Introduction to Work Experience

My work experience was at Etisalat Corporation. The starting date was 14/4/2001 and it finished on 6/6/2001. The main goals of work experience were to meet the skills and activities listed in the work plan, to practise the theory courses in such a practical way in real work field, also to get more experience and to be familiar and ready to work for any organization in the future.

In this report I will talk about my work experience and all relevant events about it. In addition to presenting brief information about the employer, and I will end the report with recommendation and lessons I have learnt.

From the first day of my work experience my section head gave me an introduction about Etisalat Corporation, an organization chart, section duties and working time. He organized a scheduled work plan for the eight week work experience period, which is as follows:

Week number / Department/Section / Work Assignment / Duration
1 / Planning Section / Related to section / 14 – 18 April
2 / Commercial Section / Related to section / 21 – 25 April
3 / Installation / Related to section / 28– 2 April / May
4 / Customer service Sec. / Related to section / 5 – 9 May
5 / Customer service Sec / Related to section / 12 – 16 May
6 / Special project / Related to section / 19 – 23 May
7 / TrainingCenter / Related to section / 26 – 30 May
8 / Documentation / Related to section / 2 – 6 June

Section Information:

Radio Transmission Network is a section that deals with various wireless devices. The wireless devices are divided into two main categories, wireless telephone systems and microwave systems. There are two types of wireless telephones, single channel radio that provide single line, where the second type is a multi-telephone systems which is known as Wireless Local Loop, It provides multiple lines using one equipment. WLL is used mostly for the new residential areas. The section also provides microwave links, which can be used for transmitting live TV programs as well as signals for GSM repeater station.

Work Details:

Week 1 / Planning Section

From the first day of my work experience I was assigned to be in Planning section where I tried hard to know everything about this section such as staff names, kind of work, tools used to achieve the jobs and how to reach the level of their professional staff. I was reporting to my supervisor Khaled Mustafa who was very helpful. In this section I was planning for new subscriber location that we will provide wireless telephone. The reason of offering certain subscriber wireless telephone and not direct telephone is because either they are living in the desert or it might cost the company a lot of money to provide a cable from the nearest exchange. My job was therefore, to locate their exact location using maps and going to the subscriber sites to ensure the ability of electricity and other requirements for providing this service. In general, I used some skills which I learnt from college courses such as, scanning texts, organizing my files, customers documentation, managing time and planning.

Week 2 / Commercial section

I moved to the commercial section in the second week. My supervisor was Richard Julian who gave me plenty of information about the section and type of work. I had to deal with many sections in order to complete the work. In this section I had to take subscribers orders and check with the planning section for free lines and how far the subscriber is from the nearest exchange and then fax the survey form to the planning section to get the acceptance from their supervisor. I was also writing reports and statistics, and sending electronic mails to our supplier to get the required products and get any relevant information about the systems.

Week 3 / Installation

This was the most interesting week for me because I learnt various things not only paper work, but working with hand installing wireless device and programming it using lap top computer. During this week I went to many customers to install wireless telephones for them. We install two kinds of telephones (Wireless Local Loop & Single Channel Radio) according to customer and region requirements.

Pre installation Tips:

Before installing any electric device you should consider safety procedures

Prepare the tools used for installation

Read the installation manual to know exactly what you are going to do

Plan the starting point

Installation Tips:

Start fixing the main part of the device.

Be accurate and do it in short time.

Put the accessories after finishing the installations.

Check for any mistakes.

Week 4 & 5 / Customer service Sec.

