Harper Irwin

My final internship placement was with Nippon Kanzai Holdings, for my intern group (group A) despite all the documentation saying how we were only at NS Corporation for the second-part of the internship, we worked for many companies under the same parent umbrella for that time period; NS Corporation, Shiseido, Nippon Kanzai Holdings and we even got to interview Nippon Kanzai Co staff. During the duration of the internship at Nippon Kanzai Holdings, we got to learn more about their company which included learning about property management, this lesson about property management was then enhanced through the in-person tour of GRIPS (graduate school managed by Nippon Kanzai Holdings) facilities management. This tour was so engaging and really helped me solidify my understanding of property and facility management as we got to see the behind-the-scenes of what actually goes into managing the facilities of a property, despite being in such a serious and cautious environment as we see the water tanks, electricity distribution, AC and more, the facilities staff were so friendly and had an amazing sense of humour, making us all laugh and have a fun time despite being in a serious environment with all the potentially dangerous equipment and facilities. During our tour of GRIPS we even got to see their rooftop which was amazing, it had such an amazing view of the Roppangi area, with the mix of the beautiful sky-scrapper buildings and greenery park nearby, the graduate school even had a helicopter pad. A goddamn helicopter pad. Which I thought was super cool and fascinating. Allegedly, a staff member mentioned to us that he once saw Donald Trump getting out of his helicopter from their helicopter pad when cleaning on the rooftop one time. Which I’m still in shock over. Not that I like Trump, quite the opposite but I just thought how cool it is that how they work at a graduate school and casually get to see famous people while cleaning. Additionally just the way he mentioned it, the staff member mentioned it as if it was cool but norm. While as us from Perth had our jaws dropped. Additionally, overall, the staff at GRIPS had such a welcoming and funny sense of humour, in Japanese culture I’ve observed that politeness and being reserved is quite common socially, however the facility staff member whom hosted the tour literally opened the lecture-room doors wide open and then walked into check to see if anyone was in there with no shame at all. Even if he opened the door to an actual lecture he just said “Oh Konnichiwa” and then closed the door like nothing happened. Seeing this chill but funny energy was new but very fun and different (we couldn’t take photos from day 1 but I’ve included photos from the other days at Nippon Kanzai Holdings!).