The following article was written by my groupmate, and it is too memorable not to share. (: It really documents our noob experience working on campaigns; but I guess they serve as memories in the future.
Behind-The-Scenes: An Unwitting Trip to the Warehouse.
March 1, 2018
Running a campaign is not the easiest thing to do, especially if it involves only 3 people working in the team. Being first-time executors of our campaign, it also gave us some new experiences to enjoy, and one of those was a rather interesting trip to DKSH warehouse, situated in a rather unknown part of West Singapore. Our order was due for collection, and since they were unable to provide delivery to school, we decided to make a trip firsthand to collect the packages ourselves!
Not knowing what to expect, we decided to head there with no plans, other than the fact that we had the transaction number of our order. With little insight as to what to do or prepare, we went ahead blind.
Navigation
The 3 of us decided to navigate there on public transport, and we saw rather unfamiliar sights, as the scenes changed, where the bus drove into an industrial area. Basically, it felt like we were in the middle of nowhere. “This is so ulu,” we had declared, as we disembarked from the bus stop, and walked under the heavy afternoon sun, trying to find the warehouse that stored some of our goodies. There was nothing but vans and large trucks weaving in and out of the vicinity, and Pandan reservoir situated opposite us. We passed by a building that looked like a carpark, and to our surprise, it was the address that we were supposed to head towards.
After checking in on the 1st floor, the security guards ushered us up to the 7th floor, whereby we saw nothing but open space, tons of boxes, and men sitting upon forklifts, driving and weaving their way around immensely large, spacious roads. We felt incredibly small standing in the midst of the wide roads, and the high ceilings.
There was a guardhouse situated on the 7th floor as well, and there we had to surrender our ICs, and don a rather strange looking vest, that looked almost like a climbing harness. It was a mandatory procedure for anyone who was to walk in further into the storehouse area, as the place was chock full of vans, forklifts and trucks.
“Yes girls, put this on! It’s for your safety,” laughed the old security guard at the entrance. After that, we were directed to walk onward to the middle of the floor, where the main administrative office was situated. It was a rather strange sight, to be just about the only women that we had seen so far on the floor, and we were probably the youngest as well. While the other staff were don in helmets and full gear, we were clad in t-shirts, ripped jeans and shorts, which fit much better at the university campus, as opposed to an industrial storehouse.
All set and ready with our safety harness.
Confusion
Being slightly lost at what to do, we waited for a long while (maybe a good 20 minutes) for the administrative office to tend to us. The person at the counter, an elderly man of few words, had took our student pass, and did the paperwork on our behalf, before ushering us into the storeroom area. It was like a scene from the movies, and I have not seen a place quite like it is.
If I had to give you an analogy, it would remind you of the Department of Mysteries, in Harry Potter, or the Storage Facility in the scene of Monsters Inc. There were tons of boxes stacked up upon these shelves, and the only way to retrieve them were the forklifts.
Taken from: https://artofspying.net/2014/10/14/answers-the-department-of-mysteries/
It was a rather systematic process. Upon passing our receipt to the man-in-charge, another was sent on a forklift to retrieve our package. There were forklifts of many sizes, which looked rather fun to drive and manoeuvre around. Eventually, we witnessed one of them driving in our cargo (25 boxes to be exact), and were instantly relieved that the package wasn’t too big for us to manage. Upon signing off our package, they instructed us to arrange transport to drive up to the 7th floor, which we were rather worried about, considering it would be hard to get a Grab or an Uber, to come all the way to an industrial estate and to drive up 7 floors to pick us up with heavy cargo.
We requested for a trolley to transport the cargo downstairs, but due to security concerns, we could not borrow any trolley from them. They placed our cargo at the side of the road, telling us to call for a vehicle to drive up, in which the staff would help us unload the boxes into the vehicle. The elderly man at the admin office said, “I thought you students would have come prepared with a vehicle!”, to which we laughed and said that it was only 3 of us who were doing this project.
Since none of us had a car for the day, we had to call in for a Grab. Amazingly, within 2-3 minutes of keying in our request on Grab, someone had responded and was actually willing to pick up the offer, despite our clear indication of “7th floor of warehouse. Pickup with cargo”. Amused and yet happy, we decided to try and move our boxes to the guard house, such that it was easier for our Grab driver to find us.
Transporting Cargo
The forklift drivers – all rather old, seasoned uncles, watched us with bewilderment as we tried to singlehandedly carry the boxes over with our bare hands. We carried the first batch of boxes to the guard house without anyone’s aid, yet, as we returned for the second round, we saw a forklift driver whisk by with all our cargo, dropping the rest of the boxes at the guardhouse like we had intended. We witnessed the security guards and the cargo men smiling, somewhat amused at our attempts to move our cargo and arrange for transport, and we realised that we must have looked really inexperienced, which could have caused them to garner so much assistance to help us. It was a slightly embarrassing, but also funny sight.
Eventually, the Grab driver appeared, and he was nice enough to reverse his car into a more suitable position for us to place most of the boxes into the boot. We travelled back to school, hot and sweaty from our efforts to carry the cargo, but also relief, that we managed to find transport at all.
Yan Qi and Cassandra at the backseat with the remaining cargo. Look at how relieved we were!
Upon reaching the school, the next menial task was to transport all the unloaded cargo up to the Communications and New Media office, in which it involved us borrowing a trolley, and finding a suitable place for drop off. It took additional minutes of getting the appropriate access to the room and the trolley, before we could continue with this feat. Thankfully, there was a lift available that brought us to the correct floor, which made the transporting a lot easier. After 2 rounds of going up and down via the lift, we managed to move everything into the storage room that was intended.
To end it off, we all drank cups of cold milo in a celebration of successfully moving everything over, till we all laughed and realised we did not even open the boxes to figure out how big the individual cookie packs were. Well, another problem for another day. That’s how campaign events are I suppose.
The remaining half of the cargo.
It was a tiring, but rather interesting day, taken up by a lot of cluelessness, waiting and spontaneous reaction. While it was not the first time any of us had been to a warehouse, it was definitely the first time we tried to single-handedly transport everything by ourselves.
This is one of the many incidents that go on behind-the scenes as we lead up to our instalments in March. Planning a campaign definitely takes time and effort, and this is one of the many learning opportunities in the journey. It has been rewarding in more ways than one, and it has strengthened team solidarity, as well as injected fun and spontaneity into our event planning.
We are thankful for the helpful staff at DKSH, our faithful Grab driver, as well as the help of the CNM office in the process. Ah well, to more adventures with this team!
What’s Next?
Look out for our next event from 15-16 March (11am-6pm) at U-Town. Till next time folks! Looking forward to having you there.
A lot of people are afraid
to say what they want.
That's why they don't get
what they want.
