Once again I'm jobless! The last job lasted exactly 3 mths including notice period. Not actively looking out now coz I'm considering a career switch and taking up a part-time course related to it. After a couple of years in HR, I'm getting quite sick of it. It's a thankless job where we are like the personal assistant to every single employee in the company. In the past when I was in a GSS environment my phone hardly rang coz my job was specialized in HRIS. I wished then I could do a generalist role, interacting with employees. Guess the saying of "be careful what you wish for" is true coz my recent job granted my wish, in fact it was "over-granted" and I had to hang up my phone most of the time and tried to avoid interaction with employees!
It's been almost 2 wks since I started my tai-tai life and it's been great, though a little boring at times. My day starts at 9am, simple bkfast & newspaper till 10+, then go online surf net or watch drama online. Noon time go out buy lunch and grocery shopping for dinner. Early afternoon prepare dinner, do some housework or do part-time course's homework or watch more drama online. Early evening cook dinner then relax, watch tv, wait for hubby come home. After dinner, more tv time then bedtime at 11. Mondays & Weds got lessons from 7 - 10pm so I'll go back mum's place in afternoon to nuah, enjoy mum's cooking then go class with sister. I guess by attending part-time course, my days pass faster. And now with a new hobby of cooking for hubby, tai-tai life at home is quite enjoyable :)
Thursday, June 16, 2011
Saturday, May 07, 2011
Worst job choice ever?
Look at my last post 2 months ago ~ I was so happy! Unfortunately soon after that I nosedived into hell. Beyond the 18th level of hell, as my colleagues say it. When I started complaining to my jie-meis, they jokingly asked when I plan to quit. Seems like it has become a cycle which I can't get out of.
So what went wrong this round?
Jobscope deviated greatly from what was mentioned during the interview. Or rather, the jobscope mentioned during interview was only 1/3 of the jobscope of 1 staff I'm replacing. In reality, my jobscope was for 4 replacements and I didn't like any of their scope.
After the senior who handed over to me left, I was bombed everyday with all kinds of shit work. I was so stressed I woke up in the middle of the night. Sometimes I dreamt of work or colleagues. I spoke to my useless boss on the workload and he said will get a replacement, but it was all NATO on his part.
My health started to suffer. Headaches were almost a daily affair. I felt physically & mentally exhausted everyday. I began to dread going to work.
During interview the boss told me the staff seldom work beyond 6pm. Saturdays are off. I guess that was the culture BEFORE he joined. Coz apparently he doesn't like it when staff leave on time and enjoy long lunches. So he reshuffled their jobscope to overload them into doing overtime. Soon my 6pm extended to 6.45pm everyday. Saturdays became 6 hr work day.
When I realised he wasn't actively recruiting someone to share my load, I decided that I've had enough and verbally told my new manager my intention to go. Nevermind the penalty I've to pay the recruitment agency. Forget about my bad work history. Finances will suffer but I can cut down on shopping and restaurants.
The new manager tried to keep me. She promised to push the useless boss to hire someone in. But I didn't see results after 2 weeks. No interviews arranged. He just conveniently hired someone w/o relevant experience just because she was referred by a current staff. And yet he always complain to me about other dept who bring in their friends or relatives. He's no different from them! So I tendered officially but the manager promised me things will change, she'll take away the portfolio which I hated. But nothing happened coz there was no replacement to take on the job.
So I tendered the third time in a month, and this round it's for real. I'm relieved it'll be over soon but I'm still busy. I still bring work home to clear on weekends. I'm not sure if they can get someone in on time but I'm definitely not going to stay beyond my notice period.
On reflection, I should have trusted my gut feelings and not taken up this job in the first place. Firstly, it's not an MNC. I told myself I'll never join a local company after my unpleasant previous jobs in 2 local firms but I took this up because of its attractive renumeration package. Secondly, when 9 out of 13 staff mass resign, it signals something is seriously wrong with either the company, dept or the boss. I thot they weren't comfortable with the way the new boss runs the dept. Now I know why ~ the boss SUCKS big time. Indecisive, calculative, petty, ultra instant memory, fickle-minded, stirs up politics, no sense of direction, blur, stubborn, and the list goes on. In short, the worse Head of Dept I've ever worked for.
The only consolation is the great colleagues I have. They are always there for me, always ever so helpful and caring. I'm going to miss them a lot. They are the reason why I can survive till now.
I'm not sure where I'm heading after this. Maybe HR isn't for me after all. Or I'm not suited for the corporate world. Maybe I should take a break and seriously think about what I want to do next instead of jumping into another job.
So what went wrong this round?
