I'm doing terrible at my internship
This might be the worst period of my life yet. I feel so stupid and incompetent like I'm not doing anything right. Wherever my internship supervisor would ask me to do something, I always need to go back to ask for her help. She is so fed up with me. It's only the first week and I already want to die because I have a million things to do and remember.
I'm interning at a business incubator but it's really just a business centre where startups rent offices for a commercial address and people book meeting rooms for an hourly fee.
Here are SOME of the things I need to do:
Answer all client quarries and calls, ALL
Prepare reports
Master an entire ERP system that I've never heard of before
Make all the bookings
Organize all the invoices, note them down in the ERP system and send them to the accountant
Assist in events and workshops
Do market research
Research topics my supervisor tells me to look into and prepare a presentation and report on my findings
Tidy up the meeting room before the client arrives and then tidy up again after they're done
For some reason, I need to see if the tissue box in the bathroom is empty and then fill it up if it is
Send out emails to clients and remind them of their booked meeting room
If a client is late to a booking, I need to send an email and text
This is only a part of the work that I have to do at the company. Mind you, I'm only a student intern and the only reason I'm doing this internship in the first place is that it's one of my graduation requirements. On top of that, it's unpaid for six days a week and for nine hours. My university is only asking for 240 hours to be completed but the owner said that 240 hours isn't enough to teach an intern everything and that I need to work more hours for a "more immersive learning experience". Now when i heard him say this I was like great they're going to train me all throughout the internship and I'll be assigned a few tasks every day. You wanna know how much the actual training period lasted? 2 days during which the internship supervisor dumped on me an insane amount of information and taught me an entire ERP system in one day, then I went straight to work. Whenever she would ask me to recall what she said or quizzed me on some things I would tell her I don't know or I forgot because she's literally not giving me anytime to note down what she says. I tried to record on my phone but I never know when she'll start talking and out of nowhere teach me a new thing.
Despite all that, the people I work with are actually nice and my supervisor is very patient with me but I've reached a point where even she is annoyed with me. She indirectly told me I'm not focused when she said "you know, we rarely take in interns, but when we do, I see if they are focused and have their minds open or not. If I feel like they are gonna be good interns, I'll be very excited to teach them and throw work at them, but if I notice that they keep forgetting what I say or they're not focused or they're not eager to learn or they keep saying I don't know, I'll just assign them a task or two a day and leave them with no more work for the rest of their stay. So it's very very important to me that the intern is FOCUSED".
I also did a very stupid thing on my second day when I answered my first call: a lady asked me whether the rented offices include a VAT or not and I thought if the price of booking a meeting room includes a vat then surely renting an office would too and very confidently I said yes. After that my supervisor did something that still keeps me up at night, she winced in a way I've never seen someone wince before. And then I panicked and started babbling shit to the lady and mixed up the prices of the packages and then I had to put the call on hold for a second and ask my supervisor what was wrong. She says for renting an office there is no VAT in the first place because it's rented on a monthly basis unlike the meeting rooms that are booked by the hour. When I went back to the lady I told her there is no vat and because I was so panicked from the wince, I couldn't word what I wanted to say right and the lady thought that the price is without a vat and that she needed to pay for the vat herself so she ended the call. I just knew at that moment, I made the company lose a potential client.
I told them before during the interview that I've only ever been a student and have never worked a day in my life. I know how it sounds. I've been privileged enough to breeze through college with a full scholarship thanks to graduating highschool as a straight A student. All my college expenses and dorm costs are handled by my parents and so I've never really experienced this 9-5 and 6/week schedule. This dramatic shift is shocking. I'm graduating valedictorian from college with a 4.0 gpa. Throughout my college years, I've been praised and admired by my professors. This sudden and harsh corporate environment is killing my spirits. It feels like the only thing I'm good at is studying, I don't know anything else in life. I know nothing and I'm so down. Everyday after I come back from the place I cry my eyes out and before you know it it's 11pm and I have to sleep enough before another round of hell starts.
Tomorrow there is a workshop they're doing and a bunch of business people are attending and I'm assigned to help the team do basically everything when it's literally only my fourth day.
This is a long, long post I know. But I really needed to vent all this somewhere and I certainly can't talk to my friends or family about it because I'll sound ungrateful and whiny. I desperately need to talk about this with someone and I guess I want to hear other people's internship stories. Did u fuck up as much as I am? Was it horrible for u too? Did u get used to it after a week or two?
Please tell that it's going to be fine and that everyone makes mistakes too. I really really need reassurance.
Posted Jun 12, 2026, 11:41 PM UTC