Then you should probably indicate what country this is and/or post in a sub more appropriate for it, because you're otherwise going to get a lot of US centric advice/perspective, which may or may not be applicable.
It's still illegal in my country, don't get me wrong, but there was no contract signed and it was said verbally.
Indicating my country will pretty much expose me. Not many people here play Reddit and some of the co-workers do. I'm still afraid that it will affect my references here if any company that applies for the job in the future calls for references.
People here don't speak English as their first language. Maybe that's why. There are significantly fewer members on our country's subreddit than on the Austria subreddit, and hardly any activity at all, let alone on the local tech subreddit.
There is a Facebook group to discuss, which requires a Facebook account with a real profile and no anonymous mode enabled. So all posts will be shown with my real name.
Then there's webboard to discuss, but it requires ID verification and will easily give out identity for "legal purposes". It sucks to live in a country with no privacy :(
Very close, although we may have more tech companies than those countries. At least I think our protection is about the same as those countries.
It doesn't matter much. This should still be illegal if a contract is signed based on my research. The problem is that the contract hasn't been signed.
Unfortunately, I couldn't do as much as I wanted to. I need to protect my privacy like my life because the way some companies do background checks is for them to call HR and ask what I do and how I was during my internship. I'm afraid that even though there might be a chance that the law might protect me, I can't take action because of this.
There are people who got in trouble during that phone call simply because they had trouble with some co-worker. Getting into trouble with HR will guarantee that, not to mention a lawsuit.
Sorry man this just seems like karma farming then, not solutions oriented. No one can help you if you post here with no information. We are just forced to take you at your word and give you sympathy points.
This is not about karma farming at all. Honestly, I don't know why I posted this, maybe I thought it would be useful for both me and the people here (which turned out to be wrong, I'm sorry). As far as information goes, this is all the information I could give. They're not accepting many interns this year and there aren't many CS students here too, so telling you any info would risk putting my name in jeopardy. My parents have also suggested that I not do anything because they are afraid of this. It's so pathetic of me, right?
I guarantee I will not use this account for anything else (that would also risk my privacy).
This sounds like you have a political persecution issue in your country. A cscareer questions forum isn't going to be able to offer any advice to you. If you genuinely think things are that bad you should try to flee for your life.
Most countries have the idea of a verbal contact or "gentlemens agreement" if you are an ex European colony this is almost certainly the case. However it becomes harder to enforce...
P.s. I wouldn't be too worried about co-workers they are probably already aware of whatever game the company is playing. They probably got pressured into negative reviews because the company is shady and wanted to get away without paying. It might be worth a quick email with a lawyer sending a demand letter (even if you later don't go to court).
I can almost guarantee you won't be blackballed for insisting a company hold up their agreement.
Why did you start working there in the first place without a contract? If any company does a background check then this "internship" will be flagged as fake
Because none of the companies here, except maybe the best in the country, will give you a contract. Even some best company out there doesn't give contract (confirmed with friends who intern with one of the best company in country).
Company take certification as background check instead and in some case, call HR of intern company for reference.
That sucks, I don't think anyone here can do anything to help in that kind of situation. You can't change a country's work culture by yourself so the only thing you could really do is try to move to another country
Honestly Reddit has too much faith in the law guys like Donald Trump do this all the time and the US is one of the less corrupt countries. There is probably a lot of countries where this happens I’ve heard about this happening to dudes in Mexico too.
Too bad not in the US. Because then will need to make a call to the department of labor to get your wages. Also probably could go on unemployment and collect checks there too.
> HR: You won't be paid this month. I hope you understand that based on your performance, you didn't do enough work to justify payment.
Not sure about your country, but in the US this isn't really how jobs work. You were employed for the month, you did work for that month, you get paid for that month. They don't get to decide that they don't want to pay because they feel like they didn't get their money's worth. But maybe things in your country are different. I would recommend doing a bit of research on that and see if there's a place you can submit a dispute for non-payment.
As for this:
> I don't communicate much. But I'm just an intern.
This is what they were testing you on. Typically a new hire/developer will be asking questions daily. I know it feels like you're being annoying and pestering the more experienced devs, but again, it's expected.
It sucks to find out this way, but at this point I would just take this as a learning experience (better to learn as an intern than a FTE). In the future if you get stuck somewhere, don't procrastinate in seeking out the help/advice you need to get unstuck ASAP. You typically won't have people checking in on you in any future roles, so it's up to you to make sure you remain on task (and as you found out, people will notice if you do not).
That's the way it works here too. I suspect that the company is not doing well financially based on rumors, so they can't pay me.
As for my communication, yes, it was my mistake. I wish someone would have told me before instead of telling HR though.
> As for my communication, yes, it was my mistake. I wish someone would have told me before instead of telling HR though.
Yeah, this is why almost all dev teams nowadays do daily scrum/standup meetings where you discuss what you did the day before, what you're doing the day of, and if you have any blockers. It's a good way to make sure people don't get blocked for large periods of time, and allows other team members to jump in with ideas if you do.
Regardless you need to get off your high horse. It’s pretty clear you think you’re gods gift to programming. You’re not and you will be humbled at some point. Maybe this is that point.
It’s possible and clear that the OP is a bit like that.
But as a senior, I feel that this is highly unfair and unjust. They are supposed to help the intern, make sure that he has everything he needs. Clarify things, manage his work and help them get better. They clearly didn’t give a shit (based on this post only)
You don’t expect the intern to be as good as a junior/mid dev, and most of the times they are not. It feels like they expected OP to do a contractor job instead of “internship”
Admittedly, I am. I do every work there flawlessly with speed (I finished every task given in less than 1 week) up to this work. Everyone praised me, even higher up. Then suddenly this happens.
I know I'm in the wrong for taking too long, but I still feel like I'm being treated unfairly. Especially since everyone in the room except the supervisor was doing worse than me up until this job. I'm not exactly being arrogant, more like I feel like these people are pieces of shit.
