corporate drone

For the past two weeks, I've been busy with my internship at T-Systems. So far only two people I know has ever heard of it. Gone are my delusions of grandeur and expectations of working in huge, reputable banks. At least the pay is good :)

This marks my first entry into the corporate world as well. I was half expecting a dog-eat-dog office environment rich with underhand politics and two-faced colleagues. Quite the opposite actually. I almost feel like I'm back to my childhood at grandma's place with all the aunties around. In case I offend someone, some of them are closer to cousins. Anyway, it feels so family-like, except that now they give you work to do instead of letting you fool around. With my excellent kenging skills, I bet they can't tell the difference if I did the latter.

The first day was data-entry. When I realised that on the second day I was starting to do photocopying jobs, I was expecting my highlight of the third day to be making coffee. Then maybe I'd 'progress' to clearing coffee mugs. I wonder if it was my 'subtle' hints to the boss that did the trick, but I'm doing more interesting stuff now.

On the first day, when I saw that people seemed to reach the office 10 mins late I thought to myself, "This is going to be one slack internship! Yay!" Then I realised they knocked off at 30 mins to an hour after official working hours. Only a handful of people remain after that. I know because I had to stay back till 10pm to finish something last Thursday.

I think my 'sense of responsibility' (or shame) is causing me to stay longer than I should. And the other intern always get to leave earlier than me. Bloody hell! I only beat her once or twice out of two weeks. Anyway, the knock-off time seems to be around 7pm-730pm at the latest. By the time my colleagues reach home by public transport, their kids would probably be starving. It gets worse if they have to rush for a deadline.

Considering that T-Systems is probably one of the more slacker-friendly companies among other firms in this district, this workaholic, no-life corporate culture is very, very scary. What's more frightening is that I think I am getting used to it.