What to do When Your Job Contradicts Your Own Faith

If you have read my two previous posts you might already know that I am doing my internship in a local television channel in Surabaya, Indonesia. As many might have known Indonesia has the largest Muslim population and July is the ‘Muslim holy month of fasting’. This also means jobs dealing with Muslim events are uncountable like fishes in the sea, and one of the main events that I contribute in is a Muslim event – Bazaar Ramadhan 2013.

So basically this event comprise of different segments. The event starts at 12pm opened by a religious band, continued with a demonstration on how to wear a fashionable ‘hijab’ or burqa, and not forgetting the ‘tausiyah’ or known in Indonesia as the Muslim preaching by an ‘ustadz or ustadzah’ (muslim cleric). The event itself is fine for me, the problem arise during the pre-event. I am a non-muslim, I believe in Christianity. I am familiar with Muslim values but still because I am a non-muslim there are several things that shocked me.

For this event the first task I was given is to brief my host. So I gave him a brief coaching on how the event will run, his costume and make-ups as well as other necessary information. The host asked me about who will give the tausiyah where during that time I myself did not know what tausiyah actually is. I told him that I would confirm the details (as I do not want to look foolish and embarrassed) by email. So right after I briefed him for the event, I went to see my supervisor, Yanuar, and asked him what the word tausiyah really means in order to be able to confirm the details.

The awkwardness has not end, the next day I was given the task to go to a Mosque – Muslim house of prayers – to settle the deal with the Muslim cleric, Ustadz Mochtar, who will give tausiyah to the audience. I went with a senior colleague from work and another intern.

So we arrived in the Mosque and saw my colleagues took off their shoes before entering the Mosque, so I did the same. We went up to see the cleric and settle the deal. After settling the deal we set goodbye to the cleric and wish to see him soon in the event. I saw him shaking hands with my male colleague and I give out my hand to shook his hand too because I was brought up in a family that teach me to always shook somebody’s hand to show politeness and respect. When I did that to the cleric my first crisis arouse!

He did not shake my hands back, at first I was heavily upset and insulted as I thought how could a Muslim leader be so arrogant. When I entered the car I asked my colleague what is the deal with that, turns out my colleagues told me that in Muslim teaching physical contact between male and females are not tolerable. Despite the fact that many Muslims did not follow that rule, but a Muslim Cleric will always follow Muslim rules, as they should act like so.

This was definitely a culture shock for me. Despite the fact that I am born and raised in Indonesia, this is totally foreign to me, as I have never made familiar with any of those in both my family and my religion. This is not the only culture shock I encounter, being in the event itself I was indirectly forced to listen and watch about Muslim. This is not a problem for me because I am quite a fair person. I am open minded, as personally I want to do this job professionally. This definitely reminds me on a class situation when Bridget Tombleson (PR International) asked us what will we do if we work for a company that contradicts our own belief. During the time I did not have an answer but now I do.

My answer is:

As long as it is not evil and it does not violates any law. I would try my best to be professional to do a job that does not conform to my beliefs.

My opinion might not apply to everyone but for those who are currently experiencing a job that contradicts your own beliefs, just stay PROFESSIONAL!

Good luck for all of your current and/or upcoming internship!

The Hectic Life of a PR Intern

This is almost the end of my first week of internship and I am feeling extremely exhausted! Working in a media company is definitely not an easy task to do, first two days of internship was not that hectic as I was still on the orientation mode. But entering the third day of internship there are heaps of things for me to do, and there is definitely no time to lay back.

In SBO TV I was responsible for two events as mentioned in my previous blog entry, the preparation for the first event ‘Bazaar Ramadhan 2013’ was okay but not for the second event, ‘YMMF’. YMMF is a huge regional event and I was given the responsibility to lobby and follow up with 48 schools across East Java, where this event will start on July 18, 2013. From 48 schools almost half has not confirm that they are available for the event, so every day since July 10, 2013 I spent my day in front of the office computer, fax machine and telephone. For four days I did a data recap on the school list and had to lobby various schools through phone calls.

