Long time member of this sub. I know you guys are geniuses in here and will have some good advice for me right now. As an fyi i am in the UK. Sorry this is long theres a lot of context.
I’ve been at this unpaid internship since August. Doing a 44 week internship is a requirement for me to graduate for my bachelors degree, and the report I get at the end of this is 33% of the final result of my degree. I didn’t do amazing in my first year so I kind of need a good grade from this women.
I work in a conservation lab with 3 other PhD students, ran by a uni lecturer who is meant to be 50/50 here and at another nearby university. She also has two charities. Safe to say she is incredible busy and does not have enough time for us. Her office is next to ours and from one week to the next she isn’t in. When she is in its queues out her door of staff, PhD students, masters students, me, etc, etc.
When I first started here they didn’t have a work PC in the office for me, so I brought my chromebook in. The software the PhD students wanted me to use to help them out (yes my job is PhD student grunt work lol) wouldn’t run on my laptop, so a work PC was ordered for me and for almost 2 weeks I worked from home on my PC. Since then I have been in every single day 9:30 til 4-6 pm alone in this office (unless i’m tagging along surveying, which in the autumn was 1-2 days a week). The one guy works from home, one guy works 75/25 between here and Somerset, and the other girl works from home mostly as well. I would too but I honestly don’t like working from home really because I can’t really concentrate.
I just got back from 2 weeks off because of a death in the family and my university has had a meeting with my manager during that time. I told them that she is never in and im basically just left to my own devices going back and forth with excel sheets. I’ve been trying to get my dissertation research organised so i can start it in January and because she isnt in and never replies to emails its been extremely difficult. I also never got a contract which they were furious about. They were angry for me in general because when my manager signed up for this she agreed to meeting certain standards with my treatment.
Since I’ve come back a lot of back peddling has happened and now its fine that I don’t have a contract, my work is “up to standards of learning new skills for my degree” and that I’m apparently never in the office to be given tasks or training by anyone else in the lab. As you’ve just read this is bullshit.
How do i respond to this without risking my grade? Ive been taking pictures when i come into work of the lab and her office to show no one is in, and i was going to send that as proof to my uni along with a message along the lines of “how is anyone meant to know if im not in when no one else is in in the first place” but is there a way for me to show i was in previously? Like a way to access account history or something? What would you guys do?
Quitting here is kind of a serious last resort thing because i dont get to choose what internship i do next + i have to find another place to live lol.