waHhh!!!
hI everybody...
how long since i last blog..
how long since we last met up in big big clique...
haaaa
work has been tiring and scary
life is sho sho boring
tummyy is sho sho big
food is sho sho nicee

anywae..
shalll update again..
since it is late late now and i shld be preparing to slp
so that i can be awake during work tml :)

Reminder Notice: Nov3 will be a fun day for us... Pre Birthdae celebration for Adel and Shan..Do turn up wor..fun activities and yummy food and nice companion and fun laughter and joy is awaiting...those who did not turn up or is not free will be black listed wor..i am not kidding : )))muahaaaa

SmilEx and takE carE everyone
DoughnuT is nice and yummy delicious : ))

tis is the kuku cap ive been wearing for the past few days

the very empty members lounge~

she's my favourite gal` my partner! :)

no longer have to wear the kuku cap...

i tell u its super idiotic...
when they told me dun haf to wear the cap.
so happily take it out lor.
den they said...TMR COMING NEW CAP!
i wonder this time what the cap will look like -_-"
hopefully not more kuku. and make my head itchy those type. *prays*

wow. that's like pretty long no one has blogged for 2 weeks??

apology for having been busy!
been working till night recently thus no time to go online and slacks.
how bout the rest?
poor beeyan what happened to u? anything just blog here lor. dun haf to name anyone de ma.
just roughly tell us what happened?

so far im at the members lounge..
hmm nothing much lei.
newly opened so like not much people there.
got people den will serve them and like interact with the guests lor.
more stupid is when raining have to pull in all the cushions -_-"
somemore currently at the bar only got me and this other girl`

yesterdae one whole day only 3 guests nia! how wonderful eh?
so i spent the time dwindling away. think gonna find some stuffs to do over there.
sometimes so bored.
either i just eat the chips. or hands itchy go take the boston shaker and do tricks..
or take the whisky bottle throw here and there. -_-"

only good thing is got tips over at the bar there.
but hor i dunno why the members so NIAO SI when they are freaking rich.
always sign den never give tips~ hah.
soon gonna have the golf competition over at the golf club.
so im sure it's gonna be a freaking busy period for me...

as for today, im currently OFF and yes im at home.
then again im not in a good mood so im not answering calls and msges.
im tired. need a break.

loves
amy

Start the first day (Sep12) of SIP attachment at Holiday Tours and Travel with hectic rush for the fear of being late for the first day (Its good to give the company a good impression of me). This marks a good beginning which set the standard time of waking up and preparation in the coming few months so that I will not be late.

The company is cool and big with two floors of compound under them. And yes, I will be in the 7th floor for 4month and 13days to be exact and I guess time can be easy or hard to pass depending on how I look at it. I hope I can look at it more positively so that I will learn more instead of grumbling and complaining. Till now, I think I adapted quite well to the company environment and my job scope, but definitely not the early waking time at 730am and the urge to sleep early at night.

Formally announced, I will be working in the Reservations Department – Asia Department under Tour East, a subsidiary of Holiday Tours and Travel. And my job is to handle inbound hotel and travel packages request and booking from other oversea agents.

My job has been very different from what I thought of before I enter the company. During the interview, I was told that I will be answering phone calls from other oversea agents and answer their wide range of queries. Which make my job sound like that of a call operator? But after I enter the company, I start to realize that my job is more interesting than what I thought my job will be. With the amount of different tariffs, agent, scenarios that I will have to handle and remember when handling agent request to book the different hotel and packages that Tour East has, it make me fear for the first few days. The structure and nature of the company is different from other travel agencies which handle directly customers, Tour East handle request from other travel agencies through email and phone calls, thus it’s really a whole lot different from what I thought travel agency should be – it’s a eye opening to work in such international company.

Working there can be sometime boring till I have the urge to doze off and can sometime be very busy till I felt so stressed and there is once that I can’t even find time for the toilet. It all depends on the amount of email request that the company will receive from their whole long list of overseas agent they had on the day itself. Thus, my boringness or stressfulness and fate of the day are fully dependable on all the oversea agents and their request.

