Of Ox, Bull and Cow

I'm starting work on the 4th day of the Ox year, incidently, i have 4 days left with my current company starting tomorrow.. Come 3rd Feb, i'll be officially done with my current job for my 1 year contract as a Project Coordinator

It is indeed a bad time to be jobless, well still within the "15 days of Chinese New Year" being without a job might not be such a good thing.. however, i'm somewhat lucky that i have one and a half job offers that has come my way..

Option 1 involves joining the "client" that i have served while in my current job. While the job scope would be relevant to my degree and has somewhat room for expansion and development, the massive job scope, workload as well as long hours meant that things will not be easy. On top of that, the offer did not meet my expectations.. to me, its quite certain that if i'm doing so much more, then all the more i should be paid in relation to my job scope, load and hours.. oh well..

Option 2, which is half a deal, will see me in a supervisory role, with some aspects of a Management Trainee thrown in. It is an industry that few will expect me to be interested in, likewise there is still some stigma as to the image of the job holders under the company flag.. though i haven't had anything official from this company, the basic salary + allowance paints a slighter better picture than Option 1. The major minus being that what i do in this company will have little to do with what i am doing now and what i have studied...

To be honest, i feel that i should be able to perform in both jobs, the issue here is, to what extend would i need to push myself in the job and what sort of returns can i expect for my effort? Would the hard work in Option 1 give me sufficient returns? Would taking up Option 2 mean that i'm stuck in a niche industry that would cut short my options in future?

Questions, questions and more questions... its like choosing between an Ox, a Bull and a Cow.

There are plenty of considerations regarding the job as well as what to expect in terms of my private life in 2009, time is running out, i need to sort this out soon!

Quote for the day:

Don't miss the donut by looking through the hole

Of Foot balls

i haven't blogged about football for awhile.. well, there simply wasn't enough good news to share and the bad news didn't hit me well enough to rattle on about anything..

FA Cup action sees a break to the league, with Arsenal lying at 5th place, 3pts behind aston villa. All talk of winning the league now seems unlikely, but if Prof Wengers insists we are still in it, then we... actually, forget about the title..

for a club like arsenal, playing in the Champions League is absolutely vital, the TV money, the chance for the likes of van persie, fabregas, walcott and clichy to be tested against europe's elite..

On the other hand, the January transfer window has been rather "quiet" for arsenal.. a couple of kids left on loan early on and it was "quiet" in a way that no one came in while talk about Andrei "The Owl" Ashravin continues to drag into the the 3rd week of the transfer window
We know we need someone, but we will not pay indecent prices.. 14mil for Bellamy? 14mil for Palacios? Palacios who right? Haha.. he's a decent winger from wigan, he did well for me in FM08, i havent seen him play this season to judge him

As it is, this is the last working day before CNY and i just wanted to start the day another way


Go Gunners!

Of Sleeping

It's funny how i have always found it hard to sleep in class.. despite not paying much attention when the going goes boring, i have never really remember being able to fall asleep in class..

like in secondary school, as bored as i was with the chinese lessons, sleeping in class was something that i would attempt unsuccessfully.. one Mr Png, who taught me my chinese(or lack of it) would nicely declare that those who were not interested just sleep and not bother the class and others.. that declaration will happily seep the energy of some in the class and they would appreciate the 30-60min nap amid the incessant speech from the old chinese teacher..

but for me, i would sometime rest my head but be unable to enter into any sleep, instead, i would doodle on my chinese textbook or read about other stuff or some other textbook, such as my literature text.. somehow, if i had substitute my A maths in upper secondary with literature, i would have a certificate that i'll be prouder of.

a couple of years down the road, in a classroom in thomson where hot-blooded young men with their heads shaven sat, there was another gentleman that was keen to pass his knowledge to us.. waking up at 0530hrs and running half of thomson and returning to the academy for a 0900hrs lecture for the next 2 hours isn't the best condition to be in.. so people were expected to sleep and he was lenient about it.. but for me, despite my tiredness, could never fall asleep.. maybe that's why the legal knowledge in me remains strong till this day..

