Last Day :(

From the title you will know that this is the last day of my internship and I can't wait to return to work after the report and presentation.

Since today is the last day there is a lot of things I need to handover to Ms Lily to handle. It took me almost an hour to collate the complete and ongoing activities that is going on at our various projects. I would say today is not a productive day but more of a relaxing day. I had been tasked to open all the hamper which is sent by the various contractors and Mr Chan had given out the goodies equally to all staff.

I also bid my farewell to the prawns/ fishes/ plants that I had been taking care throughout these few months. I fed and water them for the last time and wish that they will be better after I return in March.

When I was walking home, stress suddenly hit me when I remember that I forgot to bring my log book back. I will be going back to retrieve it on Monday. Hopefully I won't be late for the meeting with Ms Chan.

Invitation to resume work :D

I am feeling delighted today as Mr Chan had offer me to continue in the company for the period until I start National Service. The pay is not decided and I did not ask him about it. This is because I felt that there are still much to be learnt and it is already very kind of Mr Chan to teach and at the same time pays me $1000 every month during this internship period.

Some may think that I am stupid to not ask about the salary if I were to continue my position in the company after the internship. But the purpose of me continuing to work here is because of the knowledge and skills that I can acquire from Mr Chan & Ms Lily. Hence I would like to address this thinking of mine to my friends that money is not everything and knowledge is much more valuable than the monetary benefits that you are getting.

Badminton w/ Mr Chan

Stress had been part of my day today. The stress did not come during working hours but arrived when Mr Chan invited me to a badminton game at Singapore Swimming Complex after work.

At the beginning I thought Mr Chan is going to highlight my flaws but it turn out to be just a casual game with his University friends. The whole game went smoothly and we even have supper after the game.

Mr Chan had shown me another side of him and also reminds me of what my mentor used to tell me when I was young. Which is to "work hard and play hard", Mr Chan may be very serious at work but after working hours he removed his "aura" and started to joke with me. He had taught me that we don't have to change our personality to suit the job but adapt to changes necessarily. One can never be too serious as it will drive others away and stay serious when the environment requires you to do so. I hope to note this down to remind me of the lesson I had learnt today.

Three more days to go...

Tuesday

Today is a tiring day as I had just attended the Annual General Meeting for Gentle Reflection.

Basically the main purpose of an AGM is to review the annual accounts and make necessary adjustment to meet current expenditure or reduce unnecessary variable costs.

An example of a variable cost is utility usage for every month, measures like changing normal bulbs to LED bulbs and changing taps to key taps are ways to decrease these variable costs. Since the PUB is adjusting their rates every quarterly or semi-annually, the forecasting or budget allocated must include this variable too. Hence if the Managing Agent fails to include this factor, it is the responsibility of the council members to inform the MA.

Audited accounts not necessary means there is no errors. Therefore a secondary check by the respective council member is greatly appreciated. Council members should also make should breakdown is included for high expenditure items in order to be well-informed and safe from unnecessary spending.

I feel that I can never be able to be less careful as I always wanted to be prepared before any meetings. Hence reading, checking, identifying errors beforehand is a practice and because of this I am very tired and feel like sleeping anytime soon.

Hope that I can wake up tomorrow morning :D Cheers.

Last Week of Internship

16 weeks of internship is coming to an end this week. I am having mixed feelings about ending this, I hope that it will never end as I had really enjoyed myself throughout this process and everyone treats me like a family member. This internship had also build up my interest towards development and how it is like to be a developer.

Mr Chan is a thoughtful person and Ms Lily is a resourceful person, together they make a good team. I had always wanted to start my own business and this experience had taught me that I need to more partners and these partners must have distinct personalities and specialities in order for me to run the business smoothly.

You may be wondering why am I writing this entry today instead of Friday. This is because I have a strange feeling about this week and it is telling me that a lot of reflections will be going on in my mind. In order not to forget any crucial points that can assist my future development, I am planning to write an entry everyday until Friday. I hope Mr Chan will ask me to continue working as there are still many things that I can learn here.

