Andy Resnick said:
Ok. One problem I see is that you were so unaware that coworkers and supervisor had complaints about you. I'm curious how the 'long talk' went- for example, if coworkers were complaining the whole time why did your employer wait until the conclusion of the coop to bring your behavior to your attention? In fact, since your employer has seen fit to rank you at the absolute bottom, why did your employer not give any warning about this?
This is the part that is most bothersome to me. If he was entirely unaware of the problem, and nobody at the coop bothered to let him know there was a problem developing, how could he have hoped to improve? Part of the function of a coop is to gain real working experience, and if the employer isn't giving feedback along the way, I don't know how one can get good experience.
The reason I earlier suggested it could have been just a personality conflict is that with an employer who is so bad at giving feedback, he may have simply surrounded himself with people who function under those same conditions and all are similar in their styles and approach to work, while others have quit. Certainly there is a supervisory problem when such a negative evaluation comes as a complete surprise. NOBODY should have to guess what will be in their evaluation. Even with my students, when I do midterm evaluations, I make sure they have been getting relevant feedback from me along the way by having them write their own evaluation before I discuss mine with them, and if they don't match, I know that there is a problem with either me providing them with feedback or them interpreting the feedback they're receiving and that's something I can work on as a "supervisor."
Most likely, the problem works both ways here, with some issues with Werg's work ethic and communication skills, and some issues with the supervisor's personality and the co-workers' ways of handling conflicts. Were they going to the supervisor all along and complaining and the supervisor did nothing? Did they all just sit around letting things fester and providing no feedback while bad-mouthing Werg amongst one another until the supervisor solicited their opinions while preparing the evaluation at the end of the coop? Or did they all make attempts to nudge Werg in the right direction and it fell on deaf ears?
Werg, one thing you DO need to realize at this stage of your career development is that you ARE at the bottom of the ladder. You need to prove yourself before you can advance. While work may seem beneath you, keep in mind that everyone else you were working with had more experience and seniority than you...it's even MORE beneath them...when you're at the bottom of the food chain, you get the scraps that sink to the bottom. When you prove you can do a careful and conscientious job with that stuff, then you will get another level up of more challenging tasks and greater responsibilities. You also have a lot to learn about just how much you HAVEN'T learned in school yet. People who do well are the ones willing to roll up their sleeves and get the work done, regardless of whether they like or dislike it. As you prove you can do it, you'll move up. It doesn't happen overnight.
I'll just reiterate that now that you realize something went horribly wrong and that you need to correct it if you want to find future employment and keep it and if you ever want that chance to climb up the ladder further, you have to deal with a supervisor who is unwilling to recommend you for another coop experience. So, it's not only going to be useful to go back and find out what you've done wrong or how you could improve for the sake of improvement, but also for softening that person's opinion of you. While you may never get a good reference from them, you at least want to prevent them from telling others NOT to hire you for other coops if they talk to other people in the program. When you go back to talk to your supervisor, don't whine, don't complain, don't beg for a better rating, and don't make excuses or try to explain your behavior, just simply state that you were caught off-guard by the negative review, know you obviously have things you need to work on, and would like some constructive criticism of how to benefit from the experience to improve your future work performance.
Fortunately, the student who reported this back to me did so because she realized the importance of getting a critique on a practice talk rather than flopping on an interview (and I had very little to critique because she had taken that attitude to advice all along so had put together a very good talk already). Once I learned that when that post-doc asked to give a practice talk, she really didn't want any critique, I simply stopped having time for her practice talks...there was no point bothering if she thought she could do it herself. Sometimes you have to try to pick up on these things and realize that some people just need to be handled with kid gloves. 
Now there's great advice. 
