Thursday, January 11, 2007

Reflections on 2006 and the future (plus a little gossip)

It's ten days into the new year already, and I still have yet to do my customary reflection of the previous year. Well, not that I ever made it customary, but last year was a pretty important year for me. First and foremost, it was my first year out in the great big working world, and for the first half of the year I was a lab demonstrator. Now I have the dubious honour of being able to tell people that I'm a Mad Scientist. Trust me, it doesn't get any less weird. Just today I was going around to various colleges and universities to post up some job vacancies notices for my company, and I went to Monash where I met some of the student services people that I know. And of course they had to ask what I'm doing now, and when I explained my job to them, they had that kinda look on their face that said they are thinking something that they're too polite to say out loud. Haha, not that I really care what they think anyway. I enjoy what I do, even though my office has had it's fair share of problems. When I first came in, I had to deal with my supervisor breathing down my neck all the time, til finally I had a nice long discussion with him telling him to cut it out (in a nicer way, of course), then he lightened up. Then I had to deal with another colleague who's the office gossip and tells every little detail about what other colleagues say that he doesn't like.... the 'other colleagues' mainly being our supervisor. Then I had to, and still have to, deal with a recent addition to the company who claims she has all sorts of family problems and she keeps falling sick and taking leave. And she's quite careless and lazy in doing things. And her science background is poor so she can't even teach properly. And we suspect that she has stolen office money, but we can't prove it. And the only reason she's still around is coz' we're short of people and are trying to get new blood in, but our company seems to be plagued with job applications from people who love to 'fung fei kei' or FFK us. The first FFK fella that Jehovah's witness who refused to come to work after only one week, and had the nerve to divert office phone calls to MY phone coz' he didn't want to talk to us. We thought that was bad. But that wasn't the worst. At least he worked for us for a few days and he still had the decency to come back to the office to return our keys and hand in his resignation letter. On the first day of work in the new year, we had a new girl come into office. Apparently, she's doing her masters degree, and so she could only work on Mondays to Wednesdays but not other days. But my boss was ok with that too, so we took her in, and she came in to work for the first day on a Wednesday. I was on mc that day so I didn't get to meet her, and I didn't see her the rest of the week either coz' she wasn't going to work on those days. Monday came around, and though she was supposed to come to work, she didn't turn up. My colleague tried to call her but she didn't answer. It was only that afternoon when we got a message from our boss that the girl's FIANCE sent an sms to our boss saying that she didn't want to work for us anymore. Reason being that our job involved us meeting clients, and she didn't want to do that. Like, HUH? We didn't hear anything from that girl herself, and she didn't even come to office to return our stuff. She posted it all back to us. Good grief...a person doing her masters but not even professional enough to talk to us herself and explain why she wants to quit. *Sigh* No doubt the FFK crown goes to her. I can't imagine anyone doing worse than that. Anyway, for the past month of so, our supervisor was also becoming a pain in the rear again towards everyone... I think it was because he was about to quit the job and he wanted to boss everyone around as much as he could before he left. And he stopped working at the end of last year, so now the office is left with only 3 instructors, which is me, the office gossip (who fortunately, can really do his work well, so I don't mind the gossip so much) and Miss Problematic. And we have quite a number of classes starting soon, so we need new RELIABLE blood in our office soon....so in case anyone reading this is unemployed and interested in becoming a Mad Scientist, do gimme a holler. :) Don't worry, not everyone in my office is a source of headaches. Our accountant is a very nice fellow who is very good at avoiding the gossip and just happily doing his work. And our boss is probably the nicest boss on the planet. He's very friendly and never scolds any of us for anything, but instead he praises us for our good work done. And he's hardly ever around the office coz' he runs other businesses (so no boss breathing down our necks) but when he IS around, he pays for our lunches when we go out to eat. How cool is that, eh? Your boss sure kenot beat my boss wan. Pth!

Anyway, wasn't I supposed to do some reflecting on my past year? Hmm... I really tend to veer off topic a lot on my blogs these days. Must be another sign of getting old. Kakaka! Well, all in all, I've gained some good experience working at Mad Science. In addition to learning lots of funky science experiments, I've also had to develop some PR skills when dealing with customers and teachers of the schools where we have our classes. At schools where we want to start new classes, I had to learn how to negotiate deals with them. And I also had to do quite a bit of designing of flyers and posters to promote our events. And of course, there's the administrative stuff to do. So really, in this job, I have to be a teacher, performer, graphic designer, admin person and customer service person all rolled into one. Thank God we have our accountant to handle the finances... I don't think I could be that as well. :P It's a challenge, but being someone who likes to do a lot of different things instead of doing the same thing all the time... I enjoy the challenge. And now that our annoying supervisor has left, I have more responsibilities, including trying to get in new instructors. So now I even have to look through job applications and interview potential candidates. Not bad for someone who's only been in the company for half a year. :P And now I understand why bosses usually only glance through resumes. Looking through CV's is a bit of a pain. Though sometimes I get a good laugh out of them when they write interesting things about themselves or their English is horrendous. One guy described himself as 'exceedingly gentlemanly'. Ah ha.

Geez, I've gone and veered off topic again. So enough about my work....last year was only important for me coz' it was the year I met my sweetheart Gerald! As of right now, it would be about nine or ten months since we officially got together. And it hasn't been the most smooth sailing of relationships, but then again, what relationship is completely smooth sailing? I'm just glad we've managed to work out our issues and we're still all lovey dovey with each other.
It's kinda hard though, being far apart from each other... and now at this point in my life, I wondering what's the next step for me, in terms of my work and my relationship. My parents think I should move on from this job soon to better prospects (and of course, bigger bucks), and they encourage me to try and get a scholarship to continue my studies. And though I probably could get a scholarship, I just don't think I'm all that interested in continuing my studies. And though I know I can get better job offers elsewhere, right now, I'm still needed at Mad Science, at least until we get more permanent people and have trained them up. But if I do decide to move on eventually, I would much rather work overseas like maybe in Singapore or Australia. So maybe I would continue my studies so I have more opportunities to work overseas. I mean, Malaysia is nice in some ways, but it still has a long way to go. And when we have certain nutcases waving around crooked swords in parliament claiming that they're willing to bath in blood to protect the rights of their race, well, one really has to wonder if they wanna stay in a country with a leadership who can say such things. Of course, there are other things that make me wanna hightail to another country if I can help it, not to mention my parents definitely wouldn't mind me working overseas and making bigger bucks... but then there's also my bf who is really happy right where he is in Malacca. And I know he wants me to be there with him too, which I do... but I can't really picture myself spending the rest of my life there. Maybe coz' it's such a old town and I'd feel funny going from a big bustling KL to little ol' Malacca. Not to say I definitely won't go there one day...of course I want to be closer to him. But right now I really not sure what the future holds for me, nor what I should do, except continue working until my company gets some really good people in and then I can cabut in peace. Unless my boss gives me really good pay raise and perks, then I might be here for the long haul too. Haha! Oh, decisions, decisions... I hate making them. Well, we'll see what 2007 holds for me.

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