我在IBM实习的日子.doc

我在 IBM 实习的一点经历，与你分享（一）

果你是来英国读本科的话，也许我的这一点点经历会对你有用吧。我完成了我的二年级学业于2002年7月开始我的一年‘行业训练(Industrial Training)’。2003年10月我又回到了学校继续我的最后一年学业。

我的一点点日记，也许会帮助你决定是否向参加‘行业训练’计划。

这里贴的是我第一天到 IBM 的‘感应周(Induction Week)’时所写的日记，一点点对 IBM 的活动和做事方式的感想。这已经是2002年的7月所写的了。

我希望我的日记，虽然已是两年前的，对你有一点点帮助吧。看完，有谁也曾考虑过在英国参加‘Industrial Training’呢？

Day 0 – Sunday

In the evening, we had the first meeting. We sat in a U shape. At the beginning we just sat randomly, but later on when the first informal meeting started, we were required to sit in the descending order of our birthdays. Oh, my first headache came. I have to ask many British students for their birthdays. Fortunately I found that I am in between 15th and 28th April. Then we need to tell our names, locations and why we want to here. Those British are very funny, but I couldn’t understand them, just laugh with other students. One of them said he wants to be James Bond, that’s why he want to come here. But I felt strange, what’s the relationship of that. I was so nervous, I just said I am from Warwick, will work for IBM Warwick, and want to be myself. I even forget to tell my birthday.

Afterwards we went to the pub opposite to the campus, where the induction week being held. I got to know Shanna’s new flatmate Hayfa, and Ahami, who has already been working for IBM Warwick for two weeks. He said he is in Developer and business relation department. His department has three breaks for coffee everyday, and he has developed the tolerance for coffee, if he said don’t want to have coffee, his collegues will say surprisedly “You don’t want a coffee!!” The office is so flexible, he said, as long as you get your job done. On Friday, everyone in his office will be out on meetings with clients, only him is in the office, for answering the important calls and process some other tasks. Sounds great, but also stressful. I drank half pine of Guniness, but I felt scratchy so quick. I will order coke only tomorrow. Another surprising thing he told me was, even though he is an undergraduate, he is married. And the reason why he take a year out in IBM is he doesn’t want to be in the final year at the same as his wife. So that now his wife, who is doing biology, is in her final year, and he will do it next year. This guy impressed me pretty much. He is a bit big, and he has a lot of bear and mustache. But he doesn’t drink, doesn’t smoke, and he showed so much consideration to his wife. I believe he is a great husband.

Day 1 – Monday

In the morning, we had two lectures. The first one was about the history of IBM and the welcome words from the Chairman and ex-CEO Lou Gerstner. We were told that IBM has three main categories of products, namely hardware, software and service. And some important points from the chairman are:

•Business conduct in IBM

•IBM is all about

1.Invention of Technology

2.Translating technology into actual products to meet customers’ needs

226;IBM employees need to make three commitments:

1.Commitment to win (need to know more information, and work hard)

2.Commitment to execute (do it quick but not recklessly; if possible, do it today not tomorrow)

3.Commitment to work in a team

•There are four kinds of people in the world:

1.People who make things happen

2.People who watch things happen

3.People who hope things happen

4.People who don’t know things happen

IBM employees are required to be the first category, making things happen.

After this, we had a short group discussion. We were allocated some questions, and then we need to reach an agreement and tell our opinions. My group got two questions:

1.If you are on a business trip, and you want to claim your expenditure of it. No receipt is required. You brought your own bag with you, and you didn’t tip any one on your trip. But you think you can also put this little money down onto the reclaim form, isn’t it? (Stupid question, for answering, it is of course not.)

2.You are going to have lunch with a former colleague of the company. While waiting him to show up, you took out an sensitive document with you and read it in the restaurant. Your friend arrived, and glance over your shoulder. He asks you what you are working on, what can you tell him? (Nothing lo)

Questions for other groups are similar, such as receiving expensive gifts (ask Manager what to do next), questioned by journalists, etc. (you can say I am not in the position to comment, please go to the HR department.)