So let me briefly describe my daily job routine:
1) Go to my assigned table of the day (I do not have my own permanent table and has to sit at table of staff that is off)
2) Open up the Outlet Express and sign in to my personal company email account and click on the “Send and Receive” button
3) Look at the list of emails I received (Either I yawn or I open my mouth big and scroll and look at each and individual mails from the long list)
4) Using the Calypso System(personal hotel booking system of Quantas Holidays) and my thick file of packages and tariffs, I will start to check for hotel availability, rates or booked the hotel as asked by the oversea agents and reply to their email
5) My day involve asking those senior staff there when I have queries about the system, replying the email and many other things to make sure that I did not make any mistakes
6) And yes, I need to print out each and individual email I replied and file in which act as billing prove and black and white for future reference or debate, thus I will check for 2-3 time before I send out the email to the agent
7) Repeat the process of checking availability, rates, confirming hotel and replying email till I end work at 6.30pm

p.s. Did I mention that the emails keep replenish and come in and I have to finish all the emails being distributed to me before I end work???

Although I have various part-time working experiences at other offices, this is very different from the past job I had. Due to:

1) I will be an intern to the company, once mistake make, it will affect my result and grading
2) Once mistake is make, it will cause the company to lose money and I will face serious scolding/teaching from the manger or even tutors from TP
3) The staff trust that I am capable of the job due to my field of study thus the level of stress is much higher
4) I have my own booking to handle, thus responsibility level is much higher than the jobs I had previously which is like minor admin job
5) I need to answer to two parties, school and the company itself if I make mistake

The system they use in the company was neither OPERA nor Amadeus system taught in school and thus I have to start from scrap and learn their system. And a major different between school lesson and attachment – there is no lecture notes or step to step manual to guide me in learning, so I have to depend on exploring, asking and listening closely and writing down small details taught by the mentors. And I have to count myself lucky to have kind and helpful mentors to guide me and coach me J And I seriously believe that after more days of working, I will learn to be more independent and be able to handle task on my own!!!!

Interesting things that I came across for the first 18Days of work:

1) Surname of Americans, Indians and Malays and other races other than Chinese are very difficult to identify (will I sound foolish if I say I did ask my mentor to help me identify surname of guest before I make a booking?)
2) I cant understand a single word from some Indian Agent during phone conversation, they are like raping and I know nuts about rapping
3) I get to sit inside the office while Jeanie and Peifen (attached to Product Development and Marketing Department) get to enjoy tours around the city and night safari for etc
4) The company toilet is within the company compound itself, and yes, it give us more comfort, privilege and convenient and I love it!
5) Munching during work keeps me and other colleague awake, energized and make time pass faster
6) I get hungry most of the time even after I had my lunch and food is ex in Orchard Road and thus food expenditure is high

But I have to say, no matter what, I will persevere and find interest in the job that I will be doing for the next few months through jokes from the senior staff, lunch time during work and …..And I hope there will be more emails for me to keep my day full and make my day and time pass faster.

I have to aim high, no longer can I depend on lecturers or tutors to spoon feed me with information, thus I have to work even harder and learn independently. Although my job isn’t as challenging as other jobs of other student in the hotel or F&B industry, I believe that this job will give me a greater look at the hotel reservation and booking scene in Singapore and a wider look into corporate business and the Singapore travel industry and I definitely benefit from it. But before I do that, I think I need to open myself up to interact more with my colleagues to enjoy a more mutual relationship and a better working environmentJ I shall Gambatte!!

