October 27, 2013

End of internship


Well.


It's quite hard to believe 6 months, half a year have already passed by. And how my internship period at Mercedes has already come and gone. So what exactly have I been doing for that time?


As you may have read in my early posts, I was in the workshop area with Alvin and Steven as my mentors for the first to months.


In mid-July me and my other two intern friends were sent to the pre-inspection bay to work with the service consultants in checking the cars before sending them to the workshop for servicing. The mornings were adequately busy but the afternoons were always empty and downright boring. At least I got to watch how the consultants did their work in handling customers. I also had Uncle Mahyiddin to share his life stories on some days to pass the time. Most of them made for great listening... :)


At the end of my stint down here we worked with our German supervisor with a 3-day service clinic (you may remember I mentioned this clinic at the beginning of my internship but it got postponed to a few months later) to give free 30-point checks on customers' cars.


2 months later I was brought back upstairs where I had my own desk, office phone and computer


Actually I was filling in for the colleague here who suffered a major stroke and was paralysed on one side of his body. The last I heard he has been discharged from hospital but still cant move one of his arms, and is undergoing treatment. My job here is pretty much admin work; filing documents and recording them in the computer. When I'm free there's internet access, but sometimes I got flooded with paperwork and phone calls from within the service center (mainly consultants asking whether the cars they handled are ready to be delivered). I spent my last 3 weeks here. Some exposure to admin work is a bonus I guess.


So on the last day, we had our debriefing with our manager after work. It was a really really long one. The first part took about two hours.

He talked about all sorts of stuff. Talked about how we have to justify our paper qualification with possessing ample knowledge and skills, something he had highlighted with the other two interns.

Talked about how life isnt all about money. He used to have RM3 dinners shared with 2 friends but still be happy with it. He had helped problematic technicians change for the best and prove his superiors wrong, and how the satisfaction of helping others to succeed is just as good as yourself succeeding.

Talked about how we should do everything whole-heartedly and not give half-baked efforts. One of the things he stressed was using free time to research online further about understanding cars and parts and stuff if we are really into this line because of the interest.


After the other two had left I sat down for a one-on-one talk. I asked if there was any vacancy for me and if I would be fit to join them. Unexpectedly (but also not so surprisingly) the answer was inconclusive. My manager will have to discuss with the big bosses if they think its feasible to bring in another technician. However from his ownself he did say that if there was an opening he would have gladly taken me in. 

Not to be boasting (prolly still am), but he was most impressed with my performance compared with the other two; better knowledge, strong English, good discipline and attitude. In fact in his two years in charge at the workshop (before that he spent several years running another branch in Ipoh), he found me to be the best intern of all those from my college. I guess in the right aspects of the job I do stand out from the others.

After that we talked a bit more, mostly chit chat albeit meaningful ones. By the time we shook hands one last time it was 3pm. And I hadn't have lunch yet.

So there you have it. Now I'm a bum.

October 17, 2013

Back in business


Lets play badminton! :D

October 7, 2013

Welcome, October

October started with a dead modem. I was left internetless for almost a week, but thankfully my treasure chest of Top Gear episodes kept my sanity in check. Besides the re-runs, I had a jolly well packed weekend to write about.



Saturday. It was the last day of a 3-day service campaign organised by my workshop. Myself and 4 technicians worked alongside our German supervisor Mr. Randolf to carry out 30-point inspections on cars that have not been sent to our workshop for more than 2 years. After closing up at 12pm I had an hour's rest before helping the spare parts department with their annual stock check. Their inventory is.... HUGE. It's probably as big as the Kia workshop I had training at last year. About 20 of us went through every single nut, bolt and clip, counting and recording. It may sound easy but we had backaches at the end of the day. At least we're getting overtime payment. :p

I had to cut mine a bit short though. While the rest carried on until 7pm, I had to scram at 5 to get ready for that night's SJBA community project, the YS Soup Kitchen. We joined the Kechara Soup Kitchen for a night of going around KL city giving food to the homeless. It was something totally new to me and it was quite shocking to discover the various (mostly sad and painful) reasons why people can go homeless, even those who have previously led a decent life. 

It was a powerful way to learn to never judge people (although I think in some cases you may still actually be right about the person) and make you think that, if you with your soft bed, Adidas shoes and whatnot, your life sucks, FML and FTW, you're just wrong. We wrapped up at about 1.30am. It's that late because the homeless dont come out onto the streets until late at night.



Sunday. Having slept just under 6 hours, I woke up for my first ever visit to the Asia Klasika Autoshow at the Matrade building. Me and dad left 10 minutes to 9am, first heading to KL Golf and Country Club as I received a tip-off of a gathering of Lamborghinis which would convoy to Matrade. Realising the place was empty, something had to be wrong. Then we chanced upon two of the members who seemed to be confused about the gathering place. We followed them to a nearby coffee shop.




After about 20 minutes, they started their journey and we started following them. Of course, our car being a mere Myvi, its like trying to blow out a forest fire. That didnt matter too much as we were so excited in the moment, we made a terrible wrong turn on the highway (and also missing the U-turn which would have saved us) and ended up making a 8km detour with 4 toll booths. 

Once we finally arrived, we were welcomed to a wide array of famous cars from all eras, all over the world. See what's what after the jump.