In the afternoon, we had a business simulation. We had three rounds. In the first two rounds, the company (Big board buy), a share consultancy, are divided into 4 departments, namely, Customer representative, Industry Analysis, Business Analysis and Writing. I was appointed to be the manager of department of CR. I was quite scared to be a “leader”, because I can’t speak very well, but I have to do it. I tried to allocate the job to my “colleagues”. But I did it very poorly. I couldn’t think in detail enough. At the end of the day, I was actually doing nothing but delivery for documents. We made a huge loss, -37000 pounds. In the final round, we were arranged into four teams. Each team has people from each the department, for example, in our team three people, including me, from CR, and two people from IA, another two from BA and one from Writing. We set the annual target for our team, which is 8000 pounds. At the end of the day, we made 27000 profit.

We did this simulation, because the first way rounds are how things used to be done before in IBM. But now IBM has employed the way of team-work to do business. Team work based job are better because of the following:

Speed

Communication (the managers of first two rounds are just communication channels, in one team we don’t need it, but have better communication)

Competition (1. We set target for each year. 2. Compete other teams)

Better knowledge of customer requests

Cross skill (in a team, your roll might change dynamically, you need to learn other members’ skill when in short or your are redundant)

At night we went to the pub, and Hayfa and I play pool with some British people, I was quite scared at the beginning, and I felt I couldn’t join them because of the atmosphere. But it seems better later on. I mainly chatted up with some Indian and Sound American guys. On our way back with Hayfa and Moami, M said he wanted to join IBM since he was little, but Hayfa said IBM has breath but not power, this is not her dream, just want to have a boost in her CV. I felt that it is really difficult to chat up with some those British students. Not because they are unfriendly, it is because we don’t know enough about their culture, their daily language and we have different common sense. One guy was very friendly, although he doesn’t look like that. After I played pooling against him, he came up to me and shake hands with me, tell me he is Holy, and asked for my name. I felt quite surprised at that. And it was the first time I have been treated in such a way.

Day 2 – Tuesday

Today we went to one of the IBM leaning and teaching centre in central England. In the morning, Stef, a British student who is studying business studies in Manchester, drove us up to the location. He gave me the description of how to get there. Therefore, I became the navigator. I felt like in the wild field car racing. He is quite friendly guy again. But his car was really hot. Yesterday he said he hadn’t driven for two years, and he have just driven again for two weeks, and told us to be prepared to die. Sounds scary, but I know he just kidding. And from today his performance, he let go the clutch too quick every time, and sometime I felt he couldn’t manage very well on the high way. Once when he tried to cut the line to overtake the car ahead, he didn’t notice a fast oncoming vehicle behind. When he noticed, he came back to the current line at once, but it was so dangerous.

In IBM centre, we were allocated one computer for a pair of us. It was an self-study section for Lotus-Notes. I tried out the “blue page” of IBM, which for searching IBMers’ contact information worldwide. I found myself have been added to the IBM network. And I also found that there are more than 10 people have “Xu” as their surname working for IBM, in the US, Canada, the UK and China, etc. Some of them are specialists.

In the afternoon’s Q&A section, someone asked about the training. Ben said we had better give our managers some evidence that we are well-prepared for it. For example, we had better not mention it at the very beginning, and do some free online training by ourselves. Then find some cases, write up a few pages, saying what our aim is, and why it is related to our job and roll in the team, show it to your managers. The it will has much higher chance to get the opportunities to attend the IBM training That was a really good suggestion, because actually it is quite a general approach to bring up some requests to your manager. Be well-prepared, give evidence to your mangers that it is beneficial and worth.

Another really funny thing was that, a IBM web administrator before the training started told us that, every visit to external site will be monitored by the server. So we should not go to some site that we are not supposed to go, such as playboy. It was funny that, he said, because P would trace and publish their most frequent visitors on the web. And a few years ago, P’s No. one visitor was IBM, which means a lot of people visit that kind of sites during the office hours. And IBM became P’s “biggest customer”. Everyone kept laughing and couldn’t stop. Thereafter, IBM banned the employees from going to those sites, and if anyone does that, they got warning instantly on their screen, if they still do that, they will be fired. This news must make IBM so embarrassed.

