless of the merit of their grievance. It doesn’t matter how ridiculous their complaint, remember we’re talking about shoes here, they deserve to be listened to.

      Sometimes, a stern, “no, get out,” is the exact right response. It’d argue this is the best lesson any of them have probably learned either in class or at the internship.

  186. Paradigm*

    Unfortunately, rabble rousing IS how things work in the public sector. I had several friends who worked for our city. There was one employee who had a ~$600 ergonomic chair for her back. Well, some other malcontent decided that he/she needed one too. All of a sudden, the office was having to buy these ultra expensive chairs for everyone in the building. They wasted a ton of money.

    One of my friends went to his manager and asked if he could re-upholster his chair, which was threadbare. He showed how it would cost much less than the ergonomic chairs and the manager said no, because it wouldn’t fit with their processes.

    I foresee a lot of millennials going into public sector work, because they cannot handle “the man” having complete control over the company’s conduct guidelines.

  187. Jason M*

    This is an excellent lesson to modern college graduates, and should be shared far and wide.

    Hell, it should be made into a movie. THE PETITION, starring Young Hottie as the plucky-but-serious intern, and Thirties Shirties as her immediate supervisor, with a special appearance by Morgan Freeman as “THE MAN.”

  188. Jules*

    I’m not terribly surprised that they don’t teach this in college.

    An internship is not about you, your needs, your wants, or anything else about YOUR comfort. It is primarily an opportunity for the employer to try to find potential future employees. Ones that they might want to groom for a position with the company later. Even if they are paid internships, when you are “working” there as an intern, I can promise you, you have zero value to the company, and are actually costing them money. The best way to get and keep an internship, and potentially score a future job offer, is to learn as much as you can, try to be helpful, be genuinely interested in the product or improving things. If you do see a way to improve things, you go to your manager and discuss it. “He/She” will carry the idea up the food chain. Take reasonable lunch hours. Come in a bit early and leave a bit late. It’s about the work. Period.

    Since there are usually a lot more people wanting internships than are actually offered, getting a chance at one is not to be sneezed at. But don’t kid yourself, every single one of you was on trial, and everyone you interacted with was watching you. Since there ARE usually more people vying for fewer jobs now, you just made it ridiculously easy for the people whose job it was to evaluate your work performance and decide which ones of you were worth further training. They might even offer the remainder of your internships to the next batch they were considering, but didn’t have room for.

    The one who refused to sign the petition? She’s probably got a job offer coming.

    This sounds hard-assed, because the real world is. I worked as an intern every summer between semesters at college, and had three permanent job offers as a result. The last one I accepted. While I was an intern, there was not much that I was actually able to do, but I tried, learned, and offered to help where I could. After working for that company for several years, I left it on very good terms to start my own business. Now when I hire someone, I look for someone who is motivated to get the job done, and so do other employers.

    If you get a chance at another internship….work. It’s what they will hire you on.

  189. LoriW.*

    I agree with the suggestion to write a letter to the former supervisor, expressing regret and thanking him/her for the lesson.

    I do think this is partially a generational thing. I grew up in a time when we were taught in no uncertain terms that rules are to be obeyed. So, when I was in my twenties and out in the working world, I accepted and followed the rules I was told to follow. If I felt any were unreasonable, I asked around a little — how long has this been accepted policy, and why. If I still couldn’t make sense of the rule in my own head, I started looking for another position.

    I can’t fathom how anyone comes to the conclusion that a petition should be written and passed around. Even if you’re 50 and a high-level manager, you wouldn’t do that. So the fact that this was a group of inexperienced interns doesn’t factor into the absurdity of the solution.

  190. CM*

    When they went individually and got a negative answer, they made a written proposal to prove there exists interest in the idea / that it’s not just one guy; that’s hardly disrespectful.

    Instead, it signals the employees that taking any initiative to improve the company is too risky given even something futile will get you fired.

    It also burned the reputation of the company in whatever school the interns came from (and interns are tomorrow’s employees).

    Replying “no, and that’s the end of it” would have been a smarter and proportional reaction.

  191. GuesswhoatKU*

    I did not look through the multiple comments so this may have been mentioned but I think this is still great reinforcement. The problem here is not that you wanted to change the dresscode but rather instead of approaching your supervisor directly and having a conversation about it you went full civil rights mode and made demands. You are not fighting for your “rights” rather you’d like to be more comfortable but it doesn’t sound like you had any context for why the code was so strict. You also accused someone of hypocrisy, again without context. The idea that this is a millennial issue is no question to me. I supervise 11 younger millennials, I work with over 400 interns (almost exclusively millennials) and I have spoken with more peoples parents than I could have ever imagined. Learning to have adult conversations is something I find the generation struggles with amongst other things. I am not sure if I would have fired you all because of that background but I can understand why that step was taken. I wish you the best.

  192. George*

    A thing that is striking is that ONE of the interns recognized this was a bad approach and didn’t sign the petition. As it is interesting to see the exceptions, what kept him/her from joining the thundering herd? Just motivated to keep the internship and realized it was a fool’s errand? Something else?

    That would be a great summer for the one intern who remained.

  193. Nobrexitplease*

    I would have done exactly what this companies management did.

    How in anyone’s wildest dreams could they think that organising a petition when you are allowed to intern says to the management ‘we want to learn, impress and achieve in our future careers’. Learning (internship) is not just about work experience, it’s about experiencing work; How people behave and how organisations work, the politics of the work-place and how to get ahead. No one wants to be told they have it wrong by a bunch of kids who just left school!

    My company takes interns from abroad against the wishes of some of my managers as they believe we spend more time holding their hands then they spend producing useful work.

    As I heard a comedian say once about students entering the workplace full of their own potential:
    Student; ‘I’ve got a degree’
    Manager: ‘That’s great, put the kettle on’.

    I am not knocking education (I have two degrees) but the world of work is not the world of college.

    I have an intern right now ; On day one we sat down for a meeting (the intern, myself and a Project Manager) to discuss what she wanted to achieve and what we required. I had to ask them to throw the chewing gum away (and this has not determined them for continuing to chew through office hours since). On day two I asked a question and realised that they could not hear me as they has an earphone in one ear and they were listening to music…I told them ‘no’ to which they replied ‘but it’s relaxing’ (how did they think was even a debate?).

    The mind boggles!

  194. Jennifer*

    As someone who has had her fair share of interns let me say that this was inappropriate behavior. If the one thing you got on a soap box about enough to sign a petition was the dress code you’ve missed the point of employment. It’s a privilege not a right especially as an intern. This behavior would show me your not mature enough to handle being an employee, the focus as an intern should be on the job you’re learning and not the clothing (unless there’s a safety issue). As an intern you’re job is to ask questions and learn not create an uprising. If you have a problem….ask….learn…. but don’t think you hold any weight in a company the only people who matter are #1 clients, #2 people satisfying clients, and #3 people helping the people satisfying clients. If you’re not doing any of those three, especially if you’re focused on yourself then your navel-gazing shows youre not a profitable asset to the inventory of the company. Now there’s a ton to be said about job satisfaction, but again you’re not employed. And it’s not free help. Interns are a ton of work for the person in charge….it’s inconvenient but necessary. It adds work not relieves it, it adds stress. If you’ve learned what you need to then it becomes easier but if you’re not falling into alignment then your giving more than one person excess work. Employment is a privilege not a right.

    1. Dan*

      If interns are not vital to a companies bottom line, then why do they hire them? It isnt due to the kindness of their heart. The interns went overboard, but firing the group was a waste of everyones time and damaged that company far more than any of those interns. If the interns were so easily replaced, then the company was not providing its 1/2 of the bargain to train them and they were just doing busy body work. If the company was actually providing the training they should have been, then it would have hurt the company a lot more to can those people and they would have thought it through more than overnight. Those interns were getting nothing in exchange for their time.

