Backstabbing, incompetent and lazy interns

Question

I’ve just been made president of my startup but because the budget is low I had to hire two interns. The president I’m replacing decided to select the interns I was going to work with which meant I got a very bad selection of people.

One of the problems is that one of the interns I ended up hiring barely speaks any German, we work for a German website. There’s still things I can give her but she’s very lazy and has a terrible attitude. She files her nails at work, leaves early, rolls her eyes at me. She’s the worse. The other intern speaks German perfectly but she lies to me all the time, asks to work remotely for ridiculous excuses but then disappears, has friends visiting her at work hours, is always on the phone even when I talk to her. The list is immense. Both of these interns have really bad work ethic, they never seem to want to learn, when I try to give them training, they try to end it fast, interrupting me, saying they understand when they don’t just so I stop talking.

The one that speaks German well and who acted more professionally the first week on the job now decided to try and get the company hire her friends. The problem is that although I’m the ceo, the founder of my company is still the one making the decisions and she’s trying to go above me and get him to hire her friends. She asked her friend to send his Cv to me and the founder, which annoyed me since I’m her boss and I’m the one doing the interviews and hiring people. After sending his cv, one hour after the email, she brought her friend into our office and told me he was there to be interviewd. I was shocked by her attitude and told her friend I was busy and couldn’t interview him. This week I worked remotely and she just decided to, once again, go above me and bring her friend to the office. She knew the founder was there. And so, because the founder loves to get involved and is unaware of all of this he ended up interviewing him. And to make matters worse he asked me to interview this guy who’s best friends with the incompetent intern. I don’t want these two working together plus my company doesn’t need any more junior people.

What should I do? Reading what I’ve just wrote I realize I’ve been incredibly soft.

Answer 1

They are interns. They do not understand how to handle themselves at work. I see it with 70-80% of my interns. The problem is you have two and they are feeding off each other's poor attitude. The tempo has been set at your workplace.

Here is what I would do (and have done).

1. Talk with each of them - I would just do both at the same time. Boom here are the things we expect from you. We do not expect you to be doing XYZ at work especially if you don't know how to do the 4-5 things we need you doing. So if you are ever bored, study how to do those things. As far as working from home or goofing off, it is done or you are not going to work here.

2. Follow up with them - well micromanage them anytime you see them doing something wrong or not doing anything at all. You don't need to go overboard if they are answering an email or doing something quick but if they are goofing off for a good amount of time - SAY SOMETHING. They must understand that you are watching them all the time. This is the process of removing the malcontents. They will either start trying if they care about the internship or they will go to your founder and complain. This is what you want them doing. This whole thing is like training a puppy. Everytime your puppy does something good you praise, bad you discipline - bad interns are in the same bucket.

3. Quit referring to yourself as CEO and hire some real people for your company. You aren't a CEO if you only hire interns and especially if you don't even get that decision. You calling yourself a CEO sets the tempo for your office too. It sounds like your office needs a total cultural change. This starts with how you act and conduct yourself and the second step is doing the job of a competent manager (let alone CEO) and don't let the interns infect everyone else which it sounds like they have.

4. When the new staff comes in whether intern or whatever, make sure they have the skills to do the job. If you are hiring low wage employees fire the ones almost instantly that can't perform and have a bad work ethic. You cannot have this on display to the employees you value.