In the beginning I was staying in my company’s guest house. After a while I started having some trouble with neighbors, that couldn’t understand why a girl was arriving home after 8pm… The company suggested that I moved to another place to avoid any confrontation with them. I said it was fine and that I was going to start looking for a place. My company calls AIESEC and tells them they have to help me do it. They of course say yes. The place they had planned for me was of course horrible, and I never wanted to move to that place. AIESEC insist that I have to move in the same day. I call company and they say I only have to move if I feel comfortable. Next day I get the same call, saying that I had to move the same day. What he hell is this? It’s of course AIESEC’s behavior of saying yes to all the companies and not considering their interns at all… Eventually I was more stressed with AIESEC’s threatening and I did move out to the bad place. AIESEC promised me it would be only for a week, that they would help me find a new place. That of course never happened and I lived in 37 until it was closed down, another 4 months
37 had some main issues… we had mold on the walls, broken toilet, no water in the kitchen, gas leaking, a balcony that was falling apart and dropping rocks in our heads… Just to start it with. AIESECers have been informed of this of course, in many occasions, by different forms. Most of the time they would say “no problem, we’ll fix it all by next week”. Of course it didn’t happen. Eventually, after many confrontations, The LCP, Vikram Jain, said it would be easier to find us a new house than to fix that one. That was supposed to happen within a month, but it took them 3 months to find a new place.
Toilet, Balcony falling apart and kitchen tap that never worked (so we would keep bottles with water next to it)
Meanwhile, the trainee house in Panchkula had some different issues. Since it was summer time, there was a high number of trainees in town, and they simply kept dropping people there, even with the complains that the place was over crowded. They answer was it’s only for 6 weeks!”. That house, which could take comfortably 6 to 8 people, had somehow to be home for 14.
Coming back to Chandigarh: we started hearing rumors that there was a new place, but even though we asked to check the apartment before they take it, the best they said they could do was to show a house in the same building, because an AIESECer happened to have a flat there. They would keep saying: you have to give us money, then we’ll have the keys of the new place and you can move in the next day, Of course it wasn’t as they said it would be right? One day I get a call: Ok, I’ll send someone to pick you up in 2 hours, to move to the new place, pack your things. Certainly it was short notice, but I didn’t complain because I was dying to see get out of the bad house. I somehow manage to put all my things together, and wait. I waited for hours, kept calling and eventually they stopped picking up. I send a text message: “Do you think I’m a clown for you to make such jokes with me?”. Then I get the phone call “who do you think you are to talk to me like this. I’m managing the things to move you out and I won’t tolerate such behavior” and hang up. Why do I have to tolerate all this then?
It was two weeks later that we actually move out of 37. We were called, at 9pm to be informed that we would have to move out the next day at 8 am. Without many options, we pack our bags and wake up early, just to wait the AIESECers for 2 hours. When they arrived, they didn’t know what to do with us. They had to submit the keys of our place to the landlord, but they didn’t have the keys to the new place yet. Of course there was a fight right then and there, and we had to hear opposite statements such as “trust us, everything is going to be ok!”, “thank you for handling the situation so well for so long, we know it wasn’t easy” and my favorite “You know, I hope that when I have my internship I’ll go through a situation as bad as yours, because this is the kind of things that makes us stronger”. After another hour discussing, they picked us up and took us to different home stays for 3 days, till they had the new apartment’s keys.
They took us to the new place at 7pm, and we came to know that the place didn’t even have the light bulbs yet. After 1 hour an electrician came and installed these things, along with these guys, AIESECers left and said that everything (beds, chairs, table, stove…) would be delivered in the upcoming hour. We waited for long and by midnight we called pissed off because we didn’t even have beds… then they were delivered at 2 am… well, this house was way better than the previous one, but we still had problems… broken tap in the kitchen, broken flush in the toilet, a whole In one of the rooms that was meant for an AC, but since we didn’t have it was just exposing us to the street. And I can’t forget to say that we didn’t have gas for 3 weeks and that kitchen stuff like plates, mugs, forks and knives ended up being provided by my company, because they felt sorry that we didn’t have it there.
We stayed in this place for 3 months, until we were informed that we would have to move out to a new place in two days, this date happened to be New Year’s Eve. It had to be then because they told the landlord they would give the key back in December, and the people leaving in our new place would move out only on the 30th. AIESECers came here by 6pm to take our things and…. Surprise, surprise! The new place still had the previous people in, apparently they didn’t have a place to go, so they decided to stay there a couple more days. The next day we move in to find a filthy house, that had even rotten food inside the fridge and the old clothes people had left behind inside the wardrobes. After cleaning, the place is finally nice. Of course, that the no gas situation was there for 20 days, and no internet for a whole month… But now the house at least is not an issue for me, Well, I’m living in my 5th house in 10 months now.
From Unhappy AIESEC Chandigarh Intern # 4
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