Farah Firstarianto Rahmania Putri

5 AM

The sun is barely visible when I woke up at five. Like any other Muslim girl, I started my day by praying. The water at this time is usually cold, even in Surabaya—which, if you didn't know, has an average temperature of 28°C. I usually do a little bit of stretching, checking my phone for any urgent messages (or just scrolling Twitter, let's be real), and then hop into the bath.

6:30 AM

Every morning I double-checked my "uniform" for the day. Well, it's more of a dress code reallyーbecause interns would only be there for six months, we didn't have to wear the real uniform (just a business attire with a particular color scheme will suffice). After I get dressed, it's time for breakfast! I ate breakfast while chatting with my family. Sometimes I also packed my lunch box but today I promised my fellow interns to have lunch together. Before I know it, it's already time to go.

7:15 AM

I'm here! A bit early, so I take my time to enter the building. Since we're still in the middle of a pandemic, all employees have to follow a strict health protocol. Double masking, regular temperature checking, and hand-washing/applying hand sanitizer after touching any surface is a must. I do my part and wipe down my desk before turning on my computer. The working hours for all interns are from 07.30 am to 04.30 pm, and from the corner of my eyes, I see my colleagues are coming one by one. It's time to work now.

8 AM

Here in BTN SBD, I'm one of the interns placed in the BCSU (Branch Commercial & SME Unit) team. Our objective is to help the front-office bankers; the teller and the customer service team, by focusing on institutional clients. In other words, we dealt with corporations, companies, etc. and not individual clients. My first task of the day is making offer letters for some educational foundations. I got my computer ready and opened up Ms Excel., noting the last entry from my colleagues, and began typing up the new tables for the fresh batch of letters. Then, I use Excel's function "Mailing List" to connect the data with Ms Words. There was already a Words' template letter for everything, so I just have to adjust the address (hence the need for making new tables in Excel first) then I can print them.

9 AM

Is that all? Nope! After I print those letters, I have to go around the building to collect signatures and stamps from the higher-ups to verify them. First of all, I went to the BCSU Head's cubicle. As I handed out the letters, he checked for any mistakes in formatting and asked me the details of each letter. After he's satisfied with my answers, he signed and stamped them. I said thanks and went to the next person, the Deputy Branch Manager. The DBM is usually busy talking with important guests. Thus, sometimes I have to wait my turn before entering his room. He checked again that I already had BCSU Head's approval before signing and stamping the letters. I said thanks and quickly left the room, mindful that there were other people waiting outside. The last stamp I have to collect is from the Branch Secretary. Finally, after everything was complete, I folded them into a neat envelope and gave them to my colleagues in BCSU.

10 AM

As an intern, I don't have to meet the stakeholders by myself. Those letters I made will pave the way for the seniors to have a formal visitation to the addressed institutions. Therefore, my task is mainly to help them prepare the needed documents. I'm responsible for things such as brochures, proposals, forms, etc. It was quite challenging at the beginning, where my educational background only covered a bit of the task I'm about to do. Luckily, my major had a Business Correspondence class when I was in my 6th semester! I applied my knowledge and learned by experiencing first-hand the challenges in front of me, and now they just became my day-to-day routine.

11:45 AM

Adzan Dhuhur signifies that it's time for lunch and prayer break. As if on cue, my fellow interns came into my cubicle and asked me what I wanted for lunch. They have a discount voucher for the new food app in town, so I chose my food and transferred the money to their app. While we waited for the delivery, we chatted and took turns in doing prayers. BTN SBD has a small mosque with a 10 person capacity. However, since the pandemic started, the higher-ups have to limit the capacity in half to practice social distancing. The room is also frequently desensitized to prevent any germs there. By the time the food came, my friends and I had done our prayers. We ate together (safe distance apart of course), changed our double masks (since it's been a couple of hours already), and threw away our trash before going back to our respective cubicles.

1 PM

My next task is to note down the results of my seniors' visitation. Some companies might reject our offer, some might do a counter-offer, and others might simply just need more time to think. I marked them all on my Excel. At the end of each month, there will be an evaluation to determine a feasible target for the next period. My seniors taught me how to make a pipeline to accomplish those targets, recognize the bottleneck of each failed offer, and generally do better in each passing quarter.

2:30 PM

BCSU had a scheduled Zoom meeting today. Since I didn't have to join that kind of meeting, my senior asked me to help the other unit instead. I said yes of course I'll be glad to help everyone (that's what interns are for!) but I'll go to pray first since it's time for Ashar. After praying, I went to the other unit to ask about the tasks' details.

3 PM

It turns out that it was the front-office bankers that needed help, so they called me and one other intern there. The task is quite simple actually. There is an instruction letter from the national BTN in Jakarta to notify "some" clients that their ATM card is about to expire. Why did I put a quotation mark on "some"? Well, because in BTN SBD the number of clients that need to be notified is hundreds. Hehe. So they need to delegate the task, alright. We use GS (internal app from BTN) to track the clients, then organize them in a list to see which account is still alive, and finally using SMS-blast to notify the people as soon as possible.

4:30 PM

Before we know it, it's getting late and our time is up for today. Wrapping up, I said goodbye to everyone and promised to help them again tomorrow. The cleaning service boys also began their route around this time. They cleaned up the rest of the room and sprayed disinfectant everywhere. My friends and I parted ways, as they know that I usually ordered a ride-hailing service to go home. What a day!

5:15 PM

The first thing I do after I get home is to differentiate my work clothes into a separate laundry bag. Then I took a bath. Those were necessary to limit the spread of the virus. After that, it's time to do Maghrib prayers.

6:45 PM

It might be a bit early for dinner, but it's nice to have dinner together while chit-chatting with my family. I told them about my day and vice versa. It was my favorite way to unwind! Stomach full and satisfied, I started to prepare my clothes for tomorrow.

7:30 PM

Around this time is when I checked my phone for any non-urgent messages. After that, I scrolled my social media timeline for a bit. It's getting late so I do my Isya' prayers before I fall asleep. I might be young but I don't think I can pull an all-nighter like in my high school days anymore.

9 PM

Yup. It's time to sleep now. Good night!

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