I wanted to publish this blog for long long loooong time. I have written the blog once, but I have faced a certain problems with AIESEC Chandigarh after that, so I have rather decided to delete it.
Moreover it was too long not having much structure and mentioning too many unnecessary details.
- Before I write anything - I have to mention that most AIESECers I have met ( like 90% of them) are great people and my friends ( hopefully will still be even after reading this blog ;-). They are friendly, nice, talkative and usually do try to help you. I am talking both about AIESEC Chandigarh as well as AIESEC Slovakia.
- I would like to mention that my reasons behind this blog are simply to encourage AIESEC Chandigarh to improve. I do not want to put them down nor to criticize them. However, I do think that AIESEC Chandigarh does deserve some bad publicity because of organization and the whole functioning of AIESEC in Chandigarh and as I have heard in other parts of India as well ( could be also in Europe or anywhere else, but for that I have neither experience nor any kind of first hand knowledge from someone else)
- Very important is to mention that I was not the only one having a bad experience. You can explore another blog written by other interns that came to Chandigarh for their internship. Simply follow the link and read other people' experiences - http://aiesecchandigarh.blogspot.com/
- I still think that AIESEC is a great project and I am sure they will continue in their activities and will bring many benefits to all participants. ( however, we should not be naive and probably there would be also negative experience)
Since I do not want to write an essay - I will go directly towards things that I see as a "bad service" and even consider AIESEC as not very serious organization. Lets explore reasons behind it. A first few reasons I have not personally ( luckily) experienced but have seen other interns living in not very good conditions as well as having the chance to hear their complaints out. One of the reasons why AIESEC Chandigarh did improve was that very negative blog mentioned above. Or at least it seems quite reasonable motive as the blog did get quite a lot of attention and many people were reading it from all around the world. I have to confirm that most complaints in that blog are 100% true and justified and are a sad reality even today. Those complaints would be...
Stacking too many people into a house like chicken
This part is funny. I was lucky enough and I had only one roommate. Others were not so lucky. Later I have decided to move into a house that you can't even compare to intern houses. This house was found by some very angry and extremely dissatisfied interns with AIESEC Chandigarh. They were the ones after all that even wrote the blog I have mentioned above in the 3rd numbering. I would move into that house and only later realized how smart that was. Previously I thought I do not necessarily need to move and I have done so only since my girlfriend was coming over to do an internship as well. Even she has her story and blog which I will soon paste. Just to give you an idea I will put a picture that even one intern did call "refugee camp" when posting on his facebook account. Have a look yourself
Now so that you understand... they would put lets say 12people into a 3rooms apartment. Just to demonstrate my point, lets have a look at following example. Those angry and extremely dissatisfied interns with AIESEC Chandigarh found a house for 23 000,- Rs (400eur). It would include internet, rent, water, electricity, maid that cleans the house, etc. There is NO COMPARISON between most intern houses that I have seen and the house where I live with a few other interns. We pay 23 000,- Rs.
Imagine 12 x interns paying 4000 Rs,- ( which was normal rent). 12 x 4000 = 48 000 Rs,-
Imagine they would be paying lets say 23 000 Rs,- like us ( and remember those two places are incomparable when it comes to comfort, quality and basic necessities).
That would make a profit of 48 000,- Rs 23 000,- = 25 000,- Rs.
So, for me AIESEC Chandigarh uses interns as source of their profit or in other words as milking cows. That I consider anything but not serious especially having the opportunity to live in such a "luxurious" place, not having any privacy.
Not providing even basic necessities
As I have mentioned already above, basic things such as fridge, water filter or cooker would sometimes be missing in the house. You would find yourself trying to reach AIESECer's mobiles trying to get them bring you those thing so that you can cook, drink water and store your food in cold fridge so that you do not have to throw them away next day.
Not being able to run AIESEC Chandigarh properly
The reason behind is that AIESEC Chandigarh would simply match ( the process of finding interns for companies) too many interns while not having enough resources to handle all that work. For each intern you have to plan someone to come and pick them up to take them to their home, to help them if needed with Indian bureaucracy such as registration, etc. Thus some interns would be left to help themselves on their own.
In my case, person taking care of our house - Ayush - would take me to some police station where I thought got myself registered. I do remember that he told me it's not registration but that it is still important. Later when I went to get myself registered, it was already too later ( cause you have to get registered within 2weeks) and previous application where I had to submit 7copies of my passport and my visa together with 7photographs was totally useless. It was a waste of time trying to explain to policeman at Foreign Registration Office ( later only as F.R.O.) that I have done some kind of application already - however - totally useless. I still had to pay a fine of 30 US $, which nobody will pay for me. If AIESEC Chandigarh is not responsible for my registration and I need registration instead of some useless application - THEY SHOULD HAVE TOLD ME and i would have done it myself. All i needed was information that it's not they business and that just the address of F.R.O and things would have been easier for both of us!
Not being able to provide any help
This happened to my girlfriend. It's actually very very veeeery funny story. She went to F.D.O. to get herself registered. Person sitting there as you would assume would speak English. He did not! After 2sentences he switched to hindi with a big smile. He took out some papers covered with dust and wrote out things that she needs for registration as well as some other new 6things that even he could not explain! What a ridiculous system. You tell someone to get you something which even you yourself have no idea what that actually is.
The person that was assigned to come and help us was to no use even though he spoke hindi. I guess cause the policeman was totally useless in the first place. In the end AIESECer was quite useless there and didn't help at all as he had no knowledge of how things are actually done. Later it was thanks to my girlfriend's boss that she got herself registered. You ask me how? The boss could not understand the stupidity behind that policemen requests and list of things that even he could not explain. Thus they printed list of things that a foreigner needs for registration from official F.D.O.'s website and showed it to that genius. Suddenly she did not need anything of what he previously claimed is crucial. Suddenly it was ok and she could hand him over copies of her passport, visa, photos and electricity bill of house where she was staying... Indian bureaucracy, don't ask me why. I had a talk with one Indian friend and I was just shocked staring with my jaw dropped how complex and stupid it actually is when he was telling me various stories from the past.
