Week two is done! Last weekend I explored Hongdae, a very lively neighborhood in Seoul where many young people go for cheap shopping, food, and nightlife. Last time I was here, Korea made me into a bag appreciator, so I bought myself two more bags while in Hongdae! Korea is also full of cute accessories, so I went to a DIY phone case shop and decorated my own phone case with fluffy paint and charms and it was really affordable and fun! I also have friends studying abroad in Seoul this semester, so I visited them and saw the campus I lived on last year! The weather has certainly gotten hotter in the two weeks we have been here, and the rain has started as mid-June is the beginning of the Korean rainy season. To add to my food update from last week, I have had pork and rice soup which was super good, as well as a pork belly rice bowl, bingsu (a shaved ice dessert with various toppings like fruit, red bean, etc), delicious Indian food (there is a surprising amount of Indian food here!), and more! Once again, I have further explored the neighborhood in which my company is, Insadong, and it is really impressive. It is full of traditional Korean food, dessert, clothing, art, and more. It really is unlike anything you could ever find in the US, and it makes this experience incredibly unique and fascinating. This experience is not one which I could have had by staying in the US, and I appreciate that more than anything.
Ambiguity in Work
As for work updates, everything is pretty much the same. There have not been any new tasks for me to do, and the work is simple enough that it does not take too much effort to do a good job. However, I would say there is some ambiguity in the work. Often, I am left with the main spreadsheet we use and whatever information is on the google drive and my desktop, and I figure out what I should do to be the most productive and helpful as possible. The work I do most of the day is researching internship and volunteer locations for specific students, but I am not always one hundred percent sure what the student’s interests are or what their past experiences entail, so this is when I use the google drive as much as I can. Also, if I see that a student we are currently working with is in need of more placement options I will do my best to find a few to add to the spreadsheet.
There is also some ambiguity in what I am supposed to do and what I should leave for my supervisor and coworker, but on the days when I work with my coworker I ask her a good amount of questions and confirm what I am doing is correct. Other times, what my supervisor says is a bit unclear, especially because he either speaks in English despite being about a high-intermediate level speaker, or he just speaks in Korean. This means that sometimes there are things I do not fully understand, so I have gotten good at filling in the blanks with what makes sense to me, or I ask my coworkers what they think. Rather than guessing, too, I ask to confirm things like sending emails to prospective internship placements for students, because I would rather check before hand than make a mistake on behalf of the company. Something I find helpful is that there is a large digital catalog of past emails, English evaluation documents, interview scripts, and more. With these, I can inform my actions and make fewer mistakes than if I were just guessing. There is so much information in the company’s system if you know where to look, so this helps me navigate any ambiguous situations, and I have been utilizing this since day one when us interns got thrown right into the work.
Despite me never having worked a full-time office job before, the way I deal with unclear and unfamiliar tasks is the same as my other jobs. I do what I know how to do, then I ask a superior for assistance or new directions. We have a direct line of communication through email, Kakaotalk, and another messaging platform called Nate that is downloaded onto the computer I work on, so in order to not interrupt him verbally I often message through this. Overtime, I learn how to do more and more by observing the way others do everything and getting new advice, and the work becomes more familiar and comfortable to do. Overall, everything is going quite well, and the ambiguities in work are nothing too serious or disruptive.