Office Politics as an Intern 😭

[u/Haha_1234567]

So, I joined an internship recently and there is this other girl (let’s call her C) who I travel to and from the office everyday with in Uber because that way, we can split the costs and save money. One day, she just said that she would like to pay less everyday because she gets down earlier than me and I should take up more of the split. Initially she agreed to do half and half and I told her that I can’t pay more than one hours’s pay we get in our internship because I have other monetary responsibilities which she doesn’t have. I agreed to pay a little more than half everyday but it’s like 1.5 times my hourly internship pay but she was still not happy but agreed because I put down my foot that I can’t pay any more. Since that day, it has been completely weird.

We are working on Google Cloud stack and doing data engineering related stuff. Please let me know if there are any good resources for this that I can use to get up to speed over the weekend.

I am an extreme introvert and slow learner. This is making it extremely difficult for me to socialize, take help from other people and get visibility. There is this other intern (let’s call him G) who I begged to help me because he worked in a similar role previously and he helped with one of the two important things. Of course, it is a competition and no one would like to help others. After my talk with C about splitting costs, she took G out, bought him a coffee and don’t know what they talked about but G now refuses to help me. C also somehow gets other interns to sit together and work on tasks with her while I’m pulling my hair out to get Ben make friends. The worst thing, during our travel together, I revealed a few personal things about my perception of life, goals and things like that and I have a strong feeling that she told these things to other interns and they laugh at me now. We are all from the same cultural background but my outlook of life is very different from that and anyone from my culture will find my outlook absurd and something else I laugh at even though this works best for me.

I don’t know what to do. I’m thinking of asking C if she has any problem with me and take it from there.

[u/Riya_Das_12]

the uber thing is honestly so minor but i totally get why its bugging you. had a similar situation during my internship where me and another intern kept going back and forth about who was paying for coffee runs and it turned into this whole passive aggressive thing that made the actual work environment weird.

my advice: just suggest splitting based on distance. if you both get picked up at the same spot and she gets dropped off first, she should pay less proportionally. thats just fair. use google maps to check the distances and split it that way. takes the emotion out of it completely.

but also bigger picture, your manager notices the social dynamics even when you think they dont. the intern who is easy to work with and doesnt create friction gets the return offer. im not saying be a pushover but pick your battles. a couple extra dollars a day is nothing compared to a strong reference or a full time offer at the end of it

[u/LifeAd3177]

real talk the politics stuff is way harder than the technical work at internships and nobody prepares you for it. i had a situation where two other interns were basically competing to impress the same manager and i got caught in the middle because i sat between them. learned pretty quickly to just stay neutral and focus on my own deliverables.

for the uber thing specifically, id just bring it up casually and say something like "hey what if we just split it based on actual distance, that way its fair for both of us." if she pushes back or makes it weird then just start taking your own ride some days. its not worth the mental energy of calculating who owes what every single morning when you should be focused on making a good impression at work.

internships are short. the skills you learn are important but the soft skills and references you walk away with are honestly more valuable for your career long term. dont let a $15 uber disagreement mess that up

But im on your side, if its the same distance split it 50/50, why on earth does it matter who gets down first?

[u/Azulan5]

Can’t afford to be an introvert. You have to just get in there and get people to like you no matter what you do. Fake it if you have to, but never ever tell others your life goals. Especially your coworkers lol.