He's back tomorrow!!

Yippie!! My work partner will be back tomorrow to help lighten the workload somewhat, not that there were alot anyway. But hey, I doubt anybody would complain of a lighter workload. :)

The past 2 weeks had not been THAT bad... but it was kind of bad enough. Every request that came in, I would look up the designated IT Resources folder for documentations or guides on how to go about completing the task. The folder became my Google.

To worsen matters a little, my Internet access was restricted at that time and it impended my googling for solutions quite a bit. I resorted to having to use a Free-For-All PC which is (luckily) located at the cubicle right next to mine. So you can imagine me moving across from one cube to the cube all the time.

Another complaint which I have is with regards to the speed of support from the HQ in Dublin. Due to the timezone constraints, any requests sent over can only be worked on by them as they come in, which is like 5pm SG time....As such, the communication window is very tight and this often leads to a problem 'hanging' overnight! Of course, if I can gain access to the necessary systems, this problem can be greatly overcome, if not eliminated.

I've also been starting to get involved in meetings and discussions. These are something which I've never really enjoyed in the past but I guessed I can't avoid them now for I'm a team leader now. If I do not attend, who will?

I only hoped that I would be able to get up to speed with what's going on during these meetings....

A Week Later....

A week had passed since starting on my new job and everyone's been asking me hows it going.... even my bosses. What do you expect me to say? That it's pretty screwed up and all? No that it's the case, but when you ask such a question, surely you're expecting a positive answer, right? No?

Anyway, things are going smoothly and you need not worry about me being unable to cope. Of course, there are teething issues such as a delay in getting my accounts fully ready, delay in giving me my due stationary and such. It's quite unlike in XXX where all these are ready from Day 1 when you started work. In YYY, my accounts weren't ready until noon that day, my stationary set was given to me after I emailed the Admin lady if I should buy my own stationary and claimed if they do not issue.... Even my namecards were ordered only after I asked that lady too.

Anyway, these little issues aside, I've bigger issues on hand. Early in the morning of Day 2, the newly promoted COO passed me a document on YYY's Business Continuity Plans. By the end of Day 3, I was "invited" to sit in a Webex meeting scheduled for 15 Nov. And the best part of the entire week was... my partner's away for the next 2weeks for his annual leave to study for exams. Imagine this; barely 5days into the job and you're being thrown into the deep end!!

I seriously, sincerely and really am praying, hoping that nothing serious crops up...

Butterflies

Nope, not those flying ones... The butterflies I'm referring to are the ones in my tummy.

Why so? Well, I guess it's pretty much due to my upcoming new job in YYY Company. I'm starting to feel the jitters and wondering if I'm up to the new role. Not only is this new role a senior position with a junior fellow to manage/guide, it also comprises of several other aspects which I've not touched on before in my existing job nor in my past jobs. In a nutshell, I'm clueless!!

What am I clueless about? I'm clueless about some of the platforms which they are currently using or am looking to implement, I'm clueless about having to do budgeting for my Singapore and possibly Hong Kong based teams, I'm also clueless about whether my existing style of supervising Zarah is a good template for managing my new colleague...

Another butterfly to add on..... with me now being a supervisor, I cannot show my displeasure at the management as publicly and freely as before. I'm now sort of like a leader, role-model kind of person and should I exhibit such negative behaviour, what kind of image am I portraying to my colleague? Can you imagine if your team-lead loses heart in his job/tasks-at-hand, how will the morale of the team be like? Taking a leaf from my existing supervisor, no matter how screwed-up a decision the management might make, he's always supportive and positive about it. Even if the decision sounded dumb, he would go : "Let's get down to it, the management deems such as fit and we should follow....". Well, I guess I've got to adopt such an attitude from now onwards, otherwise, God knows how I'd be perceived as a supervisor...

Butterflies, butterflies... please get out of my tummy and do something useful for me, for once.. I'd love it if you could show me how to overcome you.

Moving on....

I'm FINALLY moving on from the hell place where I worked...

4 long years.... I'd be moving on to another job which is located in town. Well, ok, on the fringe of the Central Business District. I'd still be doing IT, but in a totally different industry. The job scope is pretty much like what I used to do in my first 2 jobs, covering things from the end-user to the servers in the data centre. Besides, the decent renumeration, other pull factors included being a team-lead in charge of the SG IT operations, the possibility of business-travel and other skills which I've never been given the chance to touch on..... This job is really everything which I've always wished for!!

Having raved about how excited I am about the new job, I'm actually feeling a little bit sad to be leaving XXX. This is despite the fact that I've sooooo much displeasure with them and all. On one hand, I'm really glad to be getting out of my misery, on the other hand, I'm rather sad to be leaving some of my colleagues which I've had forged pretty strong friendship with... Eg. the folks from Team XXX (soccer team-mates), my team-mates in IT Security and some other folks which we all gather to talk crap... I'd miss our POWER LUNCHES where it stretched for nearly 2hrs, our crap-talks, our football games, sweat and laughters...

However, having said that, I'd need to move on, be it for myself or for my career. Besides, its only that I won't be working alongside them. It's not as if the friendship forged in XXX stops there whenever one of us resigns...

But then again, to those whom you know who you are, I'd miss you folks.......