Lessons From A Dead Intern...

Moritz Erhardt was just 21 when he collapsed in his dormitory last month after pulling three all-nighters in a row at the bank he was interning at.

A 'superstar' well-regarded by his Bank of America Merrill Lynch colleagues and fellow interns in London, the German's bright future was so ironically snuffed out because he was doing what any earnest job-seeker would do - putting in the punishing long hours and the required slog to get himself into the fraternity.

For him, that was a mind-boggling 72 hours straight, apparently. If that was true, it sounds totally crazy - flogging your brain to work non-stop like that, without thinking about the damage it wrecks on your body; much like revving an engine and not believing the motor will overheat.

Call it ambition, passion or plain foolhardiness, no one should die working.

Former interns say working long hours is a rite of passage; you haven't earned your stripes if you haven't pulled an all-nighter. Others say it's a competition to impress, and interns sometimes pretend to be hard at work and hang around the office so they can be seen.

Either way, it can be said that if you want the job badly enough, you'll do whatever it takes. Because quite frankly, as an intern with no life experience and even less work experience, what can you bring to the table except your youthful vitality and a willingness to take on anything thrown at you?

Desperate for the experience, some young people practically beg to intern for free. I was lucky that I got $600 when, fresh out of film school, I had an opportunity to be an intern on a movie set for a month.

In that one month, I slept an average of four hours a night. I blew all my hard-earned money on cabs to rush me to work in the morning if I had overslept, and to ferry a weary me home at the end of a typical 17-hour-day.

I did the grunt work every day, seven days a week - carrying heavy equipment up and down long flights of stairs, buying meals for the cast and crew, directing traffic and getting abused by disgruntled drivers.

I ate at odd hours of the day, sometimes not eating at all. I dropped 5 kg over those four weeks.

But when you are 23, you don't think about what you're doing to your health: you think you're indestructible.

You can pull an all-nighter and still go clubbing the next day. All-nighters are what you used to pull in school not that long ago whenever examiniation season rolled around. Then, all you needed were Mars bars and Coke to keep you going.

I probably battered my body pretty badly in that one month - although I haven't noticed any signs of long-term damage - but I was at least thankful that I wasn't stuck in an office doing completely irrelevant or boring things, like photocopying reams of documents, licking envelopes or making coffee.

Plus, I was actually getting paid.

But invincibility wears thin with age.

While I cannot fathom going for 72 hours at a stretch, I remember vividly the day I hit my record nearly 10 years ago.

That day, I clocked 24 hours in the newsroom as I race to put out a 20-page special supplement.

By 8 the next morning, I was convinced my speech was starting to slur, I felt like I was 'floating' around the room, and I wondered if I was of sound mind to drive myself home to take a much-needed shower.

I crashed onto my bed post-shower relieved that what seemed like an endless work day was finally over and the product had gone to print - and woke up fours later to go back to the office.

These days, I can barely keep my eyes open past 3 am no matter how many cups of coffee I've downed. I take days to recover from writing late into the night. And as I type this at 2.43 am, I'm acutely aware that there will be hell to pay in the morning and I'm not going to like what I see when I look into the mirror.

Erhardt paid the ultimate price for thinking he was unbreakable. But no job is worth abusing yourself for.

- By [Tan Dawn Wei], from [SundayLife!], 8 Sep 2013

A Day Out Of The House...

On a whim, I've decided to make an attempt to revive this blog... Perhaps writing a diary could indeed be therapeutic... Well, I think I've read somewhere tt writing down your thoughts could help you sort & organize them or something along tt lines... LOL... Yep, after I made tt statement, I went to [Google] whether there're any benefits to writing a journal / diary...

& indeed there were, so I've successfully assured myself tt I didn't remember the wrong stuff...

& @ this rate of checking every claim tt I made, I'm so gonna get distracted from blogging... HAHA...

I shall try my best to focus in this day & age where technology has effectively shortened the attention span of everyone to mere seconds... Or to a mere 140 characters...

Anyway, over the weekend, [Saturday] to be really precise, I kinda forced myself to step out of the house & to socialise...

Oh, but before tt, I had a job interview to attend to @ [Joo Koon]... Yeah, the company's operating on a 5.5 day wk & despite how unappealing working on alternate [Sats] can be, I've resolved to just suck it up & look on the bright side of things: The opportunity to learn & obtain REAL HR related work experience...

Yeah... After going for countless job interviews & not being successful in all of them, I'm seriously being tested on my ability to be optimistic... Tt things will get better eventually & I'll get a good job soon...

I just need a recruiter to be willing to take tt chance to give my blank sheet of paper a try... In the meantime, I need to someone to help me to market myself... So much for being a [Biz] major huh... *Dry laugh*

Anyways, after the interview ended, I decided to walk the distance of 2 bus stops - according to [Google Maps], it's around 950m - instead of taking the bus as walking would allow me to (1) save some cents, (2) exercise and (3) kill some time before my next appointment, which is scheduled to begin @ [1400 hrs]...

