Final Report

Lester Ng Wei Cheng

S10062375g

In the final report, I’ll be going through the past few months of my attachment life. Call it lucky or unlucky; my internship period collided with the Chinese New Year season. As one could guess, during the Chinese New Year, a plant nursery would be the busiest and business would be at its peak. In this report, I share what I’ve learn during this period of time. I would also cover my overall experience here in Katong Flower Shop Pte Ltd.

Acknowledgment

Many thanks go to Mr Kent Ken, for supporting me throughout my entire time over there. Mr Ken is my manager over there. Although he’s a bit fierce at times, he gave me ample support and help in times of crisis and would guide me and teach me along the way. His help is greatly appreciated. I would have been lost halfway through if he wasn’t there to guide me.

Deepest thanks to my colleges who’ve been working with me for this entire 6 months. The Bangladeshi workers who’ve helped me do certain tasks in which I myself would’ve not completed on my own (e.g. Carrying heavy pots, heavy plants etc). I would also like to thank Recka, an Indian college of mine. She guided me through and taught me how to deal with certain office work which requires a lot more than just normal typing and writing. Taught me how to deal and handle angry or problematic customers, taught me how to converse with the suppliers and lastly taught me how to arrange for appointments between our manager and customers. I don’t know how I would be able to cope without her.

Lastly, I would like to share many thanks to my internship mate who’ve been working with me for the past six months. He is my source of motivation with his never ending enthusiasm and his jokes which never failed to made me laugh at my darkest time. Every time I felt tired, I knew that he’d suffered more than me because he stays at Jurong. Katong Flower Shop is located at Tanah Merah so it’s a coast to coast ride every morning for him. I’d also like to thank him for the light snacks the he never fails to bring every morning and each time after his delivery. Those snacks serve as a booster to fill up your stomach in preparation for some bigger obstacles. He made me realized the value of working together as a team.

Contents Page

-       Introduction to company and organization structure.

-       Job description

-       Description of work environment

-       Description of work done

-       Analysis of internship experience

-       Conclusions and recommendations

-       References

Katong Flower Shop, a florist and horticulture business is one of the first flower importers in Singapore. We started operation in 1948 in a small little stall which has grown to become the biggest one stop horti and floral centre in the East of Singapore. In post-war Singapore, the local flower business started to bloom as flowers were required for weddings and other ceremonies.

In the early days, orchids and gladiolus were the favoured flowers. As only the rich could afford to buy these flowers, making them available at the shop inadvertently meant that the Katong Flower Shop catered to the higher strata of the Katong population. Katong Flower Shop was one of the first to import flowers from Cameron Highlands, Malaysia. In the beginning, chrysanthemums, carnations, lilliums and roses were imported. Later, the shop pioneered the import of flowers from Taiwan and Japan, followed by Holland, with tulip bulbs and hyacinths.

Job Description

I work in the horticultural department. The horticultural department basically deals with all the plants in the nursery excluding fresh cut flowers and floral arrangement. Katong Flower Shop is divided into two sections. The Horti Centre and the Flower Department. My overall responsibility includes doing office work. There is only three person who have the authority to be a cashier. I am one of them and thus, I have to constantly stay in the office and around the cashier in case any customer would like to pay for something. I am also in charge of opening invoices and quotations. Being more mandarin orientated, Kent might sometime find it more comfortable talking to me in Chinese regarding the quotations and thus most of the quotations are typed by me.

My key areas of responsibility include the maintaining of order in the office and to make sure things follow the system. Records of daily sales, maintaining a meticulous order in the office.

Description of working environment

An ideal working environment would be something that makes you feel comfortable and optimizes working rate. Just a small office in one big nursery, space is pretty limited. A small office also has it advantages. Things can be found easily. Productivity rate is high as less walking around the office would be needed. Having a smaller office also pulls the relationship between employer and employee closer. The working environment in Katong Flower Shop is relatively good with a small conducive working table. Stationery and equipments, documents and forms can all be found with just a simple search in the cupboard. Delivery orders and invoices are all neatly stacked and arranged according to their respective numbers. Due to the tracking of accounts, delivery and invoice number should never be skipped and have to follow an ascending order. A slight mistake could result in unforeseen circumstances. During the festive season of Chinese New Year, the cashier counter has been enlarged to twice its ordinary size to further optimize cashier operations. Also, a new cash register specially for cash payments only is also set up. This is to make express cash payments for customers who are willing to pay cash instead of cashless payments. As more and more customers flow into the nursery daily, a fresh stock of plastic bags and stationery is also brought in. During festive seasons, nice decorations are hung all over the nursery to further bring up the mood of Chinese New Year. There are also Chinese New Year songs playing on the loudspeaker.

