For this week’s class, we had to read a brief case study regarding Apple and its suppliers. We looked into Foxconn and Pegatron, both had issues regarding corporate social responsibility. Foxconn was put under scrutiny when news broke out about employees committing suicide. Apple would then move on to Pegatron, only for the same issues to arise. Both of these companies had poor and unsafe working conditions for their workers. This is pretty common across the industry as well. You go foreign and find suppliers in other countries because wages are cheaper. However, the tragic truth is that these workers are not getting paid enough and always working excessive hours. We debated in class whether companies like Apple should follow different ethical standards in other countries. I would think that it’ll be difficult to enforce a universal code of ethics across multiple countries, so Apple should just comply with the local rules. I do think that some of the practices are wrong and unethical, but it should be the government that makes these changes instead of a corporation.

For my internship, I was finally able to have a meeting with my boss. It has been three weeks since Mason and I last talked to her. We have been working on this social media outreach presentation for the last two weeks. We were excited to present our research and findings. During the presentation, I was quite nervous but ultimately got the points across and my boss liked our presentation. She did have some critiques but the overall reaction was positive. After the meeting, we hoped to invite her to lunch, but she was busy. That is one thing I noticed about my boss: she is always busy. Apparently, she has other jobs like modeling/being an actress. She also travels a lot and is always working on projects with collaborators.

This past weekend, I visited Naples and immediately noticed some differences compared to Milan. The traffic in Naples is more chaotic and there are fewer business-dressed people. Taking a taxi here was quite a heart-racing experience. I’m pretty sure the drivers here don’t follow the light signals. The best way to cross the street was to just have confidence and assume that cars will stop for you. The streets here are more lively and decorated. You could see clothes being dried out by the windows. The soccer team in Naples also just won a soccer league championship, so a lot of the streets had banners with the team colors on them.