Recently, there was an extra space for a training session organized in my company. The training was for Computer Aided Design (CAD) Modeling and is an important aspect for my scope of work. At the same time, there were two interns in my department and it was decided by my supervisor that one of the interns, which is the intern that will be staying longer in the company, will be able to take up this extra slot in the class. This decision was made because this intern will be staying longer and hence could contribute more, while the other intern was leaving 2 weeks after the CAD course ended. I had to break the "bad news" to the other intern that he was not allowed to go and he was not too pleased about it.
What role did you play?
I was the intern's mentor and hence I had to explain to him why he was not allowed to go for the training session.
Who were the other participants in the negotiation?
My supervisor was involved as the decision on who should go ultimately laid with him.
What was the result?
The result turned out rather unpleasant in my opinion. First, let me explain the hierarchy in my department. I report to my supervisor who reports to my manager, and of course the intern reports to me. When I told the intern that he was not allowed to attend the CAD training, he went behind my back and approached my manager directly for permission to attend the training. I felt this was a blatant show of disrespect and not following the chain of command. On top of that, it made my supervisor and I look very bad because it would seem that we are incapable of handling such a simple conflict.
Given that the intern was leaving in 2 weeks at the point in time, I did not do anything after that, except that I did not write a very leaving testimonial letter for him.
Can you see any room for improvement to how the conflict was handled?
On hindsight, I think there was two aspects to this conflict. One, is the nature and character of the intern as we have observed during his internship with us and two, the way I communicated the news to him. First off, from the feedback of my teammates, it seems that the intern made more enemies rather than friends during his internship with us. People found him annoying and he tended to speak and behave out of his position, behaving he was a permanent staff rather than a temporary staff for 3 months. If he were to stay longer, I would definitely have a sit down session with him and counsel him on his behavior during his internship. On the other hand, I could have broken the news to him in a better way. Rather than just telling him that only one space was available and he was not selected, I should have explained to him the reason being his internship was ending and we needed some one who could contribute after taking the training.
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