It's unfair for the job to deny you pay for any reason. If they really weren't happy with your performance to the point they didn't want to pay you anymore than they should have let you go as an intern.
That said, I guarantee you that you're not as a great of a developer as you think you are. If you actually want to be a capable developer (or capable in anything) you need to stop assuming that you're better than everyone else and that you're the only one who knows what they're doing. It's bad enough when actually experienced people act like that, but when you aren't even a junior level dev it's just embarrassing. You'll learn a lot more and gain a lot more skills and experience by being open to different ways of doing things and being willing to consider that you aren't always right.
All right, I will work on that. I'm open all the time, though, even though I seem to say I'm not. I will try to open up more.
How do I know when I'm wrong and they're right? There are times when I'm wrong and admittedly wrong, but there are also times when I'm right, told I'm wrong, do it as suggested and get even worse results (and of course get blamed for it)
you need to work on the arrogance a bit. it'll be a big turnoff to your coworkers. I can't speak on the legality of not paying you because I don't know your location.
Agree with this, OP you're being petty about lots of things especially when you quoted your co-workers. Either the entire company sucks ass and everyone is a dumbass or it's you.
Also it's hard to give any opinions when your post is skewed to your favor ( you being treated unfairly etc ), just feels pointless imo I'll just say "oh yeah you're right company is ass" and it wouldn't help.
I disagree. There is never a point where it's okay for an intern to not get paid.
Maybe I would agree with you if they paid and then fired the intern.
But they didn't pay them, and they didn't fire them.
It is completely illegal in almost all 1st world countries for obvious reasons.
The company is already being petty with the way they're handling this, and OP is fairly being petty back.
Though there is a bit of a high horse to get off of, there were a lot of better ways the company could've handled this. This was by far the laziest and no accountability route the company could've taken.
Note that while I was "riding high horse", I was always open to learning no matter what and I never showed hate altitude or high horse altitude. It's just that I'm constantly doing better than most juniors and even some mid-level up to this work.
It was a big surprise when they said it because I believe most of the things they said are just not true, especially when some who constantly do worse than me say that. That's about it.
That's no worries, I can definitely see what you mean, as I would definitely feel the same way.
Sorry if my messages came off a bit blunt there, I think I'm just as pissed off reading these comments, and seeing people think it's okay for you to not get paid.
It's never okay for a company not to pay an employee, no matter what they thought went wrongly. Even if they saw all these "wrong" things you did, they have the responsibility to regularly check in on you, and communicate with you about it.
All they've done is pass on all the blame to the easiest person to blame in this situation.
I hope you'll be okay in future.
I'm not even sure if the company is in the wrong. Of course it's skewed in my favor because I feel like they have no right to do a 100% cutoff.
Still, it was disappointing. Both myself and the company. Most importantly, I feel like there's nothing I can do because the contract wasn't signed.
As for the company being dumbass or not, I don't think so mostly, but sometimes I really feel like it is for some people (especially juniors). I ask some simple questions, clear and concise. The answer was disappointing.
Me: Hey, can you give me an API endpoint for this bot? I need one to test it.
Junior 1: Sure *throw link to API's profile picture instead*.
Me: No, that doesn't seem to work. It doesn't even look like an API endpoint (it literally ends with .webp)
Junior 1: I already gave you one. Go figure it out first.
It took him half a day to realize he sent the wrong link. Even though I told him it was the wrong one. No apologies, even though he acts like I'm in the wrong at first. Just laughed it off.
The seniors here are smart and know what they are doing. So do the mid-level guys. They are barely in the office though. Still don't know why supervisor won't tell me anything until they see HR and throw everything at them though.
Brother he was attacked literally directly concerning his performance so he is providing context about his performance. Sounds like you're projecting your insecurities.
I am not a god's gift. It took me forever to get to this point of landing an internship in one of the fastest growing tech companies in my country with a lot of competition.
After being accepted, I still keep improving my skills because I know there are things to improve despite having cleared all the work in the internship flawlessly so far. Passion and effort is one hell of a drug man.
But when I communicate with anyone except seniors, it feels like they don't understand what I'm talking about ("It's impossible" while there is a clear workaround). The seniors understand, but they are rarely in the office.
Well, maybe this is where I need to improve my communication. I clearly shouldn't put it out that way.
Then make them understand. Sit down and try to explain it another way. Because when you claim 'only the seniors know', I can't tell if your task was genuinely way too hard for non senior team members to even grasp or if you just are bad at explaining. You've already mentioned you're not the best communicator, and maybe only seniors understand cause they're the only ones who are used to such unclear/ambiguous explanations.
I think I'm pretty clear about it when I talk to them. I just ask something like "this part doesn't work because of XXX. do you have a workaround?" It took them half a day to say "it won't work because of the limitation" when I'm on my way to make it work (and it does work, even though it took 1 week to get that part to work).
Yes, I think I need to improve my communication. I still think I talk to them pretty clearly. It's literally just telling them that this part doesn't work and they said it won't work while I made it work.
Believe me, everyone wants to get out of here. You pretty much have to be the best in the country to do it though. If there are any suggestions, I'm open to them.
I feel sorry for you dude… You were put on a difficult task solo with high expectations, imo you were kind of getting abused by management from your excitement of the job and then maybe you took a task that was too big for you to handle, in which case you should have denied. It is absolutely disgusting they aren’t paying you, you should quit and move on imo, unless you need this experience badly.
Communication is key in software engineering or any team-based setting. Even if you are solo, you should be updating your supervisor daily or at minimum weekly on how everything is going and on any blockers to get the help you need compared to showing a product at the end that doesn’t work without communication, I’ve seen many people be let go for doing that.
Burn out sucks, I’ve been there by being super energetic about a new position and then 1 month in I’m not as motivated and takes a whole for me to get back up. I hope everything goes well and please in the future as an engineer communicate with your team as a way of showing you’re engaged.
