HP Procurement Engineer - I

Good bye Alexandra, and here ends my 11-month stay in ATP-B. It has not been even a year , but I believe I have learnt and gained much experience and insights about work, than some others that may need more than a year to achieve.

It is not my abilities, but rather special situations that have made me grow from near drowning. Just merely after the first lunch in the company with friends (instead of with boss), I was told that tomorrow, which was only my second day of work, I had to go to a place in Johor.

"Supplier's factory."

"How do I go?"

"Look for Nigel, he knows how to travel there." (Who's Nigel?)

"Can I have his number?"

"Hi, Nigel, this is..., ..., and ... so where should I wait for you?"

"HPAM, 452, in front of the shuttle bus waiting area." (What's HPAM? Where's shuttle bus area)

So I was given an unknown task, to meet up with an unknown person and to go into an unknown area. And I did not have too many minutes to hesitate for calling the "unknown person", asking for more details, nor did I have too much time to wander around because the first place to know was not my office but the HPAM area. Luckily I still had Luke to show me around.

Hence on second day I sat on the car together with Nigel and went into CJH. Celestica Johor. Every steps in the factory, everything that I saw, every person that I met, were new and unfamiliar.

"So, do you have any questions? If you have questions you can just ask, I will try my best to tell you all."

"Not at this moment, you just tell me whatever you can recall."

Keeping my head down, I was just too busy jotting down every names, processes, stations, abbreviations, states, situations, problems, solutions, or basically every words, be it related or not because I wouldn't know.

My worries started to creep in. Two more weeks and I had to take over the plant transfer and manage it. How would it turn out? Would I be fine? I had no idea. Without any technical background and prior working relationship with the supplier, I could only pray that these two weeks to move slowly.

It wasn't really a tough period as I could still tag along Nigel and learn as much and quick as I can. But I know I have to walk every quick steps very carefully in order not to slip. I had only one day to go back to company on the second week, to get everything (badge, email, digital key and remote access) done, so that I could work in supplier's factory.

Luckily suppliers are nice peoples. Maybe because I am their customer, or maybe because I am a Malaysian. Though working hour was long and tiring, I could still handle it. I worked for 11 days continuously since the first day. I spotted the Mod0 capacity issue as a gating for mass production run and raised it before it became critical. You may wonder why it was me as a new arrive to have spotted this, that's because you have no idea how messy and chaotic the whole factory was, where every working men had been stretched to the fullest, chased and expediated for different objectives.

And then came the storm during the X'mas shutdown period. PCB quality issue had caused two high yield losses and line downs, created the lime light from the world and attracted boss's boss to travel down. Worked until 5am once. Dealt with two bosses directly. Daily update. Maybe it's normal for a seasoned colleague, but for a fresh graduate like me, I just felt it's quite stressful sometimes, especially at the moment of receiving sms-es from bosses in the morning. Nevertheless I did rise to the occasion, done what I should have done, and learnt quite a few important things in this work.

It was especially delightful to receive a compliment from a US folk whom I had forgot his name, that "I think you have done pretty well. If I were you, coming out fresh from the oven, I would have stumbled and crumbled." Even if he was just being kind, I have been strongly encouraged. Because I never like the idea of using "freshness" as an excuse to avoid responsiblity or accountability. People may excuse my mistakes due to my inexperience and rawness but it is just not something that I should rely on.

I have no complaints of what I had to go through, nor did I complain to others about my manager for putting me into such situation. I rationalize things and only grumble if things could have been done in a better way. In this case, I don't see any other option. If it wasn't for this, perhaps in the first case I would not have been hired, wasn't it? In fact, later when I finally befriended most of my colleagues, I even played down their tones against my manager in gossiping talks, because their opinions were off the mark though were out of good heart, as they did not have the whole picture in mind.

Of course I did sigh and moan sometimes, but that's more to relieve my emotions.

And hence the first month of super steep learning had finally passed. My hardest earnt monthly salary so far.