“Except for when we,” Brian began, “you know, get restructured.”
Stacey’s posture stiffened, and she gripped her keyboard a little too tightly, her knuckles faintly whitening. She shot Brian a sharp look, adon’t do this herekind of glance.
“What do you mean?” I asked, looking over.
Stacey spun her chair around. “There’s been talk that some departments might get restructured when Joe finalizes his strategy. We already lost Ned and Gary to other teams, but there are rumors that more changes are coming.” She sounded bitter.
I blinked. “Restructuring? What kind of changes?”
Stacey gave me a measured look. “Hopefully just reshuffling people between teams. They’re still hiring interns like you, after all. It makes no financial sense to train someone just to let themgo. If they were planning major cuts, why would they be bringing in new people?”
“Because they’re disorganized,” Brian chimed in, slapping his hand on his desk. “No one tells us anything.”
My stomach twisted. If major changes were happening, why hadn’t they at least hinted at it during my interview? I could’ve considered other companies to apply to.
I hoped to God it was just the rumor mill in overdrive.
Stacey and Brian were in their twenties, like me, but I could sense neither of them had the kind of responsibilities that came with a kid.
A small ding announced a new email in my inbox, and I excused myself from the conversation to take a look.
It was from Joe Walkers, our interim CEO. My heart leapt to my throat for one ridiculous moment. What if he’d somehow overheard our conversation and was emailing me about it? Then I saw it had gone to other interns too.
The email was brief and devastating.
Subject: Company Updates
To our engineering interns,
I am writing to inform you of a significant change affecting our internship program. Due to necessary organizational restructuring, we will be ending the internship-to-hire pathway for the engineering department as of August 1st.
This means that current intern positions will conclude as scheduled, without the opportunity for full-time employment offers. This decision is entirely based on company-wide strategic adjustments and does not reflect your individual performance or value to the team.
Our HR department will contact each of you directly with information about your final pay, benefits, and next steps. This decision is final.
Thank you for your hard work and contributions. We wish you all the best in your career journeys.
Sincerely,
Joe Walkers
CEO
Shit, shit, shit.
Around me, work went on as normal. People chatted, typed, laughed at something on their screens. None of my colleagues were interns. None of them had gotten that email. I buried my face in my hands, feeling overwhelmed.
August 1st. Today was April 1st, which meant I could complete the entire four months of my internship.
Bringing my hands down, I turned back to my screen and skimmed the rest of the email again.
My blood boiled.
I wasn’t the kind of person who got angry easily, but something about being welcomed while simultaneously being discarded felt like a slap in the face.
Why the hell were they even hiring interns if they were planning to shut down the program soon?
I buried my face in my hands. It was my freaking first day of work. What perfect timing.