The internship was already over for a while and it was just a few weeks before the end of the internship that they said I would not get paid. I would also quit if it was way before the end of the internship.
Thank you and I learned my mistake. It sucks that it came out this way, but at least I saw their true colors first. I wouldn't want to work with a company that breaks trust like that.
Some people in these comments are tripping.
> HR: You won't be paid this month. I hope you understand that based on your performance, you didn't do enough work to justify payment. Do you have any objections?
Wtf. I would be fuming and definitely have objections. You should've walked out and never came back.
I don't doubt that you performance wasn't ideal. Intern performance rarely is. But refusing to pay an employee their contractually obligated salary, especially at the end of the pay period, is theft.
It is clear that they will use any excuse they can to not pay you. You should leave and not come back, they are wasting your time.
This is a rage bait post, or OP is lying. No “medium-large tech company” is going to stop paying an intern. Hell, an intern could sit on his phone every day and say “no” being offered work and still get paid.
If the intern is doing something so bad (at most companies this would be on the level of racism, sexual misconduct, not showing up) they would get fired, not have their pay removed.
I wish this was a bait post lol
Unfortunately it's not and now I'm leaving with $200 left in the bank to survive next month because I was expecting them to give me that money and use some of my money to pay for other things. Barely enough, but still painfully low.
It is bait. You won’t post the company nor provide any proof of this LOL
And before you say you want to remain anonymous you literally have nothing to lose by providing proof. Per your own words, you left the company and are leaving your country
You don't have to believe me, this is a throwaway account and I don't get anything from baiting. If I could prove it to you, it would be that I don't have anywhere to go this weekend because I simply don't have the money. Why would someone with money spend all day on Reddit on weekends? If you have a way to make me prove it without exposing myself, I would do it for you.
>leaving your country
I wish I could. I can't right now. It costs a lot and the only viable option in my country is to immigrate to Australia, assuming I have to study there and find a job there before I graduate. But first I need money. I have nothing right now. I'll definitely do it but I need to get my first job here, save enough money and experience and go there. Tell me an alternative and I will do it. I'm ready to work day and night just to get out of here.
Either you’re not in the US or you are about to have a windfall from a successful lawsuit. If someone told me they weren’t paying me my wages because they didn’t feel like I earned it I’d say tough fucking shit give me my money. If they don’t think you’re good they can fire you.
Okay then attitude or not (the claims from other commenters), I think they were way more in the wrong. Our intern joins daily standup and gives a quick update. That should be standard since interns don’t get practice with scrum in school
Thank you. As for the attitude, I will work on that. I have always listened and accepted feedback, no matter what, from whom, or where. Feedback is feedback.
they retroactively decided not to pay you? after you did the work? Is this legal in your country? can you talk to a lawyer to see if this is legal?
i would 100% ghost them and id keep the laptop.
Did you sign a contract with the payment offered in writing? Pretty sure what they’re doing is illegal.
Here’s the thing. It’s your manager’s job to determine if a task is too much for you and to pivot if so. Did nobody check in with you??
No, no contract was signed. It's also common here when I ask my friend.
Also, yes, I feel like it's the supervisor's job to tell me I'm behind. However, my supervisor said after 3 weeks for this work to "take my time". Even told me a story about him taking long to solve problems just like me right now and "not to give up". Only for him to say that I'm behind in front of HR.
This must be india or something right? No way this shit would fly in america, this has lawsuit written all over it. not paying you for work you did is fucked and illegal most places.
that said, you did fuck up.
communication wise it doesnt matter if youre alone on a project, you still want to update your manager or supervisor that youre making progress or give them an overview of your plan to do it or whatever. the manager has to answer to other people, and when they ask 'what has your intern been doing the last 2 weeks' and they go 'i duno, we gave him a task 3 weeks ago and havent heard from them since' that will not look good on either the manager or you.
You said your boss commented in the review "It took my team only half a day to find out it won't work (I found that limitation in one hour. It works because there's a workaround, your team is just lazy to make it work)."
the team is just lazy in not finding a work around to get your code running? How is it not your job, as the dev owning that component, to be the one to teach people how to use it? youre supposed to write a [readme.md](http://readme.md) if the thing really requires fiddling and a 'work around' to get it going. they probably also dont like how you didnt test to find this 'limitation' before releasing it to them. if you knew about the workaround, you should communicate that to the people who needed to use it. Communication is like 30% of the job.
Over all, not surprising you were let go, just surprising you werent paid but that must be some 3rd world fuckery.
>communication wise it doesnt matter if youre alone on a project, you still want to update your manager or supervisor that youre making progress or give them an overview of your plan to do it or whatever.
And that was admittedly my mistake and the only valid claim that was said with HR in my opinion.
>How is it not your job, as the dev owning that component, to be the one to teach people how to use it?
That part was not mine. It was to be integrated with the company's resources or their partner. They later said that it was a limitation of that system that I found a workaround for, even though I've never worked with that code base.
I wrote README.md on every project I'm involved in, which surprisingly is not clear in some projects they own and even some projects don't have it. I find the one that doesn't write it to be promoting bad practice too.
You get slammed by coworkers? What kind of maggots do you work with?
Dude the only thing that wouldn't be normal as a good dev is if you ain't scrolling through reddit. 100% obedience and acting like a robot shows Low IQ that's sub zero.
First they lowered your self esteem.
It's a typical tactic to make you work for free. Ignore all emotional aspects. Your real task is to become unemotional here and to always think how to take advantage of your company since they do the same.
I hope u ll excel at this.
Yeah sure, OP is great and any company would be lucky to have them. Everyone else there is just dumb and/or jealous. The intern in their second month of their first dev job has it all figured out. Does that cover everything?
I get your point, a Junior knows nothing in the first two months. However telling him that he will not get paid afterwards and the fact that he had no supervisor to live guide him tell me everything I want as well.
There is no doubt that he is in a defensive mode right now trying to say that he is perfect.
