I am going nuts...

One of the interns is driving me nuts... I do not think I am asking too much if I say I expect some level of intelligence from a 20-year-old undergraduate from a supposedly up-and-coming university...

Let me recount some of what had happened during the past few months and you will understand why I am going nuts...

Incident Number 1

I place some of my stationeries, including calculator, long ruler, scissors and glue-stick - in my drawer. There were times when he needed the above-mentioned stationeries and wanted to borrow mine. I thought I was being nice by telling him that he could help himself to my drawer and borrow whatever stationeries he needed.

BIG mistake. Over time, somehow, and god knows why, he has this mentality that MY drawer is a PUBLIC drawer. Someone left a stack of namecards and a pile of documents on his table and he wanted to clear them. Without asking anyone whose those items belong to, he decided to dump everything in MY drawer!

Me: What do you think you are doing?
Intern: Just putting these (name cards and documents) into the drawer
Me: Are those mine? Did you ask who those belong to?
Intern: No.
Me: Then?
Intern: Well, I am clearing my table and I thought I can place these in the drawer!
Me: Without asking anyone of us here who those belong to and you want to dump them into MY drawer!? What if they belong to boss and she forgot she left them there?
Intern (appeared to be surprised): Oh... this is YOUR drawer...
Me: Of course! Whose drawer do you think this belong to?????
Intern: Oh.. I thought it's a public drawer....

WAH PIANGZ... If you think I am being petty... read on...

Incident Number 2

He helps me to do clip report and I always spend some time to edit him... During the process when I go through and explain why I edited him the way I did, I always ask, " Are you following me? If you have questions, you better ask now because I will not have the time for you later." And I always get a confident answer, " Yup. I can follow."

BIG mistake... Apparently, he was NOT listening to me when I took the time and trouble to go through the report WORD for WORD with him...

When he was making the amendments, he would bug me every 5 minutes to ask me again why I wrote the way I did or what I think if he constructs the sentence his way, instead of using mine?

Can you imagine how irritating that is, especially when you are already pressed for time and when you take the time to edit a report which sometimes can go up to more than 100 pages, then take the trouble to go through with him word for word and even ask him if he agrees with my edits and if he has any questions... That is already like 4-5 hours spent, only to have him coming back to ask me again... Someone needs to strangle, kick, knock or whatever to knock some bloody sense into his pea brain!

Totally irritating!

Incident Number 3

My manager handed him two piles of documents and asked him to make a copy for me.
The 1st set of documents was clearly double-sided and the 2nd set was clearly single-sided - information printed on rough paper.

Intern (pointing to the other side of the 1st set of documents): Do I need to make copies of this too?
Me: Yes, can't you see the page number flows? So do you think you can photocopy Page 1, 3, 5 and not 2, 4 6... and think I can still follow?
Intern: ok.

Minutes later, he came to me again, this time holding the 2nd set.

Intern (pointing to the other side): Do I need to make copies of this?
Me (Looking at the paper he was pointing to and realised the page reflected a big company logo - apparently, it was some rough paper which my manager recyled): What do you think?
Intern: No...
Me: Ya... of cos! Why would you want to photocopy that???!!!! Is there even a need to ask?

I really do not want to be mean but either he is just plain idiotic or he is being OVERLY cautious to an irritating extent... I am really doubting how he makes it to the University...

The Classic Incident

He was kind enough to call and offer to buy lunch for me when I was stuck in office and could not go out for lunch...

The tele-conversation...

Intern: Hi, wanna me buy lunch for you?
Me: ok! thanks.. where are you?
Intern: Bugis Junction
Me: Ok.. Can you get me a FISH Fillet MEAL and another FISH Burger ONLY from McDonald's?
Intern: Ok! A fish fillet meal and a fish burger from KFC!
Me: NO. A FISH Fillet MEAL and another FISH Burger ONLY from MCDONALD's.
Intern: Ok! a FISH Fillet MEAL and another FISH Burger ONLY from McDonald's
Me: Yes. Thanks!

Half an hour later.... guess what my colleague and I had for lunch...

A CHICKEN Burger Meal and a CHICKEN Burger from... .... BURGER KING!!!

Now... talk about following SIMPLE instructions!....