NTU talk

Today i had went for the NTU talk in Grand HYATT Singapore located at Scotts Road. After listening to all the course talks, i had decided to read more on Civil Eng and EEE. Though i had always thought of going into Business courses, i felt that Civil Eng will be more enjoyable since the experience at TGL. There are lots of thoughts running in my mind and basically i cannot decide on the field specialization that i supposed to choose after i get into the course. Everything seems fine to me but i know if i make a wrong choice i will definitely regret it in the future. I really hope someone can give me guidance on how i should choose in Uni.

Btw, Internship is ending in one week time and i feel i will not be able to finish all the tasks i had at TGL. Hopefully i can arrange everything before i leave and best if Mr Chan ask me to continue after the internship :D Wonder how much will he be willing to pay me :P

No matter what the outcome is i just want to say i had enjoyed my 15 weeks at TGL. The stress may be high but the amount of knowledge i had gained has far exceeded the stress level. I would like to thank Mr Chan and Ms Lily for taking care of me and wish that TGL will continue to do well in the future :D

Chinese New Year Holiday & EPS System

This week is a 2 day week since work only started on Thursday. I had a great 5 days packed with activities and visiting to relatives houses. But the only disadvantage to having such a long holiday is the number of emails and mails that had been sent and posted during the CNY period. It took me 2 full hours to finish reading and reply to those inquiries from the resident. The number of phone calls did not stop even during lunch time....

I am barely able to read up more on the Electronic Parking System (EPS) that Mr Chan hopes to implement on one of our commercial buildings. Let me share with you some basics to EPS.

Common EPS that can be found in most carparks

Components of EPS System

The following is how the system work when a car enters a EPS equipped carpark;

1) Upon Entering; EPS Antenna reads the IU serial number in the car, non-local motorist will have to insert their cashcard into the Entry Station to get a ticket

2) Data will be stored in the validation terminal/ Data of season parker will be stored in here too

3) Upon exit; those with IU will had their fee deducted directly, while those with tickets will have to insert their cashcards to pay for the fee

The reason why i chose to read up is because of the meeting with the supplier of this EPS. Hopefully the meeting will not dragged and we will be able to focus more on the cost of this system.

Spring Cleaning/Painting and Work!!

Lunar New Year is round the corner and i had been busy at home. Everyday after work i had to clean and paint my house. It is the worse week for my body and i will barely survive if there is work tomorrow...

The most draggy assignment for this week is the continuous work schedule for Gentle Reflection. Let me state the things i had to supervise and coordinate with both contractor & owners;

1) Inform and make sure all cars is out and specialist start their work on time and end on time

2) Coordinate the draining of reflective pool water before and after the work at the roof terrace

3) Supervise the rectification work for 3 units and update the progress everyday

Luckily Mr Chan asked Huo Lin to help out with the supervision, i just have to make sure everything is going according to plan. After working for so many weeks i had learnt to include buffer time for work so that the time frame known to owners will always be more than required. This is to prevent negative and sarcastic feedback from the owners.

Next Wednesday will be a company off day, will update if Mr Chan gives me a blessing ( Hong Bao) next Thursday :D Happy Lunar New Year to all my family/friends/brother&sister/lecturers/acquaintances/ etc, May the Dragon be with YOU!!

Lapidolith :)

"Lapidolith" is the a scientific name for concrete hardener. I chose to write about this is because ever since i left secondary school, i had not been in touch with chemistry. This is a study done due to the need to increase the intensity of our carpark area in our estate. In the end, i had not only achieve what i wanted but also got the feel of chemistry once again. The following are some pictures that will illustrate where hardener can be applied.

This is a picture of hardener applied in a big factory flooring

This is a picture of hardener applied on walkway

Basically lapidolith can be applied on any concrete surfaces to increase the hardness of the surface. In the process of hardening the surface, it also increases the resistance to wear and tear and the ease of cleaning concrete flooring.

The nature of concrete is porous hence it will absorb most liquids. If the liquid is oil, it will be hard to wash off and cause a dirty patch or unevenness on the flooring. This is important to the aesthetic of estates as visitors will see and comment to the owner and thereafter complaint will start to flow in as "design flaw". Although we know that it is not a design flaw but we are doing it out of goodwill to improve the relationship between the developer and the owners.

The above is the chemical formula for hardener

In short, when hardener comes into contact with concrete it will react with the limestone in the concrete to form a compound that had a higher hardness than limestone.

After studying the reactions and effects of hardener, i went further to outsource and found a contractor that is willing to do our carpark at a low rate and it will be done next week.

