Day 1: 2nd Dec 2009, Wednesday
Today is the first of 'work' at Fujixerox for the six of us; Shobana, Hui yi, Kimberley, Wei cheng, Mariah and I. By 9.00am, all of us were assembled at the Epi centre where we were greeted by Ms Sally Pang. We each collected a verification tag and proceed for an introductory presentation. Following this, we gathered in The Haloid, a curved meeting room for a talk about information security, more on the company's core values and its efforts in helping to save the environment.
The group of us in the Haloid
After a lunch break, we joined the new hires-new employees-in their orientation programme. It was very interesting to see the many different machines with varying levels of sophistication and functionalities. Before we call it a day, we sat in on another talk by HR personals regarding the company's historical origins , achievements to date, and its aims.
Tour; wide range of high-end machines
Tour;show room
Mariah, hui yi and Kimberley
Day 2: 3rd Dec 2009, Thursday
It's my second day experiencing office life, and, like the day before, the morning crowd going towards the city is really bad. Nevertheless, the six of us manage to report at the Epi-centre by 9.00am. There, we were brought once again to the Haloid where we were briefed on the company's idea of 'Dream Service'. There was also a Q&A session whereby we were allowed to clear any of our queries. I learnt that the company places strong emphasis on work-life balance; there are even childcare facilities within the vicinity of the building itself. Also, employees are encourage to take part in national sporting events like marathons as a corporate group. In addition, the company sends selected staff members for work attachment in its overseas branch on a regular basis. This is interesting in the sense staff members are given the opportunity to immerse in a foreign culture and at the same time pick up some valuable lessons and experience.
briefing room
After the lunch break, we were each sent out with an engineer on duty for field attachment. The engineer that i was suppose to 'shadow' had an assignment to attend to and had to rush back down to the company as a result. After a short introduction, we headed off to ST electronics in the fujixerox company van. The engineer was very friendly and provided a lot of information on the procedure and rules of his job. At the second company, he met with a more complicated machine error and we had to wait for a spare parts delivery. All in all, the field attachment had really been an eye-opener.
Day 3: 4th Dec , friday
The 'Heart-beat'. That's where we will going today, which is also the last day of our work-shadowing stint at Fujixerox. The 'Heart-beat' is an apt name for this section of the office as it is basically the finance department of the company. The sight of people hurrying in all directions, leading across cubicles for discussions and the murmured whispers of telephone conversation all projected a fast-pace and intense atmosphere. If this was busy, then it will be difficult to describe the scenes we observed in the call-centre. Although the employees were not required to be mobile, each were seated at a cubicle, making or receiving calls after calls, cross checking customer information and never letting slip their professionalism. As mentioned by the manger, Ms Jennifer, it is not a job that anyone and everyone will be able to undertake.
The 'Heart-beat'
After the lunch break we were given a chance to sit in to listen to the tele-sales people at work. These employees only come in for part-time work in the afternoon daily. We were even able to listen to one of the two-way conversations between the caller and the customers. While some customers are firm but polite, many are brusque and impatient. Again, this is not an easy job to handle as one must be able to handle the wide range of customers and have enough 'stamina' to last through the long list of people to call. I was particularly impressed by the employees' patience, politeness and persistence. In conclusion I learnt a lot about how an MNC like Fujixerox operate . Hopefully, i will be able to apply what i had experience these few days to the right context in the near future. Last but not least, I am also glad to had made new friends over the course of 3 days =)
Me, Kimberley, Wei Cheng, Hui yi and shobana
