Where do I start...
Starting from the middle/upper management (managers/directors), no one really knows what to do. With exception of the wonderful few, their days start at 10am, end at 4pm, with an hour or two of managers-only lunches. No one really cares about including fellow interns and analysts. A quote from a manager, "Throw more of you interns at me? Please no. I have enough troubles". They really don't even know what they are looking for. They overload you just so you can maybe crank out something useful they can take credit for. They call it "responsibilities".
Did I mention they pay you as little as possible? They even emphasize that during their recruiting process - "If you want to make money, Air Liquide is not the place for you. But if you want a company that cares about its work, this is the perfect place for you". Basically, you get paid minimal of the industry so you could applaud yourself when you dig a diamond out of their workload. Guys, if this company can hire you, try any other company in the industry you are gonna get hired. Your salary will be higher, and they will actually care about you. Heck, why is a business intern's salary 5% lower than an engineer intern's when they both doing business work? The irony.
Down to the ALLEX Program, us interns call it the program for people who don't know what the heck they want to do when they grow up. They put you on 6 month rotations through different businesses. Sounds great! You are just a 6 month intern at different places, nothing more. You will have no expertise, no solid connections, no stable family and friends, and you must decide by the end of your second year rotation. Here's a piece of advice - your time is better spent in a 1-2 year graduate program then come out to work for Microsoft, Deloitte, Shell, or whatever it is you prefer.
What about the full-timer staffs? This area is the complete opposite of the middle management folks - most people are cool, with the exception of a few bad eggs that could really tick you off. To the upcoming interns and full-timers, this is what you call office politics. People start talking behind others backs, and the suck-ups start siding with the managers. If you think they aren't talking about you, they probably are.
Unlike most companies Air Liquide does not believe in support for success. A worthy employee should be someone who can make money for nothing, and that's it. In last year's round of interns, a good number of them were disengaged due to whatever reasons. In response, instead of helping them out, they were ignored and weeded out by the end of the intern class. Even those who stayed engaged had a hard time. It's one of those "you either do it or can't do it” type of hostile environment.
Last thing, professionalism. Just kidding, there is none. If they don't like you (which doesn't take too much, like most children), they will plant actions and events to build cases against you for everyone to see. I remember this one intern's boss asked him to crack jokes during his presentation to make it "fun and interesting" to management. His boss also asked him to put in a random graph that he didn't understand in the end because his boss insisted. Poor kid didn't even see it coming - he got slammed on by the last graph during his presentation, and got ridiculed for his joke.
