Unpaid Intern Terminated For Not Juggling 3 Roles At Same Time: 'Is This Normal In Indian Corporate?"

A viral Reddit post exposing the exploitative internship conditions at an Indian corporate workplace has reignited intense debate over the office culture. The intern revealed that despite being unpaid, they were forced to mentor and retrain two other interns and conduct a crash course. After calling out management over these harsh working conditions, the intern said they were promptly terminated by the company for 'misconduct'.

In a post titled, "Got terminated from my unpaid internship for refusing to be an entire HR department," the intern shared screenshots of text message with the manager, clearly setting up work boundaries.

"Joined as an unpaid intern. Ended up mentoring one intern, retraining another, and preparing an HR crash course that the company actually charges money for," the intern said.

Despite conveying their problem, the intern was advised to keep up with the three tasks. After the intern refused to budge, the management sent an email, terminating their internship.

"When I finally said I couldn't juggle three jobs simultaneously, things went south. Apparently, setting boundaries is a bigger problem than expecting one unpaid intern to do everyone's job," they said.

"My replies were admittedly blunt, and the company eventually terminated my internship. So, was I unprofessional, or did I accidentally unsubscribe from corporate exploitation?"

Check The Post Here:

Got terminated from my UNPAID internship for refusing to be an entire HR department 💀
by u/theoceanlovesme in IndianWorkplace

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'Appreciate How You Set boundaries'

As of the last update, the post had garnered over 3,300 upvotes and hundreds of comments as social media users advised the intern to move on, as such companies exploit the interns.

"Don't take it to heart, kid. They're gaslighting experts. I don't know how they convince people to work for them for free," said one user, while another added: "I appreciate the way you set your clear boundaries. As a millennial who got exploited in an unpaid internship more than 2 decades ago, this gives me some joy."

A third commented: "Leaving all the toxic overload of work aside, for someone at a senior level, these people have the communication and English skills of a fish."