Depression period

After leaving that job, I seriously had no idea what to do. But was I glad that I could leave the job! On the next day, I felt like I was a trapped bird set free!!

I then continued seeking professional help. Giving as much details as I could remember.

But Even the counselor can't help much.

My luck took a turn when a recruiter offered me a position that I had no idea what to expect or how I can position myself.

And I was extremely happy that I nailed that job!!

Sadly, the job wasn't renewable and the contract ended soon.

A misstep. Or a lesson learned.

At the start of the role, I was naturally happy. I did what was required and with my inquisitive mind, I chanced into a scenario which no one saw before.

My boss also gave me a task which leverages on my developer experience. She later also sent me to help out in another project. On my last day, she even treated me to lunch at a restaurant!

That's when the problems came.

I faced difficulties after a few weeks in the project and even called the boss for advice. She then guided me along.

Sadly, it did not help much and I was transferred back to my first project. Questions were then raised (behind my back) about what happened.

I then felt extremely lost. I seriously dinno what to do.

I went into depression.

I also sought professional help.

From what I gathered, I deemed the best way out would be to move on, yet again.

On my last day, it's a simple affair of going back to HQ. No lunch treat. What a great difference, compared to my earlier days.

Finally another satisfying IT role

After the financial advisor stint, I managed to get a developer role again. They needed someone urgently. But when I got in, I wasn't thrown a heavy load. It turned out I was supposed to handle a task. But it urgently needed to be done and someone else ended up doing it.

Half a year in the job, I discovered, finally, another side of me. I was very excited! I thought I found a reason to why I had been moving on.

I then asked to do a certain role, which I was allowed. And I was very happy with the role. Then towards the end of my contract, something happened and I either had to:
1) return to a developer role and work for another half a year and leave, or
2) choose to leave right away.

I was caught in a fix. I was happy with the new found role and wanted to explore it. And after careful consideration, I took the plunge again. At the same time, I also searched hard for the role I enjoyed doing. And luckily, some time before my last day, I secured a job for that role.

Nomadic work style

From this point on, I led a nomadic life. I can't remember in detail where I worked next. Each lasted from 3 months to half a year. It's mostly IT related. Summary is as follows:

- property agent. Left when I saw the thickness of the book we need to study for exam.

- a ticketing company. I was used to working with an ide, or a software. But it's using some software which I dunno how it worked.

- a finance company. Not used to the system I'm asked to take care of.

- a small software company with less than 10 headcount. It's using a technology that gave me headache. No wish to pick it up. I also wished to have a role that faces the client more but was rejected.

- financial advisor. I studied HARD to obtain the required certification. 3 months later, the objective and my expectations had too much gap and I left.

4th role

This time, it's the happiest job in my career at that point. The colleagues were friendly and.great.

Unfortunately, after a year, the client contract was lost and i switched to another project within the company.

At the other project, all was good, until a new lady boss came in. Somehow, our work styles differed greatly and we had lots of disagreements. I then asked to switch to other projects but I was refused.

The only way out was to ... Again leave.

3rd developer role

Over here, I was pretty happy. As lunch variety had been cheap and aplenty!!

The irritating part came, when I started to take mc regularly, so much that my boss appeared unhappy to sign another mc. He also made known to me, another colleague had nvr taken mc before.

And then, leaving on time was also an.issue with the boss. Telling me that only maintenance projects can afford to have staff leaving.on the dot. Development ones, like mine, cannot.

It then became a point I was unhappy about. And decided to leave once again.

2nd developer role

When I first got the job, I was very excited!! The location forbids the use of high-end phone and I immediately got a low end one.

For the first few weeks, my batch of newbies stayed at the HQ, while clearance was in process. My batch had a guy and a girl. The guy was from army, if I remember right, and the girl was fresh from school.

With my previous experience, I behaved like a senior. The guy was a smart one, and told me to take care of him. From time to time, I also told the girl what's each app used for.

Soon, we finally went on to join our respective projects. The girl was with me in the project. At that point of the project, everyone was simply playing games on the computer. I dunno why. We had to find ways to kill time. And somehow I had difficulty mixing in.

The last straw came when a teammate messed too much with me and I simply wanted to leave. I then asked to switch project.

Back then, I only knew we can ask to switch projects. I dinno of any repercussions.

Only when another project lead took me in, and told me that, if she didn't take me in, I'll be back to HQ idling and seen as a problematic staff. God knew when I'll be assigned to another project.

Anyway, at the new project, I again have problem mixing in. Especially since the usual room was already packed, and I was put into a newly acquired room, with only me inside. Somehow I was left alone in the room and had no idea what to do. No documentation etc. When I reflected it to the team lead, she said her intentions were to give me time to play and familiarize myself with the system. I dinno that.

The lead did her best in integrating me and them, by telling me how to mix with a leading female colleague. And the other colleagues also tried their best in talking to me.

For someone with a developer background, I ended up doing laptop set-up . I was disappointed. And also.some non developer related data generation stuff. Come to think of it, it could be that the team lead dinno what else I can help out with, and gave me the task.

Then one fine day, I saw a colleague sending out resumes. It then dawned upon me, that I could start looking around again.

First developer role at sme

Needless to say, I was extremely happy over there. I was a permanent staff and had lots of staff benefits.

The project I was on was at the development phase. Somehow, I remember I made myself a to-do list, which contained what I think needed to be done to the system. Meaning, the boss didn't know about the list and its items. BUT, I nvr got down to doing it. A stagnant list, u can say.

