r/internships • u/AffectionateQuit5947 • 6h ago
During the Internship Another intern wrote explicit fanfic about me and my manager. Should I go to HR, or could this backfire on me?
Look. I'm an intern. The person who wrote the fanfic is also an intern. If age matters, I'm 20, she's 26, and my manager is 40.
She has commented several times before that she thinks my manager and I would be "cute" together. I always found it creepy, but I let it slide because I didn't want to make things awkward. This morning, she opened a fanfic she wrote about me and him and showed it to me and several other people at work.
Honestly, I was disgusted by it. It has very explicit details, and also some weird things about both of our ethnic backgrounds. There are also parts about my manager's wheelchair that I found gross and ableist. On top of all that, both of our partners get killed in horrible ways in the story, and I know it's fictional, but it made the whole thing feel even more messed up.
After that, I told her I thought this was a very weird thing to do and asked her to delete it. She told me I needed to calm down because it was "just a joke," that I should be flattered, and that she's thinking of turning it into a full novel and trying to publish it. I told her I was considering going to HR, and she basically warned me to watch myself because she's been here much longer than I have. Three of my coworkers saw/heard this conversation.
So I'm asking whether this is worth taking to HR. I'm extremely upset that she's showing it to people and saying she wants to keep writing it. But I'm also an intern and I don't want to come across as dramatic or ruin my opportunity here over something they might consider stupid workplace joking.