Three more weeks to end of internship and i already starting to miss this job. Had learnt so much more in just thirteen weeks and Mr Chan & Ms Lily had been so kind to me. Really hope Mr Chan will call me back after this internship.

New Year - 2012!!

Hi all, i had a wonderful count down at Holland V :D Hope everyone had your fun that night too.

This week is a refreshing week, especially the sleeping time i had for the whole of Monday... The first day of work started off with filing of accounts for submission, i was not tasked to do it but Mey (Accountant) had shown how much work is required to compile the whole year accounts together.

As for me i suddenly remembered Mr Chee telling me about the SPRING S'pore funding for SME, therefore i started searching for more information online. After reading the material, i downloaded and printed a copy of the application form for Mr Chan to fill up. According to the website, this scheme is to encourage SME (Small-Medium Enterprises) to take in intern. It requires the company to plan for the learning path for the intern plus the employment after the internship semester. Which means the intern will be a official employee of the company after he/she finishes internship.

The key factor that lure me into researching is not the employment after internship but the bonus that is promised at the end of the programme. It is stated that each intern can enjoy a $2100 bonus when the internship had completed. Unfortunately the company that wish to participate in this scheme must apply before the internship started. Hence the application that will be posted will not affect me but i hope that future intern can enjoy this bonus :D

Happy New Year to all the readers !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Christmas/End of 2011 !!

Past;

26-10-2011: Public Holiday, Deepavali

08-11-2011: Public Holiday, Hari Raya

26-12-2011: Public Holiday, Christmas

Upcoming;

02-01-2012: Public Holiday, New Year

23-01-2012: Public Holiday, Chinese New Year

24-01-2012: Public Holiday, Chinese New Year

I was thinking of the number of holidays that i had been celebrating. The above dates are not a reflection of Singapore's Racial Harmonious but also the total number of days that i will be on public holiday :D 16 weeks of Internship is actually 15 :P

Last 6th week

Due to the recent heavy rain. The water table had risen and low land area is starting to flood. Our resident that resides in the central district is experiencing leaks from the vent pipe, broken air con ledge, etc.

I had to arrange for our waterproofing specialist to investigate and solve the leaks asap as the raining season is expected to worsen according to NEA. Together with the specialist, we had went down to the resident unit to take photo and arrange for rectification work to begin. As such, coordination of timing is critical and hard to achieve as owners of the units are usually busy with their work and do not allow us to rectify without their supervision. These are some common request which makes life difficult for the coordinator;

1) Work can commence only in the afternoon

2) Work must stop at 12 as no one will be at home after that

3) We are only free on Sunday afternoon

4) Equipment and material had to be outside the unit

I had yet to find a good way to counter every one of the requests, especially (1) & (2). I keep telling myself, "it is not my unit hence don't be too involve". With this mindset i learnt to rephrase my sentence when i wanted to arrange a time for the rectification. I would tell them the scope of work and that it must be a full day work, after that i would ask them to provide me with dates instead of i giving them the dates.

From these experiences it further proves that there are all sorts of personality and with each personality we had to deal with it differently. Sometimes "Happy Go Lucky" attitude is useful but in order to give people a good perception of myself i would be serious most of the time. :P

First Medical Leave

Monday i was down with diarrhoea and was unable to go to work. I had not been sick for almost a year and now it is coming to find me... This incident also shows how Mr Chan care for his employee.

I reported to him through short-message-system (sms) in the morning. Knowing that i am at the polyclinic, he did not ask any questions but instead he asked me to see a family doctor as polyclinic had a long waiting time. I really appreciate this as i am feeling worse when i was waiting for my turn. For the jobs that i had work for previously, companies usually asked their employee to see their company doctor or polyclinic, and only approved the medical leave if the medical certificate is issued by the approved clinic.

