jim's backlogs

After years of being self-employed / bummer / unemployed ... I returned to the normalised world of the 9 to 6 working class. No more late nights, Champions' League soccer, Halo2 fragging sessions till 2am and big wide-arms welcome to 7 a.m. wake-ups, daily trips cramped in the train and the best thing of all these - a pay check at the end of the month.

About a month and a half back, through friends and the internet, I sent out three applications to three different potential openings - being a Mac Evangelist, a tech consultant in a local telco for a new mobile service and lastly, a project management job in an interactive firm.

Three different opportunities, and all three offers something which I wanted. The first is obvious. Selling Macs. Getting people to switch to Macs. And at a new place which I feel can do pretty well. Somehow, along the way, that offer, yeah I was offered the job, got lost.

That same week, I underwent two rounds of interview with the telco for the tech consultant job. The opening was for a newly announced service offered by the company which though sounds promising, might or might not make it here in Singapore. So, I wasn't exactly surprise after calling my interviewer, to know that the opening was frozen.

Before these interviews, I met a pal from university who worked in an interactive firm as a Project Manager. About half a year back, met him at Borders who informed me about his switch to a new firm. Long story cut short, asked him about any lobangs at his new office and received some good news about one. It was weeks before I heard from him again, and just after I had interviews with those two firms above. So within the span of two weeks, I had one offer, a second round interview, and another potential offer from the interactive firm. Ironies of life such that when they do come, they come in droves.

At the end of the day, I made the decision to join the interactive firm to work as a Project Executive. A contract position which I gladly agreed. I have been looking for a job of such nature for a very long time. Had an interview almost a year back but wasn't offered at a firm I did freelance work before. Also had a short stint at another interactive firm for a month for similar opening but ended doing nothing much but content checking.

Been there two weeks and it's been a rush trying to:

1. adapt to working at earthly hours
2. get used to working in an organised company
3. picking up the fundamentals of project management
4. working with other people again

The last point might sounds funny, but being a freelancer meant working mostly with one client, and doing mostly everything on my own. So it is a refreshing change again to work with different groups of people, each with different skills, and I think they are a bunch of smart and creative people.

One thing I'm still not comfortable is the pace of work. I'm more the laid-back and do it with a rather elastic timeline. So a few times during the past two weeks, the worked somehow overwhelm me and somehow, I nearly freaked. The thoughts of quitting flashed across my mind and it must have shown up across my face. And somehow, at different points of time, I got IM asking me whether I can managed. Our office is sort of an open-format kind where there isn't much partition and everyone can see/hear everyone else. So over IM, I talked to some of them about the job and it was somewhat assuring to hear words of encouragement. Thankfully, all of them are pretty open to me and are patient when I had to query them about work that might sound simple to them.

So two weeks on, I think I'm looking forward to work again. I still have much to learn and with interruptions from Remedial Training, carolling with choir, it will be a long and bumpy road till the end of the year. Hopefully by then, I'll cease to be a contract worker and become a perm staff.

You'll know soon.