  195. Loretta Y*

    There is one thing that I would (and do) advise everyone I train or coach, in any work environment: NEVER, and I mean never, set what you do on the basis of what someone else does, especially if it “seems unfair”. In this case, before I got through the tease, the issue of medical exception and reasonable accommodation for disability popped into my mind; sure enough, that’s the case. Don’t form some ad hoc “Union” to try to strong-arm some policy change, just because it isn’t something you’d prefer. Rules and policies are there for a reason, just as exceptions to them might be, and another’s issues with HR are not your business. Short answer: If you take care of all YOU need to be doing at work, you should be too busy to be taking steps to decide what anyone else should be doing, or not.

  196. Chloe*

    The OP and other interns wasted company time on a proposal for changing the dress code instead of working as intended. I can see why the company let them go.

  197. Judy*

    Many comments here talk about the failure of the college in preparing these kids for an internship. Most of my kids’ friends have internships this summer and pretty much all of them found them on their own. The college had nothing to do with it and there was no prep from an advisor or class taken about how to get an internship or how to behave when you get there.

  198. Tom*

    I run a small chain of stores and the things that most important to me are:
    A) Long term growth
    B) Loyal, happy customers
    C) Loyal, happy employees
    I don’t want a bunch of employees calling in sick because they want to spend the day with their bong or stealing because they don’t have the money to buy. I listen to my employees because if they’re happy their attitude towards our customers is better and I make more money. As for interns, I doubt I’d give them carte blanche to wear whatever they please but at least I’d listen. You never know–some of those interns I trained might want to stick around and contribute positive things to my business. Disgruntled employees steal. Happy employees let you know when thieves are doing it.

    1. Cam*

      You’re one of the good ones then, and thank you for it. Frankly though, the other comments here on so called generational lines are not simply out of line but disturbingly lacking on class consciousness, the last fourty plus years of American economic history, and on the fact that ultimately it was not the so called millennial generation that has created the current awful state of affairs. It was the generation of the very people attempting the time honoured tradition of blaming the younger people who did.

    2. Theresa Foley*

      I am sympathetic to the intern who was fired for organizing a petition to request permission to wear more comfortable footwear, because I discovered it is very difficult to find affordable business shoes that do not kill my feet. For a long time, I did not need to buy business shoes because I worked in a laboratory. The need for business shoes I can walk in arose when I was preparing to attend the American Geophysical Union conference. I spent a lot of time searching for shoes, and finally found a pair for $145 that I had to order several weeks in advance because the store did not have my size.

      I see large numbers of women in downtown Chicago wearing gym shoes with their business suits, so I know I am not the only woman with this problem. The $145 I spent may not have been in the budget of the young intern, who may not have even been paid. I was a graduate student when I brought my first pair of business shoes, and it was definitely a challenge for my budget.

  199. Linda*

    First of all, the intern had already talked to her manager about the dress code and was told “No”.
    That should have ended it right there. Then she ended up making an end run around the manager.
    She wanted experience before she graduated??? She sure got it.
    Lack of respect.
    Know-it-all attitude.
    Sense of entitlement.
    You name it. I would have fired the bunch 0f them, too. There is always one in the office who is
    a troublemaker and stirs the pot, so to speak. And it sounds like it was early in the process, only
    a week or so after everyone was hired “for the summer”.
    Dress codes are there for a reason. The interns are representing the company both in and out of the office.
    When they are at lunch or out people ask where they work. Who wants a bunch of slobs with
    the company name tag on them? It shows management who respects and follows the rules. And who
    may get a job offer or good referral out of it.
    They already badmouthed the management. No one gets their job back. For many reasons.
    It’s not too late to hire people who will APPRECIATE the opportunity they threw away.

  200. aj*

    This has certainly been a learning experience, perhaps a bit bewildering to you. Let’s recap some of the learnings:
    First, being perceived as insubordinate is usually not positive to your continued employment as it usually resulte in TFC (terminated for cause). This impacts your future employment as this is a reportable item for any reference check…not something you were expecting, but a consequence.
    Second, organizations hire you to do a job. Unless your job is in the Policy Department or Debate Deparrtment, you are expected to focus on your job, your deliverables, your performance; and not on organizational change. BTW, there is usually no Policy or Debate departments in businesses for a reason…
    Third, you listened well and followed the process by talking to your manager about the situation. Most businesses list this as your first action when you have a concern, and you did this. Good job.
    Fourth, when your manager’s answer was not fulfilling you made a poor choice of croudsourcing a solution. Unfortunately, the next step for your concern was a discussion with HR (which is not disclosed and may have happened). If you had that discussion, you would have received a teaching moment that employees who work there follow the policies or they become former employees. Perhaps this would have avoided the whole TFC situation, but you neglected to follow the process. Follow the process next time.
    Fifth, since this was an internship in your desired field it would makes some sense that perhaps your goals have been altered. Do you really want to be in this field, if you cannot focus on your performance, your responsibilities, your job? Only you can answer this one…

    All the rest of the stuff is jibber-jabber. We all face this everyday, yet you don’t hear about mass firings and we don’t blather in social media. You may feel the right to blather, but every electron is discoverable by your future dream job employer…don’t blow it so young. FOCUS on doing your job the very best you can, and avoid the surrounding clutter; and you will be much happier.

  201. julie*

    I agree with those saying you don’t do a petition. If for some reason this was a very important issue to this employee (which I agree reflects something about entitlement or “I want things my way”), then you actually go diplomatically totalk to a supervisor to possibly understand the dress code and ask about it. You don’t rally the troops in a petition and cause havoc. I do believe speaking to people directly, one-on-one and diplomatically is something that this generation has lost through the dependence on texting, etc. Also, as an aside, if this person wants to start a petition about something, much better to spend her time on something important like social justice issues, poverty, illness – things that really matter – not her dress code at work.

    1. whatsanenigma*

      Also, I am sure that if any of those interns had a legitimate medical need to wear a different shoe, there was a process in place to get that exception made. I’m not sure if it would have been through the disability services of their school or of the workplace or a little of column A and a little of column B, but it’s probably a safe bet that a legitimate need could have been accommodated. There was a way to do this already, and no need to make a petition or otherwise reinvent the wheel.

    2. Paul*

      Have just done this. My daughter has just started work in an retail environment which has a uniform, with a specified shoe type. However, she has tiny feet so shoes are very difficult as she is still in child sizes.

      While she did eventually find something which fitted the description after a lot of digging around, she had brought this up as an issue, and they were okay with her wearing something similar but not quite.

      It depends how you go about it.

  202. Anon13*

    I would say these interns sound a lot like the student teacher I was in charge of this year. Very entitled, and actually came off as combative. They also didn’t know when to stop negotiating or not talk at all. What annoys me is most people think it’s just “young kids these days” doing these things. Well…I’m one of those young kids (only in my 20’s probably around the intern’s age). My student teacher was at least 10 years older than me, and had plenty of previous work experience. I said multiple times to the college supervisor, “where does this entitlement come from…why would you talk to people like that…they’re older shouldn’t they know better”? Thank you Alison for saying this is not a generational issue!

  203. Curmudgeon*

    While petitions would be acceptable for some changes at the college level, students still have rules and standards to follow. Yes, students pay hefty tuitions for their education, but they are paying for the OPPORTUNITY to earn a degree. They are still responsible for working to earn the grades they desire.

    However, too many students have learned that they can throw temper tantrums to get their way. The students know they can cry to the administration and get what they want even in cases when the professor did nothing wrong and all of the policies were spelled out at the beginning of the semester.

