First week of work ~ True Blue Engineer

This is the edited version. If you have previously read something similar, you can choose to ignore this post...coz it is almost the same

To those who read my blog:

Sorry for deserting my blog for quite a while. Just ended my final exam. AND, finally holiday is here. Currenly, I am just a blue collar worker who works in Jurong Island, Power Seraya Power Plant. Things are doing great and I shall share my "1-week-load" of work experience here. The content might be a bit disorganized coz it is just simply too many things happening. Guess this will be a really long post. Bear with it ya!

Day 1
Whoever working in Jurong Island needs a pass. No unauthorized personnel is allowed in Jurong Island. No photography is allowed. Such strict regulations. DUH! Singapore is damn scared of Osama, Mas Selamat or whichever terrorist out there bombing this industrial hub.

Thus, being a newbie here, obviously, the 1st thing to do will be applying a pass. Jurong Island pass is not enough. I also need a power seraya power plant pass. Well, Security is pretty tight everywhere. OK, after all these necessary procedures, finally I m stepping on site. For your info, the site is so big that you will die working...We cycle around. Luckily, I know how to cycle and I am provided a bike. Hooray. I get to cycle everyday. Now, the noob newbie is given a small talk on how the power plant works. Site visit, touring or watever you name it is definitely part of the schedule too. The power plant is really "magnificient", "sophisticated", "High Tech". I am totally impressed. Thats the wonder of engineering.

Day 2
Attended weekly site progress meeting with different parties involved in the project. Some brief background. The owner of power seraya project is actually YTL corporation (Wah. M'sia rox la). My company is the owner's representative engineering firm. So we are responsibled to protect the interest of the owner. The general contractor (so called consortium in this case) is a collaboration between Samsung and Siemens. So do expect me to see many koreans and germans around. The subcontractor is Worley Parsons. Being in a real working world is definitely different from school. Here, every minute is money. Real big money. Meetings are never substance-less and it will definitely be effective, straight to the point. Since I am from environmental engineering major, the kind supervisors do involved me with the environmental issues. So, now I need to check for related regulations for certain process. OK! "HIGHLIGHT" of the day. I found a small cockroach in my lunch. Yaiks. However, I wasnt really traumatized. BUT, i did kill the appetite of my colleagues. Not to forget, I am now a certified safe worker. I went for some safety talk with the whole room of bangla, indian workers. Haha. 1 sticker on your helmet will makes u a certified worker. Well..hmm....

Day 3
Meetings again! My job for the week is to attend meetings.
Not a bad idea. I did get lots of info on how thing works. Really interesting.
To add on, as always, site is always a place for the male species. AND now i am truely convinced. For your info, I bet there are less than 10 females in the site. and yup, no female toilet in my office building. Argh, now i actually miss the day of wearing skirts and shorts.

Day 4
one whole room of brainees from all over the world. Germany, Korea, India, China, Singapore, New Zealand, Malaysia. These brainees are having teleconferencing with big boss in Germany. This is the first time for me seeing how a teleconference works. Not to mention, there is a noob intern sitting at the side. Haha. Meetings didnt really killed me. In fact, I am glad that I can sit in for meetings. Do learnt quite a bit.

Day 5
Went down to National Environment Agency (NEA) with my colleagues to have a pre-consultation with the officers there. It is about some temporary steam venting system. For your info, this power plant also generates steam and they are going to sell the steam to PCS (Petro Chemical Singapore). According to contract, the operation should starts on 1 Sept. Thus, commisioning (some kind of performance test) must be done way before sept. However, PCS is not being coperative. They are not ready to receive the steam at the other end. So how's Powe Seraya gonna test out their system? Well, to protect the interest of Power Seraya, PB came out with this temporary steam venting system. If PS doesnt send out steam by 1sept, they are considered as breaching the contract. This means money loss. Also, by hook or by crook PS must do the commissioning by july. As complicated as this, yup, now everybody is playing "games". Try to delay each other, try to force ppl to fork out more money, trying to protect their own interest. To cut short, yup, we went down to consult about this temporary steam venting system, as it involves steam emission and noise pollution to a certain extent. OK. I would say the system is quite good. Thus, we got a green light to carry it out. Noise would be reduced using silencers and the temperature of the steam will be lowered using sort of diffuser.

Well, I do enjoy my work so far. The only regret is I think I didnt do much for my company. Shall be more proactive next week. Take intiative to help out. Hehe.

Long Long post. Hope it didnt bored you.

Till then. Adios :)