My Day As a Receptionist

Tue 10:00am
Read SMS from Dawn: 33, u want a temp job TODAY until 5.30pm? it pays $6.50/hr. Essentially, u're a receptionist4the day. Zoboh one..can read mags&file nails.It's near jurong.. U want?

Telephone conversation:
"But i don't have experience can??"
"No prob, they will teach" said the job agency lady.
"okies I'll do it"

As I was already awake and in the midst of getting ready for my LAST tuition session with a certain customer who is only available on Tue 11am, i decided that the LAST session can wait one more week.( after all i've waited so many weeks already.)

Hence I found myself at 11 International Business Park at 10:47am. (Which is near CREATIVE.) Its really near, cab fare only $4.20 (can claim)

Well, I wore a rather ehm.. bright orange jacket (compulsory attire for all the office ladies.. haha)
tink their company got some sort of colour coding. Production line wear dark blue. I spied some greenish shirts too i tink. *Haha*

ANd contrary to the sms, there was no time to file nails. (not that i packed along a nail buffer of cos)

I had 5 duties for the day.
An attachment student from poly who took over as recep in the morning stayed with moi and taught me the stuff till lunch time. We sorta 'discovered' little things about the phone routing system as we went along. *Laughs*

1a. Answer calls. Transfer calls to the relevant extension. (This got tricky when the caller had only a name but no extension or department. I referred to a list but not all the names are there, and some names are written in initials.)

1b. Make international calls on behalf of staff, then route it back to the staff who requested the call once its connected and the relevant party found. (Quite interesting this one. Esp calls to Thailand. The voice recording system is rather 'melodious'. Taiwan also polite. China got communication problem. Different brand of Chinese and sometimes only can find the person if u say the chinese name. As in Leong San San cannot find. Liang Shan Shan then can. Same problem when they call in looking for someone.)

2a. Pick up calls and answer queries on "How to Get here"/"DO you hire malaysians"/ "My English not good can employ?"/"Pay How Much"? from job seekers. Cos they advertised for Lab Assistant and Storeman the day b4 on classifieds.
The answer to all of the above, as instructed was --> GIve address, landmark, advise them to take cab $3.00 from JE only, and the rest must come for walk-in interview.

2b. Upon arrival, give job seekers a form to fill in then call HR after gathering every 4-5 people.

3. Visitor come, ask them to fill in logbook, exchange ID for visitor pass.
Vendor come, ask them to fill in logbook, exchange ID for vendor pass.

4. People come and leave things at the counter, put them aside, note down who left what if required.

5. Paging. I kinda like this one once I got over the initial hesitation.. Haha.. Mabe I do like hearing my own voice.
In a building, folks can't find one another. Like hide and seek.
So they call the recep and say "Help me page for XX"
The script is " Paging for (XX)x2, please call extension 110 ( yao yao ling) (must repeat in chinese) Xie Xie (Thank you)"
Variations are --> Please proceed to the lobby, proceed to canteen.. blah blah..

One notable one came from the production line side.. They call to ask which AH BAO is being paged. Cos apparently there's quite a few Ah Baos.. Turns out its Si Wen Bao they want. (Translate to polite Bao)

Yip, that sums it up.
And I wouldn't have survived the day without help from the SECURITY GUARD. Yes. SECURITY GUARD. He is what the PAP advocates. Huo2 Dao4 Lao3 Xue2 Dao4 Lao3. Multi-tasking type. He was so nice and helpful. (Not the sit there drink milo read newspaper, tian1 ta1 xia4 lai2 not his business kind.)

As a recep must essentially be an octopus and I'm a fledging one, when my arms get tangled, he'll pop into the counter to help me. He'll distribute the visitor passes when calls and people come in at the same time, distribute application forms to job seekers... etc.. and he even got moi a cup of coke from the vending machine cos he say talk so much must drink cold drink.

WAhhh.. If he's 30 years younger I would fall in love with him!!

Took a pic with him on hp, but hp KNN one, can't upload, if i manage to get it uploaded
will post it here. Overall an interesting day with nice people and quite fun too!