Not being treated fairly at internship, what should I do?

Hi Folks,

So I joined a start-up that's been around a few years but does things like sites and marketing for clients etc. My first task was to create a site for a client based on a new product. I was shown some free wordpress themes to chose from. I met with the client, got a feel of what he wanted and tweaked the hell out of the theme and came up with something. We addressed to the client that we needed more photos from him along with some about text. I couldn't figure out how to override something in the php so I got called a failure in front of everyone, made me look stupid, and that I dropped the ball, I wasted time, etc etc. I was able to fix the problem right away later that day. In the time it took me to get home I had already received another email saying I failed and lost trust, dropped the ball etc. I was limited to using a wordpress theme when I wanted to create something from scratch and then possibly convert to wordpress.

I decided to fix the site up and I presented my screenshots. I got told that it looks like I didn't do much and I wasted time. I also got told that we aren't waiting for any content at all from the client and it was up to me to produce something. I am not sure how I'm supposed to write an about bio for a person I don't even know. I believe from talking to some of the people in the office that the company cycles through interns to get their work done for free. They rarely hire people it seems and the whole office is 95% interns. For a company that's been around awhile, that doesn't bode well for me getting a paycheck.

The problem is the person I report to knows maybe like 10% graphic design and the rest is business type stuff. Even more experienced graphic designers in the office say that this person doesn't know what they talking about half the time. Even people fresh out of school are shaking their heads when asking for feedback on something. So what do I do in this situation? I believe this person has just thrown around technical jargon and mumbo jumbo and made it sound like they are super knowledgeable to impress the hire-ups. Do I ride out the rest of my time in the internship and keep working for free? Or do I look for something else now and try to leverage my time spent there into something better at another company?

Thanks

 

I always advise colleagues, friends, family, etc., to keep working at the job that they hate while they look for a new job. This is because it is easier to get a job when you are currently employed. Given what you have described above, I would suggest that you ramp up your new job search efforts in a big way while you continue to quietly work for this "employer" (I used quotes because the company sounds more like a scam employer than a real one.) Do just enough work for this employer to keep you on board but spend the bulk of your time searching for a new opportunity. This company does not sound like one that you want to be involved with any longer than you have to be.