This was a big challenge for me as back in University I was taught by my tutors that public relations practitioners should be able to communicate effectively with the message receiver. This should not be hard if I lobby the schools face to face, but doing this by phone create a certain degree of challenge that forced me to communicate my self as clearly as possible in order to get my message across and convince the schools to join the YMMF event. Within four days of hard work on sending fax, being on the phone and doing online research of the targeted schools, I managed to get 44 schools confirmed for the event and I came up with a bank data that will help SBO for future events as it comprise of schools contact list.

My work is not yet finished! I still got the Bazaar Ramadhan 2013 event. So for those four days, in the morning I woke up and prepare. I went to work to lobby heaps of schools and in the afternoon around 2pm I went to the Bazaar Ramadhan 2013 event until around 7 to 8 pm. It was definitely not an easy job to do! As the event run daily I work Monday to Saturday full time. 

In my mind I think to myself how tough it is to be a public relations practitioners, because yes it is a 9 to 5 job. But in reality being a public relations practitioner eats more time than how I think it would. So I told myself that for my future public relations career, I have to make sure that I really love the job because not only that it is exhausting but also because it consumes heaps of time.

PR from a Media Perspective

I was lucky enough to get myself accepted for an internship position in a television station based in Surabaya, Indonesia. SBO TV or ‘Suroboyo’ TV (Surabaya Media Television Pty Ltd) is a local Television channel, which covers various news and updates on East Java’s capital city, Surabaya, and its surroundings. SBO TV operates under a giant media company, Jawa Pos Group. Jawa Pos Group owns various media outlets such as national and local newspaper as well as regional and local television stations. My placement started July 8, 2013, where I was placed under SBO TV’s event and public relations department.

On my first day I was given a brief orientation on how the studio operates and the divisions of the TV station. I was also made aware of two major events to be held on July onwards, which I will be involved in. Through these events I was indirectly forced to see public relations from a media perspective.

The first event is “Bazaar Ramadhan 2013”. This event is held in partnership with local government as well as sponsored by a motor company, Honda. Bazaar Ramadhan 2013 is an event held in order to greet the Muslim ‘holy month’ of fasting. This event will be held in 10 different suburbs and comprise of: cheap ‘sembako’, live bands, tausiyah (muslim preaching), and hijabers (talkshow on how can muslim women wear a fashionable burqa). This is a big public relations event done by Honda in order to increase its existence in Surabaya suburban areas as well as to increase their sales.

The second event is “YMMF” or known as Yamaha Mio Music Festival. This is an event by a motor company, Yamaha, in conjunction with SBO TV. This is an annual event, which last for approximately three months. This event is a music competition event, but SBO TV is also in charge to do the pre-event. This refers to the main event’s socialisation, therefore SBO TV and Yamaha came up with a YMMF socialisation ‘school visit’. This school visit event comprise of visiting 48 schools in 24 different cities in East Java, Indonesia. The school visit event themes differ between schools. For private, Catholic and Christian schools the event socialisation’s theme will be about ‘the dangers of narcotics for teenagers’, where as for public and Muslim schools the theme will be a tausiyah or known as a Muslim preaching.

Both events are purposed for the benefit of both SBO TV and the two sponsors. Both Yamaha and Honda need media publications, which is why they approach SBO TV to be their partner. And likewise SBO TV is a regional television station, which many are still vague about what the TV station is all about. Furthermore in order for both parties to achieve publications SBO TV decided to do partnership events with both motor companies.

These events ran under a low budget, as a regional television station SBO TV got a limited budget. Therefore SBO TV delegate these tasks to the event and public relations department, and as the intern my first job was to find a host for Bazaar Ramadhan as well as to brief the host.

This is my first time of finding an appropriate host for a religious event, which differs from my own religion. I managed to contact the host for an appointment the next day and briefed him for the event itself. It was not an easy task as I was very nervous, additionally I personally think that this is something big to do for an intern as I was bringing and representing the company’s name to the host. As I was nervous, what I did was I tried to recall a second year PR unit: Media Relations. In the unit there is one task where students had to brief their speaker on a topic before the press conference start. So I used the same techniques to brief my host, Izaaq, the thing that differs is that I did not use a question and answer document.

My story shall continues...