Jobscope deviated greatly from what was mentioned during the interview. Or rather, the jobscope mentioned during interview was only 1/3 of the jobscope of 1 staff I'm replacing. In reality, my jobscope was for 4 replacements and I didn't like any of their scope.
After the senior who handed over to me left, I was bombed everyday with all kinds of shit work. I was so stressed I woke up in the middle of the night. Sometimes I dreamt of work or colleagues. I spoke to my useless boss on the workload and he said will get a replacement, but it was all NATO on his part.
My health started to suffer. Headaches were almost a daily affair. I felt physically & mentally exhausted everyday. I began to dread going to work.
During interview the boss told me the staff seldom work beyond 6pm. Saturdays are off. I guess that was the culture BEFORE he joined. Coz apparently he doesn't like it when staff leave on time and enjoy long lunches. So he reshuffled their jobscope to overload them into doing overtime. Soon my 6pm extended to 6.45pm everyday. Saturdays became 6 hr work day.
When I realised he wasn't actively recruiting someone to share my load, I decided that I've had enough and verbally told my new manager my intention to go. Nevermind the penalty I've to pay the recruitment agency. Forget about my bad work history. Finances will suffer but I can cut down on shopping and restaurants.
The new manager tried to keep me. She promised to push the useless boss to hire someone in. But I didn't see results after 2 weeks. No interviews arranged. He just conveniently hired someone w/o relevant experience just because she was referred by a current staff. And yet he always complain to me about other dept who bring in their friends or relatives. He's no different from them! So I tendered officially but the manager promised me things will change, she'll take away the portfolio which I hated. But nothing happened coz there was no replacement to take on the job.
So I tendered the third time in a month, and this round it's for real. I'm relieved it'll be over soon but I'm still busy. I still bring work home to clear on weekends. I'm not sure if they can get someone in on time but I'm definitely not going to stay beyond my notice period.
On reflection, I should have trusted my gut feelings and not taken up this job in the first place. Firstly, it's not an MNC. I told myself I'll never join a local company after my unpleasant previous jobs in 2 local firms but I took this up because of its attractive renumeration package. Secondly, when 9 out of 13 staff mass resign, it signals something is seriously wrong with either the company, dept or the boss. I thot they weren't comfortable with the way the new boss runs the dept. Now I know why ~ the boss SUCKS big time. Indecisive, calculative, petty, ultra instant memory, fickle-minded, stirs up politics, no sense of direction, blur, stubborn, and the list goes on. In short, the worse Head of Dept I've ever worked for.
The only consolation is the great colleagues I have. They are always there for me, always ever so helpful and caring. I'm going to miss them a lot. They are the reason why I can survive till now.
I'm not sure where I'm heading after this. Maybe HR isn't for me after all. Or I'm not suited for the corporate world. Maybe I should take a break and seriously think about what I want to do next instead of jumping into another job.
Thursday, March 03, 2011
1st day of work
Finally... I get a decent spacious workstation with proper storage space and a laptop. And a more exciting role after 7 mths of data-entry :)
This place is very run-down like an old primary school, takes me an hour to reach and has 2.5hrs more official working hours per week. The salary's higher although the longer journey and working hours offset it. Wider jobscope means more responsibility but better career progression. My colleagues are very friendly, it was so easy to break the ice but I'm not sure how long they will be around coz the attrition rate is rather high here.
I'm happy on my 1st day of work. Hope the happiness lasts :p
This place is very run-down like an old primary school, takes me an hour to reach and has 2.5hrs more official working hours per week. The salary's higher although the longer journey and working hours offset it. Wider jobscope means more responsibility but better career progression. My colleagues are very friendly, it was so easy to break the ice but I'm not sure how long they will be around coz the attrition rate is rather high here.
I'm happy on my 1st day of work. Hope the happiness lasts :p
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Job hopper
I've quit my job. Again.
Since graduation in 2001, I've changed 12 jobs in 8 years (coz 2 years was spent in Japan).
Of the 12 jobs, 5 were perm, 7 were contract.
Of the 5 perm jobs, i quit within 2 weeks for 3 of them.
The longest I ever stayed in a job was as a private school teacher for 2 years, minus the 3 months vacation per year, that's like 1.5 years of work. And minus the short teaching hours, maybe I've only worked for a year as a teacher? haha!
Classic job hopper. Best of all, I'm in HR yet I'm still hopping from 1 job to another.
I've had a few good job opportunities in the past but I chose to forgo them for the wrong man. Bad choice indeed. But well, that's life with its expensive lessons! I'm behind my peers in the rat race now and probably won't ever catch up. Haiz...I've to learn to be contented with what I have instead of comparing to others coz as the saying goes "人比人气死人!"
