My life as an intern at Tencent Thailand
A little intro about me
Hello, my name is Pongsakorn Somsittichock and my nickname is อิฐ or It. I am currently a masters student at NUS and a recent graduate from EBA Chula. I am now during the summer holiday, so I went back home for an internship. I now intern at Tencent Thailand at branding and communication department.
How did I find out about Tencent Thailand
I came across Tencent Thailand via my university’s cohort Line group. An EBA alumni was looking for a full time at his company via one of my professors in the role of digital marketer.
I came across the announcement and gave it a try in case they want an intern. At that point, I was in the mid of the semester at NUS and would like to have an internship during the summer in Thailand as well.
I emailed the person and things went on from that and here I am interning alongside with P’Tatch who is that alumni at the branding and communication department.
Overall impression of the workplace and corporate culture
As this internship is my first ever “full-time” job taken in my life. I have a mixed feeling of how it would be; a combination of excitement and nerve. As a student myself for entire life till now, stepping into the next page of life is rather scary to me. I wonder how transition would be.
When I first arrived here at a newly constructed building called T-one building at the heart of CBD area in Bangkok; Thonglor. The modern building and facilities overwhelmed me. Genius lift system, loos with bidets and Starbucks underneath the building are few things that I love about this particular property.
In addition, facilities provided by Tencent Thailand rather raised my expectation of workplace standard to the new high. As I have no precedence about how workplaces should be and what they should offer before, this is rather a creation of bad habit in me and it will surely be hard to find other workplaces that are comparable.
I am talking about daily free lunch service via Kinkao application which there is a vast majority of menu we can select. We also have free common lunch every Wednesday and Friday. To add on, at my department, I literally got fed everyday by snacks from people around my desk. Bombardment with food is beyond explainable.
A town hall area designated for table tennis matches, chatterbox session and playing pool is a great place that I always enjoy.
More importantly, people who work here provide me such a positive energy. Friendly people yet, they are very passionate about what they do and always put in their full potential.
A diversity at work is impressive. You have from new talents to experts. You have people from all over the world; Thai, Indonesian, Burmese, Chinese, American, you name it. Great numbers of female professional and LGBTQ+ community impressed me how socially inclusive this place is as well.
My typical day at Tencent Thailand
I usually arrive at the office at 9 am after morning gym session but this is rather flexible. I sometimes have breakfast with my fellow interns. Consequently, I grab compliment fresh-brewed coffee and get cracking with the day.
During lunchtime, I have many options to choose from. I can either order meal via Kinkao app or Food delivery services or I can roam around my neighborhood thanks to close proximity to Thonglor skytrain station. You can have from decent cheap meals to fancy lunch based on your budget constraint as the choice is vastly full-fledged in this area of town.
Once back to work, at 2.30 pm, there is a complimentary afternoon tea ranging from fruits, potatoes or popcorn. If you are still craving? You can go for small nibbles in the late afternoon such as instant noodle cups or pieces of toast.
When it is six o’clock, you can head home! There are also special events from time to time such as TGIF events which take place in Friday afternoon with invited guest speakers to talk about various things on life and mini concerts tailored made for Tencent Thailand staffs.
My roles and responsibilities
My roles are to assist the digital marketing strategies specifically for “JOOX” application under supervision of P’Tatch.
My work is dynamic, it combines all sorts of skill.
My projects include competition analysis, survey designing, summary of experiment and feasibility analysis.
My learning is that I can finally optimize my skills into “real” things.
Frankly speaking, I sometimes get overwhelmed by theories from textbooks after textbooks and have taken them for granted until realization of practicality.
Spotlights and moments
I have learned many things after working here for nearly 2 months.
Firstly, It has really helped with my transition into an adulthood to be a smooth one thanks to multi-dimensional factors stated previously. I would say now that I am well-equipped to begin my next stage of life after my graduation.
Secondly, I appreciate other interns whom our paths cross and really made my intern life a blast. It would be more difficult without them. We learn from each other and get to know people from different backgrounds and it is genuinely an eye-opening thing for me. I will definitely miss all of them after my departure.
Lastly, I am thankful for the opportunity that Tencent Thailand has given me. Out of the pooling of candidates and I was picked. Value-creation in me has been monumental and so does Tencent Thailand hopefully.
Bottom-lines
I appreciate my time here at Tencent Thailand and if anyone is keen to intern here in the future, hopefully my words will reduce your hesitation to some extent.
