The Reality of My Career

It was like I had been awakened by a sudden jolt when
I saw a recently signed maintenance contract on my boss's
table a couple of weeks ago. That was the
moment when I realised that the next 1 or 2 years of my
career will not bring me the satisfaction I expected.

My boss and me were just discussing on my commitment plan
for year 2006/2007 before I saw the contract. It was only
about 2 minutes before that, that I told him I don't mind
working in his department as long as he assigns me to
projects. I also made it clear that I hated routine job
i.e doing system maintenance work and producing the reports.
He replied with a playful laugh and told me that he was
expecting a few big projects coming in the next quarter.
Then he showed me the contract.

"I know you hate this, but we've also been awarded with
this maintenance contract for 6 big UNIX servers by this
customer. This will keep you busy for the next year or two."

That was one of the moment when I was really speechless,
tongue-tied, feeling too stupid to speak and felt like
the whole building was going to collapse on me. Well,
that feeling was worse than a post-break-up-with-your-
most-loved-boyfriend situation.

"Noooooo.....," I finally managed to say.

"I understand how you feel, but it is something that we
have to do (because the customer is paying us)," a justification
that was best left in the drain. My boss looked helpless for a moment.

After a few exchange of words, I left his room. I was
suddenly having clostrophobia and felt suffocated sitting
in his office. What is best for the company might not be
the best for the employees.

For the next few days I kept on thinking on how am I going to
survive with 'routine works'. I know I'll be better off with a
career that demands my creativity. According to some Feng Shui
software I downloaded a few years back, I was born a strategist.
I should be in a troop of army, in the jungle, fighting enemies,
making plans, using a lot of intelligence, full of wisdom,
every second faced with new and unpredictable challenges.
It's not that I want to become an army. My point is, I just can't live
doing routine works. That's why I hated doing house wives'
works at home.

Then I started retrieving all those emails from j0bstreet
and j0bsdb from my Yahoo! mailbox. Perhaps the discussion
with my boss was a hint that I'll have to move on soon.

Since I was not in the mood to work there anymore, I came
in late (consistently at 9.30), went out for early lunch
(usually 12 or even 11.30) then go home really
early (4.50, so that I could reach the gym early).
This has been going on for almost 2 weeks, and until now
I don't feel the slightest guilt.

Then there was our mid-year kick-ass ooooopssss kick-off
meeting last weekend.



The food was not so good, the performance was bad, the music and sound system
was terrible and even table cloth irritated me.

The only thing that grabbed my attention that evening was one of the
CEO's slides. There's going to be a major restructuring that'll
be effective this coming September.
There'll be newly defined pillars, new functions, realignment
in a few major departments and that could also mean I'll be reporting
to a new boss and doing some other stuff. You see, the management
will be re-interviewing some of the staffs that they think should
be re-deployed and assigned to a more suitable job
function. I'm now praying hard that I'm one of them. Usually
these kinds of things will involve salary revision, yahoooooo!!!

Whatever my job is, I'll still be as materialistic as ever... hahahahah.