Progress Report

Description
My responsibilities as a member of the Finance department team include paying students their weekly stipends, calculating and verifying expense reports, researching and recording the value of goods donated to the USA pavilion by corporations, and conducting inventory searches to locate the donated goods. Staff members and their tasks involved in stipend distribution include: examining and verifying totals on payroll sheets given by Peter, receiving a signed and stamped withdrawal slip completed by Emily, riding a taxi with Jing to the bank, returning with the money, counting and distributing stipends to students, and recording the changes and amounts in the ledger to account for the money. Expense reports have multiple steps: collecting, organizing, and examining each receipt to be expensed, pasting each receipt to a sheet of paper, and then filling out the expense report, which I usually do in Excel. I enter the date, category of expense, amount, and then calculate the total in both RMB and USD; I simplify these processes by using various formulas like SUM and IF/THEN statements. Researching and recording amounts donated requires collecting and translating receipts for items purchased for use in the pavilion/by student ambassadors, contacting sponsor companies to retrieve their records of items donated, and searching for market values for each item. I enter all of these into Word documents and Excel spreadsheets, after which I add the totals to a separate spreadsheet. The donated goods must also be tracked to ensure they are being used by intended people, so I have to go to various departments and individuals to ask whether they are using their items and if not, who has the items now. This has been a problem with some donated items which no longer function. My team members Carol and Jing are integral and necessary parts of the finance department; without them, we would fall apart.

Progress/Changes
Some difficulties I have encountered in the completion of my tasks are: reaching contacts within donor companies, translating complex, uncommon characters into inventory data, finding market values for certain donated items which are obsolete or not listed at lowest price on every web site, and locating documentation showing receipt of donated goods. Steps to solve these problems include: asking people from different departments for contact information and searching the internet for specific company contacts, using my Chinese dictionary or passing the translation task onto a native speaker, conducting extensive searches for price savings and bulk discounts to ensure sponsors are ethically recording the correct values in calculating the amount given to us, and repeatedly asking coworkers for documents, respectively. I find that using my communication skills in both English and Chinese to be very interesting, because it can result in a smoother completion of my task and assurance of future assistance in these projects.

Communication with Supervisors
I communicate openly with my direct supervisor, Emily. She and I often talk of the progress of my VIK and other projects, and I can count on her assistance with tasks like talking to employees at banks or mobile phone offices, understanding instructions, making corrections to certain mistakes, and so forth. I feel I am free to talk to her anytime.

Environment of Company and City
The USA pavilion is a vibrant and exciting workplace, full of many different kinds of employees. Inside the administrative office, we have people from many different departments, each with a different set of responsibilities and varying work schedules. We have an open, airy office with plenty of windows, light, and decorations like pictures, plants, and paintings. Shanghai is also very vibrant and bustling, with many different venues, restaurants, activities, museums, and of course the people. This is one of the most densely populated cities in the world, so many varieties of shops and restaurants are required to fill their needs; often there will be street performers or groups of citizens gathering to play drums or perform tai qi boxing together; the public transportation is extremely cheap and very often convenient, though the high demand can make it a challenge to enter or exit.

Adjusting to the Business Environment, Major Problems, and Interesting Stories
I worked in the food service industry from the age of 15 until January of this year, so almost 14 years. The differences between the two workplaces are stark and sometimes hard to adapt to; these include the speed and excitement of the work, demands on physical vs. mental abilities, and payback for time spent. In the worlds of delivering pizzas, waiting tables, and cooking in classy restaurants, most of the day is spent cutting, mixing, carrying glasses, hot food, etc., and when there is no work to be had, it is time to go home. When a deliverer or waiter works hard, he makes more money in tips. This is misleading in that more money is to be made in the short term, but the experience gained from moving into the office and business world is far more valuable given that I want to change my path in life.