I returned to work on Tuesday. I was tasked to do light duties to purchase a new CPU (Central Processing Unit) for Ms Lily's terminal. The current CPU is 3 years old and it is starting to slow down and the memory left is limited. I started going to hardware zone to get the latest price list from shops in Sim Lim and Funan mall. I had also visited Best Denki/Courts/Challenger to get the brochures for different brands. Using the knowledge i had learnt in FCIS (Fundamental of Computer & Information System) i was able to assemble a CPU using the parts from SimLim Square. Though the price is almost the same for custom or ready-made CPU, i still chose to customize as i wanted to test out my skills again. The CPU is put together this morning and it is running smoothly :D

Stay tuned for my next entry :P

Mechanical Parking System

This week i had finally finished the powerpoint that will be presented to Mr Chan and Ms Lily next week. I going to give you guys the privilege of seeing what i am going to present next week :P

There are 5 types of parking systems available in the market; Elevator, multi-floor, multi-circulation, rotary, and puzzle type.

I am going to talk about Elevator type parking system. Basically it is the most common and easiest type to implement. These are the reasons why elevator type parking system is better than the rest;

1) No underground evacuation is needed; since it is a non-gfa item having it above ground will not restrict the gfa that can be used

2) Can fit to any design of building; tower-like hence fit well with any buildings and external of the tower can be design to fit the building as well

3) Fast in retrieving cars; elevator is moving up/down motion only

4) Ease of maintenance; ease of access will decrease the maintenance cost incur on per lot basis

Hope that Mr Chan and Ms Lily will be pleased with my presentation :D

Microsoft Project

This week had yet to end with one more day remaining. Yesterday was payday and today is just another working day.

I had started to revise my year two module, project management, as i am tasked to do a gantt chart for Le Marican project.

This is the gantt chart we had in school.

This is the gantt chart i had done at work.

See the difference? The one required of me at work is much more complex than the one taught in school but the concept is the same. The challenging part to this construction breakdown is that it has 52 tasks and quite a number of them are overlapping each other.

The purpose to doing this is for Miss Lily to pick out the relevant tasks which the contractor wanted to claim more days for the "extra" work that they had done. "Extra" is because some of it is true and some are not. Hence we as the developer must double check the claims handed to us. Although the architect supposed to do this, we are still doing it to make sure there is no errors.

I will try to bring this breakdown to the presentation after this 16 weeks internship for my presentation. I bet everyone will be amazed and shock :D That is all for tonight. Cheers :S

$$ Invoices - Cheques $$

The entire week seems to had passed within hours. Site visit/ coordination of work/ call facilitator seems to not stop this week. Tasks are linked and happens one after another. The only day i appreciate is TODAY!!! I also learnt how to issue cheques today.

As contractors finished their job at the site, we (the paymaster) will have to pay for their work done. (Of course....)

I would like to thank Ms Lily for supervising me when i am writing cheques today. I may had made a few mistake if she is not there. (Thanks Ms Lily!!!!!)

In the past, when i see someone issue cheques it always seem so effortless and simple. On the other hand for first timer like me, we had to make sure we issue the cheque to the correct payee. The following are some pointers that i feel is quite important when issuing cheques;

*Sample cheque

1) Look for a statement on invoices (most of the time is at the bottom of the invoice), e.g. Crossed cheque is to be made payable to 'ABC Pte Ltd'. This will be the name that you will have to fill into the "Pay" column on the cheque.

2) Crossed the bank icon and bearer (Alternatively a chop "A/C Payee Only" will do too). This is to ensure only the account payee can receive this payment and prevent transaction errors.

3) XX or /- after the amount. E.g. $8,630.19 XX or $8,630.19 /-. This is to prevent any alteration to the figure by anyone that is handling the cheque. (This is also applicable for the alphabetical for the amount)

4) After the cheque is signed, any alteration to the cheque will require a counter-sign to verify the change by the owner.

Hope this will serve as a useful tips for you and serve as a reminder for myself. :D

Weeeeeek 5

One sentence to describe this week. "Fun, engaging, tired, enriching, and exciting week with myself and contractors"

Fun;

Got to try out the equipment for grouting. Although it is just switching on the equipment, the vibration and seeing the grout pumping into the cracks just amazed me. The most amazing part is when the PU grout dries. It became very hardy and when looking from the inside it seems just like ordinary sponge.

Engaging;

Got to research on mechanical parking system. Watching videos of how it works and the mechanism involved. The only missing part is to visit a parking system that had been implemented.

Tired;

Four out of five days need to go to estate. Transportation wasted lots of time and hence tired and worn off.

Enriching;

Knowledge taught by contractors on how things work and why theory is different from practical.

Exciting;

Trying things out and arranging for work to be done without any past experience. (Taking risks) Knowing brief detail of how things work but not in detail. Rely on trust that the contractor knows how to rectify the problems.

