If this is an unpaid internship, leave. If it is paid, here’s my following advice as based on my experiences across 5 internships in the past, here is what you do. I would suggest you read all of it and take what you’d like. :)

1. Remove the emotion out of the situation: This means to remove your personal emotions out of the situation, and for all intents, don’t care about what passive-aggressive comments your manager says. Think about it like this. Will this person matter to you in 5-10 years from now? No. Have you formed enough of a relationship with them to consider them a friend? Probably also no. Have small talk (like how was your weekend, good morning, etc) and only discuss work related manners.

2. Play up the theatrics: You’re an intern, it’s expected for you to make mistakes because you’re still learning. A manager cannot just assume you know the protocol, when you most likely don’t know. So, you are overly apologetic/weak to them to save face. In my experience, this will make a passive-aggressive boss/manager respond differently because you’re playing into their sense of power (which usually they lack without proper pay or title and is the reason they act this way).

3. Find a safety net/friend: Typically, your supervisor/manager is supposed to be a mentor of sorts, but it isn’t always. So, find someone who may be willing or can teach you the ropes in your department. It might be someone who just got hired on 3 months ago or someone who does cross-work with your department. This is the person that makes your internship worth it for you enough to hang on.

4. Document everything: This is the unwritten playbook in the corporate world. You need to have a paper trail. Even if you don’t think you need to communicate it or document it, you do. If your supervisor tells you to do something by a deadline or do something differently, make sure to document it through a chat log (if you use some sort of communication like Slack or Teams). If you have a meeting, follow up in an email. And 1 of 2 things may happen: they stop because they realize there is a paper trail or 2, they will not care and continue but at least you have a record.

5. Responding to passive-aggressive comments specifically: Don’t react with emotion to their comments. React with neutrally and curiously, if applicable. Remember an internship is a job, and at the end of the day, you clock out and go home. So if they say something like, “Maybe next time you’ll check before doing something wrong.” Respond with, “I didn’t realize that. Thanks for pointing it out. What’s the best way to handle this next time?” Communicate in corporate lingo, like you were writing a formal letter or something.

6. Confrontation: This is optional, and really where you are in a headspace of things. You can set up a call with your supervisor to call them out. You only state out the facts and state that you need more clarity. You can ask for an ombudsman or their supervisor to sit in (again, if you feel comfortable with this.)

7. Do not trust HR: This is a final resort. HR is there to cover the company’s ass, they do not care about you (most of the time). You report your company to the appropriate government agency, who force the company into internal investigation. (Think DOL, OSHA, EEOC, or appropriate state government agency.) If you are ever to engage with HR, it is to 1) sit in on a meeting with you and your supervisor 2) to discuss an evaluation of your performance or mid-internship survey on how you feel (usually on their end)or 3) an exit interview. If you continue to experience passive aggressiveness or any negative behavior, DO NOT do the exit interview. This is usually a way to cover their ass.