The 21-Year-Old Intern Just Got Hired for a Role She Definitely Isn’t Qualified For. There’s Something Fishy Going On.

Good Job Photo illustration by Slate. Photo by Komora/iStock/Getty Images Plus, PeopleImages/Getty Images Plus and Pressmaster/iStock/Getty Images Plus. Sign up for the Slatest to get the most insightful analysis, criticism, and advice out there, delivered to your inbox daily. 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 with a team that recently took on a summer intern; she started in May. During her internship, one of our supervisor spots came up for grabs. We were all encouraged to apply, and an inside hire was what we were all but promised. The position asked for a bachelor’s degree or equivalent experience, and at least two years of supervisory experience or equivalent. As one of the older applicants on our team (53), with nearly 40 years of work experience, three of which have been with this team and including various committees, etc., I thought I’d throw my hat in; the raise and job elevation were enticing to me but not essential. Plus, I like all my co-workers and wish them well. I would have been happy to see any of them in the new job; none of them had all the requirements, but they all had at least some, plus years of experience in this job. I had all the “equivalent” qualifications myself. It’s not a demanding position. But the person hired turned out to be the summer intern. She is only 21, still in college, has no degree, and her only experience in this field is shadowing just one of our managers for three months. She spoke only a few words to anyone else, even the other supervisor, and had never worked on the floor during that time. During my post-interview “rejection” meeting with human resources, I was told the chosen candidate had more supervisory experience than I did (or any of the other seasoned applicants). We’ve since learned, from his own mouth, that the manager she shadowed helped her beef up her resume after HR initially rejected her as an applicant at her screening. It has also become clear from his own words that the manager is smitten with her, and while he actively encouraged us to apply, he was secretly pushing her through. We are left knowing that this man relied on for years as a very good manager, actually thinks so little of any of us that he’ll lie to HR to get a very inexperienced, full-time student a job he told many of us we deserved. Where do we go from here? Clearly, HR lied to us too. Is this worth pursuing? At the very least, is it worth letting HR know how we (individually) feel, and how we know we were lied to? —Something Smells Fishy Here (she/her) Dear Something Smells Fishy Here, Yeah, something stinks. It’s remotely possible that your team’s new supervisor (yikes) has experience you’re not aware of, through jobs she held while attending college or during the summers. If so, it was reasonable for this manager, as her mentor, to give her tips on her resume. Or maybe she’s a rare talent who for some reason hides her excellence from peers, and the manager’s apparent crush is merely professional admiration. But your read is the most likely: The manager manipulated the system to get her a job she is not qualified for, over better candidates he also manages. Human resources either got snowed, in which case they’re incompetent, or they allowed it to happen, in which case they’re unethical as well as incompetent. This won’t end well. You say the job isn’t demanding, but it surely will be for a newbie with little experience, even if her “mentor” helps her with the job. I assume your other co-workers, especially those who applied for the position, are various degrees of confused, suspicious, or furious, and will not appreciate inexperienced supervision from the person who cut (or was pushed to the front of) the line. Your manager has gotten the new hire into a combustible situation: It will be hard for her to build the respect a supervisor needs. And if the manager expects a relationship and she rejects him, he could undermine her or get her fired. You do have some options, aside from just popcorn-watching the spectacle from a safe distance. Are there other teams you could transfer to within your organization? If you suspect the favoritism you’ve witnessed extends across the company, search for another job entirely. If you stay in your current job, you could request another meeting with HR, ideally with the head of HR rather than whoever was involved in this hire. Their job is to protect the organization, not you—but also not this manager. Tell HR you’re concerned about favoritism in hiring and promotions. They likely won’t un-hire the new supervisor, but the discussion could alert them to possible misbehavior on the manager’s part and/or the need for more transparency in hiring. Go in with your expectations extremely low, and ask for confidentiality, but don’t count on it. Whether or not you meet with HR, keep watching this manager. Document your observations and conversations with dated and detailed notes that you save on your personal devices. Based on what you know so far, his behavior doesn’t seem to violate labor laws, which don’t generally prohibit favoritism or nepotism. But if you see a pattern, or if you sense any retaliation, lawyer up immediately. 