Throwaway because I don’t want retaliation against me in case my internship personnel frequent this sub. TL;DR at the bottom.

I just finished my internship at a Fortune 500 company. I exceeded expectations of the internship. I was able to help increase and drive sales, implement new processes and improvements in departments to improve and cultivate a better active selling culture, lead at the management level, improve departments in only 3 weeks, hire and train new team members, pass my district walks with flying colors, and a multitude of other improvements.

I was performing very well during the internship and made positive impacts on the store and team. My intern mentor, senior manager, and other managers hinted at me getting a full time offer at one point my manager stated I’d be getting an offer. I recently had my final status with my intern mentor who told me while I exceeded their expectations I won’t be getting an offer. Wtf? I was appalled and confused because I was looking forward to working for the company, especially given all that I learned and grown and the fact that they offered me the position during the internship and asked where I’d like to be placed had me apply to positions and everything so I figured it was a surefire shot.

My intern mentor stated I didn’t get an offer because my communication skills, sense of urgency, and ability to multitask weren’t up to par, however in the status she literally said I improved in all these areas and was going above and beyond. That’s when she let it slip as to why I really wasn’t getting an offer...

A few weeks ago she and I had a status as I had come to her about some things I was upset about. One day she has tasked me to do something that she had not taught me. I felt she only gave me the task because she did not want to do it herself and just happened to see me and delegate it to me. I did the task to the best of my ability.

The same day an employee had pink eye and the managers and senior manager would not let him leave early to go to the doctor. Instead they made him work in an area dealing with food of all places on the condition that he wear gloves. I was the only one who was like wtf? This person needs to go home he’s contagious. But no. So as I was doing my task which took place in the same area I asked this team member to help me and teach me during the last 10 minutes of his shift.

During this time I saw my intern mentor walking around micromanaging and berating other personnel instead of training me on the task she had assigned. When the employee with pinkeye was finally able to help me, my intern mentor told him to finish his task and not help me. She did this in a very demeaning tone to the employee. I was upset and frustrated because I did not know how to do the task and she was berating the employee claiming he was trying to get out of working. I stressed to her that the person was training me. She didn’t care.

I went to take my lunch and my senior manager calls me in to have a quick status with him before I do. I was planning to talk with my intern mentor that same day about my concerns but instead they came up during the status with my senior manager. I explained to him how I felt my intern mentor assigned me busy work she didn’t want to do and how she betrayed a team member for trying to train and help me on the task. I also told him that I was planning on addressing the issue with her later that same day.

I figured because the company had an open door policy so I could tell him these things. I was wrong. My senior manager told my intern mentor ahead of me and when I finally got the chance to have a status with her she was extremely defensive and hostile towards me. Cutting me off when I spoke, talking down to me, and aggressive to the point where I had to ask her several times if I was allowed to speak. I even explained that I had originally planned to come to her and did not mean to go to the senior manager that it just happened.

After that day my experience during my internship went downhill. I could sense a lot of tension when I went into work. My intern mentor even had another manager sit in on a status with us whenever we’d do them. It was just very passive aggressive.

So basically even though I excelled in the internship my intern mentor let her feelings cloud her judgement which caused me to miss out on a full time offer. Tomorrow is my last day and I don’t even want to go into work tomorrow I just feel so defeated. I take failure hard especially since I’m a go getter.

I’ve had employees and supervisors come to me as an intern and basically bad mouth their managers and the company but I’ve never said anything except on one occasion where an employee with autism said other team members and managers laugh and make fun of him and he doesn’t feel like he belongs. I brought these concerns to the managers and the senior manager and they just laughed and said he always does that, he has autism. Wtf?

I’m not sure what to do here. I can’t go to any other manager, my senior manager, or even my district manager, because they are all extremely friendly with each other and I’m still basically the “village outsider”. I want to call the Human Resources hotline and tell them of my internship experience but I’m not sure that would help and only cause more retaliation or if it would even do anything since it’s my last day.

Any advice, insight, or guidance is needed. Thank you. I can also provide additional info if needed.

TL;DR: Got blackballed out of full-time management offer after my internship because my intern mentor placed her personal feelings towards me over the business needs. Even though I exceeded the intern expectations and was able to lead at the Management level. “Outshined” the master.