Eurest Services day 2

This was my second day of my international internship. Today started rather calmly, this time my alarm woke me up and I had a tasty breakfast. When I was finished with my morning protocol I cycled to the NAM. Once I arrived, I had to request the visitor pass and Marius came to pick me up. He brought me to the shop and gave me some working shoes. At 09:10 I was ready to work at the import goods department!

Whilst I was working there Henk explained the whole system to me. He is the boss of the department and he is already working there for a solid 25 years! He explained to me that everything that has to be ordered is regulated in this department, except for the things the kitchen orders; they have their own shipping system. This department too, works with the program called Planon. All the people from this department enter all the shippings here and process it. Let's start from the beginning: it all starts when someone from the NAM does an order; This order can be either private or work-related. The deliveryman makes sure it gets delivered at the NAM. The people from the import goods department receive the package or letter. Then they will do one of two things: or they will give the letter to their private mailman or, if it concerns the package, they will put all the information of the package (e.g. packagenumber, name of receiver and delivery date) in Planon. When this is done they will stack the packages on a cart. They will then deliver all the packages to the persons who ordered them with the use of the cart. This is how they deliver the packages.

If there are people who want to send packages or letters, things get much more complicated. First they arrange what they want to send (e.g. packages, letters, documents) Then they will have to follow a flow chart from DHL (this is because DHL has a contract with the NAM and they are the ones who sent all the packages and mail). The flow chart looks a bit like this:

Is it an international shipment? --no-> Contact local mailroom
|
|
yes
\/
Is your shipment only containing paperwork and is it within Europe? -yes-> 1 sheet of | paperwork & no | approval required
no
\/
Are you shipping chemicals, software etc. to a shell location? --yes-> paperwork, Shell to | Shell & approval required | by CP*
| (Contactpersoon)
no
\/
Shell to non Shell & approval required by CP & a lot of paperwork

This so called CP is Davidescu. He is a man in Amsterdam who checks all the paperwork and, if everything is correct, he will give them approval and the package can be send!
“No day is the same” is a quote by Henk. He said this because the protocols to send a new package change very often: for example, one and a half years ago the people from the department had to do all the paperwork by themselves, now this is changed and the so-called customer has to do all the paperwork.

The first two hours Henk showed me everything that was related to this department and explained everything in detail. Around 11:00 I was allowed to bring some packages around the building accompanied by Jorrit, a nice fellow who is also working for the import goods department. We set out on an epic adventure through the building and we gave the packages to the designated people. There was one man who was not present, so we had to give them to his 'neighbour' who signed a paper and said he would give the packages to him as soon as he would be back. At 12:15 it was lunch time and I ate food from the restaurant. I sat all by myself because my colleagues had a cigarette break. When I had finished my meal I returned to the department and I went with Henk on another epic adventure! We set out to building 3&4 (1 is the NAM building itself). Those buildings were on the other side of the parking lot and we had some letters which we were meant for the people working there. So when we had delivered the letters we went back and it was already time for me to go! I handed my beautiful working shoes in and went home!