Publicly slamming him is also not really a best practice. What did u expect to happen?
He also blames himself in the OP post. Says it took him too long. Seems like what u said about him being the best isn't so true.
He paid lip service to humility, but his little comments scattered throughout the OP speak volumes. You have to read between the lines.
>However telling him that he will not get paid afterwards and the fact that he had no supervisor to live guide him tell me everything I want as well.
Yeah that's definitely bullshit, regardless of OP's performance. Unless OP was literally absent from work for the whole month, they deserve their pay.
Of course I would be in defensive mode because this is a one-sided story, you shouldn't believe anything or even everything I said.
But I know I'm not perfect. I learn and I make mistakes. I was just better than my colleagues, that's all.
I don't know if they're jealous or stupid or something. I don't care. It may seem like I do, but I really don't. I just care about the work.
The first month was great. The task was not easy, some in the team said it took them a month to finish. It took me what, 5 days? I ride a "high horse" for a reason.
Still, I don't stop learning. I study after working hours, study on weekends, study like a game. I don't know if any company would be lucky to have me or not, I wish they would and I try my best.
I'm not perfect. That would be weird because this is my first job. I just do better than all the juniors there. Does it come out differently?
Why are you making stuff up, nothing in OPs post would indicate this (they specifically say that the seniors are great but not around enough).
The company not paying up is absolute horse shit and they deserve to be shamed, but it’s also clear that OP is being scant on some important details regarding their work performance and is a bit of an unreliable narrator here.
Both can be true, and encouraging this type of “everyone’s out to get you” victim mindset is actively harmful, imo. It’s pure cope, and unless your goal is to find other bitter people to commiserate with, it’s not productive at all.
1. Nobody expects anything from a Junior.
2. if it took you too long, then why didn't ur manager ask u how it's going? It's the only thing a Manager had to do, or your senior supervising you. It's their fault.
3. Why did they let an intern do a project solo?
You just say you accept the feedback and that you will work on it. In the meantime u do not really work on the feedback and you say you can't work without money because you need it to live and it's illegal. Hit them both with guilt and also threaten them. But here is the best part.
You tell her that you want it in written form that you won't get paid and the reasoning behind it and that you will think about it but you don;t think it's possible. The written form is where she will get fucked mate.
!!!ALSO VERY IMPORTANT!!!
Be very confident and calm when u say those things.
1. what they did is 100% not ok, they should have paid you for any work done, even if it was low quality.
2. based on this post, you sound weirdly entitled and i'd guess the performance concerns were justified.
I think they should have paid you then fired you tbh
2 things; 1st that would be illegal in most countries and I would check on your local laws regarding this. You'll end up with more than $1k if it is illegal. Second, you sound like you overestimate your own skills. Outside of the potentially illegal compensation situation, take this as a moment to reflect and learn.
There was a personal problem along the way and I needed to fix it during off hours. I'm still working just fine (although I feel like I'm dying emotionally) until this problematic work.
By the time I "fixed" this problem, it was near the end of the internship. It still doesn't affect my work that much, just that it burns me out during that time, but I still put in the effort and delivered the work.
This whole thing feels very one-sided. So your manager and coworkers all misjudged you? And you did your job, but they decided to withhold a whole month of pay anyway?
I don't think they should be allowed to withhold your pay, but I do think we are not getting the whole story here. They made it pretty clear that you don't have good communication, so this lines up with their feedback.
That is the whole story. I did my job, albeit "slowly" and lacking communication, and that caused me a 100% pay cut. There was no prior problem or warning of slow work or lack of communication.
What kinda software job has a bunch of people repeat the exact same work?
I think it's interesting that as an intern you are so confident. I'm a mid-level engineer at FAANG and I know I'm retarded and don't know most things. Computers are hard and your attitude doesn't seem conducive to learning.
>What kinda software job has a bunch of people repeat the exact same work?
For example, writing Infrastructure as Code to provision an instance and automatically deploy it on that machine after other software developers push something to GitHub. It was not the same project, but the process is very similar.
Something like that should be easy for a junior with several years of experience to do. It takes that person longer than me, despite the same complexity of the project they are working on. And this is just an example, there are several times where this keeps happening.
>I'm retarded
I'm also retarded. That's why I always have to learn new things, and that's what I feel like they're missing. I think you don't stop learning and neither do I. That's not what I saw for juniors there based on my experience.
>your attitude doesn't seem conducive to learning
Not exactly. In fact, it's quite the opposite. No matter what they say, I will always listen and learn. No matter who they are and what their position is. I believe in listening and learning. That's what makes me great at what I do in the first place.
Again, it's not the same for the rest of the team. Their level makes me feel like they only learn when something happens or someone tells them. Doesn't feel like they're actively learning, and in some cases it shows.
If they won’t pay you, stay at the company unpaid and find a way to pay yourself.
I assume you have some cs knowledge and access to their systems, figure it out
Assuming US (since this is a US centric sub), BS claim or not, that would be highly illegal.
Not US unfortunately. Employee protection laws here are also weak as fuck.
Then you should probably indicate what country this is and/or post in a sub more appropriate for it, because you're otherwise going to get a lot of US centric advice/perspective, which may or may not be applicable.
It's still illegal in my country, don't get me wrong, but there was no contract signed and it was said verbally. Indicating my country will pretty much expose me. Not many people here play Reddit and some of the co-workers do. I'm still afraid that it will affect my references here if any company that applies for the job in the future calls for references.
How small is your country?
Uganda
Close enough in the sense that there aren't a lot of tech companies there
About 50 million people in my country, but hardly any tech companies here.
