Has it really been three weeks since my last update?

Ugh. It’s one of those mornings recovering from a night on the town. Jacob and I hired a driver last night and tasted a slice of the Manila nightlife scene. Not really that hung over, though, just feeling extremely lethargic – more so than usual. So, quick-fried English breakfast, crappy morning TV and what else have I got planned for today? Oh, that’s right, absolutely nothing. Except maybe blog a little bit in the air-conditioned comfort of my room, with the sun bearing down heavily on the palm-tree lined scenery outside my window in what is truly a beautiful day in the Philippines. Life is good!

I’ve had a few complaints that the content of this blog has so far been mostly restricted to descriptions of shenanigans and tomfoolery of the most trivial, unserious sort. This I acknowledge! However, I will keep on at it :) But I do suppose it’s time I should write something that holds a little bit of professional interest for those who want to know about what I actually came down here for, which is an internship with Sunpower Philippines. First, I have to say Sunpower is an awesome workplace. It has a highly trained and young workforce, so going to work feels just like going to school - except people wear ID tags the entire time, Jacob and I included. It’s big, employing around a thousand people or so. It also houses an extremely high-tech solar cell fabrication process with the majority of the processes occurring inside cleanrooms where temperature, relative humidity and particle concentration are strictly controlled. The picture gives you a look inside. As you can see, they use full body PPE (Personal Protection Equipment), also known as bunny suits. I’m not at liberty to say what exactly goes on inside, but suffice to say, solar cell fabrication is complicated shit. I’m sure none of you are all that familiar with semiconductor device fabrication techniques. Neither are we, but we have had to contend with learning about stuff like plasma enhanced vapor deposition processes. The interesting part for us is that these processes use incredibly hazardous chemicals - whether toxic, pyrophoric, corrosive or otherwise nasty – and lots of it too. Our job is to figure out how to implement a systematic environmental management system that will enable the company to handle the environmentally harmful aspects of its activities. Its quite a daunting task, as we are doing this from scratch. We hope to do a good job, though… the intention is for the company to use our work as input for a strategy meeting next year, when ISO 14001 will be seriously considered.

This is the company’s product. It’s the A-300 solar cell, and it is THE most efficient solar cell in mass production in the world today. It yields efficiencies of 21%, and in addition, it has an edge over the competition because Sunpower has perfected and patented the unique construction of its cell so that there is no need for those metal gridlines on the cell’s ‘sunny side’. It’s all-black appearance and high wattage output per square meter are two things that are able to make Sunpower an industry leader. It has recently been floated on the Nasdaq and is currently the fastest growing technology company listed. Impressive stuff.

The first week at Sunpower was spent undergoing NEOP (New Employee Orientation Program) training, learning all about safety procedures, chemical handling, internal document management and statistical process control systems, among many other things. Shit, I thought I had finished my last ever lecture. Jacob and I even had to do a written exam in order to be certified for cleanroom entry. At any rate, we did the training together with batch 40, a new set of employees. The interesting and amazing thing we learned was that the people working on the shop floor here seem to be overqualified for what they do – every single worker is an engineer with at least a five year degree behind them! Although the fabrication processes are high-tech, Jacob and I are still somewhat puzzled by the need to hire full-fledged mechanical, electrical and IT engineers for loading/unloading work. The fact of the matter, however, is that labor is cheap here, there is a high unemployment rate even among engineers and there are loads of engineering graduates churned up every year. For the sake of becoming the industry leader, Sunpower is only happy to invest in the best-trained available workforce.

In the subsequent two weeks since that introductory week, we have alternated between working on our report and doing tours of the facilities and requesting data sets, which we are now beginning to receive and number-crunch. Nothing too exciting to report. I did have a funny (well not too funny) thing happen to me. I got an allergic reaction to something I ate at the Sunpower canteen and was unwell for a week, which sucked. I had just begun working out at the local gym, getting a rhythm going and then I got knocked off balance. I suspect what triggered the allergy was a delicacy here called bagoong (pronounced: bah-GOH-ong), which is salty fermented tiny shrimp. It tastes awful and I’m glad I’m allergic to it because I never willingly go near it anyway.

Let’s see, before I sign off, what can I show you guys to make this blog more exciting? Idea: Here is the various shit I have stored on my phone, bits and glimpses of my life here. Enjoy!

First up is pictures. This is Jay and I waiting for the shuttle bus on our first day at work… do NOT laugh! Hehe, actually Jacob commented that we looked like a pair of missionaries. But hey, we didn’t know everyone wore casual wear at Sunpower and didn’t know what to expect!





This is a glimpse of our hangout, the one and only Paseo de Santa Rosa. We live basically right across from it: it’s a shopping complex with a wet market that has a number of bars and restaurants. There is live band entertainment on Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays. We are regulars there now – all the serving staff know us by name :)





Hm. This is interesting because it shows how big some of the malls are here. What you are seeing on the picture is a roller coaster.



Me on a date.





This is remarkable. One day at Sunpower we were told that if we wanted to, we could donate blood as the Red Cross was visiting the company that day. Nifty idea, that. I didn't donate because I'm a pussy, but Jacob did.





Now, the movies. I have a clip of some hunnys dancing at the Paseo, a clip of Jacob bust-a-moving, and a clip of some fire-eating, taken at a theme park nearby called Enchanted Kingdom where I went with Anabel (see previous blogs).

See you around, kiddos!