Today was one long info session because we had two site visits and got inside tours from both. We started off learning about the Cat Lai shipping terminal and how it operates and I loved being able to physically see how importing and exporting works. If there was an award for someone who can only learn by doing or learn the most from learning things by physically seeing them, I would win that award. That is why all these site visits have been great for me and this trip as a whole. Being able to see how big those ships and containers were, was also impressive. Getting pictures on either site visit was tricky because we weren’t allowed to so you can see some from the internet and it shows the scale.

I liked the second site visit more because asking questions and hearing what the tour guide was saying was a lot easier. I took a class this semester called organizational behavior, and I loved the class and the professor especially. He changed my perspective on many things. One of our lessons we had was him teaching us about worker independence and office room design. During our Glass Egg visit seeing the office space is what got me started thinking about the class again. You could physically see that workers hobby and personality all over their desk and if I was a manager I would implement this too. Anyways, I saw this again at Dan On Foods Corporation. Learning about the founder and how again physically seeing the factory floor was great. The most interesting or unique part of the facility was the swimming pool. Why would there be a pool next to a factory that is super sterile and packaging nuts. The tour guide explained that he was confused too at first, but when applying for the job and when he got the job having a recreational pool was an amazing bonus. Other things he said caught my attention as well. Someone asked if the factory workers do one specific task the entire day and he said that they get switched around stations and are able to do multiple tasks. Task interdependence is very important for workers mental well-being and productivity. I would go insane doing one little task for multiple hours at a time. All in all, I learned a lot from two companies I knew nothing about prior, and I wish I could stay in Vietnam a lot longer.