now, there might be something about me being unable to sleep while sitting in a classroom position.. i have dozed off completely while on bus and mrt rides..

so maybe it has something to do with people talking in front of me.. my mind picks up the message that something is being communicated and though i'm not interested, my mind is inclined to decipher the message and keep itself awake

Wake me up, when september ends... now that's totally random

Of Call of Due..due

I'm on reservist on 15 & 16 Jan, so you won't see me online and the chance of me replying to your email speedily is rather low..

i'm on course, and the first day's programme runs from 0830 to 2130.. will be end on time? welcome to the force

Of Interview wheel

Alright folks,

i'm still writing this while things are still fresh in my mind and i'm quite fiesty about all this as well..

first things first, i attended the interview for Marcom Executive at Company V this evening. What i did not expect was for my interview to involve 2 rounds, 1st with the Company V management and 2nd round with a HR representative(i was later told she's an executive) from Company V's parent company, which does Company V's HR..

Round 1 - Ding ding

While, round 1 went quite well, standard questions about what i did, why i left and when they did ask if i applied for other positions, i was honest in revealing that i did, though they were not necessarily marcom related.. my greatest concern, however, was whether i was really ready to be working OT almost everyday and working on weekends on a regular basis.. i like the way how the General Manager ended by reminding me how i was never obliged to take on the job despite working with them on one of their projects under my current company (ie. i serve Company V for this project in which i'm the coordinator from my office)

Round 2 - BRING IT ON

Okie, this is the first time that i attended an interview that had no HR sitting in and on top of that, HR interview you separately after the management is done.. but having gone through the interview, perhaps the management wanted to spare themselves the agony of listening to a HR personnel TRYING to ask smart questions or trying their best to make recruitment look reasonable.. while, common sense can be quite uncommon after all..

so back to this scenario.. what went wrong?

perhaps she (yep, just one person from HR interviewed me, an executive i later heard) was trying to use negative questions to test my reactions, perhaps she wasn't sure how she should have approached with her questions, perhaps she is new and it was late into the late late afternoon that she was thinking about dinner more than my job, perhaps she's just darn crappy

i'll not list everything down because i'm lazy

but look here, we spoke about handling some aspects of customer service under the Marcom executive job scope and i was fine with that, but when she spoke about managing customer service officers on a daily basis, it just seem to have gone off-course.. the next best thing after i clarify and got affirmation that i was applying for marcom exec? she commented:

"i'm concerned about your lack of leadership experience, you might have problems implementing things and managing the customer service officers on a day-to-day basis.."

LACK
OF
LEADERSHIP
EXPERIENCE

ok lah, i have never managed customer service officers before and it was never my intention to manage them in the first place, but lack of leadership? let me see..

i guess being Head of Training, Sec 3 Squad Commander and Overall-in-charge of your secondary school NPCC unit and earning the Best Unit Cadet and Outstanding CCA Award in Sec 4 wasn't much of a deal, being Station Inspector doesn't really matter either right..

i'm sure whatever i did when i was in the Singapore Police Force for my NS as an inspector has little or no contribution towards leadership experience, well.. maybe not when all i had to do was to do almost everything regarding recruitment eh?

let me see, i'm sure having 5 NSF under me when i was working in the SPF as a Management Support Officer, managing their daily workload, doing their training needs analysis, performance appraisial etc doesn't count towards leadership qualities.. 

and what else do i not have? hmm, i guess being the Officer Commanding(OC) of a team of NSmen at reservist doesn't add anything to my leadership experience either

ohh.. she had this to add after i tried explaining how my experience in NPCC and the Police(as MSO) could help me should i be called upon a supervisory position:

"you also lack supervisory experience in your last 2 jobs"

oh yeah, i'm sure all employers out there are ready to develop their diploma holders and give them assistants or staff to supervise while in their jobs.

FAIL

okie, this post is getting long, so just one more example where she asked if i applied for other jobs

i honestly replied that i'm also looking at some Account Executive positions and i was also interview for a Operations related position.. and guess what?

