Industrial Training, Day One

Monday marked the start of my 3 month long industrial attachment at an established local press. Being that it is the first time working for a press organisation, there is much to learn.

One of the notable things about the place itself was the extent to which they took security. Most rooms in the building required the use of an electronic passcard to open, and CCTV cams were at every floor and in the carpark except in the work rooms themselves. For this reason, I had to follow one of the staff from the parking area under the main building just to get access to the lift to the lobby to save me the long walk up from the parking garage.
At the lobby, I was told that there was nobody in the offices yet(even though the "official" time to arrive at the office was 9am)so I had to wait at the lobby, where I found my other classmate who was assigned there, as well as two PR students from the same batch as I am, so we chatted to occupy ourselves.

20 minutes later, we were met by a HR staffer who took us up to sort us out. We soon got our access cards and IDs, replete with lanyard. At around half-past 10, we were then brought to our respective departments, the PR students to Marketing and my classmate and I to Editorial.
There, we met several other interns from other universities who'd been there for 3 weeks already, one of which took us on a tour of the place, to the amusement of several staffers. One of them wryly said, "I was like that once," lol. The permanent staff were all generally pretty friendly and the atmosphere seemed alot more relaxed than the company that I worked part-time in during some past school holidays; they didn't seem very concerned over the punctuality of the staff, at least in the departments i'd been to and especially the editorial, where less than half the office was occupied at any one time, and there wasn't any strict rule where mealtimes were given time limits, and you could go eat or have a break at any time, but of course there's an unspoken understanding or expectation that you don't take a break that lasts hours.

Later on in the day, I tagged along with one of the other interns to cover a story about a
paraplegic man called David May who's on a charity fundraising tour of the world by trekking, mountain climbing, skydiving and several other physical challenges in various locations around the world. You can find more info if you're interested here.

Back in the office, I was tasked to transcribe some news items from a reporter at the frontlines of the recent quake in Indonesia, which gave a picture of the situation there: no electricity or water, and heavy rains hampered rescue efforts, forcing the journalist to submit the news over the phone.

Stayed around the office till 8pm or so, but no assignments seemed planned for the next day and fatigue was setting in so I headed home to hit the sack.