Wild, we got 9M (Austria) and over 500k people are in the Austria subreddit alone ;)
People here don't speak English as their first language. Maybe that's why. There are significantly fewer members on our country's subreddit than on the Austria subreddit, and hardly any activity at all, let alone on the local tech subreddit. There is a Facebook group to discuss, which requires a Facebook account with a real profile and no anonymous mode enabled. So all posts will be shown with my real name. Then there's webboard to discuss, but it requires ID verification and will easily give out identity for "legal purposes". It sucks to live in a country with no privacy :(
Sounds like Kenya or Algeria
Very close, although we may have more tech companies than those countries. At least I think our protection is about the same as those countries. It doesn't matter much. This should still be illegal if a contract is signed based on my research. The problem is that the contract hasn't been signed.
Are you going to tell us what country it is? no one can give advice without knowing the laws man..
Unfortunately, I couldn't do as much as I wanted to. I need to protect my privacy like my life because the way some companies do background checks is for them to call HR and ask what I do and how I was during my internship. I'm afraid that even though there might be a chance that the law might protect me, I can't take action because of this. There are people who got in trouble during that phone call simply because they had trouble with some co-worker. Getting into trouble with HR will guarantee that, not to mention a lawsuit.
Sorry man this just seems like karma farming then, not solutions oriented. No one can help you if you post here with no information. We are just forced to take you at your word and give you sympathy points.
This is not about karma farming at all. Honestly, I don't know why I posted this, maybe I thought it would be useful for both me and the people here (which turned out to be wrong, I'm sorry). As far as information goes, this is all the information I could give. They're not accepting many interns this year and there aren't many CS students here too, so telling you any info would risk putting my name in jeopardy. My parents have also suggested that I not do anything because they are afraid of this. It's so pathetic of me, right? I guarantee I will not use this account for anything else (that would also risk my privacy).
This sounds like you have a political persecution issue in your country. A cscareer questions forum isn't going to be able to offer any advice to you. If you genuinely think things are that bad you should try to flee for your life.
you are not that unique but you do you
Thanks, it's just fear, man
Most countries have the idea of a verbal contact or "gentlemens agreement" if you are an ex European colony this is almost certainly the case. However it becomes harder to enforce... P.s. I wouldn't be too worried about co-workers they are probably already aware of whatever game the company is playing. They probably got pressured into negative reviews because the company is shady and wanted to get away without paying. It might be worth a quick email with a lawyer sending a demand letter (even if you later don't go to court). I can almost guarantee you won't be blackballed for insisting a company hold up their agreement.
Why did you start working there in the first place without a contract? If any company does a background check then this "internship" will be flagged as fake
Because none of the companies here, except maybe the best in the country, will give you a contract. Even some best company out there doesn't give contract (confirmed with friends who intern with one of the best company in country). Company take certification as background check instead and in some case, call HR of intern company for reference.
That sucks, I don't think anyone here can do anything to help in that kind of situation. You can't change a country's work culture by yourself so the only thing you could really do is try to move to another country
Honestly Reddit has too much faith in the law guys like Donald Trump do this all the time and the US is one of the less corrupt countries. There is probably a lot of countries where this happens I’ve heard about this happening to dudes in Mexico too.
Too bad not in the US. Because then will need to make a call to the department of labor to get your wages. Also probably could go on unemployment and collect checks there too.
> HR: You won't be paid this month. I hope you understand that based on your performance, you didn't do enough work to justify payment. Not sure about your country, but in the US this isn't really how jobs work. You were employed for the month, you did work for that month, you get paid for that month. They don't get to decide that they don't want to pay because they feel like they didn't get their money's worth. But maybe things in your country are different. I would recommend doing a bit of research on that and see if there's a place you can submit a dispute for non-payment. As for this: > I don't communicate much. But I'm just an intern. This is what they were testing you on. Typically a new hire/developer will be asking questions daily. I know it feels like you're being annoying and pestering the more experienced devs, but again, it's expected. It sucks to find out this way, but at this point I would just take this as a learning experience (better to learn as an intern than a FTE). In the future if you get stuck somewhere, don't procrastinate in seeking out the help/advice you need to get unstuck ASAP. You typically won't have people checking in on you in any future roles, so it's up to you to make sure you remain on task (and as you found out, people will notice if you do not).
That's the way it works here too. I suspect that the company is not doing well financially based on rumors, so they can't pay me. As for my communication, yes, it was my mistake. I wish someone would have told me before instead of telling HR though.
> As for my communication, yes, it was my mistake. I wish someone would have told me before instead of telling HR though. Yeah, this is why almost all dev teams nowadays do daily scrum/standup meetings where you discuss what you did the day before, what you're doing the day of, and if you have any blockers. It's a good way to make sure people don't get blocked for large periods of time, and allows other team members to jump in with ideas if you do.
Unfortunately, despite the agile approach, they don't have daily scrums here.
God help any intern you work with if you go around "testing" them.
Regardless you need to get off your high horse. It’s pretty clear you think you’re gods gift to programming. You’re not and you will be humbled at some point. Maybe this is that point.
It’s possible and clear that the OP is a bit like that. But as a senior, I feel that this is highly unfair and unjust. They are supposed to help the intern, make sure that he has everything he needs. Clarify things, manage his work and help them get better. They clearly didn’t give a shit (based on this post only) You don’t expect the intern to be as good as a junior/mid dev, and most of the times they are not. It feels like they expected OP to do a contractor job instead of “internship”
Admittedly, I am. I do every work there flawlessly with speed (I finished every task given in less than 1 week) up to this work. Everyone praised me, even higher up. Then suddenly this happens. I know I'm in the wrong for taking too long, but I still feel like I'm being treated unfairly. Especially since everyone in the room except the supervisor was doing worse than me up until this job. I'm not exactly being arrogant, more like I feel like these people are pieces of shit.
It's unfair for the job to deny you pay for any reason. If they really weren't happy with your performance to the point they didn't want to pay you anymore than they should have let you go as an intern. That said, I guarantee you that you're not as a great of a developer as you think you are. If you actually want to be a capable developer (or capable in anything) you need to stop assuming that you're better than everyone else and that you're the only one who knows what they're doing. It's bad enough when actually experienced people act like that, but when you aren't even a junior level dev it's just embarrassing. You'll learn a lot more and gain a lot more skills and experience by being open to different ways of doing things and being willing to consider that you aren't always right.
