Tuesday, November 06, 2007
2nd e-Journal:
After getting a taste of being a PA of CEO for a week, I was back to my small work area at the back of the office. They had employed an experienced lady to be her PA who could really take good care of her needs. In addition, I was heavily involved in 24th STOM and 13th ATM, I couldn’t really do a lot for her.
I was brought along to the meetings together with Angeline, Connie and Jason, the Project Director. I was put to be in charge of recording minutes during minutes, which was the most difficult part at the end of the meeting back in the office because the first meeting I attended was MP and the committee’s fifth meeting and I was trying to understand and keeping up with the issues that are going on. I was recalling back when we were still having Communication Skills 2, when we have a session of meeting role play. Everything is the same, from preparing the agenda, powerpoint slides and printing out copies for the committee members. The difference is that there was no “script” where interruptions, off-tracks, augments etc were purposely being put into the role play. It was a real meeting where I see big professionals at work. As this event involves Ministers from ASEAN countries, a few of different organizations, mostly working for the government service sector, come together to work on this project. Apart from Ministry of Transport (MOT), there are also organizations such as Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore (CAAS), Maritime Port Authority (MPA) and Land Transport Authority (LTA), working hand in hand. There was a meeting where they were discussing about ensuring that the formation of out-raiders was not disrupted when the Ministers and other delegates were being transported to ONE°15 for Welcome Dinner, LTA suggested that they are able to make it a way such that the traffic light is always green for them to drive all the way from Swissotel The Stamford Lobby to Sentosa. I was really pretty impressed at how they can actually do that. There was also a time where the Security Command were doing a presentation on they are going to set up the metal detectors and how they are going to carry out inspections, again, I was in awed of the things that they were able to do. Even though there are stress-out and tense moments during meetings, there were also times where they crack jokes with their sense of humour, which helped to lighten up the atmosphere. The meetings I went to were eye-openers to me.
From my last entry, my supervisors seemed to be very nice. However, things weren’t the way it is anymore. Angeline’s expectation of my work becomes higher. It became very stressful doing work for her. Soon, her presence created a sense of pressure in me. I had been also very miserable due to Connie’s mood swings. I would say that it is quite serious because her mood swings were so drastic. One moment she could be calling me to ask if I need to get anything while on her way back to the office from meeting, the next moment her mood just change and give me that kind of frustrated look. I understand if it is due to work stress. I knew that she had been working on a few different projects consecutively for about 2 years without any break. However I do not understand why she could still laugh with other colleagues the very next moment after she gave me that frustrated look. It felt like as though she was letting out her frustrations on me. If I had done something wrong she could just tell me about it. I would not even complain if it was really my wrong. After all, we are interns, we are there to learn, isn’t it?
Sometimes I was sandwiched between the two supervisors when both supervisors gave my different task to be done at the same time, which left me in a difficult position. With all this issues I faced, I started to drag my feet to work, which I knew it wasn’t a good sign. I kept this to myself until I could not take it anymore and broke down over the phone while talking to my friend. And I think Connie sensed it. From then on, her attitude towards me got better.
I stayed back everyday to work OT including my pretty Saturday and as the event date was drawing nearer, I stayed back with Connie till the wee hours of the morning, doing production work, such as photocopying hundreds sets of copies of letters, booklets, documents which has about 80 plus pages per set. This was the time where I began to feel that I killed so many trees. Those people might not even read the booklets that we prepared and will be thrown away after the event. Then we will go on into sorting them out, filing them, stapling together, putting into the respective envelopes etc. I was jokingly telling Connie that we could change and go into production line. By then, I was mentally tired.
One thing that I feel proud of myself was that I managed to scout for a cheaper corporate gift compared with the one that the other company was offering, within a few hours. It was a last minute decision to drop the quotation given by the first company and it was only about 1 week plus before the start of the event. It was difficult because factors such as sampling time and lead time had to be taken consideration. I was so excited when I found another company that has exactly the same product at a cheaper price and at the same time, able to send the final product to the client’s office for the final packing.
I had to manage a lot on my emotions this time round. I had learnt not to take things so hard. We are just working there as interns and we will not learn without making any mistakes. If we were to always attach to nice supervisors, there would not be any challenges to face of difficulties to overcome and we would not be able to learn and develop as much. I feel that being able to multi-task is good because then we are able to do a few things at a same time. However, too much of multi-tasking will end up in a state of mess. That was where I learnt to prioritize my work. I will continue to like what I am doing and continue to learn as much as I can during the remaining weeks that I have with MP.
The moment when i see her for the one last time was still deeply etched in my mind...