    The students carry this learned behavior with them into internships and the workforce, and to their surprise, they receive a swift kick in the behind.

    My advice to these fired interns is to learn from the experience. If it ever comes up in future job interviews, they should spin this story in a way that reflects the valuable lessons about professionalism they learned from this and how they will do their best to act professionally in the future.

    1. Disappointed*

      After 25 years working for two Big 4 Accounting firms and two Fortune 500 Corporations, I decided to teach college. I thought I was actually helping the future workers while they were still at the college level. I don’t have to teach college, I can still consult or do corporate training.

      During my first years of teaching, I was able to have a positive impact with the students. I offered a real world view of the workforce through classroom discussions, on campus volunteer seminars, and a lot of informal lunch meetings. I went clothes shopping with some and noted very good books on professional presence/dress. I helped quite a few students obtain interviews and jobs through my contacts. Quite a few of these earlier students still maintain contact with me.

      Unfortunately, I will have to say that the past several years have been an experience in disgust. I stopped volunteering to give seminars due to very low or no attendance. I’ve actually had students ask “Can we move on” or “Can we just stick to the test material” when I tried to enlighten students about how the text and discussion material relates to the workforce world.

      Several semesters ago, a student called me over to his desk during an exam. He said that his answer was wrong and after looking at the answer I agreed. He then raised his voice and asked me if I’m just going to leave his answer incorrect and not help him get the correct answer to the test problem. I said yes, this is a test of his knowledge, not a practice exercise or homework problem. After the test, he and 8 other students signed and delivered a petition to the Dean requesting my immediate removal. They stated that if I were not removed, they would sit in the Presidents office until he agreed to their demand. I learned through two other professors that several of these students were submitting petitions to have two other professors removed as well.

  204. Robert*

    Some manager just did a whole group of interns a HUGE favor.

    He taught a whole bunch of special little snowflakes that in the real world they are at the bottom of the food chain and expendable.

    Your opinion matters in the work place place only after you’ve actually made significant contribution to the overall effort.

    Not before. I don’t even know why an intern would think they should be entitled to even discuss the dress code.

  205. JJ*

    I am (mostly) on the side of the intern on this one, but can understand some of the employer’s concerns.

    If I were the manager, I would not have terminated the entire group, but explained the dress code as being customary in the industry, expected when meeting clients, or as “training” for future assignments where full business dress is expected.

    I have worked for organizations that also “made an example” of people who politely and diplomatically raised their concerns. Those places always reaped the same results: their people would clam up, do the minimum necessary to avoid losing their jobs, turnover went through the roof, and the product or service would suffer.

    My advice to the intern: Do plenty of due diligence on any organization you wish to join. Especially read Glassdoor to see what their reputation is with their people. If you decide to join an uptight, restrictive company, know what you are getting into and plan accordingly.

    My advice to management: If you have to implement unpopular policies, clearly explain the reasoning behind them. Do not expect others to do anything you are unwilling to do yourself. Do not see questions and teamwork as a threat, but channel your people’s energy and passion into appropriate activities (e.g., new products, saving time and money, etc.). Lastly, if your power trip is more important than the people you lead and represent, consider joining the military, where the values of hierarchy and obedience are revered.

  206. JW*

    I am an executive manager at an organization that consolidates an intern program into our business model. When I read this story it brought a few things to mind. First, when you are selected as an intern it is a position to enhance your integration into the “real world.” It is also an opportunity for the intern to be exposed to the career they are potentially pursuing. As such, especially in a professional environment/career, following directions and following them correctly are paramount. It appears in this situation these interns were not well versed or advised of such things. We have plenty of interns and new hires who are war veterans. We also have interns and new hires who are college students. Generational arguments of being unprepared may hold weight in a few instances but I would not say a majority. We have employed brave veterans (college graduates), whose lives depended on following direction, and they are from the same generation as the college students who are non-veterans. Free thinking is a welcome tool and should not be ignored. In this day and age there is still a hierarchy of those who decide it’s value.

  207. Genise*

    Working anywhere is optional. Yes, you need the money but at the end of the day, you need to keep looking if you don’t like the policies. This is not a time where indentured servitude comes into play. We all have options. You picked the wrong one, when you are not even officially an employee yet.

  208. Josh*

    There are a couple sides to this. Upon reading the headline, I thought the interns were outright rebellious and just refused to abide by the dress code; in that case they SHOULD be fired. But this company is going to learn a painful lesson in the years to come. Millenials (and to a certain extent, others) desire to take a more active role in their workplaces; part of “more active role” means having a say in how things are done. From what I read here the interns didn’t out and out rebel, they made a very civil proposal and handled this like it should have been handled. They merely asked the management to listen to them. That’s it.

    Companies that do understand this will be ranked as most desired places to work, and attract top talent. Even my employer understands this at a fundamental level, and we are a top-10 insurance company.

    1. NotAnotherManager!*

      But this is the issue that they choose to spend their political capital on? I can understand wanting to have input in your workplace, but this is just such a petty, waste-of-everyone’s time “issue” to invest this much of their and their managers’ time on.

      And they didn’t handle it properly. They asked their managers about it, and, after being told no, spent additional time organizing their proposal and asking for a reconsideration on and asked-and-answered question using the old, kindergarten, “it’s NOT FAIR” that their coworker with a medical need was treated differently.

      I look at stuff like this and thing, “Wow, if only you’d invested this much time and energy in your actual job, you’d be very successful.”

    2. skylar*

      This company is not going to suffer in any way because clearly it’s successful and as such, there will always be a sufficient number of intelligent and qualified people who are more concerned about being employed for their skills than their ability to put together a business causual outfit.

  209. Robert Holmén*

    I’m not a big dress code fan.

    When I started at a large telecom they had a jacket and neck-tie dress code for most office workers but not for the tech-hipsters who did coding, even though neither was more likely to encounter customers or appear in public while representing the company.

    About a year later they expanded the office-casual code across the whole company and yet, somehow, the company did not collapse.

    I’m not surprised that they thought of a petition. They’ve been told repeatedly in school that petitions are how good, responsible citizens start important change!

    I understand the interns’ desire to not continue something that appears unnecessary but since they had already inquired once and gotten a “no”, the petition was pursuing it past the line.

    But petitions are for high school principals and politicians… people who have to pretend to care and to pay attention.

  210. HChrisSee*

    These comments are EXACTLY why most people are unhappy at work and dream of the day we can tell our employer to suck it as we’re flipping everyone the bird when we leave.

    Yes, the interns were out of line. Once each had asked a manager if they could also be an exception to the rule and was told no, that should’ve been the end to the story.

    HOWEVER, everyone who says the OP shouldn’t assume things are unfair is being completely disengenuous – we all notice the blazing inconsistencies in the workforce and while most of us don’t say anything (out of fear) we all know it happens ALL the time.

    What the OP needs to learn is that you have to decide which hills you’re willing to die on – bcuz everyone loses a battle at some point and faces consequences way harder than they should have. I, myself, was fired from a job two years ago for sending non-work related emails to my co-workers – one of those rules that everyone broke all the time, everyday. Interestingly, none of the people I exchanged emails with was fired (totally unfair), but none of them had recently complained to HR about our supervisor either, who had become rather hostile towards me after I suggested in a team meeting that her advice to “bring your own toilet paper” was insufficient considering we worked at a multi-million dollar law firm and frankly, having toilet paper in the women’s restrooms should not have been a “perk” to occasionally enjoy. Had I known my award-winning, high-performing, top-tier status was not going to be enough to protect me from getting canned the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, well, as a single mom who’d just that week before celebrated getting a place of my own after a catastrophic and unexpected divorce, I would’ve just brought my own damn toilet paper (fair, I guess).