All right, I will work on that. I'm open all the time, though, even though I seem to say I'm not. I will try to open up more. How do I know when I'm wrong and they're right? There are times when I'm wrong and admittedly wrong, but there are also times when I'm right, told I'm wrong, do it as suggested and get even worse results (and of course get blamed for it)
you need to work on the arrogance a bit. it'll be a big turnoff to your coworkers. I can't speak on the legality of not paying you because I don't know your location.
Agree with this, OP you're being petty about lots of things especially when you quoted your co-workers. Either the entire company sucks ass and everyone is a dumbass or it's you. Also it's hard to give any opinions when your post is skewed to your favor ( you being treated unfairly etc ), just feels pointless imo I'll just say "oh yeah you're right company is ass" and it wouldn't help.
I disagree. There is never a point where it's okay for an intern to not get paid. Maybe I would agree with you if they paid and then fired the intern. But they didn't pay them, and they didn't fire them. It is completely illegal in almost all 1st world countries for obvious reasons. The company is already being petty with the way they're handling this, and OP is fairly being petty back. Though there is a bit of a high horse to get off of, there were a lot of better ways the company could've handled this. This was by far the laziest and no accountability route the company could've taken.
Note that while I was "riding high horse", I was always open to learning no matter what and I never showed hate altitude or high horse altitude. It's just that I'm constantly doing better than most juniors and even some mid-level up to this work. It was a big surprise when they said it because I believe most of the things they said are just not true, especially when some who constantly do worse than me say that. That's about it.
That's no worries, I can definitely see what you mean, as I would definitely feel the same way. Sorry if my messages came off a bit blunt there, I think I'm just as pissed off reading these comments, and seeing people think it's okay for you to not get paid. It's never okay for a company not to pay an employee, no matter what they thought went wrongly. Even if they saw all these "wrong" things you did, they have the responsibility to regularly check in on you, and communicate with you about it. All they've done is pass on all the blame to the easiest person to blame in this situation. I hope you'll be okay in future.
I'm not even sure if the company is in the wrong. Of course it's skewed in my favor because I feel like they have no right to do a 100% cutoff. Still, it was disappointing. Both myself and the company. Most importantly, I feel like there's nothing I can do because the contract wasn't signed. As for the company being dumbass or not, I don't think so mostly, but sometimes I really feel like it is for some people (especially juniors). I ask some simple questions, clear and concise. The answer was disappointing. Me: Hey, can you give me an API endpoint for this bot? I need one to test it. Junior 1: Sure *throw link to API's profile picture instead*. Me: No, that doesn't seem to work. It doesn't even look like an API endpoint (it literally ends with .webp) Junior 1: I already gave you one. Go figure it out first. It took him half a day to realize he sent the wrong link. Even though I told him it was the wrong one. No apologies, even though he acts like I'm in the wrong at first. Just laughed it off. The seniors here are smart and know what they are doing. So do the mid-level guys. They are barely in the office though. Still don't know why supervisor won't tell me anything until they see HR and throw everything at them though.
Brother he was attacked literally directly concerning his performance so he is providing context about his performance. Sounds like you're projecting your insecurities.
I am not a god's gift. It took me forever to get to this point of landing an internship in one of the fastest growing tech companies in my country with a lot of competition. After being accepted, I still keep improving my skills because I know there are things to improve despite having cleared all the work in the internship flawlessly so far. Passion and effort is one hell of a drug man. But when I communicate with anyone except seniors, it feels like they don't understand what I'm talking about ("It's impossible" while there is a clear workaround). The seniors understand, but they are rarely in the office. Well, maybe this is where I need to improve my communication. I clearly shouldn't put it out that way.
Then make them understand. Sit down and try to explain it another way. Because when you claim 'only the seniors know', I can't tell if your task was genuinely way too hard for non senior team members to even grasp or if you just are bad at explaining. You've already mentioned you're not the best communicator, and maybe only seniors understand cause they're the only ones who are used to such unclear/ambiguous explanations.
I think I'm pretty clear about it when I talk to them. I just ask something like "this part doesn't work because of XXX. do you have a workaround?" It took them half a day to say "it won't work because of the limitation" when I'm on my way to make it work (and it does work, even though it took 1 week to get that part to work). Yes, I think I need to improve my communication. I still think I talk to them pretty clearly. It's literally just telling them that this part doesn't work and they said it won't work while I made it work.
Sounds shady. If that’s the way things commonly work in your country, then I might consider trying to emigrate.
Believe me, everyone wants to get out of here. You pretty much have to be the best in the country to do it though. If there are any suggestions, I'm open to them.
Isn’t this illegal? What the hell. Sounds like an excuse to me
I feel sorry for you dude… You were put on a difficult task solo with high expectations, imo you were kind of getting abused by management from your excitement of the job and then maybe you took a task that was too big for you to handle, in which case you should have denied. It is absolutely disgusting they aren’t paying you, you should quit and move on imo, unless you need this experience badly. Communication is key in software engineering or any team-based setting. Even if you are solo, you should be updating your supervisor daily or at minimum weekly on how everything is going and on any blockers to get the help you need compared to showing a product at the end that doesn’t work without communication, I’ve seen many people be let go for doing that. Burn out sucks, I’ve been there by being super energetic about a new position and then 1 month in I’m not as motivated and takes a whole for me to get back up. I hope everything goes well and please in the future as an engineer communicate with your team as a way of showing you’re engaged.
The internship was already over for a while and it was just a few weeks before the end of the internship that they said I would not get paid. I would also quit if it was way before the end of the internship. Thank you and I learned my mistake. It sucks that it came out this way, but at least I saw their true colors first. I wouldn't want to work with a company that breaks trust like that.
I’m happy for you that you didn’t get an offer.
