When I go into the office, my day usually starts at 6:00AM. I find I need time in the morning before I go into work so I can get ready and drink my coffee without feeling rushed. Once the time reaches close to 8:00AM, I find out which metro I want to take and prepare to leave. I can either go to Zuid station or Amstelveenseweg to take my 25 minute bus ride to the Canon office at the bottom of Amstelveen, it depends which route is the fastest at the point I leave. On my bus ride, I usually like to read my book which helps me pass the time- at the moment I am reading The Shining by Stephen King. When I arrive at the bus stop it takes me less than 10 minutes to walk to my office, not because it’s necessarily far from the bus stop but just because there are so many stop lights that prevent me from walking in one go. When I enter the office building I always greet the front desk and head towards my floor where I scan my badge to enter the elevators. On most days I am guaranteed my usual favorite seat close to the window but lately everyone seems to be going on the same day, so as of late I’ve had to sacrifice my view (see picture below for the view of my favorite seat).
When I get to a desk I usually unpack what I need like my water, laptop, headphones, etc. and plug into the big monitors to start work. I always check my email, salesforce, and our returns site to see if there’s any new cases or returns waiting to be processed. Most days I don’t get any messages from anyone on teams right when I start my day but sometimes a colleague has already asked me a question about something that I need to advise them on. During the day, I just work on returns, shortage and price difference claims, emailing customers, creating a guide on how to do a task (for future interns), working on SOX control reporting, making presentations, running daily reports, the list goes on. It varies everyday, some days I am overloaded, some days I have nothing to do- I suppose it’s the life of an intern. My whole department religiously commences lunch exactly at 12:00PM on the dot- no earlier, no later. There are times when I’m not even hungry yet but I don’t want to eat alone so I join everyone. Lunch typically ends before 1:00PM- it depends on how the conversation goes with colleagues, sometimes we can’t stop talking, sometimes we eat in silence. Everyone tends to be pretty slumped when we get back to our desks, unable to work after eating, so getting a coffee from the mediocre coffee machines is a must. I’m a pretty fast worker so most of the work gets done in the morning and I find myself both bored and tired in the afternoon. Everyday at 2:00PM, we have our daily update call where we discuss any issues we might have- I usually have no issues so I sit in silence most times only responding with short yes’s and no’s. The day quickly comes to an end and I leave anytime after 4:00PM to take my bus and metro back home where I crash onto my bed and relax, happily knowing I won’t have to wake up at 6:00AM the next morning.