Last Day at Work

Here I am, sitting in the office for the last day of the week and the last day of the internship.

How am I feeling right now? Sad...

Time flies and the next thing i know, it's the last day of my internship and soon I'll return to Malaysia after three months of being away... :)

This morning I submitted the report to my manager after my supervisor approved it and around 10 AM i joined the conference call meeting with the staffs in Jakarta and Jayapura. They do it weekly to update all the issues that pop out through out the week.

For lunch, my manager held a farewell lunch for me at the Chinese Restaurant nearby. It was fun and out of 16 people in the office, only two can't make it because one is on leave and the other have another meeting with the local GOI Members.The new Gen.Supt who just moved from Jakarta to Kuala Kencana asked me what I have learned through out this two months and at the end, he shared me the foundation of what is actually GovRel is doing.

It is actually true. It is our duty to inform the GOI Members what we are, what are we doing, how do we do it and so on. To let them know the truth about the company so at least they know it straight away from us. What actually happened outside, people loves to accuse the company for all sort of stuff. The reason it took place is simply because they have no idea what are we doing apart from what people tell them. The worst part is when they have no idea what so ever about the company. This is where GovRel needs to do its job to be transparent with the GOI on what the mining company is doing. We do hope that at the end of the day, they will have a good impression on us. Apart from that, if they choose not to have their own opinion regarding the company, it's alright. If they choose to say bad stuff about the company, as long as they know what we are doing and not what people thought we are doing.

The challenge comes along. To realize that the demographic of the populations here is not as advanced as other places in Indonesia, that's then as a PR Practitioner, GovRel's staff need to find a way to engage the information correctly in an acceptable form to GOI. They basically need to learn the characteristics of the GOI Members before making any move. The results of this will be intangible. If they have the attitude that showing that they dislike the company, in the future it may cause a problem and could be fatal.This is why we as the PR Pracs for the GOI Members need to be aware and keep on finding a new way to engaged with the GOI Members and improving the current relationship.

This is where I understand totally what my Manager said. As PR Prac here, what one really really need is the ability think critically on how to make things work yet understanding how the society. We may follow the format on our reports and all, but when we meeting up with the key public, we really really need to invent our own formula to makes it work. To understand the educational background and their cultural background is the vital keys to achiever our goals.

So yea, it's not how well we know how to make them happy, but also on how well we adapting with to the location we are working with and to understand what and how our key public is.

With that, I am signing off. :)

Have a great day, all!! God blesss!

Gabriela Teguh
LUCT