My last 5.5 years

Its been a great 5.5 years where I am now. Looking back, I could not have possibly imagine that I have stayed this long.

After I left school, I am driven to strive on an engineering job. Something that allows me to put what I learned to good use. Its was a turbulent year in 2005. Economy was getting back on track yet jobs are not readily available.

Armed with only a technical degree and no real working experience, I flipped through many pages of the Recruit and highlighted stuffs that interests me. Over 20 applications were sent in my first month alone. With no replies coming in, my desperation grew along and my preference drop. I began to pick about anything that I could get a reply from.

Just then I gotten a friendly email. Its from my current company and they are keen to schedule a meet up. (Interestingly, I applied for 2 jobs here and both call me up within 2 hours)

I put on my best shirt and tidied up my resume. Met up with 2 interviewers, one is my former boss and the other is my current. We had a good round of discussion and my previous boss highlighted this. This aint an engineering establishment, we do Project Management. I aint entirely sure what this meant back then. Aint Project work similarly to engineering?

They must have liked me. For within a week, I gotten a confirmation and I came down to sign my soul away. A contract term of 3 years was given and I happily accepted. I started work and was happy to learn that most of my colleagues are fresh grads as well.

I was given a big project and gotten acquainted with my new team mate. Soon I began to understand what is project work. Its about time management, resource management, people management and budget management. In short we make sure our supplier is able to deliver the end product to our customer.

There was barely any thing engineering about what I do. And frankly I was disappointed.

I carried on with my work and lasted till the 3rd year mark. I was keen to complete this big project and leave on a good note. Just prior to that, I was informed that I be transferred to another division at the end of the milestone. It got me thinking. Perhaps I should try out another year in this new role before leaving.

That is to be my current role and I survived in it for 2.5 years now. It became more or less like a maintenance job. But once again, the actual work is done by the maintenance agency. I just managed them.

I had planned to leave in 2009-2010. Sadly it was the same situation out there as it was at my beginning. Jobs were few as the economy was hit by the US bad debts.

However, now I gotten an offer. And I am not looking back no more.

(PS. I din expect this post to sound so seriously boring)