In my previous post I mentioned about my new job at ABCD company and I thought it would last me, well, at least 2 years? Nope, did not. Raised the white flag after 5.5 months. Why? Throughout that almost 6 months, I did not get to maximise my potential; all I did was to reply some emails, interacted with some big shots, and submitted a proposal which was chucked beneath a pile of documents by my director. She was pretty inexperience as a director, more so as a leader. Even though her room was less than 3 metres away from my desk, if I needed to talk to her for 10 minutes, I need to make an appointment with her secretary and give an agenda. She asked me to present some slides at a meeting, but just on the meeting itself, she told me she will present MY slides. So this is how it works in a corporate institution. Managers are just errand runners to directors. Period. My request to take up some course on SGGCP was turned down by her and I have to coordinate the moving of researchers from their existing block to another block with only half the space. Not only can I do nothing to help the researchers, I'm sandwiched between the management and the staff. I did not expect myself to quit a job in less than a year until an opportunity presented itself. The new job requires me to take a 10% pay cut and a 40% leave cut. It was a choice that I would have never considered in the past. ABCD company has made me realised I am not as shallow as I turned out to be. It's not all about the numbers, my thirst for knowledge has made me seen another side of me. I needed something to make me strive and move forward. I joined BLAB as an Apps specialist, the second Apps spec in the company.
BLAB's culture is somewhat similar to TSP's; a strength of 30-odd, closely-knitted family, but the way of expressing themselves is much more frank, direct and less sensitive. There are 3 main lunch groups: sales, customer care and engineers. The sales team is the more outgoing and well-balanced group and they always go out for lunch. The CC team is so called the "admin" people who can't be exposed to any form of light, thus staying in for lunch with all the blinds down. The engineering team is the masculine team who gulps down food in seconds. They usually don't venture more than 50 metres away from the office for lunch. I found myself in the sales team because the friend who brought me in belongs to that group. I once brought food but it felt awkward as the CC were not very inclusive in their conversations plus I do not like to stay in a pantry where sunlight is totally restricted,
Boss is a soft-hearted man but seemed to have gone through a lot that resulted in today's micro-management style. Although he claimed that he wanted to treated people as adults, the way he worked seemed like everything has to be in his control. I'm a little not used to this style of leadership, but again this might be common in an SME.
BLAB's culture is somewhat similar to TSP's; a strength of 30-odd, closely-knitted family, but the way of expressing themselves is much more frank, direct and less sensitive. There are 3 main lunch groups: sales, customer care and engineers. The sales team is the more outgoing and well-balanced group and they always go out for lunch. The CC team is so called the "admin" people who can't be exposed to any form of light, thus staying in for lunch with all the blinds down. The engineering team is the masculine team who gulps down food in seconds. They usually don't venture more than 50 metres away from the office for lunch. I found myself in the sales team because the friend who brought me in belongs to that group. I once brought food but it felt awkward as the CC were not very inclusive in their conversations plus I do not like to stay in a pantry where sunlight is totally restricted,
Boss is a soft-hearted man but seemed to have gone through a lot that resulted in today's micro-management style. Although he claimed that he wanted to treated people as adults, the way he worked seemed like everything has to be in his control. I'm a little not used to this style of leadership, but again this might be common in an SME.
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