[Corporate Service Corps] What Happens During the First and Second ConCalls?

Taking a break from work to blog about this - it is our second call meeting with the Indonesia Team, and I am glad to get to the office 15 minutes before the scheduled call because during the first meet, I was 5 minutes late. Thank you to heavy traffic caused by Christmas Rush.

I had been meaning to blog about our first call but because I am loaded with tons to do, the task is now buried under the other new tasks I need to accomplish - add the events that I wanted to attend, and chose to attend - my schedule is such a chaos.

Anyway, during our first call, there were 9 (out of 10) who joined the meeting. Our Facilitator named Roman - welcomed us and gave a short briefing regarding the program and why all of us were on the call that time. The facilitator is usually an employee who has been assigned to another country - simply put, a CSC alumnus. Roman was once assigned here in the Philippines, and their client then was PhilVocs. Yes, he knows the UP Area and the jeepneys. The participants are from other geographies and I am lucky that Roman chose 8PM to 9PM (Manila Time) to set the meeting. My schedule starts at 9PM, so at least the meeting is not between my sleep hours - I am just not certain about the other participants though. We later agreed that the schedule is the perfect time for all of us to meet. But just the same, Roman scheduled another re-curring meeting every Friday - just incase we miss the Wednesday call. So Roman told us that we need to be processing our Visa application and working on our Pre-Work Modules. Before we fly to Indonesia for the assignment, we need to complete series of modules to prepare us for the in-country assignment.

I started working on the modules as soon as I got the link. The first module asked me to create a profile. It feels like filling out a slum book. I don't mean to impress the facilitator or the other participants, but I want my real personality to reflect in the file I submitted. It took me hours to choose the pictures to be included. I even asked suggestion from a friend. I always find it hard to select a profile picture even in Facebook. I don't even regulary update my profile unlike most of my friends. I decided to add my picture taken from my recent trip to Beijing (it is not very recent - it was in August). The other one was taken while we were riding the 4x4 ride in the sand dunes in Ilocos (a Northern province in the Philippines).

Roman told us that on the third call (that's next week!), we will be introducing ourselves. Have you tried presenting or introducing yourself through conference call? This is going to be my first.

During our first call, we were all so quiet and just listening. Probably assessing each other's personality through the phone lines. We communicated with just our breathes. I sent a message to the facilitator and he said that  they were also like that during their first call, and after the assignment, all of them couldn't stop talking.

The call earlier was like a Q&A session. Almost everyone asked a question, specifically about the Visa processing and the online training.

Speaking of online training, I have already completed one module from the training plan sent to me by the client (this is a different from Pre-Work Module).  It is nice that at this early stage, I am already learning alot from the program.

More updates will be published here. In the mean time, I need to go and attend an important meeting.