Malaysian intern chides employers for misuse of intern labor – “I’m not here to get your coffee and snacks.”

An internship is deemed as the gateway to securing a permanent job position. And it’s also a belief of many college-goers that an internship will be their way to be able to pick up essential skills to survive the corporate working life.

But imagine their shock when an internship simply entails them getting coffee for the staff, picking up deliveries, getting snacks for the office, and other odd jobs – that too without pay?!

A Malaysian intern is speaking out against this damaging mindset amongst local employers – “Interns are not real employees”. According to her viral post on a Xiaohongshu page dedicated to speaking out against unhealthy Malaysian work culture, she admitted to have been feeling underused for her skills and educational achievements.

“As a marketing intern, I had expected my internship to be a medium to learning key job skills as well as be able to experience the Malaysian work culture and ethics firsthand,” she says. “I’m here for an internship position. Genuinely, I do not consider menial tasks like snack and coffee runs to be within my job scope as a marketing intern. I’m actually here to learn more about tasks and skills better related to my field,” she goes on.

In her post, she details that she had felt her supervisor had been unfair to her by making her do these unrelated, inferior tasks at work. Instead of feeling like she was hired for a marketing position, she felt she was treated more like an office attendant instead. “I was not comfortable with it. My supervisor often orders me to get his breakfast parcels or get his packages when a delivery arrives.”, she says.

She believed that she had signed on to the RM800 per month marketing role to be entrusted with projects and tasks that would align with her marketing degree. And as such, she began to refuse the menial orders and began to request to be included in the actual workings of a marketing office.

However, she had a massive shock when she was informed by her workmate that this is what all the interns have to go through. “My colleague said that I was overthinking things. According to them, this is what is most common for Malaysian interns and considered appropriate ‘work experience’ at an internship level,” she remarks.

This issue is something that has been ongoing for decades in the Malaysian workforce. As a result, it has produced many graduates with no real experience in their related fields. Many interns are not only speaking out about such misuse of labor, but also about how underpaid Malaysian interns are.

In a related story, student Rashifa Aljunied has been vocal about the blatant exploitation and massive discrepancies in the hiring of corporate interns in Malaysia. Her viral hashtag #InternBukanBuruhPercuma has garnered a lot of attention of late for its advocacy against the misuse of intern labor and resource.

As a student about to step into the internship world, Rashifa was worried about the salary discord between interns and full-time hires. In a lot of these cases, interns are paid remuneration of RM500 and below. However, closer inspection yielded the fact that most corporate units prefer to hire interns for menial tasks around the office at absolutely no pay at all.

Rashifa and her band of supporters have been rallying openly on X (formerly Twitter) to increase intern wages to the government-ratified minimum of RM1,500. According to her, the current salary scheme offered to Malaysian interns was not enough to offset rising living costs, especially in well-developed states.

“A lot of mahasiswa (graduates) like me have to go through internships next semester, and many of us are figuring out how do we eat at least 2 meals a day, have a roof over our head, and get transportation with no pay,” she wrote on her X account, @youngaljunied.

Aside from the pay gap, she had also brought up issues of internships being scarce in underdeveloped, inner states across the country, as well as the misuse of intern labor for menial work around the office. Rashifa and her supporters have recently sent a memorandum to the Ministry of Human Resources (KESUMA) detailing the plight of interns in the country as well as demanding better pay, training, and adequate job exposure to be guaranteed to those who choose to complete their internships in a corporate setting.

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Ben Chilwell

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Picture of Ben Chilwell
Ben Chilwell

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