The Anniversary

At this very same day, a year ago, I was full of anticipation.

Now, after one year of working life, I’m recalling back on what had been my expectations on that memorable day. Thing wasn’t really far off, although it has made a lot of unexpected turns.

I started off with zero knowledge about business process, but I wasn’t really worried about that. I was so sure that they hire me because of my technical expertise, till I was told that I was just made a very big wrong assumption.

Despite being in IT department, there is no development going on. At all. The most technical stuff I can find was to make test cases and liaise with vendor. I feel very uncomfortable at that time. If my core competency – my knowledge of software engineering – wasn’t put into practice at all, I am no difference from a JC graduate. I started to panic, knowing that I wouldn’t be contributing as much as I want.

It was only after few months then I realized their reasons for hiring me. No they are not looking for an expert in the field. They are looking for someone that they can nurture, to have a high level view of the organization, and to have the experience of how every team works. I was flattered and skeptical at the same time. I was not convinced that it’s going to work out for me.

Time passed by, and I moved on to different teams. The more team I work with, the clearer I can see the value of the arrangement. In the end, I’m thankful that I can make meaningful suggestions to my team, just because I learnt it from my other team. I started to focus a lot in business processes, and quite accept the fact that my technical expertise might be left unused.

But the plot wasn’t last long. With the organization decision to revamp their business strategies, focus was no longer to nurture people. Rather, it’s to find the people who can do it at the lowest possible cost. I’m now misaligned with the strategies, and hence Plan B is executed.

The plan B kicked off today, right on my one year anniversary. After working at DBS and ORQ, I’m now located at 911 Alexandra. Rather than working with stock, price, fund, order, I will now work with select, insert, execute, debug. Wasn’t this what I have been wishing for since the first day? To be on technical side and talk about the topic I’m comfortable with? Sometimes I really feel that God hear my voices (even though with some lagging. ehem.)

Now, instead of jumping out when waken up after 7, I can still roll around after 8. Instead of being in a team with no guy, I’m now the only gal during lunch. Instead of talking about school holiday, I’m discussing about new iphone application. And instead of going home after 12, I reached home before 9.

Is this what I want? I don't know. But I realize that I can't ask for more than that. I truly find that this is a good opportunity for me to find out, if I'm really what I thought I was. Let see what I have to say on my second anniversary. For now, I’m engaged to GBIT.

Happy Anniversary,
ED