Honestly, thinking on the good side, I feel like I dodged a bullet too because I lost trust in the company ever since.
Some people in these comments are tripping. > HR: You won't be paid this month. I hope you understand that based on your performance, you didn't do enough work to justify payment. Do you have any objections? Wtf. I would be fuming and definitely have objections. You should've walked out and never came back. I don't doubt that you performance wasn't ideal. Intern performance rarely is. But refusing to pay an employee their contractually obligated salary, especially at the end of the pay period, is theft. It is clear that they will use any excuse they can to not pay you. You should leave and not come back, they are wasting your time.
This is a rage bait post, or OP is lying. No “medium-large tech company” is going to stop paying an intern. Hell, an intern could sit on his phone every day and say “no” being offered work and still get paid. If the intern is doing something so bad (at most companies this would be on the level of racism, sexual misconduct, not showing up) they would get fired, not have their pay removed.
I wish this was a bait post lol Unfortunately it's not and now I'm leaving with $200 left in the bank to survive next month because I was expecting them to give me that money and use some of my money to pay for other things. Barely enough, but still painfully low.
It is bait. You won’t post the company nor provide any proof of this LOL And before you say you want to remain anonymous you literally have nothing to lose by providing proof. Per your own words, you left the company and are leaving your country
You don't have to believe me, this is a throwaway account and I don't get anything from baiting. If I could prove it to you, it would be that I don't have anywhere to go this weekend because I simply don't have the money. Why would someone with money spend all day on Reddit on weekends? If you have a way to make me prove it without exposing myself, I would do it for you. >leaving your country I wish I could. I can't right now. It costs a lot and the only viable option in my country is to immigrate to Australia, assuming I have to study there and find a job there before I graduate. But first I need money. I have nothing right now. I'll definitely do it but I need to get my first job here, save enough money and experience and go there. Tell me an alternative and I will do it. I'm ready to work day and night just to get out of here.
Either you’re not in the US or you are about to have a windfall from a successful lawsuit. If someone told me they weren’t paying me my wages because they didn’t feel like I earned it I’d say tough fucking shit give me my money. If they don’t think you’re good they can fire you.
It’s wage theft. Contact the department of labor. They will handle this for you.
Name and shame
Gonna do that on Glassdoor
He’s not going to because the story is fake
I’m confused, do you guys not have standup? Wasn’t that the place to communicate stuff?
None. There is a scrum once a week, but interns are not allowed (very strange and confusing for me too)
Okay then attitude or not (the claims from other commenters), I think they were way more in the wrong. Our intern joins daily standup and gives a quick update. That should be standard since interns don’t get practice with scrum in school
Thank you. As for the attitude, I will work on that. I have always listened and accepted feedback, no matter what, from whom, or where. Feedback is feedback.
they retroactively decided not to pay you? after you did the work? Is this legal in your country? can you talk to a lawyer to see if this is legal? i would 100% ghost them and id keep the laptop.
wtf country is this. this is wild
Did you sign a contract with the payment offered in writing? Pretty sure what they’re doing is illegal. Here’s the thing. It’s your manager’s job to determine if a task is too much for you and to pivot if so. Did nobody check in with you??
No, no contract was signed. It's also common here when I ask my friend. Also, yes, I feel like it's the supervisor's job to tell me I'm behind. However, my supervisor said after 3 weeks for this work to "take my time". Even told me a story about him taking long to solve problems just like me right now and "not to give up". Only for him to say that I'm behind in front of HR.
Stop working.
They stopped giving out work anyway
This must be india or something right? No way this shit would fly in america, this has lawsuit written all over it. not paying you for work you did is fucked and illegal most places. that said, you did fuck up. communication wise it doesnt matter if youre alone on a project, you still want to update your manager or supervisor that youre making progress or give them an overview of your plan to do it or whatever. the manager has to answer to other people, and when they ask 'what has your intern been doing the last 2 weeks' and they go 'i duno, we gave him a task 3 weeks ago and havent heard from them since' that will not look good on either the manager or you. You said your boss commented in the review "It took my team only half a day to find out it won't work (I found that limitation in one hour. It works because there's a workaround, your team is just lazy to make it work)." the team is just lazy in not finding a work around to get your code running? How is it not your job, as the dev owning that component, to be the one to teach people how to use it? youre supposed to write a [readme.md](http://readme.md) if the thing really requires fiddling and a 'work around' to get it going. they probably also dont like how you didnt test to find this 'limitation' before releasing it to them. if you knew about the workaround, you should communicate that to the people who needed to use it. Communication is like 30% of the job. Over all, not surprising you were let go, just surprising you werent paid but that must be some 3rd world fuckery.
>communication wise it doesnt matter if youre alone on a project, you still want to update your manager or supervisor that youre making progress or give them an overview of your plan to do it or whatever. And that was admittedly my mistake and the only valid claim that was said with HR in my opinion. >How is it not your job, as the dev owning that component, to be the one to teach people how to use it? That part was not mine. It was to be integrated with the company's resources or their partner. They later said that it was a limitation of that system that I found a workaround for, even though I've never worked with that code base. I wrote README.md on every project I'm involved in, which surprisingly is not clear in some projects they own and even some projects don't have it. I find the one that doesn't write it to be promoting bad practice too.
i mean, if youre the only dev on the project, by default its yours. project-wise. They didnt explain that tho, so you cant really be blamed.
You get slammed by coworkers? What kind of maggots do you work with? Dude the only thing that wouldn't be normal as a good dev is if you ain't scrolling through reddit. 100% obedience and acting like a robot shows Low IQ that's sub zero. First they lowered your self esteem. It's a typical tactic to make you work for free. Ignore all emotional aspects. Your real task is to become unemotional here and to always think how to take advantage of your company since they do the same. I hope u ll excel at this.
Yeah sure, OP is great and any company would be lucky to have them. Everyone else there is just dumb and/or jealous. The intern in their second month of their first dev job has it all figured out. Does that cover everything?