    The truth is, OP, most of us, like you, have learned how to shut up. How to suck it up. How not to fight for things that seem important, but, in the grand scheme of things, aren’t as important as being able to pay rent and feed the people who are counting on you.

    And that’s really the “experience” all these posters are talking about. It’s not that they’re any smarter than you or didn’t feel any less entitled to fairness or open communication at some point. It’s just that we’ve all experienced a slap in the face when a mindful redirection would’ve been just as effective, and their egos, quite plainly, delight in seeing someone else’s hubris sting.

    Ironically, becuz that’s what feels the most fair. Sigh.

    1. Portia de Belmont*

      Okay, this REALLY chaps my hide. Interns are essentially college students. College students are by definition broke. Most of them can’t pull a fully professional wardrobe out of their hats. And YES; Goodwill, thrift shops, re-sell shops are all good options, if you have a generally traditional body shape. I don’t, and a lot of people I know don’t. I would love to have a nifty wardrobe of office-to-court appropriate clothes but short of bespoke, it’s just not happening. So *cope*, or pay an intern a modest clothing allowance. You can’t have it both ways, and may well lose out on the best and brightest staff if you insist on it. Remember – fifteen years from now, that intern might be your opposing counsel; twenty years and they might be the judge you appear before. Are clothes the hill you really want to die on?

      1. Nope, nope, nope*

        I disagree with so much of this comment. First, college students are not “by definition broke”. A lot of them have help from their parents, a lot of them have jobs in school (some of which require work clothing), and, from what I’ve seen, a lot of them are very good at making smaller amounts of money go far. I hire fresh out of college kids every year, and they are not universally lacking the ability to buy work-appropriate clothes. Second, internship programs are typically a money-loser for employers anyway and are either a recruiting tool, professional courtesy/giving back to the industry thing, or a way to provide summer jobs for clients/industry peers. I’d be stunned to see interns offered a clothing allowance. I’ve never worked somewhere that full-time employees got a clothing allowance. Third, in my experience, not giving interns a clothing allowance has never lessened the quality of an internship program. There are actually a lot of bright, well-educated people who don’t require a clothing allowance to participate. Fourth, the idea that an intern who was not coddled suddenly shows up again as a vindictive adversary or judge, who, in this case, would be ignoring their code of professional ethics by handling the case differently because of past personal experience, is the stuff of movies, not real life. Finally, at no point did the writer of this letter indicate that the problem was that the interns could not afford the required clothing. The issue was entirely raised as one of principal and not because they were concerned that Joe Intern couldn’t afford to meet the dress code.

        I was the “charity case” legal intern in a large, business-professional attire firm when I was in college, and I managed to pull together the right clothes on a shoestring budget. I did not dress as nicely as my peers, and I took a decent number of comments from them about not having cashmere sweaters and silk skirts and the “right” brand of suit, but management never critiqued my attire, and I must have done something right because I got hired back after college and had a decade-long career with them. I also do not fit into off-the-rack clothing and have managed to clothe myself for the past 15 years without bespoke tailoring (or my employer subsidizing same). If your situation is so dire that you cannot find professional-looking clothing without custom-made clothes, the answer is more likely learning to sew to make clothes or tailor your off-the-rack items to fit or find a program in your area that offers professional clothing to those in need rather than expecting a clothing allowance as an intern. This is a problem for the employee to solve, not the employer. Telling an employer that if they want to you to dress appropriately, they need to pay for it is not a good idea. If you can’t meet the job requirements, they will move onto someone who can.

  211. DJ*

    Since the intern has been forced back to the drawing board with their career, I would suggest the following:

    1) Leave this company/internship off your résumé, as this circumstance is likely to result in a negative reference.
    2) There are some situations where you, as a person, are “not trusted” by default. Employment, credit, and insurance are the biggest areas where you will be treated with suspicion at all times. Try to understand how you are perceived, rated, or scored, and target your actions so that you are seen as favorably as possible. If you don’t understand the evaluation system, assume your boss is suspicious of your intentions and ready to move against you at a moment’s notice until proven otherwise.
    3) Research the cultural tendencies of the industry you are in. If you want to work in a freewheeling environment with a relaxed dress code, a technology startup is a much better choice than a big bank or investment firm. If you want a “bond” with the company/owners and more openness to suggestions, stick with smaller companies (< 250 people). The region of the country may also make a difference (e.g., expect a more formal culture in "corporate" towns like New York or Dallas, and a less formal culture in "outdoorsy" places like Colorado or Silicon Valley).
    4) Leave an ANONYMOUS review of the company on Glassdoor. Describe your circumstance in terms that makes you look like a reasonable and cooperative contributor (e.g, "I made suggestions for improvement through appropriate channels, but was threatened with my job for doing so."). Do not mention names or specifics that could identify the person or department, as that will cause your review to be removed. If you are in touch with any of the other people who were forced out, encourage them to do the same. Once word gets out about the company's antics, they may face recruiting challenges and have to revisit their policies so that people will want to join them.

    1. Travvie Jr.*

      Though I’m not a HUGE fan of shaming the company, I do think they need to be called out as well. For one thing, they have an intern program. If they have an intern program, they want one of two things: either free labor, or to train these people in doing a skill for future employment possibilities. Either of these scenarios require that the company invest SOME money (time, etc…) in finding, processing, “hiring” these people (drug tests aren’t free…) and then training them. Who knows how much that cost, but, at the end of the day, the company literally threw the babies (all of them) out with the bathwater. We can never know what other underlying issues there were before this petition came up, how long into their internships these interns were, etc… but (assuming there wasn’t already cause for dismissal,) having a 2 minute meeting and explaining the rationale behind a dress code would have further educated their potential future hires, as well as not resulting in the complete decimation of this group. Ultimately, this could have been handled better by BOTH groups. Nevertheless, the fired interns have learned a lot (also about this company in particular – and it would be interesting if they boycott the company [depending on what type of company it is,]) and the company has a few open positions to fill. (It would be interesting to find out how they go about filling those new openings since so many of those types of positions are filled via colleges… maybe now the college will advise their students to steer clear.)

      1. skylar*

        Travvie Jr. — internships are paid and given they have no experience, they’re paid fairly well.
        An intern is like a temp in a sense in that the internship has a specified time period of months or even a year, but it’s understood that they’re not a permanent employee, but they are NOT free labor.

        Even if it were unpaid, do not take the assignment if you can NOT follow the rules. It’s not about whether you LIKE the rules, it’s whether you will do what you AGREED to do.

  212. Liz Hasbrouck*

    When I was in college, I learned to keep my head down, get good grades, connect with the profs who could help me, and use them to my best advantage. One of the first real lessons I learned (in grad school) was to “pick your issues.” Footwear? Really? In this situation, I would have purchased a pair of acceptable footwear, worn them every day for the summer (whether or not they “went with my outfit”), and abided by the rules.

  213. Liz Hasbrouck*

    Here is my beef:

    I was a communications manager in a nonprofit, and was told to hire an intern for the summer. I was given about 25 resumes, and threw all of them into the trash, causing a bit of a hoopla, which I successfully defended.. Is it too much to ask a high school senior to distinguish between “to ” and “too,” “they’re” and “their,” and “chili” and “Chile?”

  214. Louie The Fish*

    BLUF: Suck it up and do what you’re told; you aren’t an employee (yet).

    I’ve managed interns. Some have been good, some not so much. In our shop, we typically give interns something that might be interesting and worthwhile, but no one has time to do it. They can ask anyone for help, and a staff member works with them directly, but it’s their baby. One of the people who thought she had nothing to show for twelve weeks of work actually did more for us than some full-time staff, because she really thought out the problem and showed why it wasn’t doable for us. One was a glorified bolt-counter because he didn’t want to think over the summer. One complained he couldn’t telework.