She "why you want to do accounts exec"?
Me: "well, the AE job is somewhat like my current job where i service the client"
She looks super confused
I got it
Me: "accounts exec as in AE in marketing agencies"
She continues to look super confused, in fact most so.. and on reflection, i swear she was flipping my certificates to find something that reads Accounting & Finance of ACCA
Me: "accounts executive as in client-servicing in marketing agencies?"
She "oh.. OH.."

I'm still not sure if she got it

EPIC FAIL

So if you are one of those who are wondering if i had a good interview or not..

my answer is.. good and very bad..

go figure

Of An Update

You know, sometimes i wonder how to start a blog post, some people prefer to talk about some recent or start by a meaningful quote or some sensational news of the day, others put up a picture to provoke some thought, while the rest complain about how hard it is to start a post..

for me, i wonder constantly who actually reads my blog.. i have a few friends on the list that visits on a somewhat regular basis and there's those who would leave a comment on the post or a simple message on the cbox

which brings me to the mean point of today's post

i'm going to be jobless in exactly 21 days, with 3rd Feb my official last day in my current office.. i'll have plenty of time to reflect on my 12months journey in my current job and await a better beginning wherever i could end up with..

as of now, i have attended only 1 interview for a job that is unrelated to my studies (marketing) and i'll already scheduled for a 2nd interview for this job.. today, i received another call from a company that i work very closely now and i'll be placed on the interview grill tomorrow again

what makes a job attractive? the nature of work, the remuneration package, the direct supervisor, the office people/culture, the opportunities for advancement?

At times like this, its a misery to be a job-hunter..

one friend made this statement about jobs: in this current time, your boss will tell you having a job is a bonus!

for those of you who are on a permanent placement in your office, appreciate that you are somewhat ensure that you will continue to work in this company unless some drastic happen.. for fellow job seekers like myself, exercise patience, hope onto your guns and don't stop sending those resumes out..

even if you don't get a call, even if you don't get an offer.. just carry on trying

Never Give Up

Of The number 625

I'm hitting 26 this year. I started working in 2005 and this is technically my 4th year in the workforce. I shuddered to think that i could be working till i'm 62 and i sigh when i hear of our Prime Minister's plan to "encourage" older workers to work another 3 more years, till 65! At a lower pay!

62 minus 26, what irony, i have 36 more years in the workforce? Wow

Imagine my CPF when i'm 65 and finally retired, would i have the savings that can match a minister's one month salary? Would i be able to go for a 15k culinary course with my family? Would i feel rich when i look at my CPF?

Imagine the things i can do when i retire, i can travel the world, visit the football stadiums in the UK and Europe, i can visit my ancestoral home back in China(well, i might or might not), i can revisit Curtin University in Perth with my wife, i can buy my dream mini-cooper, i can finally fly in a helicopter, dive under the sea, dive from the sky from an aeroplane, learn to fly a plane, drive my kids to work!

but wait.. i'll be 65

what a bummer

as Chow Yun Fatt said in Pirates of the Carribean 3: "welcome to Singapore", i wonder if there's any link there..

Of Football Match

I played a match today, half a match actually, as a left-back.. somehow it seems that i have not really decided on a fixed position on the field yet.. i operated as a defensive midfielder for my squad team the "Wild Parrots" and also occasionally as left-back, right-back or centre-back.. i was also pushed into the wingers on one occasion..

i was fit then

i was fit then

i'm nowhere near fit now. its apparent that i didn't run as hard as a left-back should today, my heading was poor, my marking was loose and the tackles that i made hardly connected while the clearances were more like fly-swatting as opposed to the blast off that they should have been..

i short, i had a poor game

the team won 2-1

i had a poor game, we won 2-1.. oh well

i know i have to improve my fitness but i'm lazy, the next match is on sat, on a smaller artificial pitch, hope i turn in a better performance

Of Happy 2009

My 329th post and its the first day of 2009...

I slept through the last hour of 2008 and slept through early hours of 2009 too.

There's no 2008 review done this year in my blog, i didn't participate in any countdown activities either.

Hope those folks who were at Marina Bay and VivoCity had fun. 

Hope those folks who were working at Marina Bay and VivoCity get a good rest today, and tomorrow, and the weekend.

Happy New Year people!

Have a good 2009