Shi Fu in the Supply Closet
Or: why your internship supervisor is basically a budget Mr. Miyagi with Outlook access
I didn’t, as some might assume, stumble upon the term ‘Shi Fu’ during a spiritual vision quest in a Balinese jungle while sipping tea and searching for my spirit PowerPoint template.
No.
I learned it the only way modern knowledge is truly passed on: via trashy streamingplatform TV.
In Shaolin Masters, a Dutch reality show where mildly famous people with burnout are shipped off to a mountain in China to do push-ups and "find themselves" under the auspecien of Shaolin warriors with more charisma in 1 stare (and sixpack) that all of the contestants, one word echoed through the incense smoke and midlife regrets: Shi Fu.
Now, before any real Shaolin practitioner dropkicks this metaphor into the recycling bin (and me after that): yes, I know. Comparing centuries of disciplined mastery to Pierre from accounting supervising a third-year financial studies intern is... a stretch. Possibly even a deep muscle tear.
But let’s roll with it.
Shaolin readers: please correct me gently, like you would a grasshopper too proud to bow.
So, what is a Shi Fu (师父)?
Literally: “master-father” or “teacher-father.”
师 (shī): master, instructor, coach, that person who knows
父 (fù): father, mentor, someone who shakes their head without saying “I told you so”
It’s a term of profound respect. Reserved for someone who not only teaches you a skill, but shapes your approach to life. Think: monk, kung-fu master, stonemason, violin luthier, or that one uncle who taught you to parallel park while screaming to not damage his proud silver Chrysler Voyager.
In other words: a mentor, not a manager.
Which brings us to... the internship supervisor.
Or as the official org chart might call them: “Middle Management: Training Support.”
Which sounds like a piece of software, not a person.
But make no mistake. The internship supervisor is your local, underfunded, Outlook-powered Shaolin master.
They teach not through theory, but through tolerance.
Not by handing you wisdom, but by watching you struggle and letting you survive it.
They are:
Mr. Miyagi with a company badge
Yoda, but in a budget meeting
Ted Lasso, minus the football, charisma, and visible will to live
And once you see it, you can’t unsee it.
They don’t just supervise.
They transmit.
Through sighs, silences, and those eyebrow raises you see in the corner of your eye while doing that presentation that should be HR-reportable.
When you submit your sixth draft of the “About Us” page and they simply fold their hands and slowly say:
“Interesting.”
You know what that means.
You feel what that means.
It’s Shaolin for: “I’m trying not to cry, but you’ll be redoing this, probably 5 times”
They let you bomb in meetings.
They let you send that typo-ridden email to the million dollar corporate client starting with ‘hey pal’.
And then they ask, without malice:
“What was the plan there?”
As if you had one.
Because a true Shi Fu doesn’t just care about the task.
They care about the transformation.
They see the intern not as a warm chair with Wi-Fi access, but as a half-formed professional; as sourdough to be shaped, proofed, and occasionally burned.
Yes, it’s messy.
Yes, it’s slow.
And no, we don’t measure any of it properly.
Instead, we suffocate the process in bureaucracy:
Competency matrices
Feedback forms with “smiley face” Likert scales
Spreadsheets so complex they qualify as ancient scrolls
Meanwhile, the real transformation happens off the grid:
In the nod after a good presentation
In the silence (and eyebrow) after a bad one
In that single, weird moment where you realize you’re not “just an student” anymore
You’re... part of it.
A professional.
A junior, chaotic one, but still.
So can we please stop pretending that the internship supervisor is just someone ticking off hours on a form, following strict educational forms to get the student through a hoop towards a piece of paper?
They are:
Unpaid philosophers
Accidental sages
Mentors in fleece jackets who didn’t say “no” fast enough in the meeting where they had ‘who’s going to do the intern thing this semester?’
They’re Shaolin monks with email access.
Don't hand them another performance indicator.
Build them a statue.
Preferably next to the coffee machine.
With a little plaque that reads:
“Shi Fu. Inbox 97% full. Heart 100% open.”