Around the end of April, I applied for a research internship at my university for the summer so I could get some actual work experience before I graduate next spring. I ended up getting a interview in a lab that seemed really interesting and I was excited for the interview, little did I know it would be the most miserable 3-4 weeks of my life.
Red flag #1: in the interview email, I was asked to read some research papers and textbook chapters before the interview (not especially abnormal as this is something I do in order to prepare for the all my interviews) in order to take a quiz at the beginning of the interview. Out of the ~10 interviews I had for similar positions, this was the only one with a quiz, however this didn’t really set me off as atleast they told me what to prepare.
Red flag #2: after I had passed the quiz for my 4pm interview, the lab manager asked me to come back at 6:30pm to meet with the head researcher. I get there right on time and the head researcher doesn’t call me into his office until 8pm. The interview really wasn’t a normal interview where they ask questions about my experience, instead I was asked complicated questions that I definitely wouldn’t know the answer to given my experience listed on my resume and then was condescendingly and rudely explained to. Despite this, I was even more interested in the position as it would be a very good experience.
Red Flag #3: After the interview, I left not knowing if I was offered the job or not as he was not clear at all, however he wanted me to send him a letter of intent which is another request that only he made out of all of my job offers. Nevertheless I submitted my “letter of intent” (wasn’t even clear on this as he described it as more of a letter of interest, but I just chalked it up to the language barrier as his first language was Russian) and received an email asking my to come in to start training later that week.
My grave mistake: despite what everyone told me, I showed up to “training”, which was essentially me doing actual work like updating their spreadsheets and preparing their samples, before I even got an actual job offer to sign which would come back and bite me in the ass later.
The actual job:
Anyway, after “working” there for about a week, I asked the lab manager when I could expect an offer, and she said that the head researcher didn’t remember who I was and that’s why there was a delay in getting an offer. After another week of waiting and working, I received and signed the offer. The next 1.5-2 weeks however, were hell.
I was kicked out of a team meeting to read a textbook because I wasn’t able to answer a question about a class I never took.
I was on my way out one day around 4pm when I was told to stick around for a few minutes to talk with the head, however I was forced to wait until 8pm before he actually spoke with me. This happened on two occasions
I was told to save files in specific manner by the manager, however in a meeting the head was confused why I saved it in the specified manner, and essentially accused me of doing 0 work because my files were saved “incorrectly”
Despite working horrible hours (typically 1-7or8pm) i was expected to read multiple papers a day, on my own time, which is where I drew the line.
TLDR:
I ignored every red flag in the book and took a position that was essentially hell and it seems like I did two weeks of free labor.