New Month, New Job

I finally left the company on the last day of Nov, after a little more than 4 years there, and I leave with mixed feelings. Relief that I can finally move on, joy and anticipation that I will break out of this stagnant cycle and try something new, and of course sadness, that I will be leaving a place where I have forged good friendships with my colleagues and others who have made an impact in my life. I'm missing my colleagues and the working environment already ><.

It was a move that I really needed to make. I need more money and I was sick of traveling across the bridge every morning. After 4 days in the new place, I'm REALLY missing two things that my ex-company offered; FLEXIBILITY and the INTERNET. Moving from a US MNC (multi-national company) to a German one really makes a difference. In my ex-company, we were free to go out of office WHENEVER we wanted, provided it didn't interfere with our job or cause problems. Lunch hour, although dictated by HR, was ultimately decided by us. Not much work meant longer lunch hours. I could go to the bank in the afternoon if I needed to. Heck, I used go to the nearby Jusco in the afternoon if I needed to get something. Bottom line, we were free to move about in and out of office as we pleased, as long as we didn't cause any problems.

But, lack of flexibility wasn't the biggest thorn in my shoe. The staff there, except managers or higher level personnel, were NOT ALLOWED to use the internet. Holy cow poop batman! Might as well take away air as well. We are only able to communicate via email. Seriously, I can't survive without internet, and this is what I missed most in my ex-company, where we could use the net for anything, except accessing external email and of course, venturing into 'questionable' websites. The new company has very strict policies of enforcing security within its network, but you can easily block sites that are deemed inappropriate. At least, let me be able to Google something ><.

However, the new company isn't without some merits. The cafeteria food is better and a lot cheaper too. The working environment is much quieter and more serene. I miss being in a cubicle coz we have open table concept here. The biggest perk of course, is the traveling distance. Depending on traffic, I can usually reach work within 10-15 minutes.

I'm gonna give them 6 months to a year to see if it will work for me. Ultimately, I want to move out from engineering and take up something more related to management, like marketing, HR, PR etc, as long as they are willing to provide some basic training. I like dealing with people and don't want to be tied to manufacturing forever. I have been told, even by my ex-manager and feedback from previous team, that I possess good communication, negotiation and influencing skills, which I intend to fully use whenever I can. I'll see where this goes, and won't hesitate to hop to something better, even within next year. I'm at a point in my life where I want to find something that works for me. Don't talk to me about loyalty or shit like that. I want to do something that I'm happy doing, and gives me what I want. Enough with the compromising.