Teen needs to miss a week at her internship this summer due to family vacation ...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Op continuing ... I thank everyone for their insights. Not the best situation. But on the other hand -- so much pressure for a HS student ? I really question that overall although different subject. It's all fine now.

Glad this is working out as you want it to. Sorry your daughter is ill.

Kids who don't want pressure don't take competitive internships.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Op here. Yes I posted in haste. The vacation planning happened in jan. Before the application which was in feb and the illness started up hard in February. She knows what happens if she misses a day of school -- making it up just makes things worse. So she went to school many days pretty ragged. Our first thought was leave her home. But when the time came she was worse. I am not going into what she has. So at the last minute I knew what had to happen -- regardless of consequences.
The originating agency said missed days were fine and so did her job. Additionally she can use her computer while in bed. So it's what she did It would have been much better if she could have been there in person. But really the computer aspect IS the project.

Well, o.k. She applied in February knowing that a vacation was planned in Jan and did not mention the vacation. She then was offered the position at some point (was she already ill?) and she still did not mention her vacation nor her illness.

So now in late June/early July she is just now mentioning this vacation? Is that right?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Op continuing ... I thank everyone for their insights. Not the best situation. But on the other hand -- so much pressure for a HS student ? I really question that overall although different subject. It's all fine now.

It sounds as though she had months to prepare for and make arrangements for this vacation. The pressure seems to be stemming from a lack of planning and transparency on her part.

Yes, she is a teenager. I know that they are still learning how to deal with these types of stresses. But she needs to come away from this with the right message and she should understand that there were probably better ways that this all could have been handled.

I do hope your daughter feels better soon.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:But on the other hand -- so much pressure for a HS student ? I really question that overall although different subject. It's all fine now.

OP, why did you ask if it would be okay for her to miss the time from an unpaid internship if you weren't okay with hearing "no"?

Took me awhile to understand I had no choice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:But on the other hand -- so much pressure for a HS student ? I really question that overall although different subject. It's all fine now.

OP, why did you ask if it would be okay for her to miss the time from an unpaid internship if you weren't okay with hearing "no"?

Took me awhile to understand I had no choice.

Hang in there Op. Everybody learns this lesson at some point.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:But on the other hand -- so much pressure for a HS student ? I really question that overall although different subject. It's all fine now.

OP, why did you ask if it would be okay for her to miss the time from an unpaid internship if you weren't okay with hearing "no"?

Took me awhile to understand I had no choice.

Still not sure you were ok with hearing "no" from us. A chronic health condition is a big burden. It makes life smaller, and that is how it goes. You are helping your daughter if you teach her a)how to make sure that her problem is no one else's, and b) that she isn't so special to anyone but her mom.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:But on the other hand -- so much pressure for a HS student ? I really question that overall although different subject. It's all fine now.

OP, why did you ask if it would be okay for her to miss the time from an unpaid internship if you weren't okay with hearing "no"?

Took me awhile to understand I had no choice.

Still not sure you were ok with hearing "no" from us. A chronic health condition is a big burden. It makes life smaller, and that is how it goes. You are helping your daughter if you teach her a)how to make sure that her problem is no one else's, and b) that she isn't so special to anyone but her mom.

No one needs your input

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:But on the other hand -- so much pressure for a HS student ? I really question that overall although different subject. It's all fine now.

OP, why did you ask if it would be okay for her to miss the time from an unpaid internship if you weren't okay with hearing "no"?

You gave your opinion it's your opinion. Does not really matter what you think

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:But on the other hand -- so much pressure for a HS student ? I really question that overall although different subject. It's all fine now.

OP, why did you ask if it would be okay for her to miss the time from an unpaid internship if you weren't okay with hearing "no"?

You gave your opinion it's your opinion. Does not really matter what you think

It must matter to the person who asked for it.

Or maybe they are having difficulty knowing what they want.

[Anonymous]

PP here. Come to think of it, that's kind of the theme of the thread -- not knowing what you want, or what you are committed to.

Competitive internship, no, family vacation, no, telecommuting at grandma's, no, Instagram success for fun and profit, no, advice, no, not advice.

Theme. Huh.

[Anonymous]

Okay, that was snarky. I'm sorry.

Look, I don't think it's ever a good idea to mislead other people, and that's a lesson for humans of any age past infancy to learn.

When you sign on for a task -- even a volunteer one, even an unpaid internship -- other people are going to be factoring that into their plans. Maybe less, maybe more, but if they weren't going to factor you in at all, then there was no reason to have you sign on or get scheduled for things.

There was no reason not to be courteous and professional clarify from the beginning vacation time she knew about from the start. There was good reason not to keep waiting to tell them, if it hadn't been clarified from the beginning.

Then there was a post here asking if this was okay, just exactly 7 days ago -- a post asking if a week vacation was okay to spring on an internship position. Apparently this was at the extreme last minute and without warning, because in the week since this thread was started, that "vacation time" has already happened.

So something happened that made the OP want to know whether this would be okay. It wasn't finding out about the vacation, as that happened in January. It wasn't finding out about the existance of some unspecified disability, as that happened in February. Whatever it was, the OP asked right as the question must have been posed to the people supplying the internship, and they made do.

Some people said it was no big deal. We're anonymous, so we'll never know exactly how many. Others said it was a big deal, or at least unprofessional. (We'll also never know those numbers for sure.)

Regardless, I am pretty sure that any company with a slot that 74 are competing for would like to have this kind of information. If it did not outweigh whatever value the teenager brought to the position, then telling them would not have mattered to her getting it -- again, no reason for her not to. If it wouldn't outweight it, then for a competitive position, they should have been told -- so no good reason not to.

She should have disclosed. The OP shouldn't have waited to the last minute to ask. The company probably did the best it could. I'm sure the teenager did, too.

I hope it doesn't play out this way in the future. I don't thinkit was a win-win from any perspective.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:But on the other hand -- so much pressure for a HS student ? I really question that overall although different subject. It's all fine now.

OP, why did you ask if it would be okay for her to miss the time from an unpaid internship if you weren't okay with hearing "no"?

Took me awhile to understand I had no choice.

Still not sure you were ok with hearing "no" from us. A chronic health condition is a big burden. It makes life smaller, and that is how it goes. You are helping your daughter if you teach her a)how to make sure that her problem is no one else's, and b) that she isn't so special to anyone but her mom.

No one needs your input

Seems to me the OP needs it. She's been incredibly defensive throughout the thread, but she'll be doing herself a disservice if she discounts the advice she received. The advice she didn't want to hear, that is.

NP, btw

[Anonymous]

Sanctimonious DCUM at its finest. Lot of angry jealousy on this thread.

[Anonymous]

You read all 12 pages of this bs? ??

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sanctimonious DCUM at its finest. Lot of angry jealousy on this thread.

Mmm, nope.

Just a lot of people saying this was not a good way to handle it.

That's not jealousy, and it's not anger. It's just giving the feedback that was asked for.