Vagabond At Heart

I decided to shake off the feeling of guilt and ignore the image of the stackS of work piling up in the office and have a lazy Sunday. Work is never-ending. In the space of just one month, work seem to have taken over my life. Of course, this is initial adjustment period where everything is new and foreign to me. Where I do have to put in more hours and efforts to manage both work and expectations. But, it is still important to strike a sense of balance and well being. I seem to be in a constant state of stress and tiredness everyday. And this is no good. I need to break this routine of working over the weekend. I need to somehow relax and contain the stress to working hours. 

I can well imagine regreting my decision tomorrow when I am confronted with my desk, emails and incessant phone calls. But, for now, I am really over the moon about having a complete weekend away from the office! Hooray! I had a really lazy Saturday, catching up on sleep. Had a really lazy Sunday morning surfing the web, watching TV. Gonna spend the afternoon reading my choice select from my steals at the book fair. We are going out for Mother’s Day dinner at Jumbo later to feast on our favourite pepper crabs. This is heavenly! The best weekend ever since I started work.

These replies are getting too familiar.

“It is all in the system.” 

“It is all in the files.”

“It is all in the procedures.”

“It is all in the financials.”

“It is all in the intranet.”

“Just follow exactly.”

“Call ABC, XYZ, etc.” Sorry, who?

“Just raise the ABC and XYZ.” Qn: Sorry, what is ABC and XYZ? “U have the ABC, don’t you? Er..how come yours don’t have? Don’t know why like that leh? Why you don’t have ah?”

Qn: Sorry, how do I check ABC? I tried from DEF system and got this figure. Just like to confirm if this is the proper way to check?

Reply: I don’t use DEF cos it is may not be accurate.

Qn: So where can I verify the information?

Reply: When we handle the account long enough, we usually know.

Qn: So, in this case, where can I verify?

Reply: As I told you, when we handle the case long enough, we know.

/// persisted doggedly. Qn: In this case, who can i ask?

Reply: Oh, the person left already. Anyway, it is all in the system lah. You need to check.

???

Maybe, I am just stupid. That must be the case.

08/03/08

I am starting to have a tiny little sense of what is going on where work is concerned. Or at least who to turn to for issues that I have handled before. Who to approach for approval and follow up, etc. For the newer things, I am still as lost as ever. But, I am encouraged by the tiny little sense telling me that things seem less confusing to me as I was going through my work. I am also a little more relaxed.

I am attending a client’s event tmw and have a client’s meeting schedule in the later part of the week. I figure just thinking about the impeding clients’ sessions is more frightening than actually doing it. So, I may as well jump right into it and get it over and done with. At least, I will have a better understanding of what is expected of me. Once, that is established. I can move on to other portfolios. The sooner I move on, the faster I get out of this stressed transition period.

Now, if only, I do not feel so out of place among my colleagues. They are not mean. In fact, they are rather nice. Just different, I guess. Different demographics. No common topics about maids, problem with school bus operators, etc. Being so new, they probably even find it awkward to gossip about office stuff in front of me. They are rather close. I am finding it rather hard to fit in. Well, it has only been a few days. These things take time, I suppose. Meanwhile, every lunchtime sees me trying to find if any of my friends nearby can meet for lunch. On days that they cannot make it. I lunched alone feeling rather downcast. Which is ironic cos I never have any problems with eating alone before. But then, I never have problem with having no lunch companions either. Most of the time, I ate alone only because I choosed to or I was in a rush.   

On a brighter note, my ex-colleagues are really sweet. The few messages of concern I received today really warmed my heart. And hooray, X may have a meeting nearby this week and volunteer to meet me for lunch.

12/03/08

Everyday I wake up and I feel tired.

Every night when I get home, I feel tired. Not physically. Rather the mind draining kind of tiredness.

Not sure where the main bulk of the tiredness is coming from. Is it the work stress, trying to figure out the systems, understand the reports and struggling to string together bits and pieces of information to make some sense of things so that I do not appear too inadequate? Or trying to curb my sense of inadequancy in a completely new environment.

I am also completely freaked out with the crowds. Every morning, I think of the crazy crowd at the train station and I want to run a mile. Squeeze..elbow…push…in all ways & manners. This is like the biggest shock in joining the mad hour rush every day. Twice a day. No, I forget the lunch hour crowd. So, it is 3 times a day. That day, we took 20 mins before we could get a seat for lunch cos it was raining. I have learned to sleep standing on the train just so that I could partially tune out the crowd.

I can’t decide which is the part that I find most draining. Adapting to work, people, system or routine.

This is only the second week into my new life and I feel so tired. I take comfort in knowing that I seem to have a better sense of how things function as compared to last week. Chin up! Transition is always hard. It can only gets easier.

I seem to have a knack for meeting nice people at work. So far, the colleagues I met are really nice. Of course there are still a couple of nasty ones but let’s just forget they exists.

I think the people in my team are rather nice and seem like good sports. So far so good.

My ex-colleagues are great too. X came down to have lunch with me last week. W and A wanted to come down for lunch this week but I was on leave. D called to cheer me up during lunch today cos she knew I was feeling down. Miss them.

I can’t remember the last time I feel so exhausted. Then, I recalled. It was when I was first starting out in my previous job. But, 8 years in age seem to make hell alot of difference in stamina.

I am trying to comfort myself that the steeper the learning curve, the faster I move on with it.

Was talking to my colleagues who had been here for a few months and learned a couple of interesting things.

1. I am not alone in my confusion. As one of them adeptly put it, ” the people here are too busy to really guide you. They are only too happy that you are here and they can download stuff on you.”

2. One of them actually erroneously thought that I seem very confident with what I was doing. That is completely the opposite of how I feel. Which reminds me that I should just stop acting like a mouse and curb the fear. Having more confidence that I can manage will help tremodously. Somewhere alone the way, confidence should translate into competence. Having confidence also means marching up to the boss to let her know my issues. And to go ahead and ask any questions I deemed neccessary even when I am made to feel like “The answer should be very obvious to you!”.

3. They are also lunching alone or with friends working nearby.

4. Initial meetings are done with boss. So, do not panic.

5. Oh! And there is a pantry somewhere in the office that I can buy breakfast and drinks.

Today sees an improvement. And, I still came back with a non functioning brain.

That’s good advice. It has only been two days. I refused to be beaten. I just have to try harder to beat it.

Just a step away. Hoping very hard. Very very hard. 

2 phone calls to make my day bright, vibrant and happy!

Hope makes everything brighter. I need to work harder, of course. 

For today, I am happy to see progress. Keeping my fingers crossed.

Hague-Visby Rules

Hamburg Rules

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demurrage

Ivy League   

Was watching Mona Lisa’s Smile with M. (Still one of my favourite shows.) We started pondering how the term Ivy League came about. So, here it goes.