SINGAPORE: A boss’s Reddit post about their intern’s very literal interpretations of instructions is going viral, and while it is undeniably funny, it is also oddly endearing.
In a post titled ‘My intern is actually hopeless,’ the boss shared how they had asked the intern to take minutes during a meeting. A simple enough task, or so they thought.
When the meeting wrapped up, the intern confidently delivered his update, proudly announcing how long it had lasted.
“He confidently told me how many minutes the meeting lasted. 53 minutes LOL.”
The boss later admitted the mix-up was partly on them for assuming the intern was familiar with workplace lingo.
“It’s ok, my fault. I expected too much. Since then, I taught him how to take minutes.”
At the next meeting, the boss once again asked the intern to take minutes and later told him to send it to everyone. This time, the intern definitely understood the assignment, just not in the way the boss intended.
Instead of sending the notes only to the meeting attendees, the intern sent the email to literally everyone in the company.
“I meant everyone in the meeting, but KNN he literally sent it to EVERYONE, including the CEO. I dunno whether to laugh or cry.”
“Please be kind to these interns”
The post has since racked up hundreds of reactions and comments from amused netizens who found the intern’s literal interpretations both hilarious and oddly wholesome.
One said, “This made my day,” while another user wrote, “Thanks for the laugh. Will remember if I ever have interns.”
Some also said the case was a classic case of miscommunication rather than incompetence.
“Your instruction is not clear lah, he technically did what he was told,” one told the post author.
“To be fair, a lot of corporate jargon isn’t used before one enters the workforce, so, yeah,” another remarked.
“Please be kind to these interns, lah…their pay is peanuts, and you didn’t end up with monkeys, literally. If we don’t give them a chance to make mistakes and learn, where is the future of Singapore going to come from?” a third added.
Others also chimed in with their own early-career work snafus, reminding everyone that messing up a little at the start is basically part of the process.
One recalled, “I remember when I was on my first day in the army when we stood in line in our civilian clothes, and the corporal yelled, ‘Squat!” Sedia-A!’ and I squatted down and everyone laughed.”
Another shared, “I remember when my first boss told me to ‘take minutes’ and I was so baffled I just straight up asked him what he meant.”
A third wrote, “It’s ok. I once asked an intern for a quarterly calendar; she went to take an A4 paper with the calendar and cut it into four and gave it to me….”
In other news, a 29-year-old man working in the energy sector is feeling completely burnt out after a sudden surge in demand linked to the ongoing war pushed his workload to extreme levels.
Posting on the r/asksg forum on Friday (Apr 10), he shared that things escalated very quickly. Within less than two weeks, his company received more than two months’ worth of customer orders.
Read more: ‘Non-stop chaos since early March’: Energy sector worker burnt out after war-driven demand surge pushes workload to extreme levels
