I got an internship of 8 months from January to August. It was for a customer service role and my main job was to use SAP and enter orders for the most part. A lot of emails but overall, it wasn't too bad.
The year began with me and two exp employees, one of them moved out of that job so it became me and her for a month or two and then we got another one - making it 3. the workload in the office wasn't too bad, manageable and I enjoyed working in the office. The company I was working at was going through some structural changes so it was an interesting vibe.
When news of the pandemic broke out and like many other companies we were instructed to work from home, it was an interesting proposition. At first the workload was medium and even went down to zero/slow. It was nice at first and manageable. The workload slowly picked up and around that time however, our third person was relocated to another department - due to our company's organizational changes.
From there the past few months have been a blur. The month after member 3 left, I was getting used to my new role on our team of 2 (we had 4 types of orders, I'd be taking care of order type 1, which had the most traffic most days while the older exp member got order types 2,4,3 (sorted, left having more of a workload and right having the least - though not as much as 1).
As time went on however, during mid-may my performance started to take a dip. One, the workload was increasing and I felt stressed out/maxed out. As an intern, I didn't want to say I couldn't handle for fears I'd be deemed "lazy". As the workload went up again, I started missing emails and orders. I managed to turn it around in June and July wasn't as bad but August hit and I had a rough patch there also.
The main reason for my rough patches in my view boils down to a few factors
- mental fatigue - honestly I've felt drained from staying at home, the pandemic, workload and my home life not being that good/supportive. It's taken its toll on me
- to add onto point 1, being stressed out and just anxious all the time at my performance, home life etc
- poor time management skills
- checking out sometimes and just lacking motivation that I once had earlier
My major mistakes include:
- missing emails and orders (eg should of sent this email out earlier or done this order first)
- pushing things to the side and doing them only when told to
I've basically done my internship at this point. I'm wondering what other people think of my scenario and what are some logical next steps/advice I can have for the future and for other internships?
edit: for a clear cut question, I have 2
- is this experience because I'm a bad intern? Or is it just various factors that were out of my control? (this is my first internship for clarification)
- in terms of next steps, what should be something I take out from this internship?