new-to-me squire P-bass detective work

[colorado hick]

Hey folks,
I recently purchased a 2004 Indonesian Squire Affinity P bass (Cort factory I believe) from what I thought was the original owner.
I popped off the pickguard and it appears that he volume control is closest to the jack and the tone control is in front, which is backwards from every guitar I have ever owned. Is that a P-bass thing?
Also the pots are alphas, does that seem right for this instrument? There is a bunch of solder globed on the back so I can read the values but when I hooked up a cheapo multimeter it appears that the tone pot is 500K audio and the volume knob is only 6.5 k audio (that just doesnt seem right though). Maybe something with the capacitor
is messing up my readings.
Also curious if someone could tell me what that body wood is, I am guessing alder?
thanks!!

 

[TDR1138]

The controls should be volume toward the neck and tone toward the jack. So, either a QC fail or someone was in there messing around.

I don’t recall the pots being Alpha brand, but stock wiring would have 500k mini pots for both controls.

I’ve had 2 Ps and a J from this era. Both Ps sounded and functioned a lot better after replacing the pots with 250k pots per the Fender spec. The stock pots were inconsistent with their tapers and too high of a value for me. I never had to crack the J open as it was fine.