In the evening, I went to the pub for dinner, because I really don't to cook here. After dinner, I promised that Malaysian girl, Hayfa, to listen to her song. Because tonight is the Karaoke night. Her voice is not good for singing I think, but I still encouraged her, and told her that she sang so great. I was too hypocritical. It was so quiet and not many people in the pub when she sang. But just within a few minutes after her song, loads of students flooded into the pub, start singing, some started dancing as well, amazing. A technical guy who did training today were also there. He sang a pop song, and he were dancing while he was singing. He looked crazy, and he sang so bad, but so funny. The girl who sang with him just kept laughing, couldn’t sang a single word. Before we left the pub, I chatted up a British Indian with Mohami. That guy actually is a master student in Manchester University, and sometimes he teaches. And he told us his father is a professor of Business studies in Manchester U as well. No wonder he can teach so early, even he is only a Master’s student, not a PhD. He said IBM guaranteed to sponsor him for his year of Master’s. And he also reminded me that we can fill in an application form to IBM for the sponsorship for my final year. I will try as he said. But I think it is only under the circumstance that I impress the manager and the team very much.

Day 3 – Wednesday

Today was a really bad day for me. I was allocated to team four. We came up with an recruitment exercise in the morning. This afternoon, we gave a presentation in front of all the other students. It was a bad day because I worked with 5 British and an Indian. I couldn’t understand them that much because they were using a lot of slang, and the worst thing was I was pushed so hard to put down something not too good, although funny, onto the plastic (transparency). We had some space travel staff in our presentation. And one planet was called “Irritat”. And the people on this planet were very annoying, they keep talking to you, and I was forced to put down and said “imagine Sheff”. He looked so unhappy, and I believed that Sheff felt offended. I know I shouldn’t have done it. I learnt this time. My roll in the team was too weak. So I really need to improve my status in the team. Otherwise, similar thing would happen to me again. After all the presentation, that Malaysian girl, Hayfa, told me that. That Sheff on the night before got drunk, and he said to another student that “I don’t like your attitude.” That was really shocking to that student. Because he didn’t do anything particular, but he was told like that. This Sheff is really not a good and easy going guy. It seems I made a big mistake today in the presentation to “offense” him. Hopefully I won’t meet him again in my life time.

Another British girl had so brilliant presentation skills. From the very beginning of her presentation, we knew she is the one who HR department was looking for. She gave each word very clearly, not nervous at all. And there were very clear short breaks between each subtopic, making it very easy to understand and follow. And she has very good skill to change topics and passing topics to next presenter. She was really a model of how to give presentations. Of course she got the “best presenter” prize at the end as expected.

I remember another funny thing was, some one’s topic was “Incredibly Boring Machine – IBM”.

IBM 申请的要求说高也不高，说不高也高。

我于2000年到了英国，开始了我的学业。第一年的成绩只占我的学位成绩的10%，而有些学科干脆不把第一年的成绩算进学位，Pass 就可以了。因此很多朋友都对第一年不大放在心上。我不同意这种做法。因为这一年的成绩对申请行业训练很重要。

2001 我的第一年成绩是 77%(overall)，不算很高，还可以。2001 年 10 月第二年开学了，那时就应该开始查看哪件公司有工业训练，这些都是自己的事，没有人会帮你寻找机会和申请。要做的事有：

1．去听公司在学校举行的 presentation，问工作人员有没有industrial training, or placement

2．准备个人资料，如成绩，简历

3．去公司网页登记申请，通常会被要求提交成绩（只有第一年的成绩，所以应该重视），简历。

4．等候通知，如果成功过了这一关，就会被邀请到面试

5．准备面试

5．1 查找公司资料，做 attitude test 练习，复习专业知识

5．2 问有经验的朋友

5．3 买西装，皮鞋，领带，理发。要搞好个人形象。

6．参加面试

7．等结果

多申请，早申请，对你有帮助。我申请了 Data Connection, Oracle, IBM，只有IBM给了我面试的机会。有些公司会因为中国人要工作证而拒绝。行业训练不需要工作证，但他们希望从参加行业训练的学生中挑选毕业生，就是你毕业后回去工作。

我在 Warwick 读 computer science, 在英国的 full-time 学生申请 Placement 的时候都不需要工作证，不过毕了业就需要了。

对英文的要求因人而异，我的工作主要是 User Research (HCI) & Software Development, 所以要求可以说不算很高吧，因为我自己也觉得我的英文不是很好。不过当然，你得在面试上表现得对自己的英文很自信。

在工作中，合同事的交流开始的时候有很大问题，不过那是因为我有两个伯明翰的同事，他们的口音我用了差不多半年才适应。但是，工作了一年后的我，现在对自己的英文的信心是大增了。所以，我个人认为 Industrial Training 在经验，实用英文和商业英文方面都很有帮助，还有英国人的礼仪，工作习惯等等。