Week 1 &2

Beginning of the Journey

(29/12/2014 - 9/01/2014)

      These two weeks had been like a roller coaster to me because of the total unpredictable new and challenging experience for me working as an intern in UOB. Firstly, I need to make sure the posting date, cost Centre, Pc number and the amount of money involved in the transaction including different currency in Form F1 03 Posting Request is match with the Daily Document Journal Listing. The amount of money needed to be exact as each expense is distributed to respective department. One should not ignore a tiny mistake because if we do overlook, the result is that the expenses will be debit to the wrong department and that will cause a mess. Thus, precaution and a lot of attention are required during the checking process. Lucky enough, my colleague is friendly and willing to teach me when I face some problem or difficulty when performing my task. I began to feel at ease and more confident to ask question because we have to realize that the bank is dealing with quite a big amount of figure (more than RM 1,000,000,000) , Therefore I always need to be particular and attentive to the figure when doing checking. One of the achievements of mine is I was able to finish the remaining unchecked journal from two months ago in two week times with the help and guidance of Chia Wei. We were praise by our efficiency in finishing task given by our respective supervisor.

         No doubt, in the first week I was trying hard to adapt in the office because it is my first internship. I was lucky that I was given tasks which were not really an official task. Miss Joey, vice president of Tax Department who work with finance department since last October had pass her three month confirmation, thus as one of the culture of the company, she need to treat each of us. Thereby, she asks me to take down the preferred flavor of each colleague in order to buy each of us a small pan of pizza. By doing so, I was given a chance to know each of the colleagues in the department and she believe that it will train my organizing skills thus I pleased to do so. Right after she pass me the pizza brochure I get the name list of colleague through the UOB email and seek help from Miss Belinda Liau, who sit next to me to double check whether I miss out any of them.  After double confirm with Miss Liau that the ERC departments have only 37 of us, I went to take down the order one by one.

      I was pleased that everything went well on Friday as each of them get a pizza even though there is a mess up during the pizza distribution. I did arrange the order and print out the list. One of the things I did not see coming was that the Pizza Hut worker pack 4 pizzas in 1 box in order to save the boxes and thus causing some mess in figuring which flavor is the pizza is. Indeed, I did pick up some organizing skill  and communication skills throughout the process which believe will help me a lots in future as a event organizer. I do face some difficulty when running such a simple task, for instance, few of the colleague is MC, some busy in their work and I need to figure out a pleasant way to ask them to choose one flavor and etc.  Things will never 100% run out as what you planned, what we need to do is be ready to faces the challenges. All in all, within the first week I already know each of the colleagues and I feel like I am being treated as one of the big families.

     To sum it up, the key learning during this two week are new culture way of working and attention to details. 

New Culture Way of Working

I am expose to a new environment where the culture of the company is more towards a “Chinese” business way as the bank is originated from Singapore.  I was impressed by the way Malay, Indian and Chinese colleagues able to work hand in hand with each other even they speak dozens of language in order to complete their job task. Despite everyone sharing the common goals and vision for the company, I believe the corporate culture in the organisation is one of the reason foster innovation and high performance within the group.

Attention to details

As figure is very particular inside a financial institution, a slightly mistake might result a big loss to the bank. Thus, colleagues are very strict on every single detail even a slightly mistake take into account. To ensure the smallest of details aren’t overlooked and make sure I complete tasks on time. When taking message for my supervisor or colleagues, I do write down important details such as time of meeting, location, name of person in charge and pass the information straight away so that details are not forgotten or lost.