Well...that's really weird because I'm a complain queen. That's why I start to write in my very own blog what I've been doing at work or related to work so that I can analyze and understand more about myself. Besides, I want to have a note of challenges I face in this working life and how I handle it so that when I look back after a few years, I could be proud of myself.
Let's start from my very first day at O****. As I'm in graduate program, the company treat me and the other 20 grads like students, I feel. Why do I say so? Coz O**** welcomed us with orientation days from 7th to 9th April. It's very kind of O**** to have this arrangement. I could have got lost in this 7 hectares campus with 6 interconnected buildings. Having a chance to interact with 20 other grads is very helpful as well.
Anyway, fast forwarding the orientation week, my rotating manager came and picked me up on 10th April to the actual working place, and that's when I met my dear office desk! We didn't have much time together tho. On 17th April, we, the whole fixed product department in BG (that's building B ground floor) was moved to a totally different and new work place in B3. Our office desks got trade off with lockers. Say Hello to activity based working style! So, we have a locker each and there are meeting rooms, quiet rooms, stand up desk, couches and we sit in a different desk everyday, depending on our mood and number of meetings we have. Well, adapting to this environment is one of the challenges, I'd say. But that's not the main challenge! My rotating manager is a nice guy and he tries to answer my questions as much as he can. But he's super busy, having meetings from 7am to 6pm. Poor thing! And my immediate supervisor was on leave from 14th to 20th April. So, I'm pretty much left alone. I made good use of this free time and finished my compliance training (boring legal stuffs), then went around the office and talk to people. Something I learned; nobody in the office will come to you and tell you what they do and how things work, you gotta be initiative, gotta approach them and ask the things you wanna know.
Another big problem I faced is not knowing people in the meetings. Number of meetings in O**** is unbelievable! They are back to back, they are during lunch time, they are intense. I tagged along with my supervisor to those meetings and the issue is I don't know the people in the meeting and they don't know me and nobody introduce us. It's quite awkward. I figured out how to deal with it in my 3rd week. In small group meetings I, just introduce myself with a simple HI. In meetings with many people, target one or two people and compliment, or comment in a good way, something about them or what they say. Start a conversion like that first then probably a handshake and go into understanding of what their role is. If there's not enough time, arrange a meet up session with them and just chit chat with them over coffee. Yea, they love love love coffee. And it really makes a difference. I feel more comfortable having meetings with people I know and more confident to speak out as well. I can feel my presence in the meeting room and that's very fulfilling.
Ooops, it's nearly midnight now. I have ironed my suit for tmr, prayed and prepared lunchbox. See, that's the other thing. It's not easy to do all those cooking and household chores and work full time at the same time. All those working ladies out there, I feel you!
