New Posting Possibilities Saturday, Jul 11 2009 

Life and Work impeesa 8:09 pm

A few possibilities for my next posting have arisen, and significantly one of them has me thinking long and hard about what I want to be or should be doing in the next 3/4 years of my career.

Should I go for exposure and cut my teeth in an environment that could potentially be harsh, and the work completely new to me, or got to an environment that is likely to be less harsh, for work that I know I can do and enjoy.

Its not so much about the intensity of the work, but really about the kind of work.

 

Japan Trip Wednesday, Jul 1 2009 

Uncategorized impeesa 8:41 pm

Mt Yari beckons....

Mt Yari beckons.... More on this later....

 

Just About Time to Move On Again Tuesday, Jun 23 2009 

Uncategorized impeesa 12:57 am

Well, here I am, just about 4 months after the post that said I didn’t mind being at HQ.  I should really watch what I say.  lol.  Since then its been almost relentless overtime, with 8 pm being pretty much the norm, or worse, a good day. 

I grow restless by the day and the end of year posting out couldn’t happen sooner as far  as I’m concerned.  If only I was clearer about where to go for next posting.  Neighbourhood, or good school?  Should I play to my strengths, or seek exposure?

Anywhere is better than here at this point.

 

A Year on in (or slightly more) Sunday, Feb 22 2009 

Uncategorized impeesa 1:55 pm

So a year on into my stay at HQ, and almost done there.  I can almost smell the posting exercise coming up.

Other musings aside, there’s been an injection of new blood, i.e. new officers.  While increasing the workload somewhat in the first few months is normal as they need time to run themselves in, working with completely new people has given me an unintended/unforeseen opportunity to contrast against (theoretically) the way I must have been last year.

While my perspectives about HQ work may not have changed (much), I think my ability to handle it has quietly grown with practice.

I may not have gotten the first posting I interviewed for, but I’ve since noticed some shortcomings with those postings.  While it could jolly well be a case of sour grapes, the technical person inside me appreciates my current position for its need to get into the nuts and bolts of the issue before being required/asked to solve the problem.

Suddenly I feel less diffident about the time I’ve been asked to spend at HQ, when I notice what I’ve learnt.  A not too dissimilar feeling from when I just came back from overseas, when people used to ask me what I had gained from that stint, I never knew what to say.  I always chose to say “I’m only just realising as I go along”.  This is to a certain extent true in the situation I am in right now.

 

End of the year musings Sunday, Dec 14 2008 

Life and Thoughts and Work impeesa 3:45 pm

Its been quite a bad 2-3 months at work since I last posted.  Well its not that I’m not enjoying it, I think I’m enjoying my work mostly more than earlier this year.  Just some rather terrible experiences with working with people at work that made it particularly bad.

If you aren’t quite bothered about your work, at least get it done so that your co-workers don’t have to stay back to pick up the slack while you go off on the dot at 6.  Enough crap about I can work late if “the need be”.  If you need to be told in those few words that “the need be”, then sorry, you can’t work late.  Nobody is going to tell you that the need be.  If the meeting deadline was monday and its already friday and the report is two reports are not ready, I would jolly well think “the need be”.  My goodness.

So your colleagues stay back till almost 10 pm plugging along, doing the report that has your name as the lead writer.  Struggle to find a time I’ve been more cheesed off.

Oh well.

The end of the year is approaching, Christmas season is upon us soon.  Looking forward to that holiday after Christmas.

The new year will probably pass as fast as this one has, and then it will be back to school again.  I truly wonder whether this career is the best for me, but the downturn is a rather bad time to go out anyway.  At the end of the day, teaching is something that I do enjoy, just wonder how much of it I will get to do going forward, thats all.  So I’m still on that wait and see approach, wondering if taking a MAF@SMU is worth the $$ too…

We’ll just have to see.

 

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