University of Society

Everyone is concern about the economy turmoil and people are losing jobs…till some of them took their own lives too because of this depression. Some get a pay cut; some got retrenched while some just got fired without compensation.

For the heck of it, I surfed the ever famous job seeking web portal – Jobstreet. I wanted to satisfy my inquisitive mind about the jobs available out there.

As I logged in, I checked the resume I posted back in Sept 08.

Wow, what a discovery!

I didn’t realize that I have joined University of Society for 6 years. How time flies, man. 6 years is not a very long time compared to many people, but yet, it is not short either (to me).

Over the years, I’ve learnt and changed quite a bit. I have to admit.

The University of Society taught me how to handle “real-life” situations; work and time management; and the most difficult (am still polishing my skills on this) people management.

Let me share with you my experience….

When I first got back from Sydney late 2002, I wanted to take a break and just laze at home, initially. But, I couldn’t tahan having fungus sprouting on me, so I started to hunt for jobs.

(Sad to say I didn’t really plan my future properly that time; but I believed whatever that happened was God plans and he had planned it well somehow.)

I opened the newspapers everyday, got myself registered with Jobstreet.com and also put an application form with the headhunters. Out of the blues, an distributor for office automation equipments called me for an interview. Since I was bored sitting at home, I took up the job despite the low salary. I just grabbed anything that came just to get myself out from boredom and able to gain some experience.

And so, I was with the company doing sales admin. It was great experience as I started to learn how to do “paper work”; liaising with colleagues (I felt awkward calling people who are around 35 and above by names; and not uncle or aunty. I supposed this is just the mentality and culture of an Asian and not Ang Moh. ). Along the way, I also tasted how was it like when the boss had less respect from the staff. Later, I started to handle more tasks such as getting involved in organizing roadshows and liaising with the advertising agency. Somehow, I got stuck to the company for slightly over a year.

After that year, I started to get bored with the mundane work. I wanted to experience a new environment. I wanted to learn new skills.

Opportunity came and I grabbed hold of it. It was an Australian- based marketing company. Everyone in the company was assigned to a client or two. I was assigned to handle marketing projects for Intel. Mainly for Intel. The job was very interesting and it gave me a whole new experience. The best part was, I got to travel around! Not many places, but was enough to be an eye opener. Great opportunity! Being part of the operations team, I’ve traveled to Penang, Johor, Bangkok, Seoul, Taiwan, and Singapore to provide training sessions to the Intel colleagues on a system to track their in-stores promotions. Over the period of my duty, I got to learn how to communicate with foreign people (more patiently) and get things done in a more organized way. Of course, it was then I also learnt how to cover our own arses at work. Everything was black and white; all written down clearly.

We traveled in pairs if the destinations were too far or safety was a worry. I got to stay in posh hotel rooms and tasted the best food in town. Ups and downs I had with this job. There were times where I stayed in the office till 3am. After being with the company for about two and a half years and didn’t want to let my family worry about my safety, I resigned and moved on.

I realized I love be in marketing (marketing has various types). I was very lucky that I found a job with a FMCG company. Taking the leap from a service industry to FMCG is a total different ball game, for me at least. With the current job, I get to be exposed to different areas of marketing (plus there is a very capable senior manager to lead and to learn from) – from forecasting, budgeting, planning, executing promotions to meeting many people during events! Fun, isn’t it?

There will be more to learn in University of Society (a.k.a workforce). For those who are young and graduating soon, we welcome you to the dog-in-dog-working-world. Hope you will enjoy it.