My current job sucks. Then again, which of my other 11 jobs didn't? Ok, maybe not all of them were bad. My post in Oct last year reflected how miserable I was in this job but i managed to hold on till now. However I didn't want to go through another round of learning to do another brainless job so I chose to go even though I've not found another job. Another bad choice i guess coz it means I've to feed on grass till I get a job. Luckily hubby has a decent income to feed me rice. But I want abalone!! ;p
Mum's ok with my job hopping, often saying if you're not happy just move on, there're better ones out there. However Dad nags that all jobs are the same and is probably disappointed with me. I do agree after some time all jobs are the same. The frustrations. The politics. The gd & bad benefits/pay. I'm still in search of the ideal job which would probably never materialize.
I've gone for some interviews and am finding it more and more difficult to convince the interviewer that " 这是最后一次". I do wish it's one that I can last longer than 3 years coz it's so tiring to learn new things new processes again. Hubby's quite positive about it though. He even told me "You can make new friends again!"
With a housing loan to pay off and plans to start a family, I hope I can finally settle down in a perm job for a long time and enjoy the maternity benefits. I want to stop the life of a job hopper soon....
Since graduation in 2001, I've changed 12 jobs in 8 years (coz 2 years was spent in Japan).
Of the 12 jobs, 5 were perm, 7 were contract.
Of the 5 perm jobs, i quit within 2 weeks for 3 of them.
The longest I ever stayed in a job was as a private school teacher for 2 years, minus the 3 months vacation per year, that's like 1.5 years of work. And minus the short teaching hours, maybe I've only worked for a year as a teacher? haha!
Classic job hopper. Best of all, I'm in HR yet I'm still hopping from 1 job to another.
I've had a few good job opportunities in the past but I chose to forgo them for the wrong man. Bad choice indeed. But well, that's life with its expensive lessons! I'm behind my peers in the rat race now and probably won't ever catch up. Haiz...I've to learn to be contented with what I have instead of comparing to others coz as the saying goes "人比人气死人!"
My current job sucks. Then again, which of my other 11 jobs didn't? Ok, maybe not all of them were bad. My post in Oct last year reflected how miserable I was in this job but i managed to hold on till now. However I didn't want to go through another round of learning to do another brainless job so I chose to go even though I've not found another job. Another bad choice i guess coz it means I've to feed on grass till I get a job. Luckily hubby has a decent income to feed me rice. But I want abalone!! ;p
Mum's ok with my job hopping, often saying if you're not happy just move on, there're better ones out there. However Dad nags that all jobs are the same and is probably disappointed with me. I do agree after some time all jobs are the same. The frustrations. The politics. The gd & bad benefits/pay. I'm still in search of the ideal job which would probably never materialize.
I've gone for some interviews and am finding it more and more difficult to convince the interviewer that " 这是最后一次". I do wish it's one that I can last longer than 3 years coz it's so tiring to learn new things new processes again. Hubby's quite positive about it though. He even told me "You can make new friends again!"
With a housing loan to pay off and plans to start a family, I hope I can finally settle down in a perm job for a long time and enjoy the maternity benefits. I want to stop the life of a job hopper soon....
Thursday, October 07, 2010
Treasure box from the past
Last Sunday I was on another of my many spring cleaning mission and found a "treasure box" placed at the top of my cabinet, long forgotten.... Hard to reach, I think the last time I opened it was 1-2 years ago? I can't remember what's placed inside so I brought it down.
My memories from more than 10 yrs ago!
1 loving couple, 2 boxes of stamps, 3 stamp albums, 1 box of badges & coins, 1 sketchbook with drawings of our happy days (given by my ex-bf), 2 autograph books, 2 love letters from my ex-bf, 1 watch, 1 St. John Ambulance medical book & chess set (given by SIA) belonging to my dad, 1 trumpet music book & 1 song book belonging to my uncle.
I grew up playing with Barbie dolls. At one point I even had a big 3-storey Barbie doll mansion, swimming pool and car for them. I think there were 4-5 Barbies sharing one Ken. Hehe ;p I've kept this couple because of the Barbie doll as it was given to me by Aunty Nelly before she returned to the Philippines. Ken is just there to keep Barbie company :)
Getting friends and teachers to sign autograph book was the norm in Pri 6 & Sec 4. I still have the books and these are some of the autograph sheets by my secondary school teachers.
This is my 1st pager, subscribed thru SunPage. I remember those days of sending love messages on pagers using digits. Eg, 5121314 / 104 / 1 177155 4. Are you able to figure out the messages? ;p
I dumped all the items given by my ex-bf, re-packed the rest of the the items neatly into the treasure box and placed it back to its original spot. Probably 1-2 yrs later will open up to see its contents again :)
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