A Group of Interns Signed Petition for ‘Casual Dress Code’ & Got Fired Immediately

Last Updated on 2022-10-15 , 2:11 pm

We’ve all heard so much about horror stories from interns, but horror stories ABOUT interns? Not so much.

Once, a group of ex-interns got fired for writing a brazen petition to their bosses asking for “a more business casual dress code”.

They even outlined the types of footwear they felt were more appropriate, and requested to “not have to wear suits and/or blazers”. Wow.

This started off with an intern being unhappy with her company’s overly strict dress code, especially since she didn’t get to deal with clients.

But one day, she realised that one of her co-workers wore running shoes every day, even though that wasn’t allowed in the office. The intern then spoke with a manager, who made it clear that apart from the other worker, nobody was allowed to dress down.

And here’s where it all goes downhill. Enraged by the hypocrisy and encouraged by her fellow interns, she wrote a proposal explaining why the dress code should be more lax.

It was accompanied by a petition signed by every intern (apart from one who refused to sign), and then given to their managers. As you might’ve guessed, it didn’t go well.

The next day, all of us who signed the petition were called into a meeting where we thought our proposal would be discussed. Instead, we were informed that due to our ‘unprofessional’ behaviour, we were being let go from our internships. We were told to hand in our ID badges and to gather our things and leave the property ASAP. We were shocked… The worst part is that just before the meeting ended, one of the managers told us that the worker who was allowed to disobey the dress code was a former soldier who lost her leg and was therefore given permission to wear whatever kind of shoes she could walk in.

Firing the whole group of interns might seem a little extreme, but honestly? They were out of line. Imagine inviting guests over to your house for dinner, but them saying your cooking sucks. It just wasn’t their place to do so.

If their internship consisted of unsafe work or unreasonable hours, speaking up would be the right thing to do. But this wasn’t anything like that; all these interns had to do was keep to a reasonable-sounding (and very common) dress code.

Also, a petition isn’t something you see very much at work. Why? Because it’s aggressive. It indicates that you think that if there are enough signatures, your company should do something about it.

And from the point of view of the company, that’s just plain rude. So now you know what not to do on an internship.

Featured Image: joyfull / Shutterstock.com