I arrived @ [Orchard] stn kinda early (duh), so I decided to just walk around [ION] aimlessly before getting kinda bored with it & simply decided to just stone around the stn...

Quite a no. of ppl tt're attending the lunch meeting were late & the fact tt I was starting to get a little hungry made the wait kinda a little unbearable... A hungry man's an angry man what... Haha...

I did attempt to get to know the guys who arrived early & did some small talk here & there... But tt's abt it... I'm still unwilling to go all out like exchange nos. or make empty promises to 'keep in touch'...

Not tt it really matters... I think the whole pt is to just get to know more ppl & be acquainted with those ppl, never mind tt contacts were not exchanged...  If I were to bump into any of them again in the future, then good for me... Otherwise, I shall just move on...

Okay, more abt this later... Lemme get back to recounting my lunch exp...

I kinda made a mistake during lunch... I decided to go for the ice-cream buffet instead of ordering a normal main course... I mean, it's kinda of a waste to be not have the ice-cream buffet when you're @ [ION]'s [Swensen's] - the only [Swensen's] where you can have an ice-cream buffet... It's a mistake because by ordering a buffet when everyone's not doing so, I just forced myself to leave the table every now & then to get more food & this translates to me missing out on certain parts of the conversation every now & then...

This reminds me of the talk tt I went to regarding biz etiquette during the job fair a couple of wks ago... Tt even though it's a lunch event, the 'lunch' part is really sort of an excuse...

Lesson learned...

When the lunch ended, most of the guys decided to head over for the [Indignation] event, but I couldn't tag along cause I've already decided to attend [OC]'s [We Are Family]... I initially wanted to walk to [Chinatown], from [Orchard], but I decided against it as I definitely wouldn't be able to make it within 1 hr... Instead, I followed the guys to [Clarke Quay] before walking... What can I say, I really like to walk... LOL...

The [OC] event was partially insightful, as I got to know a little more abt the gay scene in [Malaysia], as well as what it's like being gay in a country tt's more conservative... Event aside, I was kinda surprised to see a familiar face - [WX] - attending the event & during the break, we sort of did a little catching up...

It's amazing tt it has indeed been more than a yr when I 1st got to know him... I still remember tt we hung out @ the [Marina Bay] area then & I got to see some fireworks due to the [NDP] rehearsals... =)

This time, after the [OC] event, we hung out again & we 1st made our way to [Bugis+] cause [WX] wanted to nom on [Poulet]... I was still kinda full from my ice-cream buffet, so I simply settled on some caramalised apple tart tt comes with a scoop of vanilla ice-cream... For [$7.80], I think it's not really worth the money... The bread pudding, for a dollar less, was really nice & more filling la...

After the dinner, [WX] accompanied me to the [Singapore Night Festival] & boy was I glad tt I actually asked him to join me... Otherwise, I probably wouldn't be able to navigate around the festival cause some of the roads were really dark, esp @ the [National Museum of Singapore], where there were no street lighting @ all...

My main purpose was to check out the magic show by [JC Sum] & [Magic Babe Ning], but since we were kinda early, [WX] was really awesome to bring me to check out the other stuff tt's happening @ the night festival, particularly the various light shows..

When it was time for the magic show, we managed to secure a good spot to watch it... Or rather, there wasn't any tall ppl in front of where I stood, so I was able to get a good view of the stage... Then again, it's an aerial escape act tt the 2 magicians were performing, so even if I couldn't see the stage, tt's not very impt anyway...

The straitjacket escape act was cool to watch... But it wasn't very exciting cause the burning rope tt the magicians were dangling from were really thick & I reckon tt it'll take longer than the 3 plus mins tt the magicians took to escape from their straitjackets before it burns to the pt of snapping...

& I'm sure [WX]'s explanation of the tricks involved sort of took some of the excitement away too... Then again, I do already know tt there's some form of trick involved in these kinda magic / escape acts...

[WX] suggested tt we checked out the [Absolute Canvas] exhibition after the magic show & I agreed since such exhibitions don't happen tt often & since I'm already @ the museum's entrance, might as well, right???

The exhibition was on [Absolute Vodka] & it showcased the various bottle designs around the world... There were even some limited edition bottles on display... They were touted as the 'holy grail' of [Absolute Vodkas] & they supposedly have a price tag of > $150k...

As i walked around the exhibition, I cursed myself for not bringing along a camera... My phone bat's dying & using the tablet to take pics is just stupid... Actually, I don't really like to use my smart devices as a camera cause I find tt the quality isn't as great...

The lack of any anti-shake function always result in the pics being blurry... Zzz... =S

Overall, it was nice attempting to be artsy & check out the really interesting stuff @ the night festival... I've already made up my mind to do this again next yr... Wheee~!!! ^_^