    Every time you hire an intern, you know that person is there for a short time, will eat up resources (my time and that of my co-workers) and may or may not produce something of value. When you see the same faces over and over dwelling on things that are not directly relevant to their work, it’s easy to give up and pull the plug. The shortest route out for an intern is soaking up management time for non-issues.

  215. Rangen*

    With such a long thread, it is hard to imagine a point that has not already been made, and made well, but I didn’t see this one:

    Yes, if you’re an intern, and you want to get fired, organizing the interns and submitting a petition about an issue you’d already been told “no” on, multiple times, is a good way to go about it. But as others have mentioned, not every organization would fire you for that.

    Want to increase the odds of getting fired? Cc your petition to your boss’s boss, or to the CEO. Wonder if maybe they did that. Going outside the chain of command, HR excepted, is a whole other level of violating workplace taboo.

  216. CEO Cat*

    Your boss was absolutely right to fire you on the spot for a few reasons:

    1. You have wasted valuable company time on a trivial matter. Even if you organized the petition on your own time, responding to it took up the time of your managers. The firing probably didn’t come from your direct manager but from someone even higher up who said you were wasting company time. I agree and would have done the same.

    2. You were told no on a previous occasion in response to this matter and yet you still pushed for getting your way over a trivial matter that should be a no brainer. Did you have uniforms at school? There are dress codes elsewhere and many businesses have them. Learn to adapt to your environment or it’s best you quit the workforce now. Start your own business but I’d hate to see the day you don’t get your way with a customer.

    3. You had no idea that your co-workers disability was the reason she was given an allowance to the dress code, which shows your petition had no research backing it up. Maybe you could have politely asked her before you blew up your internship though she is under no obligation to discuss it with you, nor was your manager. But hey, just a thought.

    Your letter was extremely worrisome because you seem to have a lack of remorse over getting your fellow interns fired. I don’t agree that all of you should have been fired, but researching the group to just rid of the true rabble rousers would just take up extra time better spent training people who want to learn and get their jobs done.

    Your lack of understanding in how the ADA works is appalling. I knew it at your age, probably before then. It’s a law so that people like myself can make it through a workday by giving accommodations in the work place for disabilities and this is a great example of it. It’s also not up to your manager to disclose this private information to you. Only that employee can share it with you by their choice.

    But the fact that you wanted to use someone else’s disability to get your way is what truly disgusts me in your letter. I would have passed along advice of “hey, you blew it. Next time concentrate on learning the ropes and less on your wardrobe so that you can make the most of an internship.” No, instead you wanted to incorporate a sacrifice made by one of our citizens in the line of duty so you don’t have to wear shoes you don’t like. I just have no words for how low that is.

    We all make mistakes and this was a wake up call that you don’t understand the work force. It sounds like from your letter that you didn’t learn from your mistakes but hopefully you have learned from the comments here about how to handle your future jobs. I hope it all works out for you.

    2. Paul*

      Yes.

      It’s not the stupid mistake of the petition that convinces me that they were right to fire her. It’s the rest of it. To me, she still doesn’t think she’s done anything wrong.

      If this was a “what a naive I d**khead I was, how best should I apologise, do you think there’s a chance they might take me back” post then I’d have some sympathy, anyone can make a dumb mistake.

      The real problem seems to me “and if we had known about this we would have factored it into our argument”

      What this seems to me to be actually saying is “It’s the managements fault, they didn’t tell us that this other employee had lost a leg (or whatever)”. This is a big downers both in personal responsibility terms and keeping your trap shut terms.

  217. Jeff*

    Interesting topic to read about. Also really ties together lessons I learned growing up. One major item I took away from the post was that the writer had never had a job before. The experiences one gains by flipping burgers, picking up cigarette butts in parking lot, bagging groceries at age 16 are invaluable. Especially when paired against a 22 year old intern who’s never worked before.

  218. Mark*

    What company was it and where can I either buy their products/services or invest in them?

  219. Rodney*

    X-er here. I was always taught “Dress for the job you want. Not for the job you have.”

  220. faith*

    I have one question which may have been asked and answered upthread: Was this a PAID internship or not?

  221. Cecil*

    Well, you were “hoping to gain some experience before I graduate next year” and you got what you wished for! Seriously, if ever there was a time to make such a ridiculous mistake, it was during an internship like this. Ideally it will not have a meaningfully adverse effect on your career, but will hopefully have a lasting impact on you as a worker and as a person. As many folks have already noted, you were totally out of line. You thought you would get a gold star and a pat on the head for banding together and expressing your feelings, but in fact you got a boot in the backside. Do better next time, when it really counts.

  222. Laura Childs*

    I commend the responding manager for handling this question so professionally. I do believe it takes more than training to achieve this level of clarity and diplomacy.
    She can come work for me any day.
    The intern? No thank you. If her name is ever discovered, she might have trouble securing a full time position once she graduates. As a hiring authority, I would not extend an offer. My job would be on the line and rightly so. I could not cobble together enough excuses to defend that hire.

    1. George Childs*

      Laura, I agree with you. I would add one more comment as did below. An intern is there to learn and not just to do work. A part of the learning experience would have been to explain how the American with Disabilities Act (ADA) applies to the situation. The application would have been the reasonable accommodation of waiving the strict requirement of the dress code for the one individual.

  223. SkinnyManhattan*

    They’re interns. They’re there to learn. Would it be so crazy for the employer to gather them into a room and make it a teaching moment about how the corporate world works? What happened to mentoring and training? A draconian and incredibly dramatic measure taken by the company.

  224. Laura*

    Many good comments and experiences shared from people with real life insight. Hopefully the OP and all members of the collective will read these posts, learn from them (and their recent mistake) and have better understanding in their future endeavors.

  225. Muriel Schwenck*

    I’m pretty sure this group of interns did not discuss and prepare the petition outside of work or during lunch. They worked on it during company time.
    That’s worth firing them. The realization of how the group was wasting time was one of the final straws.
    The fact that the letter writer is looking for a way to change the employer’s mind about firing is an indication that management was right to fire the lot.

  226. George Childs*

    In addition to the response that we provided regarding the dress code, I would also like to add in accordance with the Rules for reasonable accommodation under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) all employers are required to make reasonable accommodations for those with disabilities. By addressing the requirements of the dress code for one who was injured or maimed as a result of military service, the ADA applies. The reasonable accommodation of allowing specific shoes due to disability is within the legal explanation for this situation. The employer could have used this opportunity to educate the interns in the application of the law.

  227. Old Enough*

    “Written professionally… examples like I learned in school.” Maybe your school is the problem. Were you taught what was needed?

  228. David Parry*

    As a 72 year-old, still working full-time as a professional manager, who as a younger man always believed that rules were made to be broken, I can still vividly recall that when I started working, men weren’t allowed to grow beards (without permission) or wear suede shoes (whatever you think of that fashion statement!!!). So, seeing you be so rebellious over more casual clothing, pales into insignificance. We all learn, when it’s necessary to play by the rules.

  229. newlyhr*

    wow, this thread blew up. It’s interesting to see what others think. I hope the OP sees this as a learning lesson and takes that learning into his/her next employment opportunity. Companies are far more willing to consider what they can do for you once you have shown them what you can do for them.