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, Artificial intelligence is one of the few issues my boyfriend and I disagree on: I see no benefit to it in my daily life that outweighs its environmental impact, I’m ethically opposed to the people who profit from it, and, on a petty level, I just find AI language really grating. He, meanwhile, will happily use Claude as a tool for everything from making life decisions to his job. We work in the same field, though he’s in a more senior role than I am, so it’s hard to directly compare our AI usage at our jobs. I don’t mind what he does; I try to “live and let live” about it, and in his defense, I think his AI use—though frequent—is pretty sensible overall. He’s knowledgeable enough in our field to know how to vet and interpret AI output, and a lot of how he uses it is arguably a reasonable accommodation for disability issues he has around reading and memory, which I can understand someone finding valuable. What’s bothering me is that he keeps wanting to talk to me about it! He’ll bring up some news item or opinion piece about increasing use of AI in our field, and once he starts, I feel like I’m stuck listening to him for the next 10 minutes, having to either debate with him on the parts I don’t agree with (which stresses me out; I don’t like conflict) or feign polite interest until he runs out of steam, which drains my energy and can easily ruin an otherwise nice evening. I don’t know if he thinks I’m enjoying these conversations, or if he’s actively trying to change my mind; I always feel like there’s something defensive about it, like he wants to remind me he’s not the only one using AI. I know the answer is to tell him that this topic is off-limits, but it’s a hard one to avoid when it’s always in the news, and I feel like he’ll think I’m being oversensitive or too unwilling to hear opposing viewpoints. What’s your advice? —Under-Awed by Claude Dear Under-Awed by Claude, I think you’re right to wonder about his motivations. Does he want you to admit he’s right and you’re wrong? Is he misguidedly trying to help your career? Or is he just genuinely enthusiastic about AI? Ask him, with genuine curiosity, why he likes to talk about AI so much. If he says he wants to make sure you know how great it is for your profession, assure him you will let him know if you want his advice about how to use it at work. If he thinks it’s cool or is just excited about how much it’s helping him, tell him you’re happy for him. Remind him you’re not judging him, and you hope he’s not judging you, but you have different perspectives on AI. Tell him you hear enough about it during the workday and in the news, so you’d rather not talk about it as much when it’s just the two of you. Don’t prohibit the subject—like saying “don’t think of an elephant,” that won’t work—but ask to reduce your AI-talk time. Then change the subject to something you both enjoy. Now, if evidence leads you to believe he has to be right about everything and you have to agree, well, this is a good time to ask yourself if he’s the person you want to grow old with. A little friendly competition in a relationship can be spicy, but only if everybody’s having fun and it’s not about gloating and dominance. (Also, you’re the one who’s right about AI.) But let’s assume good intentions. It’s a higher degree of difficulty, but could you try to make AI into a running joke? Laughing with (not at) a partner about conflicts can take the sting out and build trust. When he starts on a 10-minute AI ramble, could you start bleep-blooping like a robot? Or say, with affection, “I know where I want to go for our next vacation: Mount Shasta!” Then tell him about the hikers who used AI to plan a mountaineering trip that went very, very wrong. Or show him, while laughing to show you trust him to enjoy it, some of the horrifying AI slop food images that are memeing around. —Laura More Advice From Slate I’m 45 and have recently sold the company I started when I was 25 for a large amount of money. I own a condo and can live for the rest of my life without working again. My friends have asked me what I’m going to do after I’ve sold the company and I’ve told them the truth: I’m not going to work anymore, although I want to volunteer for a non-profit organization. My best friend doesn’t seem OK with this. First, he started saying I was very young to be retired, and eventually our conversation turned into him angrily calling me “lazy” and “entitled.” Advice Workplace Jobs