Customer service section is all about customer care. The main duties are to deal with customers, solve their problems and keeping the friendly impression when dealing with them. My supervisor was Mr. John Richard. In this section I learnt many techniques, which help me keeping customers and cooling down the angry customer. Moreover, we have to solve some difficult customer problems which need to be patient, and confident about what you are going to say and do. I personally faced one of the customers who was angry due to the late of fixing his telephone. The customer got enough bad impression about the organization because some of technicians went to his house and drilled the room wall without taking his permission. So, some times these kind of problems as I learnt from college courses can’t be solved by trying to deny the problem because it was from the organization side and we should expect that customer are always right. He called me on the telephone, but I tried hard to see him personally. When I saw his I apologized and said that this was human mistake and it won’t be repeated ever with him. I promise to repair his room wall and gave him some free offer to make him come back as one of our customers. He became normal because he felt that some body wouldn’t leave him alone with his problem. This was one of my achievements during work experience period.

Week 6 / Special project1

In special project week, our team planned to install a minilink (which can provide up to 30 lines through one small equipment. Most of customers who apply for mini link are either living at city side or want to run live television programs such as TV station.

After locating the best location for the installation and taking customer acceptance we moved to the site office. I was responsible for doing indoor installation and there are other teams who have to do the rest of the work (outdoor installation).

Installing any device has standards and techniques. After finishing the physical installation we programmed the system and defined it’s characteristics. Finally we operated the system and monitored it via our terminal computers to ensure the quality of performance, and checked for faults.

Week 7 / Training

The head of my section sent me to EtisalatAcademy for further training on Fundamentals of Radio Telecommunication. The teaching theory was based on computer lab and self-assignments. Etisalat know exactly how important training is for their staff to do the work professionally. The corporation also encourages staff for training by giving them free courses in various topics and official certificate after finishing the courses

Week 8 / Documentation

Documentation is a word that many people think is simple, but it is really a very big word. Documentation is all about organizing and filing system. I was delegated to organize the folder, titling them, updating them and making computer based program, which allow us to find the location or the folder of files required.

The success in Work Experience:

In beginning of my work experience I have made goals to be achieved during each week. Some of the goals I planned to achieve were improving my fluency in speaking business English, Being able to communicate with other staff & customers, getting 80% of the knowledge that would enable me to achieve the jobs professionally, and practicing skills learnt in college courses and getting my supervisor satisfaction.

Supervisor & Staff Comments:

Name:Staff Name
Comments:Mr. Khalid Hussain is working in RTN section for the last three years as a technician 1. He has a good performance and welling to improve his knowledge according to his responsibility and tasks. / Name:Staff Name
Comments:When I joined the organization and knew khalid, he was understandable to the status to new staff. So he was advising and directing me in points that I have to focus on. He is active, responsible of the work assigned to him and he like others to get the benefits of his experience.
Name:Staff Name
Comments:He is active, punctual and ambitious. Also he became familiar with the section in short time. / Name:Staff Name
Comments:Mr. Khalid hard working, reliable and trustworthy person who always have a positive attitude towards staff and his friends

Conclusions and recommendations:

Etisalat Corporation presented good environment for my work experience. All the staff cooperated to help me succeed in my work experience. At the same time, The Human Resource Department welcomed to as a trainee and always opened its door to listen to my enquires, suggestions and complains. My section head gave more than what I looked for to do the job efficiently and productively.

I was very good in many fields and skills. For example, I was good in developing some routine forms, I was excellent in doing the work assigned to me accurately in short time. In addition to that, I was the best in computer keyboarding, getting information from the Internet and planning my time for daily work.

The most skills helped me in doing my job were communication in English language and using computer application.

The main things I learnt from work experience:

  1. How to be punctual at work
  2. How to solve customer’s problems without losing them.
  3. Planning time and dividing the work into small parts to make it easier.
  4. How to deal with other staff and sections
  5. How important business letters are.

I wish to improve my speaking in formal way and I need to improve my presentation skills so I can able to speak to many staff in as an official presentation. I think any body have ambitious and motivation to work can improve him self to achieve his goals. I suggest adding Internet skills to make the students more knowledgeable at work.

I recommend work experience for students in the future especially at Etisalat Corporation. I would like to work for Etisalat because I like this kind of communication work and because there are many new things always at work would not make me get bored of this corporation. I intend to be an expert wherever I work in the future.