Chrysanthemums and other delicate new year flowers are all arranged in the “cold room” The could room have a pad and fan cooling system which reduces the temperature preventing the flowers from drying up quickly. Also, the entire room is also filled with the sweet aroma of the chrysanthemum flowers. Kalanchoes decorate and add colours to the entire room making it a joy just walking in the cold room.

Description of work done

I am nicknamed “the office boy”. During the festive season of Chinese New Year, more and more people would email and call in asking for quotations of Chinese New Year plants. From the basic and small Celosia to the huge citrus orange trees (Kum Quats). Certain people are buying for their office and some others for their own personal use. Each time someone emailed us requesting for a quotation, I would be the one to show it to Mr Ken. He would then tell me the price and I would proceed on to typing the quotation. After finishing typing the quotation, I would show it to Kent before sending it to the other party. This is to make sure the sum and numbers are all correct. It is a grave to make a calculation error or numerical error. As warned by Mr Ken, these errors will not be tolerated and the company takes this issue seriously. Understanding the seriousness of this matter, I never took the opportunity of going the shortcut. Without fail, I would show him the finished quotation. Once he gives me the green light, I would then send it to the other party. Although the stuffs sold in Katong Flower Shop are slightly more expensive than that of other nurseries, our products come from the country of origin and definitely have a higher quality than the rest.

When a quotation is confirmed, they would either fax the quotation back to us with their endorsement on it or issue us a purchase order. Once the purchase order is received, Kent would give further instructions on what to do. He would ask me to issue out a delivery order on a specific date stated on the quotation. He would then proceed to informing the driver and some Bangladeshi workers would be following the driver on what to do. Upon delivery date, the delivery order would be passed to the driver. During the CNY season, there were many orders and deliveries to make thus writing delivery orders is no simple task. Certain customers might give a improper address or wrong information. I would then call up the customer to check their address with them and double confirm. If an address is wrote wrongly, delays would occur and this is definitely not economical for the company.

Analysis of Internship

This internship has made me realize that it is not easy to set up a business, especially in this line. As what we are dealing with over here are plants, they need a very high cost and time on maintenance. Plants are living things and need to be taken care of just like a human being. They fall sick, the need water and they need food. Certain plants need a lot of sunlight, certain plants need a lot of shade. This also made me realize the importance of studying plants identification and taxonomy during my early years in Ngee Ann Polytechnic. Many customers would approach you and ask you for its name. Being a staff there, it would be the most important thing to know the name of the products that you are trying to sell. If you were to say the name of the plant with a lot of confidence, customers woud be impressed by your knowledge and probe you further questions. With a better understanding, customers would than know what they need for their garden/plants and they would know what to buy. This in turns help to promote sales. Also, if I know the customers concerns, it would be best to recommend something appropriate to solve his problem. Plants that comes to our nursery for sale must be in top condition. Plants that fall sick and have problems would be relocated to the propagation sector whereby the healthy parts of the plants are salvaged. Salvaging the parts means doing leaf/stem cuttings on the plants. This also save cost as sick / faulty goods can also be recycled and reused. Due to the nature of this industry, it is inevitable to get dirty sometimes. Transplanting a big plant might sometimes get yourself all dirtied by the soil. However, it’s through these hands on experience that we learn from it. This internship programme gave me a better understanding on how does a nursery functions. Although cost of plants from overseas are cheap, the cost of transporting the plants from overseas is expensive and this sometimes results in the expensive prices of certain plants. I learnt many new skills since the start of this internship. One of the skills in which I deemed valuable and useful would be the planting/ transplanting of plants. Although to a commoner, transplanting of plants might not seem as a skill at all, it is not so easy.  Taking out the plant together with the root ball without damaging the pot is a complicated task. One must be able to slowly remove the plant with the root ball intact. If part of it falls of, the roots might get affected. This might result in a transplanting shock. The plant might die if the roots didn’t manage to re-establish. Also, determining the soil level when planting is also crucial. If the soil level is too high, the stem in contact with the soil might rot because of the water trapped. If the soil level is too low, the roots might not be covered properly which will also lead to the poor formation and function of the roots. Skills like stacking many layers of soil is also important. This might sound foolish. However, if the soil are not stacked properly, even a slight movement in a single bag of soil could result in the entire mountain of soil toppling down. If this happens, it could be quite dangerous as soil is heavy. Anyone trapped or hit by a bag of soil could suffer from serious injuries. Stacking of soil requires precision. If the base level of soil is not arranged properly, the subsequent levels of soil would just get more and more crooked. This would be hazardous. Even if the soil topples over and no one is hurt in the event, to restack the soil would be a tiring and troublesome chore. It also means double job which is not economical as it is time consuming and energy draining to stack 700 bags of soil with each bag weighing more than 5kg.

