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

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. It's only a meeting that she is missing. Unfortunately an important one. I'm not calling her boss for her ! This is something she has to do for herself. And to the pp who is all burned up ... You get what you pay for. Pretty entitled of you to think that college and grad students should work for free.

Not the "burned up" pp, but I also work with interns that just get a very small stipend, but I have to agree with pp. Internships are not for the benefit of the entity they're working for. At least 80% of the time, interns are more problem than they're worth from a productivity standpoint. We can talk about how unfair the system is for kids that can't afford to work for free, but that's another discussion. When a kid who is lucky enough to get a very compeitive internship shows up an announced that they're going to miss 10 or 20% of an internship because of a family vacation, I don't fuss, and I don't tell them they can't go. However, I wouldn't be inclined to hire that kid or give them a good reference. It's clear that they aren't serious and lack maturity, and are, may I say, "entitled." I would consider myself lucky to know this about your dd in advance, as I have discovered this about people after they've been hiired -- when they disappeared on vacation in the middle of big project and everyone had to scramble to fill in for them.

Its interesting to me that the interns are both a PITA, very lucky, and unfair -- all at the same time. Some poor kid should have had that job !!

[Anonymous]

Often who this affects most, moral-wise, are the people on the next rung up the ladder. Yes they are paid. They also probably had to work a whole year to "earn" a week away from the obligation of coming in every-single-day ....

[Anonymous]

Mean "morale"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:She does not NEED to miss a week of her internship.

These are the hard choices. The hard choices of adulthood. And you accepting that she has, is starting to have her own life. And not everything works out. It's tough. It's sad not to spend time with family. That's life.

She could broach the subject with her internship. But don't make this about you - don't have her say, "My mom says I have to ... "

Everyone needs vacation. Working nonstop through the high school and then internship is not good for her mental or physical health.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Everyone needs vacation. Working nonstop through the high school and then internship is not good for her mental or physical health.

Yes, everyone does need a vacation. That's one reason why there are vacations built into the school year: Thanksgiving, Christman, Spring Break, etc. Summer vacation is one of them, too. Some kids may make the choice to give up vacation time for something else they want. That's fine.

Not every student can or will want to do that. That's fine.

Some kids may be very bright but have other priorities -- including family vacation -- so they cannot or will chose not to do that for given stretches of vacation time. That's fine.

Some kids may be very bright but have other priorities -- including mental or physical health needs -- so they cannot or will chose not to do that for given stretches of vacation time. That's fine.

It's not fine to promise to show up and do something, when you know you won't, especially not when another person who applied for the slot might have shown up. That's not being jealous -- it's both common courtesy and being a decent person.

That's also not reliant on whether someone was or was not counting on the work being done. Really, it would have been inappropriate if she agreed to show up at a garden party knowing that she wouldn't bacause she would be out of town. If you can only accept an invitation conditionally, then you are clear about the conditions up front.

Respect, common courtesy, being a grownup and a decent person.

If your priorities won't let you accept an invitation without conditions, and you do not want to make that clear from the get-go, then you decline the invitation with regrets.

This isn't hard. It has nothing to do with being a special snowflake or not. This is Life 101.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Everyone needs vacation. Working nonstop through the high school and then internship is not good for her mental or physical health.

Yes, everyone does need a vacation. That's one reason why there are vacations built into the school year: Thanksgiving, Christman, Spring Break, etc. Summer vacation is one of them, too. Some kids may make the choice to give up vacation time for something else they want. That's fine.

Not every student can or will want to do that. That's fine.

Some kids may be very bright but have other priorities -- including family vacation -- so they cannot or will chose not to do that for given stretches of vacation time. That's fine.

Some kids may be very bright but have other priorities -- including mental or physical health needs -- so they cannot or will chose not to do that for given stretches of vacation time. That's fine.

It's not fine to promise to show up and do something, when you know you won't, especially not when another person who applied for the slot might have shown up. That's not being jealous -- it's both common courtesy and being a decent person.

That's also not reliant on whether someone was or was not counting on the work being done. Really, it would have been inappropriate if she agreed to show up at a garden party knowing that she wouldn't bacause she would be out of town. If you can only accept an invitation conditionally, then you are clear about the conditions up front.

Respect, common courtesy, being a grownup and a decent person.

If your priorities won't let you accept an invitation without conditions, and you do not want to make that clear from the get-go, then you decline the invitation with regrets.

This isn't hard. It has nothing to do with being a special snowflake or not. This is Life 101.

You sound crazy.

[Anonymous]

She can ask if it would be ok. If her supervisor says it would pose a problem, she shouldn't go. But they will likely not care.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:She does not NEED to miss a week of her internship.

These are the hard choices. The hard choices of adulthood. And you accepting that she has, is starting to have her own life. And not everything works out. It's tough. It's sad not to spend time with family. That's life.

She could broach the subject with her internship. But don't make this about you - don't have her say, "My mom says I have to ... "

OP here: She does have some health issues that make it more of a "need" than it would be otherwise.

Oh give me a break helicopter. She is not a china doll. If she can't handle the entire internship that other kids probably wanted, than she shouldn't have taken it.