Various other cases
Often AIESECers would come to our house to have a friendly chat. However, later I felt like one AIESECer would actually be almost living in our house cause there was this sexi canadian intern which he found attractive and thought he might give it a try ( i guess... or maybe he just liked her company... who wouldn't ;-)
Once there were even three guys coming to our house just because they had stored a bottle of vodka in our fridge and they would come to our house to consume it. I got quite angry and asked what the hell does that mean. They were acting as if it was their house spending quite a lot of time there. Later I found out that one of the guys had problems with his parents, thus he needed some kind of shelter for relief and some peace. If you needed something urgently, suddenly all AIESECers would be busy and there was no-one to help you. Especially if there was some serious problem.
My personal experience
Most disappointing was my personal experience with AIESEC's help. I was working in LEO Designs & Packaging company. I have been given some work, however, the work could not be really measured as it was research and ... to give you an example i will tell you what was I supposed to do. I was supposed to contact their competition in India as well as Europe, find out at what prices they sell their products as well as what policies, discounts, etc they have. Later to try stealing their competition's clients by offering them better prices, discounts, etc. This was pretty much everything. I have done it, but as you can see, it's not a very interesting as well as not having much diversity. I would be sending them daily reports. Three things happened during my stay. I was told by my boss Varun that other guy Kunal will be in charge. Later Kunal told me that even he is busy and that third guy - Sumeet - will take over and give me necessary guidance. I did not receive much feedback during my internship. I later found out there was a complaint about me from an AIESECer. Thus, obviously i was angry. First of all, there was nothing in particular that they would complain about. I was just told there was a complaint. Secondly I saw no reason for complaining as I have done things I was required and I did not receive any feedback ( or not much). So I wrote an email to all those 3 guys and I DID put 2 AIESECers that I considered competent on copy ( as well as my HR manager) - Tushar Singh and Elisha Thapar. I have received NO feedback to my email from neither my bosses nor AIESECers. I have also send another email asking what in particular have they complained about or what am I actually doing wrong?!
NO REPLY!
I have send later a few more emails. No reply. I would keep on sending my daily reports together with some ideas and so on - no reply. Later just to prove how bad it was - a indian employee - was hired to help me do the work. Guess what! He wanted to leave the company after two weeks. During my stay most of the people left the company as they were highly dissatisfied with their working conditions and i am not surprised. I didn't care as after 6months I would be gone. Now, even my HR manager left the company even though my boss raised her salary ( or at least that is what he claimed he would do). Many other employees left and some would express their dissatisfaction quite explicitly - they were females ( usually females and especially in India are very polied). To make a long story short - I have noticed that most Indians, especially those in the north do not like confrontations and thus often rather choose to be quiet and not say anything ( even bosses).
One day I have been fired without any notice.
What was best about it all was that since I needed a new internship and I had proofs that it was not my fault - email documentation, my colleagues that would willingly speak to AIESECers, my HR manager, my colleague that was doing the same thing as me and most of all Elisha and Tushar even received my emails and did not contact me to ask for further details about what is going on. Best part is that I needed a new internship. I was angry and wrote blog about AIESEC Chandigarh as well as about the company I used to work for. Suddenly they would require me to pay a new EP form which is simply a form that is created in their database with a few clicks, moreover they refused to find me internship in Chandigarh and rather told me they would find me internship in some other city in India. Later I found out that the reason behind was my blog which I had to delete. Not to mention that Vice president and some other people from AIESEC Slovakia had a call with people from AIESEC Chandigarh and tried to force them to find me a new internship.
Well, I deleted the blog and thought that I would rather go traveling than having to experience another "awesome" AIESEC internship. There are many other very bad experiences with internships that I will list in my next posting.
Lastly what sometimes made me angry was AIESEC Chandigarh's attitude when for example that useless guy that went to help us with registration would say "many interns are happy ... bla bla bla".
Yes, many interns are happy and many interns are NOT. Those traveling to India are already adventurous enough to come to India and some are simply a bit naive not knowing what to expect. I mean, no offence, but how many people from Europe want to go to India for internship? Some of my friends' reaction when I have told them that I am goint to India was "are you nuts?". I still think that India is great and I love the people, culture and everything that comes with it. I do not have problem with dirt, bad smell nor crowded buses. I love the experience, BUT ... it's not thanks to AIESECers but thanks to people around me. AIESECers after all are good friends and nice people too, so... ok... thanks to them as well. :-)
I was often wondering if i would have gone to India for internship if I knew what awaits me. I often thought "yes, i would go anyway" because i felt that those first few months gave me enough time to adapt to India and thus found traveling in India later as a piece of cake ;-) Ok, to be honest, even now it is not really a piece of cake, but almost...
Unfortunately If I knew what awaits me, I wouldn't have come to India. I would have gone to Austria for internship that I almost got accepted for where I might have learned German that would be very useful in my future career. I would have gone only for traveling to India and would have saved a lot of money.
The only reason why I wanted to go for an internship through AIESEC was to make my parents happy. If I would have told them "i am going to India to travel", they wouldn't really approve and wouldn't be happy as they would be worried about my safety and so on which any normal parent would be ( especially having that indian pakistani disputes). They would not just not approve, they would be quite angry ... i think...
AIESEC internship would seem like a good reason - working abroad, experiencing a new culture in a safe way.
Next time I will know :-)
P.S: India is still a nice place to travel with people with big hearts, however, I laught when someone would tell me "see, thanks to AIESEC"