Wednesday 3rd October 2007
Hey people. Sorry for not updating all these while. Been quite busy recently. Hmm. Work last week was boring. This time round we switched roles and were trained as the supervisor and hence I had to follow my supervisor (my mentor) all day. And once again the job is not as easy as it seems. There's a total of over 100 rooms (imagine slamming 100 doors per day!) to be check in 8 hours and due to the stringent supervision from the top management, we need to wipe every corner of the room when the staff did not clean properly -_- Moreover, my supervisor always took a longer time to supervise the rooms as compared to the others. Hence as compared to my other 7 beijing mates, I’m always the one who off work the latest. Sians.

Anyway training had ended and we are left only a week in the housekeeping department. Most probably we will be at the office, laundry department or fitness centre for our last week. And I’ve a good news! This week is China’s Golden Week and the us, the Singapore interns managed to get a whole week off! Hah. Finally go shopping again or to sightseeing places. Initially wanted to visit Inner Mongolia as one of our China friend is going back to her hometown. But we din manage to get the tickets =( made the bookings for the train tickets too late. We are all quite disappointed over it. Sads. And I shall update on how we spend the golden week soon :)
Anyway my Mid-autumn Festival celebration. I celebrated the day by having Korean bbq, the Korean Traditional Rice, Rice Flour Cake for dinner after work. And we were given free mooncakes from Gloria’s Hotel. China's mooncakes are abit too sweet and they don't have the snowskin mooncakes here. so kinda miss Singapore mooncakes. So how did u all spend the festivals? Managed to meet up? Hope internship is fine for all of u. Do perservre and update about your work k! Beeyan, though u need to wake up so early each day but your work sounds interesting man. So till now, how many handsome guys have u seen? Haha. And as for SK, yea work is tough and I can sense that your source of motivation is morning breakfast, lunch break and after work dinner. In short, its food! Ha. Dajie! Yeaps managed to talk to u awhile on msn the other day and I’m glad that ur doing fine. Its good to know that u enjoyed your work at the golf club and ur learning to make different kinds of desserts and sandwiches. Do remember how to make them k so I wana taste them when I’m back! Erjie! How’s ur work at Ritz Carlton department? Still in housekeeping department? U must be feeling super-tired after each day work .especially when ur in housekeeping departments. Making beds are tough but interesting. Hee. Next time u can make nice beds at home ;-) Jeanie, how’s marketing? Your familization trip to sentosa and night safari sounds interesting. Any more places of attractions u went as well? Don’t get too stressed out by marketing k. My dear Jas, Jan, Ade, Huimin, Peifen where have ur gone? UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE pls! I curious to know how have u all been, I’m sure that u guys have lots of interesting stories to tell.

And I discovered a webbie that’s good for viewing Chinese shows. Its http://www.tudou.com/. U guys can go there to watch variety shows, idol shows. There have a wide variety there and I personally feel it’s very organized as compared to youtube.

Ps: I lost my China ez-link card today! Been so careless recently. I considered quite lucky arh. As its better than losing my wallet or handphone. =X (Haa, I sure know how to console myself. lols)

paiseh, been lazy to blog

everyday work is like -.-" sian. wanna sleep everyday.. there's like no one day that i will not be sleepy. HAH! my piggy sickness is more serious.

Lunch time with sengkwang and peifen and yvonne is good! lucky we can eat with our own friends. But seems like our spare tyre is thickening each time we eat. =p haha!

one interesting thing that happened:

i had bee hoon from old chang kee for breakfast.
i ate at work. and my mentor caught me.
i ask her if she want any, she politely reject my offer.
at lunch, a colleague offered to help her buy lunch
"what you want to eat? "
she replies: "bee hoon and hotdog(i was having that as well.)"
" where u wan me to find that? "
my mentor: " aiya. i dont care, i want to eat lah. jeanie jus now eat, then tempt me to eat. i only want beehoon! "

thats it. and i has been warned against what food i eat for breakfast, in case my mentor crave for it when seeing me eat. =x i caused them the trouble to mix and match the bee hoon for her, cos the old chang kee's beehoon only sell in the morning! LOL.

interesting? i not sure for you guys, but to me. it is. haha! =) going to rest soon. i'm tired. hee.