Pay Attentions To Details

Name: Sophilea Soloman
Campus: Miri Sarawak
Placement: Imperial Hotel Miri


Greetings everyone,


It has been months that I have started my internship and I still have not yet done anything to my blog. Here is my first post and I have tonnes of things to tell. Well, basically I have been doing my internship since December 2011. I know right?..It has been too long and I hope it is not too late for me to do the blogging. Anyway, I am doing my internship in Imperial Hotel, a local 4-star hotel located in the center of Miri city. 


It was rather difficult getting an internship these days, it is either the companies are not providing internships program or the company have no PR department in their management team. In Miri, PR practice does not opens many job opportunities unlike other places. I believe that's all comes back to the size of Miri itself, it's still considered rather small although it is established itself as a "city". Not many companies have a specific PR department except for the bigger companies which already established themselves internationally for example, oil and gas company like Shell and Petronas. I figure, all the small and local companies rely so much on advertising and have not yet thought of expanding, in fact their company image is more likely to be handled solely by the marketing team. 


I have chosen hospitality industry for I thought of events they are handling, and people they come to connect with, either way, I fell in love with the idea of communicating with people. Overall, PR practice is more about people-processing, at least that's what I thought. Before I proceed, let me brief a little bit about Imperial Hotel. Imperial Hotel is owned by the Boulevard Group and it is just another company under the umbrella of Shin Yang Sdn. Bhd. Here, I was attached to the Sales & PR Department.


So, on my first month experience during my internship in Imperial Hotel, I was lucky enough to be involved with their "Jom Makan" event. It was a charity event, where all the funds generated by selling foods will be donated to Miri Methodist Children Home (MMCH) and also Sarawak Children Cancer Society (SCCS). It was held inside the Imperial Mall, which happened to be in the same building with the hotel. I was asked to take care of the booth where they sell 3-in-1 calendar card for the "Little Smile" program. It was quite challenging as we sell each calendar card for RM10. Most of the time people just walk pass our booth as if we're not even there. In my point of view, it's either the calendar card is too expensive or people just don't even know about MMCH and SCCS. The problem is, at the beginning I have already spotted the slack of the event, where they did not announce to all the visitors about the event's objective. Most of them might misunderstand the whole concept of the event. Anyway, I couldn't do anything about it.


The very same day, while me and my boss was sitting at our booth looking at the other booths busy selling foods and cakes, I noticed that they were using plastic bag to pack the foods for the customers to bring back home. Then I just asked my boss whether they should really do that since Boulevard group has officially announced that everyday is "No-Plastic Bag" day. This might lead to a very controversial issue of hypocrisy by the end of the day since all the local media was there to witness the event. My boss took actions for the matter and  thanked me for paying attention to tiny details. The event ended with such success but we only managed to sell 11 calendar cards. It was a disappointment but our boss was calm and relatively positive person, he understands that Miri communities are less aware of these charity bodies that has been existing within the society itself. All the things I have learned in Curtin does not go in vain. I managed to identify problems before it happens and this makes me so happy for myself. 


Ever since my first day of internship, I remember the first thing that my boss taught me, "Pay attentions to small details". I guess it helps him the same way it helps me.


Till my next post, cheers to everyone.
xxSophiexx