Internships are a rite of passage. They are for learning, listening, and doing the tasks no one else wants to do. It’s a chance to prove your worth from the bottom rung of the corporate ladder. But every once in a while, an intern shows up who seems to have fundamentally misunderstood the assignment, believing their role isn’t to learn from the boss, but to be the boss. One reader shared the story of a new intern whose reign of terror was as brief as it was baffling, and whose downfall was a moment of pure, unadulterated office bliss.
Our department got a new intern last week, and from the moment she walked in, you would have thought she was the C-suite executive we’d all been waiting for. For five days, she delegated tasks, critiqued projects, and generally acted like she owned the place. Her spectacular reign came to a beautiful and abrupt end on Friday afternoon when she tried to tell the actual head of our department to take a seat in the back.
The Intern-in-Chief
Our boss, the formidable Ms. Evans, was working out of our London office for the week. She sent an email on Monday morning introducing our new intern, Madison, and said she’d meet her when she was back on Friday. This created a one-week power vacuum, and Madison confidently strolled right into it.
She didn’t just have confidence; she had a level of audacity I’ve never witnessed. On her first day, she tried to delegate her task of making photocopies to a junior analyst. She would walk by my desk, look at a project I’d been working on for months, and say things like, “That’s an interesting approach, but the kerning on that font is all wrong.” She once interrupted a team brainstorming session to announce that our entire marketing strategy was “passé” and that she had “some thoughts.”
The whole team was so stunned, we didn’t know what to do. We decided to just keep our heads down and wait for the lioness, Ms. Evans, to return to her pride.
A Very Important Meeting
Friday afternoon arrived. We were all gathered in the main conference room for our weekly team meeting. Ms. Evans was flying back and was supposed to be joining via video call, but was running late. Madison saw this as her moment to shine. She walked to the head of the table, picked up a whiteboard marker, and said, “Okay, while we wait for Ms. Evans to figure out her Wi-Fi, I’m going to take the lead.”
She was in the middle of critiquing our quarterly numbers when the conference room door swung open. A chic, powerful-looking woman in her 40s walked in. It was Ms. Evans. She was back a day early.
Madison, who had never met her, saw her not as the boss, but as an obstacle. She puffed out her chest and said, in the most condescending tone imaginable, “Hi, sorry, you’re a bit late. We’ve already started. I’m Madison, I’m running point on this. If you could just grab a seat over there, that would be great.”
Welcome to the Company
The seven of us at the table collectively stopped breathing. We were witnessing a lamb, dressed in a business-casual blazer, attempting to boss around a velociraptor.
Ms. Evans didn’t raise her voice. She didn’t even break her stride. She just calmly walked to the head of the table, placed her leather briefcase down next to Madison’s whiteboard scribbles, and offered a tight, cold smile. “Hello, Madison. A pleasure to finally meet you,” she said, her voice dangerously quiet. “I’m Eleanor Evans. This is my department. This is my team. And you,” she said, gently tapping the back of the chair Madison had been about to sit in, “are in my seat.”
The color drained from Madison’s face. It was a beautiful, terrible sight. “I… I am so… I didn’t realize…” she stammered. Ms. Evans just held up a hand. “It’s been a long week for all of us,” she said, her eyes sweeping over the rest of us, who were all trying desperately not to smile. “Why don’t you take a seat and observe.”
Madison scurried to a chair in the corner of the room and did not make a sound for the next hour. The following Monday, we got an email that she had been “reassigned” to help the facilities department with inventory. We never saw her again.
The absolute glee in our office that Friday evening was palpable. We all went out for drinks to celebrate the return of order. But a friend of mine said we were cowards for not shutting her down ourselves earlier in the week. I think letting her march confidently into her own public execution was a far more effective, and entertaining, lesson. AITA for letting our intern’s delusions of grandeur run wild until the real boss showed up?
In the rigid hierarchy of the corporate world, there are few sins greater than not knowing your place. This intern didn’t just fail to read the room; she tried to redecorate it in her own image. The narrator and his colleagues chose a path of passive resistance, allowing the intern’s own colossal ego to be the instrument of her downfall. It was a risky strategy, but the resulting moment of karmic justice, delivered by the one person the intern couldn’t possibly argue with, was undeniably perfect.
What do you think, readers? Should the team have corrected the intern’s behavior themselves, or was letting the boss handle it in such a spectacular fashion the right move? Let us know!
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