6.45 AM
My alarm yells ‘wake up’, I try to silence its cry by hitting the snooze button. After my much needed 15 extra minutes of shuteye, I jump out of bed and get ready in half an hour. I leave the house and make my one hour drive to the office, while enjoying my ‘me’ time by having a karaoke session.
8.45 AM
I walk into the open layout office and say my good mornings to my team. I sit at my desk and fire up my laptop. I look through my emails to have a good idea of how my day will look like – busy it seems. Before I start my work, I need some fuel to get my brain started. I head down to the café with some of the other grads to grab a quick breakfast and then proceed to make a coffee in the kitchen. I am not very good at it, but hey, I have been improving since my first day at the office.
9.00 AM
Now that I am all set up and ready to start my day, the first thing I do is process retailers’ request for systems access through our internal retail network directory. I also provide assistance for enquiries on how to use GEMS, a system which our retailers use to maintain their staff data. This allows the head office to be up to date with movements within the retail network and ensure that we are able to reach the appropriate person for communication purposes.
10.00 AM
After a week of chasing up some retailers for their monthly financial report, I finally have a complete set of reports. The business management system allows me to extract the KPI summary for the reporting retailers which I use to prepare the monthly executive report. As for non-reporting retailers, I have to manually collect their numbers and prepare a supplementary executive report to complement the former. Once I am done, I send these reports to various internal head office departments. These monthly reports are then used to create scorecards so we can understand how the retail network is performing.
12.15 PM
I head down to the café to heat up my food before joining all the other interns for lunch. The conversation choice of the day usually results in a friendly exchange of ideas at the table. After taking some time off the screen and socializing with my colleagues, I feel more recharged, ready to carry out my tasks for the day.
1.15 PM
My manager has tasked me with uploading contracts onto every retailers’ profile on our global retailer database, as it is a new compliance requirement from the office in Germany. After having a quick learning session with the legal team, I am now able to proceed with my task. I find it fascinating that my job scope in the network development team is so diverse. I am only halfway through the day and I have already liaised with Operations, Finance and Legal departments.
3.15 PM
In preparation for the 3:30pm meeting, I fix myself another cup of coffee and grab a mandarin from the fruit basket.
3.30 PM
My manager has delegated the task of preparing internal approval forms for several aftersales facilities that we have planned to roll out in remote areas. The meeting goes at a very quick pace as everyone is so sure about what they plan to do and needs to be done in order to achieve this goal. I listen as attentively as I can and try to absorb as much information to get the bigger picture. The meeting has provided me the context that I need for the approval form.
4.15 PM
The meeting ended early and I immediately work on the dealer approval form. This requires me to seek help from various teams. I head down to the Legal team to have a further understanding of the contract terms and the approach that we will be taking. I then went to the Compliance team to seek the due diligence details. Task done!
4.45 PM
I wash my coffee cup and spend the last bit of my day finalizing any late queries that have come through from the retailers, flagging emails for tomorrow and preparing my to-do list.
5.00 PM
I say goodbye to my team and leave the office in time for my 6.30 PM yoga class.
7.30 PM
After yoga, I head home to shower, cook dinner and prepare my lunch for the next day. Since I have to wake up early the following morning, I am usually in bed by 9.30 PM. I call my family back in Indonesia for a quick catch up before I hit the sack at 10.00 PM.