  230. Christina*

    Similar experience, maybe? One summer, I worked at a camp, and our camp leader was the founders son. He was not very organized and he abused his power. He would take the team car and leave for days, leaving us stranded with no way to pick up the meals for campers, or getting ourselves to the worksites. We each had a night to speak for chapels, but we never knew if he would be there to lead his night. Some teammates would try to confront him, but the more he was confronted, the more he withdrew. Frustrated, our team held a meeting to figure out what to do, and decided it might be in our best interest to contact his father. Long story short, we were all fired and his son got a new team. I felt that decision was wrong and I would never go back and ask for that job back. Sometimes, you never know if you made the right choice, but you learn from the outcome.

  231. Stever Robbins*

    I am on my 11th startup in 35 years. My employees and contractors wear anything they want, as long as it isn’t overtly sexual. When dealing with clients, I ask they dress professionally (defined as one step more formal than how we expect the client to be dressed). This corporate obsession with controlling other people’s clothes really creeps me out. And the repeated “this is a reasonable thing to ask” sentiments puzzles me completely. Why in the world is this reasonable, in non-client-facing positions?

    I judge my employees on the quality of the job they do, how well they learn, and their ability to take on responsibility and deliver on their promises. How they happen to dress is incidental. Though we do tend to enjoy it when people wear superhero T-shirts featuring the superhero they believe most represents them.

  232. Jacquie*

    You must appreciate how tough the employment situation is globally right now. It’s an employers’ market, and as such, rather than focus on what aspects of the workplace you dislike, focus on the fact you’re extremely fortunate to have a foothold into your chosen career. People who are problematic or who challenge the culture of the workplace, won’t find themselves working there for very long. When I feel under-appreciated, frustrated or discontent with an aspect of my job, I remind myself how lucky I am to have a regular income. So many people cannot say the same and the situation is worsening.

    The adult world is tough, unforgiving and no one really cares about your individual preferences regarding uniform. They want compliant workers. Trying to pressure a company that doesn’t need you to accommodate your personal fashion tastes was never going to end well. Just because your letter was politely worded, the intent was incredibly impudent. I teach at top private schools and constantly find myself warning students that in the adult world no one will treat you this nicely or with this much understanding. Your surprise at the company’s response indicates you haven’t made the leap from high school mollycoddling to the harsh reality of the adult world.

    Chalk this up to experience and next time remember that you’re a small cog in a big machine and easily replaceable. Never forget there is a long line of people waiting to take your place.

  233. valereee*

    Firing doesn’t seem extreme to me. Many companies hire interns because it’s a low-risk way to give a potential hire a test drive. Any intern who would sign a petition like this one is so woefully unprepared for the work environment that they’re unlikely to be offered permanent work, so why bother continuing to train them?

    I was feeling very bad for the OP that she had to learn this lesson in an internship that really mattered to her when so many of us learn this lesson in jobs that don’t really matter, but when she ended by saying she thought the dismissal was unfair and was asking how best to appeal it, I realized she hadn’t learned the lesson at all. Which tells me her boss was absolutely right to throw in the towel on her. OP, you need to get a couple of bad jobs before you try to get another good job. You need to go get hired at a fast food place or as a camp counselor and learn the basics. If you get another good job before you learn the basics, I suspect you’ll get fired again and again won’t really understand why.

  234. Paul in Oz*

    Whilst I can understand you wanting to be comfortable at work (hey who doesn’t want this) you must understand that this was your first taste of how the real world operates. You may have looked and gone “why can’t we wear the same as that other employee” and as outlined been willing to submit that as part of your enquiry. For a moment consider this;

    That other employee who lost her leg in military service goes through challenges everyday (mental and physical) that you may never understand and, you’ve absolutely no right to pry into her life unless she chose to talk about this to you. You may not see it as prying but coming from someone like yourselves (guests of the company under observation) it most certainly is. You mentioned that you put the petition together like you were taught in school, here is a real lesson you need to learn NOW if you hope to succeed in real life. “Life isn’t school”.

    As for firing you all I think the boss was well within their rights and you should be thankful that a bad reference dosen’t follow you. Now that you’ve obviously had the proverbial flogging of getting canned here’s some words of experience that you can learn from or just ignore. You entered this company as a trainee and guest and were under observation from before you ever walked through the door. What you write on social media, what you talk about on the train etc is all up for examination and observation by potential employers. Whilst you may think this over the top read on for a point of view from the other side of the fence as to why this is done sometimes more that you’d think.

    Think for a moment that you’re a manager looking at a group of perspective employee’s during an internship and, of course scoping them all out to locate the cream of the crop with a view to getting them to consider your company as their future employers of choice. Now for starters you would obviously never let someone so green into a open area where they would deal with clients and therefore effect your business (positively or negatively) until you had a reasonable and justifiable faith that they would only put their best foot forward. Yes you weren’t directly working with clients but you were under observation so as to assess your suitability to do so in a way that would increase the reputation and profitability of the business. In short the first thing you did was complain about something you obviously had little concept of (workplace discipline and ability to transition from being a student to being an employee) and in short it would appear that you’ve failed this one by grouping together and petitioning to the management to get things changed when you’re were there as guests (a very bad move indeed). Whilst the idea of a strict dresscode seems draconian and silly it would have been used to teach you attention to detail and also to develop your infant work ethic to “do things properly in every detail first time every time”. This in itself may seem over the top but consider that if a mistake is made that causes a profit loss that’s most certainly bad for business. If in addition to this there is also a damage to company reputation then that has more possible cascading effects to the company and in what can sometimes be a very competitive business environment this can be a death nell for a company and therefore to be avoided at every possible juncture. If I was your boss then I maybe wouldn’t have fired you but I wasn’t and they were.

    Would I have thought your actions incredibly naive? Absolutely.

    Would I want to let someone loose in my company that couldn’t/wouldn’t even follow a simple dress code? Not a chance

    Again in regard to the ex-military employee that you mentioned, to then ask why she was allowed to wear something different when you weren’t not only marks you as questionable employment material but most certainly out of the question for management. You not only walked in the door and openly questioned the companies procedures but, then appeared to complain that someone else was allowed special treatment and, in the process appeared to be somewhat similar to a spoilt school child. Think to yourself about that ex-military employee who lost her leg, when she gets undressed at night she may have a stump, may have a mechanical leg etc but, that’s abolutely none of your business. The fact that she gets up and goes to work each day show’s something enviable in her personal makeup “a real drive to succeed in life” and that is what you were being examined for and in this case failed big time.

    Whilst you were there as interns you were all getting looked at for your long term ability to assist the company in operating and thriving. If you marked yourself as unsuitable for management then why would someone take a chance on you when there are no doubt others who would have been able to work to the requirements of an employer.

    The news for you isn’t all bad here. You have the chance here to learn from your expereince and become better rather than bitter. Remember when you got to work you’re going to work and not to school and, MUST always act accordingly to show that you’re worthy of the faith an employer places in you by giving a job (be it actual employment or a temporary post such as an internship)

    Good luck for all of your futures and remember that the first person that’s responsible for your success or failure is you.

  235. Zobieeb*

    I think it’s interesting/telling about a generational difference. The OP noticed that someone seemed to be an exception to a rule and questioned his/her boss about it. Boss said, “that person is an exception and you are not.” Instead of accepting that, surprise, surprise, someone might know something more than him/herself, OP took a “social media” approach to his/her “problem”. Instead of reaching out to someone who was “different”, i.e., older, more experienced, had more time at the company, was at a different level of responsibility and talking about the issue to obtain more information or a different “take” on the matter,
    1. OP “posted” the problem (queried all her/his fellow interns about it and found out they agreed with him/her);
    2. OP indulged in “group think” (“It isn’t fair that someone is wearing flat shoes and WE don’t get to!”);
    3. OP’s fellow interns “liked” the post (they all agreed).
    4. OP & the group “responded” to the boss/manager with their indignation but received the same answer.
    5. OP & the group “Shared” the problem (they wrote a petition & got others to sign it.)

