Whether it was for school or you had a phase in life where you felt like you didn’t know what to do, internships are a pretty common experience for many Singaporeans. Especially for polytechnic students, these are also an integral part of their graduation requirement.
But sometimes, internships may not go the way we expect them to. And for Lemon8 user @Celbiki, also known as Cel, her internship took a huge turn when she felt sexually harassed by her boss.
Cel’s internship nightmare happened back in January 2020, when she was still a polytechnic student. She felt a bit sus right from the first day as she was not given any contract to sign, which FYI, is a requirement for any job in Singapore.
Cel informed her teacher-in-charge, who also felt that it was strange. But eventually, she told Cel to just let her know if anything happens.
When Cel was tasked to sort out some files at work, she accidentally hurt herself and realised that she was bleeding. However, when she sought help to clean up the wound, she was informed that the company didn’t even own a first aid kit.
That sounded like a big red flag — Cel shared, “I don’t think an office that doesn’t own any form of first aid kits is safe.”
Source
Things started to get even worse from then. The whole team, which consisted of 12 people, would often go out for lunch together. Cel was shocked that her colleagues would make racist remarks casually, even telling her, “we had to choose between you and this Indian student, but you know how they smell.”
Bewildered, Cel would excuse herself during lunchtime and return back to work by herself, yet the casual racist remarks kept occurring.
The next red flag was Cel’s big boss. Cel recalled that he was “super interested to know more about [her]” during lunchtime.
At first, he asked her a few casual conversational questions to get to know her better. But soon, these questions turned into extremely inappropriate ones.
He once asked “does your boyfriend get jealous if you wear revealing clothes?”, followed by making sexual jokes about her. He even insinuated that she was sleeping with him, even though she was only 19 years old at that point of time.
Cel’s boss continued to ask her sex-related questions, such as, “if I have sex with another guy while I’m married, would my wife mind?”
Feeling scared and intimidated by the onslaught of questions, Cel reported this to her teacher, who immediately came to pick her up from her workplace.
Source
Eventually, it reached a point where Cel decided she didn’t want to eat lunch with her team. But one day, as she came back from lunch five minutes late after some “toilet problems”, they told her that she was “not allowed to eat lunch without them anymore”.
This was the last straw for Cel. She called her teacher for help, and after some awkward conversations, she was finally removed from the company. Thankfully, her school followed up by arranging a counselling session to make sure she didn’t suffer from any emotional trauma.
To end off the whole internship nightmare experience, Cel shared that “they were supposed to pay me for a month’s work, but didn’t give me my pay until three months later when my lecturer threatened them.” It was truly an experience from hell.
Despite all that she went through, Cel hopes that she can raise awareness with her story. While many may feel that they have to just tahan an internship to graduate, personal boundaries shouldn’t be crossed — don’t be afraid to voice out your concerns whenever issues arise.
Cover: Source
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