May Updates

HELLO EVERYONE.

I last left you with the dilemma I faced about my internship placement, and later deciding to just give it a shot at applying with Mercedes. Well, after passing my finals (just barely), I was called for an interview with 4 other guys; 2 of which are my classmates at their headquarters in PJ two Mondays ago.

Everything went smoothly, and two weeks (!) later I received the call that my placement had been approved. One of my classmates and another guy however got rejected.

So there you have it, I'm officially a Mercedes intern. More on my first day of work later.

WHILE I WAS WAITING for the results of my interview, last Thursday saw the superconvoy of Lamborghini supercars assembling for a tour of Malaysia to mark the company's 50th anniversary.

Sadly, tragically, majabashabaswabblly, I had completely forgotten about it when I was informed of the planned convoy about a week earlier. It wasnt until I was eating lunch in front of the computer when I saw a friend's photo of the parked supercars.

Not this one though. This is taken by ZeroToHundred.com

 I was left bitterly emo about it for a few days, and still slightly sour about it today. Gerh.

Now then, my first day of work in Mercedes. My friends and I came at 8, were assigned a locker to share, had our fingerprints scanned into the database. When it scans our fingerprint, it records the date and time of the scan which will serve as our punch card for the next 6 months. At the end of the month, the records are printed to be our attendance, uhm, record. Yeah, I'm typing using my 'punchcard', so to speak. We were given company shirts, had  a briefing with our manager, and finally assigned to our teams. 

There are several service teams here. Two teams handle the repairs and servicing, another team does overhauling, another does frontline aka service consultant, and so on. For me, I'm starting with one of the repairs and servicing team, and every month we will be rotated to different teams to get a broader exposure of working life. Within each team is a leader, and finally the technicians who report to their respective leaders. My leader just so happens to be a graduate from TOC.

Within the team, I will be guided by one of the technicians, Steven. Seems friendly and very willing to teach.

We have a 15-minute break in the morning and afternoon, as well as a 1 hour lunch break where we can go to the company cafeteria. Well, working on such advanced cars like Mercedes, I think the short breaks are appreciated and much needed, although we can choose to skip the break and continue working. Working hours are 8-5, and halfday on Saturday! 

Also, there's no need for us to mop or sweep the floor, but I think if we make a mess we'll be cleaning that ourselves.  Fair enough.

And there's no need for anybody to go out and buy food for colleagues. 

And there's no need for us to be sending customers whenever they leave their car.

And there's no need for us to be sent out running around for spare parts or whatever.

Basically lots of kuli work from my first year training which I no longer have to do. I think. Seems like it.  I'm feeling positive about working life here already. BUT, of course, given the standards and demands of such a company, I can foresee it wont be goyang kaki all the way either.

Anyways, I'm having my hopes up and motivations high to maximise my time here, given how it was to some extent, wasted in my first training.