The problems I encounter during work is to communicate with the Bangladeshi workers. As most of them do not receive much education, their English is limited. Is hard for me to understand what they are trying to say. It is also hard for them to understand what I am telling them. Normally, I would approach Hassan, the head of the foreign workers and he would later help me convey the message to them. Customers sometimes call in to also complain about bad service and faulty products. It is a very difficult task to deal with such people. I have to keep in mind the ethics of customer service while trying to get the message across the brains of those angry people. In the event that we are at fault, I would tell Kent about it. At this is point of time, certain events might get him a little angry. However, Kent will arrange for a exchange of faulty goods. Refunds are not allowed in our company. One of the biggest problem I face is to contact customer before delivering the plants to their house. As most customers would want us to call them before we deliver so as to make sure someone is at home. It also serves as reminder for the customers not to leave their house. This is to smoothen delivery and prevent further delays in cases whereby the customers are not at home. Customers often do not pick up their cell phone. Some of them might be working and others might be sleeping. Contacting them in the early mornings is hard. When discussing a delivery, we would often ask the customer to write down his/her own address and contact details on a piece of form. Sometimes customer handwritings are illegible and make it hard for us to read. Certain numbers might be mistaken for other numbers and hence we might dial the wrong number. To solve this problem, I sometimes require the customer to write down at least two numbers. Even if one fails, I still have another number to call. Often, customer would write down their hand phone numbers as their primary number and their home number as secondary. A easy way to check if customers are at home is to call the home number straight away. If someone picks it up, it would be the green light to deliver the plants. Also, by going through the address with the customer on the spot serves as a double check. In any case the customer has written a wrong address, by going through his address on the spot, he would definitely notice it and would change it on the spot. This could save us a lot of trouble and time. During busy times of the Chinese New Year, I was told to inform customers that if no one is at home, the delivery man would just place their plants at the doorstep. During Chinese New Year period, there are at least 15 deliveries to be made per day. This could never be accomplished if the driver were to wait for the customer to be at home and thus to hasten delivery speed, the only way is to put the plants outside the house. After this internship, I’ve learnt to be a lot more responsible. I’ve learnt to do my work in a neat and tidy manner. When I just started working, I’ve been doing things halfway and left many things uncompleted. I never get a job fully done. As the months go by, I’ve slowly improved and bit by bit, I am now a lot more responsible. I have also grown not only mentally stronger but also physically stronger. Since the start of my attachment until now, I’ve at least carried more than 800 bags on soil based on a rough calculation. Each bag weighing more than 5.5 kg, it’s no wonder I will grow stronger. Also not to mention the heavy plants. Although this might be tiring work, but handling tall and bulky plants is not an easy task. One has to manoeuvre through the narrow gaps. Even a slight knock and something would fall. By any chance if the plant you are pushing on the trolley is very expensive and it topples, than it would be a pain in the neck. Tall plants are very wobbly due to the high centre of gravity and tend to sway around when pushed around. A sudden jerk might caused the entire to topple over and crash. Also, when preparing plants for delivery, one must be careful where to put the plants. Plants can suffer from a shock due to the sudden change of environment in less than 24 hours. Normally, plants that are bought would be delivered the following day. If the plants are not placed in desired environmental conditions, they could wither and suffer from shock before reaching the customer’s house. This would not be good as customers would of course ask for a change in the plants. During the CNY period, all Kum Quats awaiting delivery are brought into the cold room whereby a pad and fan cooling system regulates room temperature and make sure it is not too hot and humid so as to prevent the fruits and leaves from dropping rapidly. Out of 3 shipments that arrived in due of CNY, 2 of the containers came in the afternoon. I find it strange why did the boss insist on unpacking the container only at night. I later found out that due to the huge difference in temperature, if the container were to be open in the hot noon, it would be from cold to hot straight away as the container has an air conditioning unit to keep the plants cold. Without giving the plants time to acclimatize, the plants would suffer from shock. All the leaves and fruits would start to drop and this would decrease the value of the plant drastically. Thus, opening the container at night means that there is not so much difference in the temperature. Plants are given ample time to slowly get used to the chilly temperature at night and the fruits and leaves would not drop as much retaining its sale value. I’ve also changed my liking towards plants. Before I came into this course, I didn’t fancy plants. I did not care much about them and shows no interest in it. Over the past six months of internship, I grew a strong liking towards certain plants. I also understand why the government used so much of a particular plant for landscaping along roadsides and expressway. Low maintenance and low cost are all part of it. Even right now, I am very interested in orchid breeding. The endless possibilities of hybridising different dendrobiums to get beautiful coloured ones. I am very keen to do phalaenopsis breeding also. Though it is near impossible to grow these orchids which requires very cold temperature in the hot humid weather of Singapore, I would like to give it a try someday when I have the chance.

