Blah… and JOBs!

I am SOOOOO unmotivated at work right now. All projects bypass me now, though my boss still shows me the basic courtesy of keeping me in the loop through email CC.

His cold war with the MD is still on-going and in effect, that makes the MD avoid bringing up contentious or sensitive issues like “retrenchment”.

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The good news is I’ve secured 2 job offers from local tertiary institutions to lecture. I’ve just decided on one and am waiting for the medical report to return. I’m looking forward to the new challenge. It’s going to be a lot different from what I’ve been doing in the last 10yrs. It’s going to be fun.

Soooo, I’m going to join the public service. A salary-man again, still limited by the powers-that-be. I need this job stability at the moment. I simply do not have the resources except time to start any kind of business at the moment. Taking this job is also a stepping stone. This will put me in touch with the industry, build up my networks. It will also help me surf the edge of technology and stay relevant.

Weirdness…

A weird feeling has come over me the last few weeks.

I’ve become infatuated with some of the girls around me. There’s something about each of them that I love, and I want to fall in love with all of them. To kiss each one, and make love to each one.

That and a feeling of neediness. I know the wierd feeling is a result of the neediness.

It helps that AEG’s being super-affectionate this week. I wonder if it’s the hormones from her period or because of recent events.

SALSA!

AEG had her gall bladder removed recently and has started to gain pounds a little too fast for her comfort. So far, we’ve found anecdotes of weight-gain after gall bladder removal, but nothing medically or scientifically proven.

In any case, she’s decide she needs more physical activity to keep the fats off and suggested Salsa. I just checked out JJSalsaRengue over at Murray Street last night and tonight we’ll check out Groove on Cantonment Road. Nice too, is that Union Square at Amara Hotel, where many go to for Salsa socials is walking distance from her home.

I’m excited. It’s been a while since I danced.

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Going for a formal interview with one of the polys I applied to later. Feeling nervous. So far, I’ve applied to 3 polys and have had ‘informal’ interviews with 2 of them. The 3rd has not replied.

Also applied to a position in one of the foreign banks last week. Still waiting for a reply from them.

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The more I blog, the more risky it seems to get. Anybody who bothers to read a significant portion of my entries and know me well enough will inevitably join the dots and figure me out. This is hampering my writing. I can’t write freely, worrying that each and every detail will be a clue to me. I had wanted to write about my dancing past, but it’s a small following in Singapore and given the fact I did perform and teach that particular dance, anybody from that group who knew me then will easily figure out who I am.

Perhaps it’s time to set this blog un-searchable by search engines.

The beginning of the end?

I just have to blog about this. Some colleagues just tried to requisite stationary and found out that stationary privileges have just been drastically reduced.

This was not even announced by email. We only found out because of the requisition. The admin manager told them:

• Only managers and above can requiste Pilot Techpoint V5 pens. They are only allowed Zebra pens.
• Only managers and above can requisite mechanical pencils. They are only allowed wooden pencils.
• Only managers and above can requisite correction liquid pens.
• Only VPs and above can requisite Post-it(TM) pads.

I was like “huh?”, when they told me. So I went to ask my boss if he knew. (By the way, I’m 3rd tier from the top, my boss is 2nd tier and 1st tier is the MD himself.) My boss gave me this bemused look and asked sarcastically, “what about toilet paper?” 🙂

I really wonder what the MD is up to. We are not in the red. We were very much in the black. These are basic work tools.

After a meeting last week, 2 of his VPs (2nd tier), one of which is my boss, are angry with him. He apparently pushed the blame for something that was not done when it was him who had decided not to do it in the first place. This is not the first time he piled blame on them for his own decisions, and then try to make peace later. But this time, it’s so bad that my boss refuses to reconcile with him. He also gave his appointed successor (who was in the same meeting) permission to leave for a better job if she wants to (she had been wanting to due to the crap she sees going on, but he convinced her to stay). The other VP seems to be out of office more often and for longer. MInd you, this is not a new team. The 2 of them have been working with the MD for years to make this company a success.

