First Thing’s First

Greetings and salutations! 

This will be my first time blogging about my experiences while doing my internship in Martha Tilaar. To be honest with you, this is the first blog I've ever done. I hope I don’t stumble too much as I share my experiences with all of you. 

I have learnt a lot about this profession referred to as ‘Public Relations’ during my internship period. Met a lot of people and shook a lot of hands. All the outings and events were so full of action, that for once I've actually experienced what it feels like to be in the thick of it all.

But of course, first thing’s first.

Doing my PR internship in a cosmetic company was, at the very least, unexpected. To be perfectly honest, I chose this company for my internship because I was running out of time to pick for a company. But I considered myself lucky, because Martha Tilaar (the company I picked for my internship) is one of the biggest cosmetics, skincare, and wellness company in Indonesia. Using natural ingredients harvested from Indonesia’s rich soil, Martha Tilaar has provided Indonesian women everywhere with beauty products that they can enjoy and be proud of, especially as Indonesians. - http://en.marthatilaar.com/

This blog entry is actually about the first day I started doing my internship in Martha Tilaar. Right off the bat, I was very excited about the things I’m about to see during this internship period.

When I arrived at the office for the first time, I was placed under the supervision of Miss Dian Nuryana. She is a very warm lady that was kind enough to take me under her wing for guidance. In Martha Tilaar, Dian is the department head for Copyright and she explained to me the company ‘in a nutshell’. The department that I was in was in-fact called Corporate Communication (or C-Comm, for short) which handles Martha Tilaar’s media ties and media relations. C-Comm is basically the face of the company in the eyes of the media. Dian then briefed me on some of the things that I’ll be doing during my internship period in Martha Tilaar, before handing me over to Miss Erlisativani, the Corporate Communication Manager.

Miss Erlisativani (or Miss Erli, for short) was a very cheerful person. We talked about the goal that I was trying to achieve in Martha Tilaar, my weaknesses, my strong suits, my interests. We also talked about the company and the founder of the company itself, Martha Tilaar. To my surprise, Martha Tilaar started building her empire with the women of Indonesia in mind. One of her goals is to be able to provide Indonesian women with jobs, so that they can fend for their own without the need to rely on men for livelihood. She also reminded me that from now on, everything that I produce under the company’s roof will be a representation of the company. This was probably the first time ever since I got to the office that I was mildly terrified by the very notion of being a representative of a whole company.

After a few minutes of clearing up all the questions I had, I was given a cubicle and a desk to work in.

The workload I received during my first day was not too shabby. Dian asked me to translate around seven articles from the Martha Tilaar website from Bahasa Indonesian to English. I ran through all of that with no particular trouble just in-time to clock-out at the end of the day. One down.

Looking back, I learnt about the company structure from Miss Erli, Dian also explained to me about company ethics, and the very basic of company responsibility was realized as I continue to my second day of internship. Not exactly a mind-blowing first day, but I am sure I’ll experience more and more exciting things as I continue publishing blog entries.

Second post coming up pretty soon and awesomeness is definitely guaranteed. Take care!

Pramudia Freddy Gurning

LUCT Campus