Conclusion

Overall, I must say I’ve learnt a lot from this internship experience. I hope for such things to happen again and is looking forward to a new experience in time to come. In the meantime, Katong Flower Shop had been a great company. They have a range of very nice staffs that would help and guide each other through. I’ve also learnt about the skills involved and a lot of technical questions that used to puzzle me before this internship. Crashing into the CNY period although did really squeeze you dry, however, you get a lot back in return. I’ve worked almost the whole of January without even taking a day off. Although it is very tiring, I’ve learnt a lot also. How to make fresh cut flowers and plants fresh for one entire month without even leaving a slight trace of rotting is one of them. I’ve also learnt business management. How to start a business and keep it going, advertising of your own company and bargaining with customers are all examples. With the long history of Katong Flower Shop, I am blessed to be serving under a rather reputable company in this business. My manager, Mr Ken has given me a fair workload to do. It is not too much and neither is it too little. The amount of work is just right. Also, it is not too complicated either. Short and simple tasks in which I could handle. The working environment there is also nice. After a long day at work facing the computer screen, all it takes is a 5 second walk out of the office to enjoy a beautiful scene of nature. Peace and serenity at its best. Just a short 1 min break around the nursery to enjoy the perfect beauty of plants and also do a onetime maintenance (eg plucking of dead/dried or yellow leaves). I would definitely recommend people to go there in future if anyone ever approached me.The ever bright coloured red and yellow celosia’s which Chinese believed to bring them luck.

The cute flowers of amaranthus, which also attracted alot of customers.

A night view of Katong Flower Shop. With the lights all turned on, it really gives you a very festive mood and lightens your heart as you continue to work. Enjoyable working experience over there. After unpacking the oranges. We lined them up along the frontline of the nursery. These big oranges are magnificently huge and they attracted many passer bys.
These bamboo’s came from Indonesia and are specially grown to make it suitable for Singapore climate so it won’t die even after the Chinese New Year. They can grow for years and years. It is said to bring luck.

.Something new that came out this year was this, the “apple tree”. We grafted apples onto the plant of a bougainvilla . This attracted many customers. Although the apples cant last for more than a week, the plant itself could continue to grow and requires the least maintenance. In mandarin, the word “apple” means to bring calmness and safety.Phalaenopsis. Something that I am very interested. I would like to grow my own phalaenopsis if I ever had the chance in the near future. They are very nice and also very expensive. In this picture, the one in the middle consists of 16 stalks of phalaenopsis.

When the container just arrived, we couldn’t open it to prevent the leaves and fruits from dropping. Thus, we could only do the unloading at night. The radish. As this is the year of the rabbit, Chinese believed that the radish would bring them fortune and luck. We sell a big medium and small sized radish. Some even come with 3 in a cup. Also, radish if translated into mandarin means a good start for the year.