This is situation is so laughable right now. Since I found out about my impending dismissal, things have been sliding downhill rapidly. The whole company is falling apart bit by bit around the MD and he seems to be doing everything to make it worse, instead of salvaging it. This is the time to close in the core team and motivate them to take the company over the next hill, yet every move he makes is distancing him from his team and the rest of the company. The financial situation is not even in the slightest bit of trouble even though revenue is lower this year.

Oh well, looks like it’s his own funeral. The rest of us rats, including the senior boss rats are looking for good ships to jump over to. I have to say though, it’s a good lesson of ‘how not to be a bad boss’.

About good ships, I have had encouraging replies from my job applications. So far, out of 3 applications, 2 have already called me for interviews. Two freelance jobs landed on my lap. One ‘almost freebie’ for a friend and another fairly lucrative one with promise of continuing projects for at least another few months. It looks like I’ll be busy, but the extra income will help a lot due to the financial situation due to the divorce.

WTF?

Good to have ears on the ground. IB (my immediate boss) told my colleague, G, that BB (big boss) seems to have put my termination on the back burner. Previously BB had seem impatient to see me go. Now, he has not replied to IB’s update on when I can be be let go.

In any case, as soon as I find a better job, I’m leaving. No point staying in a job where you can let go at a whim for no good reason.

Wish me luck in my job hunt. I might soon be lechering at one of the polys. Opps, I meant lecturing. 😛

Just in case, in the future, some student or teacher at where I might be teaching somehow joins the dots and figures out who I am, here’s my disclaimer: I mean the last paragraph purely in jest.

Gossip…

Word sure gets around. Very few people in my current workplace know that I’m the midst of divorce and seeing someone else. Neither do many know that I’m slated for termination by month’s end. But my ex-collegues at my previous job already know both.

They know about my job because my current immediate boss told my previous boss, out of professional courtesy. Because I was sort of transferred over from there to here to help with the software that the current company both from the previous, and now I’m being let go due to my connection to the same software (which is being dumped lock, stock and barrel). Apparently, my previous boss told my ex-collegues.

How they know about my divorce and affair, I have no idea.

Anyhow, I guess they are just being human. At the end of the day, most of them are still treat me as a friend. One MSN’d me the other out of the blue to tell me she was leaving the company. Another consulted me about aquariums recently.

Now I wonder if I’ve been a gossipy nosey-parker in the past. I’m sure I have, but never out of malice. On the whole, I try to keep mum about certain things I hear about others, especailly if I don’t know who knows. Some things are better left announced by the affected parties.

I am certainly more concious about it now.

Aftermath

As I had expected, news of my dismissal triggered a significant drop of morale. It’s not who is getting fired, but that someone at my level, who is not a political player is getting fired and the apparent reasons (or lack of) for the termination.

So far, the news has been restricted to 2 colleagues that I confide in, my immediate boss (let’s call him IB), the subordinate that he has been grooming to succeed him, and my peers in another sub-department.

Other then my 2 confidants, the rest heard it from IB.

For the last 2 years, there has already been an undercurrent of discontent in the company, mainly because the company is not progressing and the big boss seems to be doing everything except his actual job; i.e. to direct the company, grow it, lead us to make it successful, make lots of money and afford us some good bonuses. However, due to the decent, if not good, department heads, friendly colleagues, and a mostly pleasant and low pressure working environment, the need to leave isn’t very urgent. Most are just waiting for the right job to come along. Some use the opportunity to pursue further studies so they can move on to better jobs.

IB just revealed that he was considering leaving the company in the second half of this year. Now he is more resolved to. He told me his successor was very upset (about the circumstances of my termination), and the rest are now quite concerned for their own job security.

Past “retrenchment” exercises, while demoralising, weren’t as “devastating” (for want of a better word) as the reasons given were due to poor economy, cost-cutting, and/or wholesale termination of large projects. I guess it’s something we mostly accept as part of employment, even if we don’t like it. However, in my case, there is no reasonable justification for the termination.

