There- 8:30 PM

A day in the life of me, the international intern.

Every morning I wake around 6:45 and get ready for work so that I can catch my bus at 7:25. While I am staying in a hotel the bus picks me and a few other coworkers up right in front which is real nice.

Here is a picture of the inside of my bus.

The bus is full in the morning and it takes about 15 minutes to drive to work. Once we arrive at TaeguTec I am dropped off in front of the marketing building. It is there that I spend the rest of my day.

Marketing building

This summer I will be working for 3 teams within the marketing division, pricing, logistics, and overseas sales. I will work for each department for 1 month and will be able to see the ins and outs of each team while getting to know the majority of the marketing employees. At the moment I work in the pricing department and it’s a little boring. Maybe as I learn more and they trust me with more work it will get better but at the moment I am bored. Everyone here is great though and it is extremely interesting to see how a business is run in Korea.

My desk/corner

View of our floor from my desk

At 12:00 on the dime everyone stops what they are doing and moves to the dining hall for lunch. It is like a herd of cattle going out to the pasture. It is honestly like someone rings a dinner bell and everyone comes running. People are allowed to eat off campus but I think everyone just eats here because it is so convenient as well as pretty tasty (as far as Korean food goes). The company takes a break for 1 hour and during this time the internet is shut off to all the computers to promote the employees to get up and move around. There are 3 dining halls around the campus.

Dining Hall where breakfast, lunch and dinner are served.

After lunch it is back to work until 5. It’s hard for me to compare TaeguTec to the rest of Korea because I have only worked here but everyone works very diligently. There doesn’t seem to be a lot of time wasting or lollygagging and it seems like everyone is working all of the time. TaeguTec is an extremely successful company so I wouldn’t expect anything less.

At 5 o’clock dinner is served and good size portion of the company goes and eats together. A lot of people also choose to stay a little later to work as well as simply go home to eat. From what I have heard though this is rare in Korea, most large businesses come to work early and stay late while some work Saturdays and even Sundays. TaeguTec has its employees here 5 days a week for 8 hours or work. It is a global company that is always going however so there are people who work the weekends and late hours. After dinner I catch the bus in front of my building and it drops me off again in front of my hotel. The days are somewhat long but it could always be worse. It’s a new experience for me over here and so far it has been very worthwhile.