Intern 十日新人

- December 23, 2018

Just ended a 10-day (actually it’s 11 but whatever, I’m an Arts student so I am assumed to be unable to process numbers beyond 9) internship. It was an amazing process of self-discovery I swear.

带了一群大学新鲜人过来我们公司参加十天的商业竞赛，其间还在民丹岛待了三天。

这短短十天真是充满了发现自我的时刻——发现自己的特长、弱点，种种。

Leading a team of interns is nothing like leading a Hall or a student society, because the stakeholders are very different. You’re no longer just responsible to organisational entities but also responsible to tangible successes, which is basically KPIs like profit or manpower. Multi-tasking have reached a new level for myself. Being someone who is extremely haphazard (and messy), leading a team while staying focused on track on what I am supposed to do already as a financial advisor is pretty challenging. 革命尚未成功，林北仍需努力。非常努力。

Being friends and co-workers at the same time brings your relationship to a whole new level. I guess one of the biggest realisation for myself is my lack of patience. I guess the past few years in Hall has severely eroded my sense of patience. I really should learn to cool down. Like 处变不惊. Then maybe I would have a clearer mind over whatever that’s going on.

Bara yang digenggam biar sampai jadi arang.

Oh yes and I am really blessed to have adopted Bahasa Indonesia in NUS. I always felt it was a difficult language to pick up because it is SO similar to Malay but different in vocabulary, hence making life for a non-native speaker like me, and because there is no way for me to practise the language in Singapore. But whatever it is, it was something useful in Bintan. Being able to communicate with the local community brings you closer to them. After all, what’s the point of volunteering to a community where you have no attachment to? Take nice photos with cute local kids and posting them all over the net as if you 功德无量? Hmm.

Before I end off, I am very proud of this team that laid their trust upon us. These were a bunch of very motivated and capable people. I guess the gamechanger was the night when they kena thrashed by the judges during their mock presentation. 霎那发现自己的自信不再。 Luckily they managed to come together that very nice and re-thought their ideas and proposals. I could feel their adrenaline kicking in during the next two days, it was so strong, I already hangover in the afternoon. 醍醐灌顶, literally. After all, “people rarely succeed unless they have fun in what they are doing” (Dale Carnegie), so I guess it is okay for some members and mentors to go crazy while the rest stay sane?