Although I was whining about the injustice, etc. last week, I’ve gotten over it. The world isn’t fair and while I never expected it at my level and was completely blind-sided, I should not have been surprised that I’ve been touched by corporate politics. I’ve been lucky in my career thus far; all my immediate work environments have had very little, if any, politics.

Get up, move on.

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.

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Alright, I’ll admit it, I still want to burn his office down.

Incidentally, IB still got his way and put my appraisal down as “Good” and that got me a teeny, weeny increment. 2 digits.

Oh, hooray… * read with a big dose of sarcasm *

Anyway, the “good” rating will come in handy if I decide to pwn big boss’s ass for unfair termination.

I checked the newspapers and a few websites this weekend and found some openings for polytechnic lecturers. Business plans are still being formed, but it’s still better that I have some form of stable income.

Indignant

It feels like shit. I feel like burning his office down. I can understand if he needs to get rid of me to protect himself or his business, but at least be fair to me. Just give a good reason to retrench me and give me a good exit package. I won’t be happy, but at least it’s fair. Now I feel so indignant because I’m being asked to leave based on such a weak reason. I’ve not been warned that my performance is below expectation, my past appraisals have been good and there are no clear KPI’s for me to meet. Heck, there wasn’t even an official appraisal form last year. Other’s have gotten away with worse and are still getting away with it.

I’m considering suing for unfair termination. The company has already been sued twice, one of which is still on-going. On the other hand, the company can be a good source of contract work for me and I don’t want to burn that bridge. My grudge is with the big boss, not the company, although the company is his.

When I see my innocent collegues laughing and joking, I feel like telling them, “what is there to be happy about? You’re working for an unscrupulous boss who will fire you at his whim and fancy.”

Now I don’t know how much to trust my immediate boss. I know he is trying to help me, but he can only do so much. I’m afraid that if I tell him my plans, he might try to mediate and inadvertently tip off the big boss or screw up my case.

Whatever the case may be, I will not take it sitting down.

Political casualty

CRAP! CRAP! CRAP!

Just been told by my boss that the big boss wants me out of the company, for no good reason. We concluded it’s political because the official reason given is so weak and we can’t think of any other valid reasons. The best part is I don’t even get to play politics at my level, if I wanted to.

Long story short:

• Big boss (we think, based on his actions over the last few months) wants to start a new company.
• It will directly compete with my previous company.
• His potential partner, until recently, was in high level management in the previous company.
• Some 2 years ago, my current company bought some technology from my previous company for an insanely ridiculous sum of money (6 digits). I was transferred to this company for my knowledge in this technology.
• Now big boss wants to dump this technology. The same man who refuses to pay $40 more to buy a bunch of corporate gifts for our clients.
• It does not make sense to dump me too, because now he needs to develop his own version and (1) the best person to do it is me, (2) it is near impossible to find anyone in the market who can do this, and (3) the only obvious source for such people is the other company. But my boss has been prohibited to hire anyone from there.
• Looks to us that they want to obilerate any links to my previous company, so it cannot come after the new company for breach of intellectual property rights.

GRRRRRR!!!! This is such a stupid way to lose a job. This sucks. Makes me all the more determined never ever to let anyone else control my future.

Career followup

Just a followup to an earlier post, Career.

When I told my boss (yes, he knows I’m looking to leave and he understands) about the rejection from the statuory board, his immediate reply was that they probably alredy have a candidate in mind to fill the position. The ads were just paper-play. I didn’t believe him, until a friend of mine told me the same thing. Similarly, it was friend’s immediate reply. This friend is working in another statuory board, and he says such things were common.

Anyway, checked with a friend holding a position one step senior to the position I was applying for. His pay isn’t a lot better then my current one, so if I had gotten the job, the pay would be about the same as mine now and I’ll be working doubly hard. The only advantage is better career prospects.

In any case, AEG and I are whipping up some business plans and we want to see them through. More on those as they form up.