Eddie then brought the interns  on a tour around the office. I was fairly new to the concept of an open office but as soon as I saw the Pestle & Mortar space, I immediately fell in love with it.

The office room for those managing the operations (Marketing, Retail, Customer Service, etc) of Pestle & Mortar Clothing

An open room surrounded by glass walls that Pestle & Mortar Clothing Employees can use freely to do work, brainstorm or chill

The common room where Pestle & Mortar employees have meetings, eat lunch and just about, do anything.

The open office system gave the Pestle & Mortar staff a lot of freedom to express themselves and to chose for themselves which environment was most productive for them.  I also observed over the course of my internship that it made communication between employees more efficient and easier. In the operations office for example, different departments were able to merge together ( Marketing, Business Development, Retail, Customer Service). It was easier for Eddie, the Head of operations to delegate, discuss ideas and carry out tasks when everyone was together.

Eddie than sat the interns down and asked what our expectations for our internship were. We each got a turn to share our thoughts and Eddie told us what Pestle & Mortar could do for us in return. As for me, I voiced my opinion that I was looking forward to take part in every aspect of a retail business, from the very beginning where fresh stock is brought into the warehouse, right till the end where it is allocated to their retail outlets. With that Eddy told me that I would be put under Danny New, the Retail Executive of Pestle & Mortar Clothing.

Danny New, Pestle & Mortar Clothing's Retail Executive

The rest of the week was very humbling for me as I was in the process of learning many things for the first time.  One of my very first task was to memorize the names of all their products and which season they were from (eg: Holiday 2013, Spring 2012). As my colleagues explained, this would be for my own benefit in the future as knowing every product was essential for dealing with retail outlets.

I was also introduced to the concept of doing end of the month sales reports for Pestle & Mortar's two standstill outlets in Subang Jaya and Bangsar. I was given a stack of receipts that depicted their daily sales records with bank and credit card statements. My task was to ensure that the numbers from the daily sales and bank and credit card statements tallied. If it did not, I was to call up the retail outlets to get an explanation. After keying in the data to a spread sheet, I was to send my work to Mark, the Finance Executive. After a few trials and errors, I finally got the hang of it. Pleased with my work, Danny told me that for the rest of my internship, I was to do the sales reports for both stores.


Eddie also added all the interns into the warehouse duty roaster. We were to assist JR, the warehouse manager ,with whatever he was working on.  The warehouse is a place where fresh products from the manufacturers come in. Products go through the process of quality control, tagging and repackaging before being allocated to the retail outlets or are stored for the online store. I was roastered in to help JR 2 times during my first week.

  Fresh products that the other interns & I tagged and repackaged that are ready to be allocated


On my first week, I also assisted JR in some housekeeping in the Pestle & Mortar warehouse. My task was to ensure that the floor was empty by the time I was done. The boxes and plastic bags on the floor were filled with products returned from shops that had previously carried Pestle & Mortar goods.It took much effort from Jr and I as every product had a different SKU code and needed to be checked into the system before we could actually physically put it in storage.  Some products' tagging and packaging were also outdated and needed to be re-tagged and re-packaged. While doing this, JR shared with me many tricks and tips of warehousing to make our job easier. He also shared his previous experiences of working for the MNC, Johnson & Johnson with me. I took the opportunity to ask him many business related questions that he was happy to answer.

Week 1 Overview

Relating what you learnt with your experiences
This week was a week of many first times for me. I met a brand new group of people. I was introduced to many products , most that I had never seen before. I was put in charge of a small portion of the financial site of retailing and I lent a hand in what people would call the 'dirty' part of the job which was warehousing.I'm glad that all these first time experiences was not overwhelming for me. I am happy with the way I carried myself and I learnt a whole lot.

Observations
As I was still new, I tried to make as many observations of the company culture as I could. By understanding the way people worked and seeing the unwritten rules of the company, my transition to the company would be smoother. I realized that the company had a very "chilled" environment to it. It seemed like everyone was self driven and did not need to be pushed. I also realized that everyone was addressed with their first name, even the bosses, which reflected on the informal work culture. Work dressing was also rather laid back and very casual. My favorite part was the 'bring your dog to work' policy which meant that we had a pug that belonged to a college around the office 24/7. I felt very comfortable in such a culture and I did not feel pressured to be up tight and corporate.

Key Learning
On my first week, I learnt to be open and receptive to change. Being new to the company, I came in a little uncomfortable but with the right guidance from my company supervisor, I got over that and realized that everyone in the office was willing and hoping to see me bloom.

Development & Growth
During the first week of my internship, Eddie pointed out one of my flaws to me. He mentioned that I lacked attention to detail. This was after an embarrassing stint of having to reprint the same letter countless of times due to silly mistakes. That day I made it a point to always check and recheck any letters that I was asked to write out. My growth and development during week 1 of my internship might not have been a big leap, but what Eddie pointed out to me would be something I would remember whenever I present any written document to anyone.

Key Achievements
On my first week, the tasks presented to me were very spread out. I believe it was because I was new and needed the knowledge of different matters before I could expertise in something. My key achievements of the week was memorizing the names of all Pestle & Mortar products. Being bad with names in general, I thought that this would be challenging but it turned out that the product names were fairly simple to remember. I was also surprised to be put in charge of a task so soon. Furthermore, it carried a lot of weight as it was the financials of the company. I'm just glad and honored that those overseeing me could trust me to take on such a responsibility.

Challenges Faced
 I do not think that I was faced with any task that I found challenging this week. Instead, what I found to be challenging was the emotional part of it. Being a ' newbie' in a work environment was always something I tried to avoid. I was put out of my comfort zone and felt that I needed to prove myself before I could be accepted into the team. I was however proven wrong as the entire Pestle & Mortar office was ever accepting and open to meeting new people. The interns that came in with me were also very easy to get along with. I learned along the internship that it was these colleagues who would have my back in times of trouble and distress.