Limburg, Belgium
My Traineeship in Belgium
My name is João Jornada. I was
studying computer science and decided to stop the course for one
semester in order to go for an AIESEC traineeship. My traineeship took
place in Belgium, in the province of Limburg where people speak a
dialect of Dutch called Flemish.
I worked in a company called General computers, situated in a city
called Paal-Beringen. This city was about 25-30Km away from the city
where we lived, Diepenbeek, which contains the local university and the
AIESEC office.
I arrived in Belgium in mid-September, and I was going to leave in the
middle of February, so I travel a little bit around Europe before
getting back to Brazil and starting classes again (which was in March).
After working about 1 month in this company, our boss asked us to do
some “extra-hours” in order to speed up the projects. I agreed with
that and for that reason, on days I was doing my “extra-hours” they
borrow me the company’s car so I could get home.
One day, in December, I was the last one to leave the company. In that
time, they were replacing the company’s garage main Front Door.
Actually, they have just replaced by a new one. Then I left the company
to get the car. Usually the front door is always open, but that time it
wasn’t. I step out from the car to have a look. I tried to open it
manually and nothing happened. Then I had a look around. The place was
completely empty and dark. This was around 08:30 pm, but since it was
on winter, it was already night for a long time. The company is inside
a quite large area since it is in the middle of a industrial district,
far from the main city. I tried to enter the company again to make a
phone call but this wasn’t possible because when somebody leave the
company the door automatically locks itself (and I had no keys —
besides the car’s keys). I walked all around the company’s area. There
was no way out.
Then I step in the car again. I tried to think what to do for a while.
During that time, I was circulating the company’s area by car. In a
last attempt I got very close to the garage’s main door by car. When
the car was very close, then it opened automatically! And I finally
left the company and got home safe!
João Jornada, Brazil
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