my 1st complain letter

SueWen'z Diary

这是我给校方的第一封信~

Case 1: cleaning job—collect company’s rubbish and throw it on the way out. Besides that, washed mugs and cups (used by staff and customer), clean the table, arranged the tables and chairs (for our own use and night time for client use).  There are other tasks such as fixing the curtain after it has been washed, clean the storeroom (not often but it has been 3 times – UMS interns did it. We fear that we might have to do this as their duration of internship has been completed). There is also once where the toilet floor was wet like any other toilet, but all of us got scolded and the male interns have been ordered to clean the toilet.

Case 2: extra job-- go to the post office, bank, and nearby market or shop to buy things. The transport and parking fees are not provided for these tasks. Besides that interns were assigned to go to nearby taxi station find taxi for client, be a bellboy to take luggage or bag for boss from his car, replace Customer Service (CS) job when CS is not around. We also have to read and cut news paper daily (Chinese – Sin Chew; and English – The Star) and stick in 1 file (regarding to economy, forex, trading…etc. around 13 categories). Other tasks such as counting 500 pieces of letterhead for them (which was to be sent to the Photostat shop)  and also check the Academy courses filed notes to see if the notes are all alike. The notes consisted of 162 pages in each file.

Case 3: event job--be an operator to call customer 1 by 1 to invite them to an event (not exaggerating—where we had to call thousands of people, including those who were their previous customer, and ‘potential clients’ where we had searched from online website and newspaper, continuously for 2 weeks without doing other task while other interns had to put their tasks on hold). The consistency of making phone calls by using the company’s mobile phone gives me headache (due to the radioactive) and sore throat (non-stop calling). During the event, we have to do set up, registration, selling product, bodyguard and etc. (start from 7am till 7pm,  whole day on a Sunday without accepting any excuse or reason that we have our own planning on that day, unless you are not in Penang, air ticket and bus ticket have to be shown as a proof).  Although we did receive off day replacement for that day, but it is just 1 day.

Case 4: unacceptable working time—the company operates 6 times per week (Monday till Saturday, 10am to 6pm). However we work on alternate Saturdays. UUM students are assigned to work on the 1st, 3rd and 5th week of Saturday, full day. However, they change our working time randomly; we always received last minutes inform about our changing working time, and sometimes including Sunday also we have to work for an event.

The company does not practice on what they preached. “We tell you all earlier so that you can make your plans”.  For example, the company told us that we got few days off on which duration they mentioned. The off day was during the weekday as they did not have enough space for us to work due to a small seminar was being held on that day and they need the training room for the seminar. The company asks us to replace back the working days on the other alternate Saturday (2nd, 4th Saturday). But when come to the day before the off day, company last minute request us to continue working for that few days, regardless to what reason we cannot make it, I remember the people who in charge of the management told me, ”This is your problem, just cancel your plans, company’s priority come first…”

More than once the same thing happened again and they don’t even tell us the reason why we have to switch our working time on and off. Again and again I cannot arrange my time properly and I have to deal with it. Due to some family issues and personal reasons, I am unable to work on any of the time as the company requested for the other next time or next time after that. At one time we have to come back after working time (after 6pm) to have a meeting, stay up late to complete the job without OT.

Case 5: Inadequate working environments — the training room is big enough for us to do our work, it is good enough for us, but we have to arrange tables and chair every morning when come to work and after finish work. There are 23 people including trainee and 2 permanent staff that watching us in one training room. Initially, the training room is comfortable, but starting from July, we have been informed that the amount of electrical bill is increase, so we have to corporate with the company, to cut down the usage of air condition, where from 3 air-conditions to 1 air-cond. Seriously, the room is concealed with walls, without any open windows so not only do we feel the heat inside, it is suffocating and stuffy. We don’t feel comfortable with the environment anymore. Besides that since UMS trainee has left, we UUM and USM interns have to sit at the lobby. It is a small place for customer to do registration and enquiry. Whenever got customer or the CEO comes back to the office, we need to move back to training room or meeting room, in and out.

Case 6: mentally tortured—I would like to confess I’m mentally tortured by the one whom in charge with the management; she is in charge to give marks (internship) to us. When we are requested to do cleaning and heavy job, we were told with sarcastic words such as “you are just a trainee”. I remembered well on what my teacher taught me when I was in school, “For other people to respect you, you have to respect them first”. We are well aware that we are just trainees but by looking down on us where we feel degraded is not how things should be. How are we supposed to respect them when they don’t really respect us as well?

When we are required to complete last minutes task, they asked us to behave like a professional. No matter how tough the tasks that have been assigned also I can accept, but then they usually didn’t inform us earlier, every time they will tell us it’s urgent and need us to complete it immediately. We would have to complete it by the same day or after few hours, OT is a must to complete those task, multimedia’s job is not that easy to do but, we are always been given this kind of pressure.

When a person is sick, obviously we are required to take MC. However the management said that our report regarding to our internship would not be a positive one due to medical leave. Whatever I have make request from company will never get a response, for example my lunch time is 12pm until 1pm, I’m a gastric patient, I have to consume meal frequently. Since the moment we were warned to not treat the office like a canteen, I formally make a request from the management, can I have a small break after lunch. Even though I have explained my situation, I still only get the reply of “no hi tea please”, no further feedback anymore. One thing is, trainee are treated this way, but staffs are different, they can eat whatever time when they feel hungry, they are taking more than 1 meal during working time but we are forbidden. And whenever I ask about my off day so that I could plan my activities like sending my mum to medical checkup but still, there is no reply, not even a word of “I help u to check it first”.

Case 7: Others-- We brings our own laptop, charger and external hard disk to work. Due to multimedia job, we have to save all the softcopy regarding to our task, even thou we have already transfer all the file to company’s hard disk we still have to keep it, but we don’t have such a big memory space to store all this data. I can’t afford to buy another external hard disc just to store whole company’s file. Our task is doing video, banner, name card, header and footer of a website, poster. it’s at least something that related to our course, even though we are given a lot of pressure, but other course trainee (UMS) like taking networking are request to create a fake account of facebook of pretty girl, and have to add new user daily, ask them whether interested in foreign exchange, trading or so on, and whenever there’s an event, the “Fake” facebook account is use to do promotion. As I know, now UMS has already banned this company and will not send trainee here anymore. Previously I have heard about other University like UPM, and TAR have also refused to send their students here for training.

Some other days that they treated us badly but I don’t know how to explain in words. Therefore, I hope that the university would take note of the situation here and also hope that future trainees to be would not be sent here for their internship.