Introduction – My Internship at Eezee
I am Marcus Yap Kwan Rui, I’m currently pursuing a diploma in Aerospace Technology at Ngee Ann Polytechnic. I will be sharing with you my internship at Eezee.
My interest has always been diverse and engineering is one of those top interests due to my love for the sciences. However, I also have some passion for business, mainly accounting & sales. So this semestral break I decided to take up an intern position at a local start-up Eezee.sg. The company is currently being incubated by Sandbox. My internship at Eezee began on 13 September 2017 and I have no plans of leaving.
How I got the opportunity to intern at Eezee
Initially, I wanted to intern as a sales executive at another company. But due to some reason unbeknownst to me, they didn’t accept my internship. I contacted the Chief Technology Officer of Eezee, Jasper Yap , for an opportunity to intern at Eezee. The Chief Executive Officer of Eezee, Logan Tan, decided to give me a chance despite my lacking portfolio.
My Expectations
Firstly, I wanted to gain exposure and discover what my real interest were. Secondly, I wanted to grow myself as a person – not only career-wise but also as a person. I thought that developing my repertoire of marketable skills will make me a better worker in the future. Furthermore, as a intern i expected that I will just be a cog of this big machine and my voice wouldn’t be heard. But in actual fact, even though I was just a lowly intern, I was able to achieve so much more than what I even dared to dream of.
First day at work
At first, I thought I was all great and that could contribute greatly to the company but like all teenagers – I was wrong. I gave feedback when I was in no position to. I questioned the very process that made Eezee Eezee. On the first day, I came to work all confident and pumping with energy. But perhaps a little to much energy: I was being too casual with suppliers, cracking jokes at the wrong time. I did not realise that I was spreading a negative image of the company due to my lack of seriousness in my work.
So Logan decided to reassign me to some back-end work first so I could familiarise myself with the company culture and processes before handling business development.
First week in Eezee
During my first week at Eezee, I took on a mammoth task of completing the accounts of 5 quarters Eezee’s incorporation. It was a huge task as the records weren’t properly kept and documented. Also, my accounting knowledge and skills were rusty and unsharpened.
The first 3 days upon getting the task I was doing useless and time-consuming work that I used to do for my accounting in ‘O’ level , but I always questioned if there was a better way for me to do this? Was there a way to optimise or streamline to accounting process?
I wanted to challenge myself by doing tasks that would stretch my mind rather than doing what I already know. Therefore, I consulted a Senior Supply Chain analyst for thoughts on my processes which she provided feedback on. From her, I learnt how to streamline and improve my processes. This allowed me to boost my productivity by over 80%.
Now
After finishing the backlogs of accounts for Eezee.sg. I did some marketing and writing some content that was essential to onboard suppliers. These content taught suppliers how to register for an account on eezee and how they can upload their products to sell.
After that I went into Customer Relations , a department that was set-up due to my suggestion. I was tasked to head the department and brought us to new heights by improving relations and building sturdy bridges with our clients. I’m gaining valuable experiences in a meeting enviroment.
Additionally, I’m currently fulfilling the dietary and nutritional needs of my colleagues at Eezee. It is not easy preparing 6 portions of lunch a day ,with one of it being vegetarian, but after the first week i began to streamline my processes. I enjoy the process of juggling between being an intern, a chef, a delivery courier, an accountant and exercising with 8 hours of sleep per day.
During my internship, I also made a trip down to a supplier’s office with the team to understand what problems suppliers face during the procurement process. It really helped me put into perspective the scale of the problem that eezee is solving and how tedious procurement really is.
Conclusion
I’ve since learnt the virtue of understanding a problem first before diving into it. As at first I assumed I had all the knowledge and experience on the issue. However, many a time theory doesn’t mean practicality. Working at Eezee definitely prepared me for wherever life brings me to. Just coming to work everyday has taught me much more about how to do things properly and how to work together with a team.
I am now more conscious and aware about the way I act and how to express my ideas in a more effective manner than before I started this internship. I’ve also gained valuable experience in corporate accounting, marketing and process documentation. This internship has really stretched me and enabled me to grow tremendously in both my character and my skillsets.
Ending off
Thank you for reading my blog post on how I grew during my internship at Eezee. It wasn’t easy but I am sure glad that I had this precious and once in a lifetime chance. A chance to stretch myself and grow in areas that i couldn’t have. I am truly thankful for this chance.
If you are looking for an internship opportunity with Eezee you can send your resume to this email address.
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