Training Week 3 : Alone

It was quite a pretty lonely week for me during the first couple of days as Pei Chin was on leave and I was the only trainee around. Ah Hew was also busy and I did not see him much. I ended up being alone most of the time, eating alone, doing my work alone with minimal conversation to the people around me. Loneliness had crept within me. It was not a big problem for me as I have done things on my own on a number of occasions. However, you do feel lonely especially when you are in the midst of work and at times boredom overwhelm you that you wish you had someone beside you to talk just to give you that extra motivation to do one's work.
The atmosphere in the office was pretty tense this week. There were numerous meetings going on from cubicle to cubicle. I could feel the stress in the air through loud interaction between collegues and also over the phone. It was pretty interesting to sit on my side of the cubicle and eavesdrop on others on how the dealt their peers and also subordinates over the phones. Mr. Yap was the loudest and every word that was spoken could be hear very clearly. The famous title that he normally used to address people over the other end of the line was "Chief". I wonder what does that entails.

A lot of people were very busy this week as many were discussing on various issues namely materials specification, organising the jobs for their people and planning measures to take to curb a problem from happening. Meetings were at his peak this week. It was an a tense and active enviroment. I finally found out the nature of such activeness when Mathhew came over on Friday to check up on me. It had been a busy week for him and many others. This was because a number of their products were rejected by their customers and had to be analyse to determine the problems and cause of such measure to be taken. They had to recall the products which had been produced for that particular date and time. There was no conclusion at that moment as they could not determined the real problem as the line were checked to be in good condition. I asked Matthew what the problem was and he mentioned that it could be due to various reasons that I was not familiar of. It was interesting to see the office come alive when such an emergency like that happened instead of the routine of seeing the engineers having quite a relaxing time sitting infront of their computers analysing data and completing documentation.

I had an oppurtunity to meet one of the six big names at PSS. This guys are the ones who report the progress of their divisions to the General Manager, Mr. Theo directly. I was not aware of his status and looks when he came over one afternoon and sat with me, Pei Chin and ....... for lunch. He seem like a very ordinary guy who was really fair like a Hongki. We began to have a conversation and introduced ourselves. His name was Mr. LT Chan.I asked him his nature of work here and was surprised to know that he was the Engineering Department Head and was my supervisor, Mr Soo's boss. He seem to strike out as a a very friendly and concern person. He asked me of my stay here and I told him that I am currently programming the Yield Tracking System which is something not really relevant to my field considering that I am going to be an engineer. However, I mentioned to him that I planned to finish my program as soon as possible and hope to venture into a more hands on enviroment.

He said that many people at PSS change division quite frequently and it depends on one's innitiative to do so. I made a comment that manufacturing line seems pretty monotous and routine and asked about his views on that. He mention that although it may look monotous, there was a whole loads of other things which can be a challenge at times. Our conversation took us to the employment oppurtunity for fresh graduates at PSS and I was surprised to know find out that they hired about 8 engineers this year, two in which I had became aware earlier were MMU students. The starting pay for fresh graduates seem reasonable at RM2300-2400 considering a small town like Seremban where the cost of living is much lower. I did mentioned that most of the semiconductors and manufacturing companies like Intel and Agilent are all situated in the north where starting pay for fresh graduates is around RM2800. Mr. LT Chan mentioned that PSS is growing and has become one of the top 10 companies in semiconductors though Intel may range in the ranks of one to two.

It was interesting to know that Seremban have a number of reasonable semiconductor companies besides Philips such as Samsung and On Semiconductors. The thought of working in a semiconductor or manufacturing company has never cross my mind at this stage as I would have the mentality that it was a routine field to go into. I have yet to fully understand the whole structure for now but may go into this if this would be the only job that would be available once I graduate. For now, I would prefer to look out for computer related companies where I would be able to practice what I have studied and at the same time venture into networking and systems.

On a more serious note to work, I manage to complete the necessary forms that would be my interface for my program 30 forms that comprised of a main, six Register forms, four Settings form and and 17 View forms compared to the previous program that comprised of 17 forms in total. Most of it has not be thoroughly checked and approved yet but am currently making the necessary changes that has been asked by Mr. Soo. It was quite a challenge to find the best looking interface that would be easy to navigate for the user. There were many considerations to be made and I spend countless hours sitting down and visualising the idea in my head before sitting down and making the interface. Finally, I manage to complete the overall forms and would be making various changes depending on the needs of my supervisor. I planned to settle the interface before starting the background programming as the supervisor would normally pay more attention to.