I'm a design student and got this internship at a company. At first, everything was great, I had a nice salary, good benefits and a nice work environment. Or so I thought.
I was hired in August 2021, around January this year I noticed a change in my coworkers behavior, they were being more rude and making inappropriate jokes more often. To put more context into this, I was the only female in the design team, everyone else is literally double my age. On my first day, one of them even commented on “how pretty” I was. Ew. I tolerated as much as I could, ignoring them, to make sure they didn't think that I “fine” with their jokes, but I guess their smooth brains didn't realize I was uncomfortable. Other employees from other teams noticed and even commented jokingly that they should stop being mean to me, of course they dismissed it.
Fast forward to February, my patience is running out, I'm months away from my graduation, I have trouble sleeping and my stress is through the roof. I start politely (but sternly) responding them, since I'm getting very irritated with them calling me insolent and bad mannered as a “joke”, I always replied with: “I'm not insolent” and “Why?”.
Oh yeah, let me say some of their bests “jokes”!
clears throat
“You got a good grade with that teacher you hate? Didn't do him any ~favors?” (This one made me visbly frown and ignore this mf for the rest of the day)
“You're taking take out lunch again? I pity your boyfriend” (This was over a stupid ms teams call, it wasnt a meeting or anything, I got so mad I left)
At this point I had a panic attack just before I started to work. It was my first one, and since I had no idea what was going on, I went to the ER thinking I was having a heart attack and was going to die. I got sent back home drugged with some strong medicine they gave me and still tried to work (this was a home office day thankfully) since I wanted to be responsible or wathever. I talked to my therapist about this and we wrote this off as a one time thing and none of us thought much as to why it began just as I was about to start work.
March comes and they become even more rude to me, I naive as I was, asked honestly to one of them what was going on, he said that they were impatient with me because I was “too stubborn” and that I looked like I “didnt give a damn about work”, EXCUSE ME???? This dude, had the balls to tell me this when one of our coworkers didn't come to work to go to a MUSIC SHOW! I obviously get very offended about this, hold my tears back as much as I can, since I don't want to show him that it got to me. When I get home I vent to my family and friends (which all agreed that he was an a-hole) about what happened and at this point I was already thinking of quitting, since I realized that: I was working my ass off at something that was only supposed to be a learning experience, I wasn't respected and what I did didn't get any recognition.
To make matters worse, I talked to a temp (that was a intern before in the company) and he said he basically cropped images, had a 30min break and sometimes even got out of work early! I was furious, since I only had a 15min break and did as much work as any other employee, except for less than half the pay. There were some events that I did EVERYTHING ALONE! And now I hear this old piece of shit telling me I wasn't doing enough??? DUDE I WAS DOING MORE THAN I SHOULD
My mental health was destroyed to the point I had anxiety attacks when I had to go to work, or even thought about work. My therapist tells me I'm burned out and should seek a psiquiatrist to get a 10 day leave. I do, and start taking medicine to take care of the damn anxiety attacks.
Then on the last day of my leave, I decided to talk to my boss. I tell her that I was quitting because of a bad work environment, disrespectful coworkers and feeling that my work wasn't getting any recognition. To my surprise, she's very understanding, says that it's a shame I was quitting, but sees where I'm coming from, since she recognizes that companies can be hostile to women, specially in higher positions and some people don't respect boundaries. She even talks about how she hears things that sound like we're in 1800 or something. Also says not to worry about references THANK GOD
Next day I sign all the paperwork, and never see them again. So long suckers.
PS: Sorry for the gigantic text.