Why I don’t like sitting at the reception area.

Although I’m an intern, sometimes when the receptionist a.k.a. executive assistant is away I’d have to help man the reception. I remember the first time when the receptionist went to ask Hwa Swee which girl was free to help her. There were only the 6 of us then, and it was only Jia Hui or me. I was free then so I helped. I didn’t expect to help out so many times for the past 3 months over here.

Sitting out here is quite stressful and lonely, because there’s no one around, and it is important to uphold the company’s image and all since most visitors who come up here would meet me first. Also, I’m to pick up phone calls and direct them to the respective people in the company.

Honestly, this reminds me a lot of my short working stint at my aunt’s travel agency where I’m to pick up phone calls and pass the calls to my colleagues when they are too busy to pick up the phone. :S And for those who do not know, I don’t really enjoy speaking on the phone as I have no idea who I’m talking to, and I definitely prefer face-to-face conversations or MSN (I process words better when I read).

Well, after helping out here for so many times, I can say I am used to this job. However, there are still some things that I still do not enjoy while sitting out at the reception area. Here are the reasons:

• It is stuffy – for some reason, even though the air conditioner is turned down to 21 degrees celsius (considered quite low over here), the place still feels warm, suffocating and stuffy for me. And there’s some rule about not allowing the companies around here to turn the airconditioner to below 26 degrees C so it’s already off the limit.
• Language barrier – To be honest, after staying here for 115 days already, sometimes I don’t understand what the locals are saying, especially if they speak in their dialect. I can catch a few words here and there but not all of it. And my mandarin vocabulary isn’t that wide either so sometimes I have no idea how to say certain words in mandarin; whether it’s through the phone or face-to-face with someone
• I don’t know what’s going on – I really look up to the executive assistant here. To be able to pick up calls, handle visitors and all is not easy. You must know whether the employee you are supposed to direct your calls to is in office or not (sometimes they might be on leave or may have went to run some errands), you are supposed to know who is in what department (people might call asking for the person in charged of this and that), you are supposed to handle people who come up here to advertise their products to you, and so on.
• I don’t like picking up phone calls – self-explanatory. Full stop.
• You have to rush to the washroom – similar to Bell’s Theorem, whenever you want to use the washroom, a phone will ring. Or the phone will ring when you are at the pantry or elsewhere. :S Because of this, I always have to rush to the washroom, just-in-case someone calls.

Of course, there are good points to sitting out here as well. You get to meet interesting people who come up here to advertise their stuff, or get you to sign packages. As a foreigner here, after looking at me for about 30 seconds, they would usually ask if I’m local. After I tell them that I’m from Singapore, they would comment that my Mandarin is quite good and that they are honoured to meet someone from Singapore. 🙂