After the project finished its development phase, there's some restructuring and I was made to join another team. The boss who got me in went to another department. At the same time, or maybe earlier, I had gotten my degree as well.

At this other team, I was given some simple modules to do. I dinno the purpose, but come to think of it, it could be that, I didn't prove my ability lol.

With my degree, the new team lead told me that, the company will not adjust my pay. Ouch. I then decided to move on.

Ready for a developer role

I took up a developer role. It's just slightly higher than my helpdesk salary and less than 2k. I was disappointed. The environment was just so so. I had lunch alone. There're 3 developers, with less than 10 headcount.

I felt I'm worth more and kept looking around still.

Finally, I found another job. It's with an sme!! And the salary was a 30% jump!! So I naturally seized the chance to jump.

Next set of stepping stones

My next roles were helpdesk ones until I truly was ready to break into a developer role again.

I can't remember much details. I'll just summarise as follows:

- I secured a job at a big company. Perhaps, I was taking my own sweet time to do work too, I was asked to leave very quickly.

- I then joined the defence side. There's heavy politicking. I still remembered, it's hard to get a job so at the interview, I put on a big welcoming smile.
And there's once, an in-house system gave an error. I then debugged it and fixed the problem. It's a piece of cake to me. But the boss was so proud of me!!
And when I confided in a colleague, she said my talent would be wasted if I stayed there. I should get a developer role. I didn't think much of it.
When there's news of a takeover, I seriously didn't want my path or destiny to be decided by someone else, and I took the plunge to move on again.

- the next role was the last helpdesk job I held. After a few months there, a supervisor told me, he saw improvement in me and he knew he was right to keep me there. All I knew about him was that, he's not well liked so I had doubts about his words.
I also noticed something in me. A senior colleague (she joined before me, so she's a senior) was solving a problem for a user. Upon hearing another device had the problem, she referred the user to the device helpdesk. When I heard that, I got agitated, as I thought she was shirking responsibility as a helpdesk. So I questioned it upfront. I can't remember the conclusion, but most likely, she was right lol.

Finally, I mustered enough courage and moved on to a / another developer role. This time, I felt more ready, as I had just passed a certification test . Although I failed another higher level one. Hehe, when I failed that one, I felt the world crashed and made myself uncontactable.

My first developer role

From the first helpdesk role, I moved on to a developer role.

It's for maintaining an in-house system.

Not sure why, but I did not take the work seriously. I took my time to do a task. At that time, it's using visual basic and I needed to do up a screen.

I played around with the placement of the buttons and.textbox and made sure they looked great together. I can't remember the end, lol.

I was also asked to do some measurements and some error spotting. I seriously didn't know what that was for. The task was finished so quickly that a senior remarked she's not even half done and I've finished my pile.

Soon, I was asked to leave.

Lacking experience, I called back the helpdesk boss, and asked to go back.

Of course, I was rejected.

My stepping stones

After graduation from poly, I was enlisted into army. After which I joined the workforce.

Probably cos I'm 100% greenhorn, my first job was introduced by a friend. It's at the helpdesk.

I'm the kind who will assume all issues raised by the caller need to be solved by me. I often can't manage to break it down into parts to be solved by different teams.

And, I usually tend to solve from my own understanding and experience, instead of relying on tested and proven steps.

Also, if I need to seek help from others to.solve a problem, I often don't tend to remember how it's solved, or why perform certain steps. End up, when a similar problem comes up, I will ask again.

So, at this helpdesk, I stayed for a few months, and wished to try out another role. And I left.

My poly days

My polytechnic days was a weird journey.

We had 3 years of study.

In the first year, everyone was fresh to the course and to everyone. There's a lot of fun especially in my class. We had went out together and killed time together. We had really happy times together!

My academic results was one of the best in the class too. And I naturally enjoyed the crown I had.

In the 2nd year, the class split up. Almost everyone went their separate way. I missed the fun in the first year. Hanging on to the past, I had little wish to know my new classmates. Let alone mingling with them.

Due to lack of interaction, during group projects, I preferred to do my part alone and then integrated it later on with the rest. It's tough time.

My first year classmates would still organize outings. But they'll bring along new ppl into the group. I was not used to these new ppl joining us and didn't wish to mingle with them too. Somehow I felt we were intruded.

In the last year, it got worse. I was very stuck to an idea for the graduation project and had only done minimal research on it. A much needed document , which weighs heavily on the marking criteria , wasn't done. And the end product was mediocre.

But I still managed to graduate. Phew.

Secondary school days

I was assumed to be a bookworm, as I usually went home right after school. I wasn't one at all. I guess I just didn't know how to mingle around and make frns.

So, when I wasn't able to get to a good secondary school, everyone was surprised.

In school, as my Chinese language ability was exceptional, I was known among a few as the person who can write out anyone's Chinese name just by hearing it from them. But soon, I became an outcast, due to misunderstandings which I dinno or din bother to clear up.

1 guy even remarked, right in my face, that no one in the whole class liked me.

1 day, when I was obviously bullied, 1 burly guy stood up for me, and we.became frns.

The last 2 years were more enjoyable, as a couple of classmates were pretty inclusive.

I remember, 1 female classmate who had a younger sibling less than half her age was really attentive to me. When I joined her group of frns for outings, I usually will just sit at a corner while they're busy.chatting away. She then looked at me and exclaimed, "hey, u must join us!!"