I don’t see how you took that from what I wrote. It “feels” like you have an ax to grind.
But yes the typical intern salary is in the mid-30s which is well above market rate and I have lobbied to get them more. I mean is the concept so confusing that maybe a 19 year old doesn’t want to spend their life doing the same job and instead wants to try to work for a bunch of different sectors? The last one who left told me on the exit interview that they got a job with a certain very large Internet company and asked me what I would do in their position. I told him I would have done the same thing at his age. You don’t say no to an internship with one of those.
To me it’s simple enough. Humans don’t change. When I was young I jumped around a lot and they are doing the same. One day they will be fat middle aged with a family to support and can’t do that anymore.
I don’t know how I became the bad guy here. I get them as much pay as I can, I give them interesting projects, I truly give a fuck about their success and when they leave I wish them well. That one that just left I made sure he had my personal cell and email address so he could put me down as a reference. And yeah he was screwing me over a bit. Spent all this time training him and leaves in the middle of a project. But that wasn’t personal so I didn’t take it personally.