    How different things would have turned out if OP had:
    1. Trusted that the boss/company had its reasons for the exception.
    2. Considered that perhaps the other interns and him/herself didn’t have complete information
    3. Second guessed him/herself…thought that perhaps at 19 or 20 years old they didn’t know everything.

    The moral to the story: a focus group made up of people exactly like yourself is not going to provide you with much clarity or good information. Involving more people who are different from you in problem solving is a good thing, not a bad thing. Your being fired is probably the best thing to happen to you in your career: it’s (hopefully) taught you to: work on developing your emotional intelligence, be aware of your blind spots, wait before making decisions to be sure you have all of the information that’s out there, and sometimes, you’re not going to have all the information so the best thing to do is trust someone who maybe, just maybe, might be trying to save you from yourself.

  236. Bob*

    While writing a petition seems a bit overboard (like it or not, workplaces ARE basically the equivalent of authoritarian/dictatorial states!), firing everyone seems a bit harsh. Although I’ve heard the US has some pretty nasty employment laws which allows people to be fired for anything (“Tea drinker? Get out!”).

    Although I also find dress codes for non-client facing roles completely pointless, much like putting fax codes on emails or requiring employees to kiss the floor before those of higher social rank. My productivity actually visibly increases when I wear more comfortable clothes.

    Also, I wonder what happened to that one intern who didn’t sign the petition.

  237. Grow Up*

    Think the company was right in firing the interns
    As an intern, you have been given a valuable opportunity to work at a business
    – to gain experience (which btw you will find every employer asking if you have had any).
    – The time, energy and resources put into setting you as an employee – even a temporary one – is a risk the business is taking for interns.
    – Not to mention, time spent by existing staff to ‘babysit’ intern. Coaching, culture, community, team work, etc. Regardless of how effective a university has been, there are lessons that you will only learn by working

    Every company, regardless how relaxed they are will have some rules that they expect the staff to follow without question – and these rules are not drawn up on someone whims. They have been researched, worked on, fine tuned, legally, ethically and morally to ensure they are for the benefit of company and employee (At Work) in mind.

    The only time you should be taking a course of action is when behaviour does not meet Labour laws or is discriminatory in nature. And even then, there is a protocols to follow

    Also i dont think we should be looking at blaming universities, teachers, parents for they actions, These are supposed to grownups joining the world.

    The interns need to take some responsibility and ownership of their actions

  238. KH*

    Ooh this reminds me of a story.
    When my wife was a lot younger, she did office temp work. She usually was staffed at smaller companies. One time she got staffed at a big company at the same time as three other girls.

    This big company was known for having a tough culture. They couldn’t stomach the culture, all three of them. And three days later, they all three quit at the same time.

    The temp agency begged them to reconsider but none of them would have it. In the end, the temp agency fired the three girls and the big company fired the temp agency. A lot of bridges burned over essentially office culture and workplace rules…

    This was in Japan in the late 1990s, by the way.

  239. Calvin Purnell, Jr.*

    This is one of the reasons I wrote my book, Polished: A Young Professional’s Guide for Success.

    So many young professional’s just don’t know. Most of their lack of knowledge comes from little to no mentors in their lives to guide them professionally. We all need guidance in our upbringing from personal to professional. You never know who is to blame. But to be told the rules and to clearly break them shows no regard for following the rules. The saying, “rules are made to be broke”, doesn’t make sense to me. If you know the rules and break them, you subject yourself to the consequences of the unknown unless stated otherwise.

    In this case, it is very well possible the interns knew the consequences of their actions. And if they didn’t, so what. Your internship is an opportunity that hundreds of thousands of people wish they had. So I understand the organization having a zero tolerance for their actions.

    As a manager, I feel like they wasted valuable time rallying together to write up a petition and sign it when they could have used that time for learning and polishing their skills.

    I commend the one standout intern who saw the value in their internship and stood out from the rest. Job well done!

  240. EKE*

    I know this isn’t 100% the point, but it really bothers me that leather is a requirement. I don’t wear leather. Period. I think it’s unethical and disgusting to kill animals for fashion purposes. And yes, faux exists, but guess what? It’s not often comfortable, especially in hot weather. I can understand a desire for a professional environment, but dictating fabric choice is a bit much.

  241. Charming*

    I want to add a little perspective to employers about such situations. I have a different perspective to share. I was in a similar situation as the veteran though my disability was just bad luck. I was in school and the professor didn’t allow laptops in her class. I was unable to write at the time and I needed a laptop to take notes. I got accommodations and used the laptop. However it caused a great deal of disruption. In a lecture of three hundred students people kept bringin it up and wasting lecture time. I was mortified. So here is my two cents. If it is fairly easy to accommodate changes in the rules for a good reason such as a disability, please ask yourselves why the rule is there and is that reason worth the possible distraction caused by someone who is obviously breaking those rules.

  242. Rift*

    Many dress codes are from businesses trying to look more professional than they are, and is a pretty fair gauge of how full of themselves management is likely to be. The question at the end of the article should be asked, but if the answer is that there doesn’t appear to be any reason at all for a dress code, such as having a client-facing position, then it doesn’t need to exist. My analysis isn’t going to get any better because I wore nice outfit. If anything, I am going to spend twice as much time in the bathroom making sure everything is straight.

    On the other side of the coin, the intern should probably have waited until they had some clout behind them before bringing this up. An intern does not even have the weight of a full employee. Kudos to the manager in this situation for creating a situation where no one will bring an idea to them. Most decent companies are actually trying really hard to get that kind of feedback and implement it, because *shock and awe* good employees like those environments too, and I’m going to go with every life benefits like this over a couple thousand a year or a nicer line on my resume.

    1. Chairs*

      There is an environment where people can bring things to their manager – that’s where the interns went first. And they weren’t fired for asking. They were fired for not listening and then for taking it above their manager’s head via petition.

    2. Amy Pemberton*

      I have to agree with Rift. Regardless of the business the rule sounded arbitrary. One might fault the interns for their approach but I think the business is at least as much as fault for not being clear on why the rule was there and what the appropriate way to get an exception to it (which some of the interns may have had a legitimate need for). Their reaction, if it was totally about the shoe petition and not something else, was out of order. If you hire college interns for “educational purposes” then understand that you may need to educate them. If I was the college intern office I would think long and hard before sending any other students to this company.

  243. B Elliott*

    I understand that the writer did not comprehend the requirement to follow a dress code. When my daughter encountered a total LACK of a dress code at her first internship/paid job so I sat down with her and wrote one for her. She didn’t like it. I also understood that the employment atmosphere was set for no expectations which of course lead to a very poor learning environment and a lousy experience since she would gain little from it.

    Dressed, inexpensively but as appropriately as a young person can manage, groomed, not drawing attention to herself, she is beautiful and it isn’t her fault, and showing up on time and acting respectful of all staff, she was given a great deal of individual instruction by most of the personnel. What was supposed to be a few weeks of unpaid internship was a paid summer position by the end of the first week. She was called for Christmas break as a fill-in staffer and again for the following summer and holiday break at a full salary rate. She got invaluable experience, opportunities for responsibility, and great references.

    Parents have a very important role in preparing out children for a work life. Managing expectations and explaining how to enter the workforce successfully is part of it.

