How do y'all deal with those who quit?

Hey all! Not exclusive to finance, but I was wondering how you mid-level employees deal with interns who renege on offers or quit early into their internship (usually leaving the rest of us to pick up the pieces of an important project).

For some background - I'm running an internship program (basically a business development rotation) at my medical office. I had a ton of applications and chose three high performers - one informally accepted over the phone and then declined once she received the official offer letter via email. Okay, that's fine. So now I have two.

My superstar intern is a blast and we're getting along great, he's taking on so many projects and making my life so much better. Thank god.

The other intern is a bit of a flake going in. She's not a business major, but she was very passionate about becoming a therapist and running a group practice so I gave her a chance. She's fucked up two projects already due to carelessness. I've given her constructive feedback and she's improved a bit. Then this morning, three weeks into the internship, she emails me to say that she was "offered a full time position" at her other job (which I am almost certain is a flat out lie given what she's told me in the past) and that she won't be in office today. She's quitting, byebye. Didn't even give me enough notice to get the remainder of her files from her / wrap up projects / transfer responsibility to someone else.

On one hand, she wasn't a great intern so it's kind of like cutting losses. On the other hand, I feel like I should respond (from a mentorship angle) to let her know 1) that this is extremely unprofessional, 2) she shouldn't burn bridges in our industry, which is just as close knit if not more so than finance, 3) it was kind of a dick move to not give us enough time to properly wrap up / transition projects. I now have to take time out of my workday to do some of the time-sensitive tasks I assigned to her, which does not make chic a happy camper.

Thoughts? I don't want to come across as a dick but I don't want her to think that this kind of behaviour is okay.

2 Comments
 

Agree that you don't need to chew her out since she is leaving anyways, but you should say something along the lines that the 2 weeks heads up/notice period is standard.

If you wanted to take it a step further you can mention that this will be reflected if anyone contacts you for a referral. I would advise not to make it personal/turn it into a blame game. She is gone, these are the consequences, etc.

 
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