Overall, i do not mind having this adrenaline every week and the ability to learn more things. This is the job that i am looking at, more evaluation is needed so that i can really decide on what to pursuit after diploma. :P

Week 4 - Hari Raya

This week has only four days as Monday is a holiday and hence NO WORK!!! This week is more of the out-of-office activities as Mr Chan introduce me to more sites and brought me to a piece of land that may have the potential to buy and develop. We also went to look at commercial building at Shenton Way.

I'm starting to like out-of-office as Mr Chan would treat us to lunch and this is a great way to move away from the canteen we had at our building :D We always had good food at either famous hawker or restaurant.

This is the GB building that we had went to view at Shenton Way. It is a 26-storey commercial building with 3 level of basement carpark. Although the carpark is run-down, the office itself is fantastic on every floor with different design and giving a totally different feeling when you are there.

This is the photo i had taken on the 20th storey. The view is marvelous and i really hope i can have one of this i the future.

After getting back at the office, i was instructed to do a feasibility study on this office building and was then analyze by Mr Chan. Mr Chan corrected some of the calculation errors and also added some other factors which makes the study more accurate. I had realized that what we learnt in school is sufficient but it may differ as you work in different field of work. And for every field there is terms that is commonly used and you need to know them so that you can converse well and effectively. For example, when talking to agents we need to know terms like psf (Per Square Foot) / gfa (Gross Floor Area) and to contractor PU (Polyurethane)/ pw (Pipe Work).

*I'm starting to like development and is looking towards next Monday :D

Payday :D

Just gotten my pro-rated pay for this month. Nothing to describe how good it is to get half a month pay that is equivalent to a month pay when working part-time during school terms.

This week is research week, the topic is grouting. For people who do not know what is grouting, it is basically a construction material to embed in wall and fill the cracks. It may sound simple but it is not. The PDF file that I had referred to is ninety-one pages long article. The following is the cover page of this article and its origin;

The origin of this article is just amazing, USA (Department of Defence).

The main content of this article highlights three areas; which is the types of grout, grouting method, and grouting equipment. I had briefly read through the types of grout and grouting method as it is required for me to have some background knowledge before i head down to meet the contractors.

At site, the waterproofing specialist took some photos of the affected areas and briefly informed me of the method of solving this issue. Since i had some knowledge beforehand, i am able to ask why they are using certain grout (e.g. Polyurenthane) instead of another (e.g. Epoxy). From their explanation i am able to understand better and also aware of the nature of different grout to be used in different situation.

Overall, i am satisfy with my performance for this week and hopefully Mr Chan is glad with my performance too :D Hope to do better than the "B" i had gotten last week...

2nd Week of Internship

Generally I will rate this week's productivity as satisfactory. I had met new people and learnt new things. Mr Chan also brought us to lunch on Wednesday.

The lunch makes me so bloated that I don't have to had my dinner. We went to Ang Mo Kio Ave 5 to eat western food. "Aston" had an outlet in the coffeeshop and I ordered double chicken for my lunch. The bloated part came in when Ms Lily split half of her plate's chicken to me and the baked potatoe.

The real reason why we came to the coffeeshop is because an agent introduce and wanted us to buy over this coffeeshop. Mr Chan told me that the company can never prosper if we just stick to buying land to develop and sell. Rental from commercial building or coffeeshop can sometime be an alternative when the residential market is quiet.

Knowing the plan to explore into coffeeshop, I started studying the operation of coffeeshop and get some information from my relatives and friends that knows this market. I also drafted a feasibility study report on this particular coffeeshop with its proposed price. The only factor now is the lease period of this coffeeshop. Normally the coffeeshop lease period is the same as the HDB building it is under. Hence knowing that the building left 60 years, the profit margin greatly reduced as compared to 99 years lease for new buildings. Ultimately Mr Chan still put this into consideration as it is feasible with a lower return of investment.

I had decided to write an entry every week instead of the usual day by day. This is because is it too tiring to blog after work and it will affect the next day work attention. I hope the school will understand and pardon me on this change. For every week's entry I will highlight one task that is most engaging or interesting. I will also blog my unpleasant encounter if I ever encounter one.

Stay tuned and look forward to my next entry :D