Punish, Reward, Repeat

Internships and Culture:

Company culture is like the mystery sauce on your burger. Nobody knows exactly what's in it, but everyone's pretty sure it's the reason you keep coming back, or running away screaming. And for interns, this culture sauce isn’t just a garnish but their daily diet.

But what is that culture thing?

Culture isn’t what’s written in shiny brochures or plastered across inspirational posters screaming, "TEAMWORK MAKES THE DREAM WORK!" If we're brutally honest (and let’s always be brutally honest), culture boils down to two things: what you reward and what you punish. It's Pavlov meets The Office, minus the laugh track.

Sticks and carrots.🥖🥕

But here's the kicker: culture is not some mystical force of nature, swirling around spontaneously like colorful autumn leaves. It’s deliberate. It’s the result of conscious human decisions; what we collectively decide is important, how we think, and how we choose to behave. Culture doesn't just happen; it's carefully (or carelessly) crafted by humans, often without even realizing it. It emerges from our daily descicions and conversations.

Example? Sure.

Lets take Mauro. Maure is entering a workplace for the first time. He doesn’t absorb company culture from an onboarding PowerPoint or a well-intentioned but vague HR talk by some guy in a suit in an office. Sam experiences culture like a lab rat navigating a maze: chase the cheese, avoid the shock.

Arriving early? Cheese! A morsel of approval in the form of a nod from a supervisor who usually pretends interns are invisible.

Offer original ideas in meetings? ZAP! A swift and subtle glare from senior staff that clearly says, "Nice try, rookie." (Clint Eastwood face optional)

Interns swiftly decode these cultural commandments. It’s the classic corporate carrot-and-stick scenario. But here, the carrot is stale and the stick suspiciously resembles the tasers riot police casually wave around.

And it shows all the time: Companies proclaim their desire for innovation, boldness, and original thinking, yet consistently reward compliance, silence, and enthusiastic nodding while strategically shutting up. It's like claiming you're ‘such a foodie’ but always ordering plain toast.

Then there are these feedback sessions that are actually more cultural interrogations disguised as supportive dialogues. Interns soon realize "constructive feedback" really translates to: "Great all that enthusiasm, but could you just behave more like the interns we appreciated back in 1997? Please"

All the while, companies remain baffled when interns don’t show up with new fresh ideas with candor and self-esteem. It’s as if they place interns on a treadmill, steadily increase the speed, and feign surprise when progress isn’t made, or the occasional student flips out.

If true innovation and original thought are genuinely valued we should try rewarding these behaviors. Lavish cheese 🧀on interns who challenge office traditions, water the office plant and dare to question the grazing sacred cows from the corner office shitting in your drawers.

Or at least be brutally honest in your brochures if you don’t plan on doing that. Just write: "Join us; we adore innovation, just not yours. Smile politely, nod vigorously, and you'll go far. Or at least you'll avoid the workplace tasers."

Remember, culture is not accidental; it's human-made, defined by what we genuinely value, how we think, and how we act. Interns learn swiftly what earns them cheese and what delivers painful shocks. And what’s the first place they learn that? Exactly; at their first internship. there is hardly any comparison material yet, so within a few weeks those 4 hour Monday morning meetings are not weird anymore. It’s ‘well that’s how this works I think’. That’s how culture stays te same. And in 10 years Mauro is sitting in the office eyerolling over an intern questioning the need for a 4 hour meeting on Monday.

So, dear companies. Please proceed thoughtfully.

Because today's interns dodging your corporate tasers might be tomorrow's taser-wielding executives.