I Was Excited to Hire an Intern. Then My Boss Told Me More About the “Role.”

Good Job Photo illustration by Slate. Photos by tomsaga/Adobe Stock and yaaaaan/Getty Images Plus. Good Job is Slate’s advice column on work. Have a workplace problem big or small? Send it to Laura Helmuth and Doree Shafrir here. (It’s anonymous!) Dear Good Job, I work at a small agency as a junior account specialist. My boss recently asked me to hire an intern who I would manage. Apparently she used to have interns, but then didn’t for awhile, and now would like to try again. But she wants an unpaid intern, as she said she always had them. I told her that many people don’t like unpaid internships anymore and find them exploitative and that it’s the industry norm now to pay interns. She said she’d never heard that and said it isn’t the norm in her industry. So I wrote up the job ad and put it on our website and socials, and said very clearly it was unpaid. We are still getting some applications, which surprised me at first, and then I started looking up the kind of people applying, and of course they are rich. I was excited about the opportunity to mentor someone, but now I’m feeling kind of deflated that it’s just going to be a rich kid. I just have a bad feeling about this, that it’s going to be a waste of everyone’s time. Do you think there is something else I can say to my boss to get them to reconsider paying someone? —Intern Mentor Dear Intern Mentor, Your instincts here are correct—unpaid internships are exploitative, and most companies do pay their interns now—but I think you need to reframe your argument slightly to get it to really sink in with your boss. I don’t know when the last time your boss hired an unpaid intern was, but the rules have changed, and she could be opening the company up to very real legal risk by hiring someone unpaid. The TL;DR is that according to the U.S. Department of Labor, an unpaid internship needs to be completely educational in nature, must correspond to the academic calendar, must be integrated into the intern’s coursework or be for credit, and perhaps most significantly for your purposes, the intern’s work must complement the work of paid employees, not replace it. So if this intern is doing anything that could be done by a paid employee, whether that’s social posts, admin, client relations, or anything else, the internship is in violation of the law. I would bring this up to your boss and suggest an alternative—a paid internship with a more limited scope (say, 12 to 15 hours a week instead of full-time) with clearly defined duties and a set term. If she insists on going the unpaid route, I would put it into writing that you suggest she consult with the agency’s attorney or HR rep about what the scope of the internship can be and who she is allowed to hire. Better to do the legwork up front than be hit with a back-wage violation down the line. Please keep questions short (<150 words), and don’t submit the same question to multiple columns. We are unable to edit or remove questions after publication. Use pseudonyms to maintain anonymity. Your submission may be used in other Slate advice columns and may be edited for publication. Dear Good Job, I work at a large corporation. My department relies on a certain software subscription to get things done. Our contract is running out, and I cannot get anyone to pay attention to me about renewal. The contract was last negotiated five years ago, and the person who “owned” that contract has moved on. The rep at the software company has been contacting me instead, and I’ve been forwarding the emails to my boss, but he doesn’t appear to have done anything about them. I meet with my boss once per month, and last month I started the meeting by asking about the software contract. He said, “Oh right, that’s on my list.” I remember from last time that it took months to get this contract approved by everyone who had to approve it and get it signed. I mentioned as much, and my boss kind of waved me off and said they’d take care of it. But I just know they aren’t doing anything. The emails I’m getting from my rep are increasingly threatening. They said it’ll be out of their hands and they’ll have to lock our account if we haven’t renewed. I believe them! I’m scared that when that happens, I’m going to get in trouble. How can I handle this? —Contract Trouble Dear Contract Trouble, I’ve read your letter multiple times, and unless I’m really missing something, nowhere in your note do you say that you are actually in charge of renewing this contract—just that the rep has, for whatever reason, decided that you are. So a couple of things need to happen. One, stop forwarding the emails—there is a good chance that your boss isn’t even fully reading them. Instead, send him ONE email that briefly explains what’s happening, including when the rep says the company will be locked out of its account. I would probably also tell him that you no longer feel comfortable responding to this rep. But now you have a paper trail that shows you have clearly explained what the stakes are for your company, and that as your boss, he needs to step up and figure this out. Finally, you can send one more email to the rep and explain that you are not the decision maker on this, and he needs to stop contacting you directly. You have no authority over this contract and you’ve made your best effort to get it resolved. Now it’s time to let it go. —Doree More Work Advice From Slate I work in a small office, that has experienced huge turnover in the past five years, including some recent high-level firings. Morale is low and tensions have been high for years now, despite the executive director being a very “nice” person. I think I finally know one reason why—but I am scared to tell HR. Never miss new Slate Advice columns Get the latest from Prudie and our columnists in your inbox each weekday, plus special bonus letters on Saturdays. Advice Workplace Jobs