  245. Doug the Curmudgeon*

    Very good comments from everyone. I did not read every comment so apologies if this has already been covered, but from a university’s point of view an internship is a very special and sacred relationship between a student and a corporate partner and the university. An intern’s behavior on the job reflects on all of the players and the university takes a very dim view of any behavior that reflects poorly. These “kids” have not only lost their summer internship they may have well damaged their relationship with the career development department at their respective schools. They may find themselves frozen out of other intern opportunities – what university wants their reputation dragged through the mud, and which one wants to risk it happening again? Companies can hire anywhere and can be risk averse when evaluating new employees and new interns. I am sure that these students have already been contacted by their respective career development offices and they can expect to face not only an inquiry as to the events but probably also some disciplinary action. Hopefully, they have not damaged their careers before they have even started.

  246. Andymania13*

    I don’t agree with the petition but the feeling I get from most other posters is that an intern or even a low level employee has no right to even ask a question. I’m not OK with a structure of “do it because you’re an employee and you aren’t allowed to ask why”. That’s putting people in levels of different value. I understand that the boss is the boss and rules are rules, but to ask a question in order to understand those rules and get an answer that isn’t “because” is just mutual respect in my opinion.

    1. annonymouse*

      Hi Andymania13
      I think you might be a little off base with this one.

      In the post the OP and a few other interns asked about the shoe issue “can we wear more casual shoes like permanent staff member?”

      They were told no.

      Instead of following up with another question like “can you explain/help me understand why staff member is exempt?”

      Which doesn’t seem unreasonable or like their managers would have said no to – they could easily say “she has earned it with her long and excellent work history” or “she has a special exception- please notice that everyone else follows the code and you are expected to as well.”

      They instead chose to fight something that is most likely a company wide protocol that they had little power to change.

      Mutual respect also has to be earned. You are expected to respect your boss (or at least the authority they have) and the give you the same basic respect and decency you’d expect.

      To get the level of respect where they’ll listen to that level of idea (change a company wide policy) means you need to put in a lot of ground work and have proven yourself to be someone who works hard, has good ideas and judgement and knows what is important to the boss/company.

      For example if the entire dress code didn’t make sense for the industry and/or was really bringing down morale and impacting profits/customers because of the morale then yes – bring up a proposal to change it but be ready to accept a “no”.

      The other side of the problem is that the interns made it all about them instead of how it is a benefit to the company. They either could not (or would not) consider the opposing stance and view point.

  247. Akcipitrokulo*

    One thing that did occur is that I would hope that, if politely raised, an exception would be made to the “leather only” requirement for vegetarians.

  248. Lori Hinsdale*

    Mu first internship largely consisted of me fixing the copier and running to get my supervisor Pepsis. My supervisor who called me “Lauren”. My name is Lori. (And my coworkers are always grateful to have me because there is no copier I can’t fix! ) p.s.- I credit my blue collar upbringing with helping me navigate the working world- there was no talk of petitions and dress code grievances – my dad taught us “when you are new on the job, you show up and you shut up”. Best. Advice. Ever.

  249. Renee Noel*

    I believe you employer’s reaction to the petition was completely over the top. A reasonable reaction would have been to hold the meeting and explain why your demands could not be met. How could they even afford to let go so many interns all at once? Also did the one intern who did not sign also lose their position or was it only the ones that signed? I believe that you should write a letter to the person responsible for letting you go. Attempt to reason with him and explain that you were unaware of the soldier’s situation. If he/she still remains against re-hiring you then you could find a more suitable internship elsewhere. I know you could not have predicted the extreme reaction your employer took, but do you believe more causal business attire was really that important for a TEMPORARY position?

  250. Kat*

    Honestly, I see a lot of college kids working their first job and struggling. I work in the medical field and as such there is a dress code. One of which is that you can’t have your cell phone on the floor. Break room, fine. Bathroom, pushing it but don’t linger and you’re fine.

    Every time we get a new group, they complain that they can’t have cellphones but I’m allowed to have one. If they actually looked they’d see that it’s not a cellphone, it’s an insulin pump! We’ve had a few people confront me about “flaunting it” by wearing it on my belt.

    We’ve had to let people go because they aren’t happy just complaining to nurses or supervisors. They’ll complain to patients to try and get sympathy. One of them actually confronted me in the waiting room, it was rather amusing when I pulled it off and showed him the tubing connecting it to my body.

  251. Rick*

    People, People, People… This is the problem with social media, an Intern does not like the dress code. They get the other interns to band together and sign a petition to get it changed and submit it to management. They get fired. And the discussion goes to how bad the Boss is for not following the rules he makes. No where does it say the Boss did not follow the rules. It pointed out another employee was allowed to wear non conforming shoes and thus the basis for their argument against the dress code.

    Maybe sticking to the issue at hand would be much more productive instead of trying to change the scenario to suit your argument. The interns were wrong, period. If you accept a position and are given a set of standards you are expected to conform to, and you agree, what basis could you or anyone else have to think you have the right to change anything to the way you want them to be?

    In this scenario, a handicapped person was allowed to alter the dress code to accommodate their infliction and remain a productive member of society, expected to follow every other rule that did not inhibit their ability to perform. As noted the person in every other way did in fact conform to the dress code as the interns did not know they had lost a limb.

    This is in my opinion, an example of spoiled kids trying to be adults in a world they know nothing about. It would have behooved them to do their job, worry about their performance and ignore what they believed to be an injustice. Sooner or later once they got to know the people they were working with it is highly likely the individuals situation would have been discovered and just as in hind sight, they would have seen their injustice melt away and might actually have been more considerate and appreciative this person sacrificed themselves in service of their country.

    I have worked for a Major International company for nearly 30 years in many positions including management. Especially when managing a large number of people, I looked and strove for a cohesive work environment for everyone. It was well known in the ranks my patience for piddly squabbles or attitudes not conducive to my goals for the department could and in instances did bring swift and sometimes harsh retribution. I was too busy trying to keep 30 people working together in a positive fashion to achieve goals set for me and my department.

    Excuse me for not having any sympathy for the rabble rousers, there is critical and important work to be done in order to ensure everyone has a job tomorrow. Want to be pissy about what shoes someone wears at work? Go to a bar with your friends and complain to them. As a manager responsible for far more than what you understand, I am too busy to hear your asinine, petty and ridiculous assertions.

  252. ScottPletcher*

    I worked at a medical device manufacturing company and one guy really did not follow most rules everyone else had to follow. When I got a chance to discretely find out what was up, it turned out he was a *brilliant* inventor of new or improved surgical devices, albeit a little quirky. Overall, the company felt it was worth the trade off giving him his own *reserved* parking spot (not even the CEO parked there!), 4 months vacation a year, freely walking in and out of meetings, etc.. They said his inventions brought in at least an additional $25M/year. And if you do *that*, kiddies. you too can act however you want at work!

  253. tonyinnebraska*

    I would have just changed your shoes and worn what you wanted, but still staying mostly in the dress code. Chances are they wouldn’t have said anything about it. If they did, you could always say “oh, I saw so and so with running shoes so I thought it was ok”. They would have told you no, but not fired you. Challenging management is never a good idea for anyone, unless you really know what you are talking about.

  254. Beth Bishop*

    I get the distinct feeling that you are of the intern age! Jobs are scarce, and if you run away to a safe space every time a company owner expects you to do something that he will not do, you are gonna have a long resume with very little experience….

  255. Susan G. Moore*

    I’ve worked with people like this intern. I have a question for her. Did you meet, discuss and write up your proposal on company time?

    Imagine what an intelligent, ‘educated’ group with time to kill might have accomplished FOR the organization if they weren’t so focused on what they wanted? Imagine putting energy into some small issue the company dealt with that actually mattered to anyone but you, what result might you have gotten? Imagine that instead of talking quietly in corners, about how unfair the management was being, you gathered with your fellow interns to write a proposal about, say, metrics for intern productivity?

    Can you see the difference? No? That’s why you were fired.

    If you had been in my organization, I would have fired you as fast as I could.

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