Dissatisfied with my internship and thinking about quitting, I’d like some advice /u/rsousa10 CSCQ protests reddit

First of all, this is a paid internship but I’m not from the US, so the amount of my wage (R$700/month) probably won’t make sense to you, but what I can say is that it’s REALLY low even for an internship, it’s less than half of the minimum wage on my country.

Here’s the situation: this is my first position in the field, I made this post some months ago https://www.reddit.com/r/cscareerquestions/comments/1fn0li0/my_first_internship_theres_no/

I’ve been in this internship for 4 months, working on-site, 28 hours/week, with no benefits. The company consists of just me and two other people—my boss (the senior developer) and another person who handles HR/sales (she only comes to the office once or twice a week, but that’s beside the point). Despite being small, they’ve been in the market for quite a while.

My resume is focused on web development, and they were looking for an intern to be their “home-grown person” because the guy who handled the web stuff left. I had no prior experience with their tech stack, so my boss asked me to learn the web part first (Angular), especially since web development isn’t his strong suit (he admitted this himself). The problem is, I’m starting to notice a few things that bother me:

• My tasks don’t get a thorough code review. My boss just gives them a quick look, checks if they work, and moves on, I feel like I’m not learning like I should

• He smokes cigars INSIDE the office (I’m serious)

• Transportation stipend issues: It’s paid every two weeks, but it’s ME that has to remind them to process the payment because, for some reason, they don’t have any system in place for that. Payments are done manually, and sometimes they short me by a few cents. I’ve complained, and they said they’d fix it in the next month, but they never do. This situation is making me really uncomfortable.

• I have to provide user support: The problem is, there have been several occasions when my boss left the office before me, leaving me alone. Since I’m new, I often don’t know how to respond, and there’s no one around to help me.

   

Advantages:

There’s no pressure or strict deadlines for my tasks—it’s VERY laid-back in that sense.

The latest issue:

The computer I use in the office broke. When I told my boss, his initial response was, “Take a look at the case.” It took him FOREVER to come over to my desk and see what was wrong. My impression is that he doesn’t seem to care much about problems like that. In the end, they told me to take it to a repair shop. They did pay for the Uber, and I went during work hours, of course (I may be an idiot, but not that much).

My internship contract runs until April (7 months total), and they want to “promote” me. I say “promote” because what they explained is that once this contract ends, they want to make another one—”off the books” and not tied to my college—so I’d remain an intern until I hit the one-year mark, and only then would they officially hire me. I find this very strange.

As people, they’re really nice, but professionally, they fall short in many ways. Since there’s no penalty for breaking an internship contract and I have nothing to lose, I’m seriously thinking about leaving early instead of waiting for it to end. I feel like I’m not getting proper support from the senior, and I don’t see long-term growth there. The downside is that I don’t have another job lined up yet. That said, I don’t urgently need the money—I live with my parents (they’re cool about it), and I have decent savings. If I quit, I’d just focus on studying and sending out resumes. But is it worth it?

First of all, this is a paid internship but I’m not from the US, so the amount of my wage (R$700/month) probably won’t make sense to you, but what I can say is that it’s REALLY low even for an internship, it’s less than half of the minimum wage on my country.

Here’s the situation: this is my first position in the field, I made this post some months ago https://www.reddit.com/r/cscareerquestions/comments/1fn0li0/my_first_internship_theres_no/

I’ve been in this internship for 4 months, working on-site, 28 hours/week, with no benefits. The company consists of just me and two other people—my boss (the senior developer) and another person who handles HR/sales (she only comes to the office once or twice a week, but that’s beside the point). Despite being small, they’ve been in the market for quite a while.

My resume is focused on web development, and they were looking for an intern to be their “home-grown person” because the guy who handled the web stuff left. I had no prior experience with their tech stack, so my boss asked me to learn the web part first (Angular), especially since web development isn’t his strong suit (he admitted this himself). The problem is, I’m starting to notice a few things that bother me:

• My tasks don’t get a thorough code review. My boss just gives them a quick look, checks if they work, and moves on, I feel like I’m not learning like I should

• He smokes cigars INSIDE the office (I’m serious)

• Transportation stipend issues: It’s paid every two weeks, but it’s ME that has to remind them to process the payment because, for some reason, they don’t have any system in place for that. Payments are done manually, and sometimes they short me by a few cents. I’ve complained, and they said they’d fix it in the next month, but they never do. This situation is making me really uncomfortable.

• I have to provide user support: The problem is, there have been several occasions when my boss left the office before me, leaving me alone. Since I’m new, I often don’t know how to respond, and there’s no one around to help me.

   

Advantages:

There’s no pressure or strict deadlines for my tasks—it’s VERY laid-back in that sense.

The latest issue:

The computer I use in the office broke. When I told my boss, his initial response was, “Take a look at the case.” It took him FOREVER to come over to my desk and see what was wrong. My impression is that he doesn’t seem to care much about problems like that. In the end, they told me to take it to a repair shop. They did pay for the Uber, and I went during work hours, of course (I may be an idiot, but not that much).

My internship contract runs until April (7 months total), and they want to “promote” me. I say “promote” because what they explained is that once this contract ends, they want to make another one—”off the books” and not tied to my college—so I’d remain an intern until I hit the one-year mark, and only then would they officially hire me. I find this very strange.

As people, they’re really nice, but professionally, they fall short in many ways. Since there’s no penalty for breaking an internship contract and I have nothing to lose, I’m seriously thinking about leaving early instead of waiting for it to end. I feel like I’m not getting proper support from the senior, and I don’t see long-term growth there. The downside is that I don’t have another job lined up yet. That said, I don’t urgently need the money—I live with my parents (they’re cool about it), and I have decent savings. If I quit, I’d just focus on studying and sending out resumes. But is it worth it?