AIA Singapore Visit
The SG-Visit started in our headway before the actual date of travel, planning for a trip, what would wear to the SG office, whom to catch up with in the SG office, what places to visit after office hours, which restaurants to explore, and so on…
On the day of travel, we met up on time with Monday blues in our eyes, we started around 8 am from the AIA Wisma Cyberjaya office, and travel was quite comfortable, the driver believed in saying “Drive it like you stole it” (yet safe).
we reached the SG office around 1:30 pm, and we were greeted with smiles, SG people were super friendly, and our faces probably screamed hunger, they took us for lunch right away opposite to office “Tampines Hub”.
Tampines Hub hosts 25+ food hawkers of different cuisine styles (Malay, Chinese, Indian, Thai, Japanese…) so you will not be disappointed with food options, Tampines Hub also has a gigantic free public library of 5 floors, if you are a book worm you know where you can spend your evenings.
Meeting in person with Singapore and Batham Team members gave us a better perspective on office culture and how things work, MS Teams can never replace person-to-person interaction, and we learned a lot more about who does what and whom we can reach out to when dealing with certain aspects of projects, which all team handle different phases of the project life cycle, and so on… Interestingly people whom I presumed to be very serious kind from MS-Team interaction, turned out be most humble and approachable one. Asking a silly question over chat makes it less awkward when u ask in person over coffee.(just make sure it’s work-related ;) .
We met and connected with so many people and most of them for the very first time, yet it didn’t feel like it was our first interaction. People were genuinely willing to know us and helped us when in need ( When I was stuck on late night office call, I was virtually knocking on all team members' hotel doors for laptop chargers, Batham team came to the rescue)
SG office has one of the best office infra and interiors we have ever seen. Best use of hot desking, there is a variety of seating arrangements and options. Office lighting gives a vibe of some cool café, I can go on and on about how beautiful it is, but I will leave the pictures to self-praise.
Singapore is an Owl city, so you will have still plenty to explore after office hours, a hotel room is in a strategic place, Marina bay is just 1.8km from the hotel, Bugis street market is right across the road from the room, for all party the animals out there pub-street just 1-km away from the room, Little India is around 2km away.
It was a wonderful experience, the day felt short, and the week felt shorter, gave us some good inspiration to do better in day-to-day work, and provided us with a better opportunity to expand our horizons beyond our daily tasks to improve things around us.
“The world isn’t in your books and maps, it’s out there“ — J.R.R. Tolkien (Hobbit)
