All posts tagged: internship

Goodbye work

Published by

I can’t let the summer end without this last post. By summer, I mean the summer in Singapore. Of work, banks and contradictions. Tomorrow is my last day. I’ll be exaggerating if I say it’s been a roller coaster ride. It’s been pretty smooth actually, at least on the outside. My head has been full of conflicts though, from one moment to the next. I have come a long way since I talked about survival, surviving work in a bank. I have grown out of it, the phobia, the fear and the bias. I know though, that what I had thought all along is true, but I have come to realize that I don’t have the right to judge. It is true that most people are motivated by money. Yet, they are some of the nicest people I’ve met in Singapore. In fact, they’ve almost changed my opinion of the country, in the context of racism. I’ll probe into that topic another time, but for now, I am, as always, in two minds. I can’t say if …

Working in a bank

Published by

For a long time, I thought banks were plain evil. I guess it started with how everyone (almost everyone) in college wants to get a job in a bank, some bank, any bank. To me, it came as a stark reminder of how people are all rowing their boats towards the same lighthouse, and how they’d probably crash on the same rock. It isn’t for the love of the work. Only money. A series of poor judgments and a phase of desperation later, I find myself working in, well, a bank! It puts my ‘principles’ on dubious grounds. It makes me a two-faced hypocrite. It took nothing less than courage to walk into that office, stamping over everything I had quite believed in. A week and a half into it, I’m almost proud to say I’ve survived. I must admit how baseless my “logic” was. At least as far as Marketing is concerned, a consumer bank is extremely similar to any other consumer goods company. They merely sell financial plans, like a telecom company would …

Advertising interview

Published by

After a partly sleepless night, some intimidating thoughts, and a bit of nail-biting nervousness, I showed up for an internship interview today at an advertising agency. I had heard about how advertising companies were chilled out when it came to work, but I wasn’t quite sure how formally I should be dressed. I’d get cues to know how formal I should behave once I was there, but getting there and creating a good first impression was another thing. So, obviously, I ran a dozen google searches on advertising interviews, and here’s what the best of them could tell me: “Just because you think that the advertising guys go to work in jeans and a shirt, doesn’t mean that’s how you show up for an interview. Dress like you want the job!” Really now? And what exactly do you mean? Does it mean I still need to suit up? So anyway, I went with my instinct. And guess what? I don’t think it matters! It was hardly an interview really, more like a ‘chat’ as they …