A Unique Culture at FedEx
FedEx in Singapore has exposed me to an office culture unlike any of my past internship experiences. The office is filled with cubicles which limits the amount of interaction that occurs between employees. I have observed that employees usually do their work independently, and converse with one another only when there are meetings. Recognizing this definitely impacted my experience as it was hard to meet new people at the office. Last summer, I interned for an investor relations company where I was constantly talking with the other employees on both work-related and casual topics. As a result, I had to adapt to this new office culture. Luckily, I sat next to one of the other interns and we talked all the time.
However towards the second half of my internship, I met Jeff, Amy, and Maree who have enlightened my experience. Over the past few weeks, I had the pleasure of getting to know each one of them on a more personal level. Jeff has taken me out for lunch several times, exposing me to some local foods that I wouldn’t have eaten if I never met him. I am currently working on a project with Amy, and we talk all the time about our personal lives. Maree works at the other end of the office so I don’t see her often, but we still have interesting conversations when we do see each other.
As I reflect upon this internship culture, I realize that people are very results oriented. Personal interactions and friendships within the office are not as important. Even though there are some pros and cons to this, I believe having a balance between the two will lead to the best outcomes.
For me, one of the most valuable experiences was being able to tour the FedEx operations department at Changi airport. I got to learn about how FedEx manages the millions of packages shipped each day and understand how the work I was doing was helping customs initiatives at the operations level. An amazing benefit I had was being able to constantly interact with the other interns every day. We had some good memories at the office. Lastly, a significant experience was learning Power BI which is a versatile business analytics tool used to form meaningful visualizations.
The Interns at FedEx!
Hello Sanjeev! I also worked at FedEx in Hong Kong office. I was able to find some similarities and differences between the two locations as I was reading through your post. The one I worked at was the headquarter, which mainly focused on marketing and managing end-to-end services, so I was more involved in internal marketing rather than operations. In terms of work culture though, I agree that people usually work independently and there are some limited interactions, but I was still able to meet different people across various functional teams and have lunch with them on a daily basis. Also most of my team members are located in Singapore, so I frequently had virtual meetings. It is so interesting to share some similar but different experiences of the same company!
Hi Sanjeev! Reading your post confirmed my thoughts about Singapore. I had the same impression about Hong Kong, but reading the posts from interns there changed my mind. While reading your post though, I realized that Singaporeans are well result oriented at work and do less conversations with co-workers which are the exact thoughts I had in my mind. Thank you for sharing them Sanjeev!
Hello Jeevy Jeeves,
I am happy to hear your experience at FedEx was so enriching to your personal development as a professional box mover. I have to say, that dude Jeff sounds pretty cool, I guess it must just run in the blood of all Jeff’s. Keep on pursuing those personal interactions, although they are not emphasized, because meeting people is so fun! Congrats on killing it in such a diverse culture.
Sanjeev,
This internship looks like an amazing experience. FedEx’s logistics network is massive and they heavily rely on information systems to ensure smooth operations. Learning how to use a such a versatile business analytic platform is an extremely marketable skill and will give you a huge advantage when searching for a job. Lastly, I find it interesting that your colleagues do their work independently and do not reach out to get to know others on a personal level. In Australia, everyone is constantly trying to meet new people.
Good evening Jeevy Jeeves,
Props to you for finding the positives in a less than ideal situation. I’m glad that you developed your technical skills this summer as well as learned more about what is important to you in a full-time job. Looking forward to see where you go next!
Working at a place where there were cubicles must have made it much harder to learn and interact with other people at your office. Its great that you managed to meet a few people and get to know them, since that can make any workplace environment much more enjoyable. Exploring the operations at the airport sounds like such a great experience! its definitely something that can teach you much more than if you were just sitting in the office. For my last week, they had me go out on a visit with a fire technician as well so it gives you a completely different perspective on the business.
Hey Sanjeev! Working at FedEx sounds like a cool opportunity. I can definitely relate to your experience however, although it might have been hard at first adapting to a work culture like that, it’s great that you were able to make friends with the interns.
Hi Sanjeev! Sound’s like you have learned a lot from this intern no matter on dealing with culture differences or on professional skills. It’s a little bit different because my work required a lot of communication with other teammates or even other department. I feel it’s always good to establish the friendship with one or two coworkers, because they can help us to get close to the real local life. Glad you made it before you leave. Don’t forget to keep in touch with them!