☕️ Is Buying Coffee a Waste of Time for Interns?

Yesterday, I joined the Concord College Alumni Day

a heartwarming reunion with familiar faces and bright students from Form 6 and Form 7 💫

During the sharing session, one student talked about his recent internship at a bank.

He said something that stuck with me:

“Buying breakfast for my team and photocopying documents felt like a waste of time.”

It instantly brought me back to my own intern days at a law firm and Deutsche Bank.

🏃‍♀️ I used to wake up at 5:30am every morning to take McDonald’s orders for my FX team.

The desk started at 7am sharp, and if I got the order wrong?

I had to pay for it myself. (I am curious what is the norm now)

At the time, I hated it. It felt trivial.

Unimportant. But now? I see it differently.

⏰ Those small tasks were a test of precision, responsibility, and attitude.

They weren’t just errands

They were early lessons in ownership

So I shared this story with the student.

Not to glorify grunt work, but to show that sometimes, the smallest tasks reveal the biggest truths about how we show up.

💡 Takeaway

Whether you're buying coffee or building strategy

how you do the little things often reflects how you'll handle the big ones.

If I didn't get the breakfast orders correctly, how can my clients trust me with FX trades back in the days?

PS: If you’re job hunting today, feel free to check out my guides on:

📝 Fixing Your CV & LinkedIn in 1 Day

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