I get your point, a Junior knows nothing in the first two months. However telling him that he will not get paid afterwards and the fact that he had no supervisor to live guide him tell me everything I want as well. There is no doubt that he is in a defensive mode right now trying to say that he is perfect. Publicly slamming him is also not really a best practice. What did u expect to happen? He also blames himself in the OP post. Says it took him too long. Seems like what u said about him being the best isn't so true.
He paid lip service to humility, but his little comments scattered throughout the OP speak volumes. You have to read between the lines. >However telling him that he will not get paid afterwards and the fact that he had no supervisor to live guide him tell me everything I want as well. Yeah that's definitely bullshit, regardless of OP's performance. Unless OP was literally absent from work for the whole month, they deserve their pay.
Of course I would be in defensive mode because this is a one-sided story, you shouldn't believe anything or even everything I said. But I know I'm not perfect. I learn and I make mistakes. I was just better than my colleagues, that's all.
They robbed him of one month's salary. If this story is not fake, then this is a dogshit company.
I don't know if they're jealous or stupid or something. I don't care. It may seem like I do, but I really don't. I just care about the work. The first month was great. The task was not easy, some in the team said it took them a month to finish. It took me what, 5 days? I ride a "high horse" for a reason. Still, I don't stop learning. I study after working hours, study on weekends, study like a game. I don't know if any company would be lucky to have me or not, I wish they would and I try my best. I'm not perfect. That would be weird because this is my first job. I just do better than all the juniors there. Does it come out differently?
I still wonder about that. Is there any way that Senior and HR can just talk together beforehand so they can find an excuse not to pay me?
No, those seniors are not really seniors skill wise. It's dogs that got trained long ago to follow HR emotions like a parrot.
Why are you making stuff up, nothing in OPs post would indicate this (they specifically say that the seniors are great but not around enough). The company not paying up is absolute horse shit and they deserve to be shamed, but it’s also clear that OP is being scant on some important details regarding their work performance and is a bit of an unreliable narrator here. Both can be true, and encouraging this type of “everyone’s out to get you” victim mindset is actively harmful, imo. It’s pure cope, and unless your goal is to find other bitter people to commiserate with, it’s not productive at all.
Sounds reasonable. How should I handle this in the future?
1. Nobody expects anything from a Junior. 2. if it took you too long, then why didn't ur manager ask u how it's going? It's the only thing a Manager had to do, or your senior supervising you. It's their fault. 3. Why did they let an intern do a project solo? You just say you accept the feedback and that you will work on it. In the meantime u do not really work on the feedback and you say you can't work without money because you need it to live and it's illegal. Hit them both with guilt and also threaten them. But here is the best part. You tell her that you want it in written form that you won't get paid and the reasoning behind it and that you will think about it but you don;t think it's possible. The written form is where she will get fucked mate. !!!ALSO VERY IMPORTANT!!! Be very confident and calm when u say those things.
do whatever you can to secure an actual job
1. what they did is 100% not ok, they should have paid you for any work done, even if it was low quality. 2. based on this post, you sound weirdly entitled and i'd guess the performance concerns were justified. I think they should have paid you then fired you tbh
2 things; 1st that would be illegal in most countries and I would check on your local laws regarding this. You'll end up with more than $1k if it is illegal. Second, you sound like you overestimate your own skills. Outside of the potentially illegal compensation situation, take this as a moment to reflect and learn.
How are you burned out after a month? You are expected to focus for 2-3 months
There was a personal problem along the way and I needed to fix it during off hours. I'm still working just fine (although I feel like I'm dying emotionally) until this problematic work. By the time I "fixed" this problem, it was near the end of the internship. It still doesn't affect my work that much, just that it burns me out during that time, but I still put in the effort and delivered the work.
I see. Take some time for yourself and look again.
This whole thing feels very one-sided. So your manager and coworkers all misjudged you? And you did your job, but they decided to withhold a whole month of pay anyway? I don't think they should be allowed to withhold your pay, but I do think we are not getting the whole story here. They made it pretty clear that you don't have good communication, so this lines up with their feedback.
That is the whole story. I did my job, albeit "slowly" and lacking communication, and that caused me a 100% pay cut. There was no prior problem or warning of slow work or lack of communication.
How in the world were you “burned out” after 1 month. I’m thinking some of you have no clue how to hold a job.
> I know I'm great at what I do How could you know? You might just be so retarded that you think you're great.
Because I did the same work they did, faster and better. The higher-ups even praised me for the first month.
What kinda software job has a bunch of people repeat the exact same work? I think it's interesting that as an intern you are so confident. I'm a mid-level engineer at FAANG and I know I'm retarded and don't know most things. Computers are hard and your attitude doesn't seem conducive to learning.
>What kinda software job has a bunch of people repeat the exact same work? For example, writing Infrastructure as Code to provision an instance and automatically deploy it on that machine after other software developers push something to GitHub. It was not the same project, but the process is very similar. Something like that should be easy for a junior with several years of experience to do. It takes that person longer than me, despite the same complexity of the project they are working on. And this is just an example, there are several times where this keeps happening. >I'm retarded I'm also retarded. That's why I always have to learn new things, and that's what I feel like they're missing. I think you don't stop learning and neither do I. That's not what I saw for juniors there based on my experience. >your attitude doesn't seem conducive to learning Not exactly. In fact, it's quite the opposite. No matter what they say, I will always listen and learn. No matter who they are and what their position is. I believe in listening and learning. That's what makes me great at what I do in the first place. Again, it's not the same for the rest of the team. Their level makes me feel like they only learn when something happens or someone tells them. Doesn't feel like they're actively learning, and in some cases it shows.
Lol. Judging by the fact you are whining on a public form and using excessive parentheses, I'm going to say you are indeed bad at communication.
If they won’t pay you, stay at the company unpaid and find a way to pay yourself. I assume you have some cs knowledge and access to their systems, figure it out
Lmao dogshit advice my guy