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Highlights from my travels – Caroline Gill

In recent months, our apprentices, graduates, and those newly qualified from the schemes have had the opportunity to visit our facilities in other locations to learn more about the business. We've asked them to tell us about what they experienced while they were away. In the second of our 'Highlights from my travels' series, Caroline Gill tells us about her experience in Singapore.

Tell us a bit about yourself and your role at Sparrows

I’m Caroline Gill, 22, and a design draughtsperson based in the Aberdeen design office where I’ve been for five years now.

What first interested you in your job and how did you get in to it?

I was initially interested in the design draughtsperson position because of the technical drawing and modelling aspects involved behind the design process. I heard about the job opening from one of the design apprentices (at the time) who went to the same academy. After hearing what his day to day activities included I knew I was interested in finding out more about the job.

Tell us more about your secondment

I travelled to Singapore for five weeks where I was working in the projects department. I was helping on several projects during my time there including a crane condition evaluation and maintenance/inspection jobs. My tasks included adding various documents to work packs and corresponding with the offshore team to get feedback and log findings.

What was a typical day like?

A typical day included arriving at the office around 8am, having a catch up with my colleagues to give an update on the jobs I was currently working on and finding out if there was anything else I could help with.

As I was new to project engineering I started by reading some of the engineering development topics to get familiar with the processes. I then moved onto helping with creating work-packs, proposal documents and getting quotes for equipment testing and materials.

At lunchtime the whole office would eat together either getting food from the close by stall or nearby shopping centre. The Singapore office is quite small and it was very interesting talking to everyone and hearing stories from their homes in Singapore, Malaysia and India.

The fact that there are less employees also made it easier to communicate with the different departments. This definitely helped me while I was there to observe the interactions and learn what everyone was doing.

I would then commute back to the apartment via taxi at around 6.30pm/7pm. Often it was a quick change of clothes then head straight back into the centre for a wander; luckily the tube station was just a 15 minute walk from the apartment.

What was different about your routine while you were in Singapore?

The main difference in my daily routine would be my meals. I normally have breakfast at home before heading to work and prepare all of my lunches to take with me to the office. I also cook most of my evening meals and only tend to eat out if it’s for socialising. When in Singapore I accompanied my colleagues in getting local cuisine from the hawker stalls or going to the nearby shopping centre where there was a very wide variety of food to choose from – not that I’m very adventurous in that department. Eating out often is mainly due to fresh produce being more expensive in Singapore and it actually being cheaper to eat out in majority of scenarios.

I also don’t tend to walk about for hours in the evening by myself when at home!

Was there anything about Singapore which surprised you?

I think I had expected Singapore in general to be a lot bigger than it is, after spending time exploring I discovered most things were within walking distance or a short tube ride away. In the evenings I’d get off the tube at stops close to where I was staying and then head further into the centre to spend the day being a tourist at the weekend.
Before going to Singapore I was told how clean it was and how safe I’d feel there so although both these things were true, it didn’t surprise me.

What did you find most valuable about your trip?
The most valuable thing was learning more about project engineering as I’ve previously only had experience with the design-projects relationship. Having the chance to work with everyone in the Singapore office was particularly beneficial in getting an overview of everyone’s daily tasks.

What was the most challenging?

I would say the only challenging aspect of the trip was the fact I hadn’t done project engineering before and was therefore trying to pick it up quickly so that I could be useful in the short time I was there. The team I was working with were extremely helpful and took the time to ensure I had a good variety of work to give me experience in several aspects of project engineering.

What was the stand out moment from your trip?

I was fortunate that during my trip there were preparations each Saturday for National Day celebrations taking place. This meant that from around 8pm-9pm there was a light show at the Bayfront, jets flying the Singaporean flag, tens of parachutes descending over the marina bay, and to finish it off a large firework display. One Saturday I went up Marina Bay Sands to get the best view of the whole show. This was definitely a highlight.

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