Dedication. Modules. Boredom.

Quite often if you are a student and find yourself being accepted as an intern in an acceptably well-known, international company after a long search of one, I found that there are at least two responses coming along: the first response is undoubtedly sheer happyness, because if you aren't, you might need to look for a therapist whom you could consult about and deal with that oddness; meanwhile the second one is worry, worry of stepping into an unfamiliar environment, worry of upcoming problematic assignments, worry of balistic and cold-blooded superiors, worry of unwelcoming and unsympathetic co-workers, worry of doing something terribly wrong which might end up ruining your whole internship semester then so on. On the other hand, a heroic speech about dedication, responsibility and motivation has always tagged along with someone who is associated with a certain company, we always have the believe that working hard is the key to obtain career success and in fact it is true, because those who own multi billion industries today with immensely daily traded shares and bonds never build their business empire over a night. More often than not, they build it apparently with some sort of secret ingredients besides several positive human characters which I have mentioned above: tears, sweat and blood. Well, it might sound unnecessarily poetic and lame, however this is merely a description about someone who is constantly seeking an opportunity, in such way that he could improve and if possible, make a breakthrough through his works. Judging by the fact that I am still no more than a student which lives on my parent's money, I should suppose that it would be the exaggeration of the century if I gab too much about a billionare success story. Anyway, what I want to point out is that this sense of hard working and the eagerness to learn have proven to be essential if you want to be success. Factually, as a student who performs an internship semester, I would apply this value too during my internship period. Sadly, there is a slight problem coming along and it seems that I'm not the only one who experiences this little issue.. as I would explain in this note further.

Of course, I would apply the principal of hard working during my internship program as far as I could without making myself some sort of role model or a posh benchmark for other co-workers, showing that uhh look at that new intern! Constantly come first and go home last. Well there is absolutely nothing wrong with it, in fact, it is actually fine by me as long as it is the true value of yours and you highly respect it, partly because you set your own standard of hard working and that makes you different from others. Meanwhile, the good things is that you don't have to be that way if you are not into it. Factually, I haven't been an outstanding intern in the house because I just spent two weeks out of five months here and currently on the progress of studying work details. However, after spending two weeks in my cubicle, I started to find that something has slowly killed my interest of company dedication, however please don't think that I am so ready to be fired, mainly because I'm not. Anyway, ladies and gentlemen, may I introduce you the new contender to my hard working spirit: Boredom! Unlike the workers here who currently might be demotivated because of work time reduction from 160 hours per month down to 112 hours due to financial crisis, I am demotivated by a small activity which sparks a massive boredom. Apart from being a fresh intern, this thing does exist and also happens to some of my colleagues. I have been awfully thinking that you might have a ridicolous question like this: How could it be in the damn (Excuse me!) realms of possibility, working in an international company with lots of.. lots of stuff to learn and yet still finding yourself bored? The answer is presumably very simple, because things don't go as I expected. Naturally will not everything go according our initial expectations and it is plainly obvious to me, it goes without saying. Basically, I am not suggesting that I have made a wrong judgment about what kind of company would ever provide an interesting program for its intern, because I do have an assignment which needs to be analyzed, but I just can't see the point of being an intern if I don't learn something new everyday!

"I just can't see the point of being an intern if I don't learn something new everyday!"

To address my opinion in a more comprehensible way and frightfully not being smug to my previous achievement, I would describe it with a factual experience which I had when I worked as a mechanic assistant in a BMW Workshop four years ago. Unlike my position now as an intern in the department of system development and sitting with a group of well experienced engineers, being a mechanic assistant obviously won't give you a sense of pride or prestige. You can tell from the way they both looked so apart, engineers will dip themselves in a nice and clean cut shirt from Brook's Brother suit as they sign a work order with their Mont Blanc pen, meanwhile the mechanics will frequently be associated with oil smudge and overalls sewn by some cheap tailor behind a traditional market. Anyway, what I have learned so far is that being a mechanic assistant is much more fun than sitting in a room with a bunch of engineers. Firstly, please don't get me wrong, not that I don't have the sense to move forward or an expression of I-want-to-be-a-mechanic-assistant-for-the-rest-of-my-life, it's just the sheer learning experience that I had always enjoyed and I absolutely adore it! Back then, I only stopped working during lunch time or when in fact there was no car at all to be repaired, which happened very rarely. What's more, I had almost everyday something new to learn and cars to fiddle with. Well I'm not saying that BMW cars break down a lot with various types of problem or they are simply a metal workpiece of reparation bills, but the sheer fun just dominated everything and it was undilutedly a good motivation for me to keep improving. Moreover, the experience had been so thrilling to me that I actually applied again in the next year and it still felt exactly the same way. So, what is it about sitting in a room with engineers? Well, things always start with a reading session of theory modules and that means, your eyes will most of the time glued to the PC screen. I have always found that reading modules is a boring activity because it runs for weeks and truth be told, this note is even written during the work hour because I am currently in the anti-modules mode. The point is, reading modules generates an odd feeling and "Boredom" is the only word that could explain this feeling best. I believe once and for all that reading modules is essential, but it doesn't have to take for weeks long and I am saying it actually for an extremely good reason: I am sure that no one will ever have the intention to memorize the contents of the module at all. Why can't we just study them for couple days and head straight to work? Since as an intern, we would eventually returned to the work modules by ourselves if we face problems during our assignments.

To sum up then, I used to think that reading modules is a boring stuff for interns to do. Now though things have changed a bit and it gets worse, now I know that modules which have to be studied for weeks is the first thing that could have killed my work motivation. It is such a shame that people in the house has been welcoming and particularly my supervisor who have been so attentive and very nice to work with. Yet, the modules came along with no daily assignments and it had turned my blue days to dark grey. I just hope that the actual work will come in the third week and until then.. Enjoy!