Well its time to say goodbye to the past 4 months at Alpha Biofuels. I can't say I've had the greatest time there, but hey, there's bound to be ups and downs everywhere. I'm sure I not many people know what I've been up to since February, so now I shall dedicate this post to my short stint there.

So when I first started work, there wasn't very much to do, other than handling some banner designing stuff and manning the pump whenever customers came to pump biodiesel. I was still a noob, not really used to working since it was my first job (and internship). I spent lots of time reading up on biodiesel and its properties as well as production. I can say I learnt most during those first few days. I did my first lab-scale production of biodiesel as well.

Then our driver Siva fell while cycling home and fractured his elbow, so yours truly, armed with a driving license, became the substitute driver. For the whole of Feb, I was driving all over Singapore, collecting waste cooking oil as well as delivering biodiesel to our customers, together with partner-in-crime Wootien. This was the most fun period of my internship I guess; we got to meet lots of people, chat with the aunties and uncles who provide us with oil, explore unknown parts of the island as well as the unseen parts of shopping centres, travel around looking for good food to eat, all while rushing to get back to office by 6pm.

March came, and so did the official opening ceremony of ABF. It was kinda hectic to prepare for that day, though thankfully I wasn't much involved other than figuring out parking space and cleaning up. The day finally came, and it was quite a success. Everyone had a good time, and there was a sense of achievement that we managed to pull it off.

Once the euphoria died down though, work finally piled up. I was called to do some marketing campaigns in Eunos and Simei, by foot and armed with flyers and namecards, to spread the news about 2 new retail stations. I talked to loads of people, mostly the bosses of small workshops located within the vicinity. It was a good experience I guess, though I ended each day with sore feet. Thereafter was a sudden explosion of demand for biodiesel, driven primarily by a retail station in Simei, run by a very ambitious (and demanding!) customer. It was also the place where we managed to get a steady stream of taxis to run on biodiesel.

As a result things got pretty crazy in the factory, with everyone struggling to churn out biodiesel to meet demand. I was assigned a new title - Blender, which was basically to polish biodiesel and package for delivery. Also since me and Wootien were the ones who setup most of the retail stations, we were often called up to fix leaks, perform on-site maintenance and what not, as well as deal with unhappy bosses. We were the self-named Repair crew, and proud of it. As WT put it, by the last week of my internship we could deduce the source of the problem just by listening to customer's vague descriptions, bring along the right tools, and rectify them in record time.

April and May were pretty much the same thing, except that we welcomed new guys to the place, so we had to teach them from scratch and hand over our duties. There was a lot of restructuring and changes going around as well as back breaking work so there were a few conflicts here and there. But at the end of every day, I guess everyone went home without hard feelings.

I guess some memorable events which I joined in, aside from the opening ceremony, included the lab courses that we conducted at JJC and TJC, as well as Earth Hour. Although I was just helping out at the 2 JCs, it was quite fun being back in school again, seeing the students go about doing their lab stuff, explaining and guiding them in biodiesel making. I was a student too, listening to Mr. Tan give his lectures and learning at the same time. Earth Hour was fun and relaxed, we were basically just manning the ABF booth, fooling around with the bosses and fellow interns, talking to random people who passed by and enjoying the atmosphere (and free Starbucks, Coke and Old Chang Kee!).

I've also come to understand the feelings and cultures of the foreign workers who keep our economy humming along. I've made friends with Siva, an Indian national who wishes to obtain a PR and bring his family over someday, as well as Xiao Li, a PRC who came from Shandong to a unfamiliar and foreign land, hoping to earn as much as he can to support his family. Its quite humbling to watch them work with little complaints, scrimping and saving to feed their loved ones back home, and yet maintain a cheerful attitude towards work.

And so 4 months have come to an end. No more travelling insane distances to work, lorry driving or dirty work (someone suggested we have our own Dirty Jobs documentary). Its been quite a journey.

I didn't get a chance to say this yesterday so I guess I'll type it here.

Thanks to Woots for being my best buddy in ABF, guiding me from the start, joking together and creating lots of funny moments to make life at work bearable.

Thanks to Lynette and Jaimie for treating me as Xiao Di and putting up with our nonsense.

Thanks to the new guys who formed the Ground Crew, its been great working and goofing around with you guys.

All the best to everyone at ABF, hope it will eventually become a huge success in the local biodiesel scene.