Hazia’s Reflections

At 8.30am yesterday morning, I was ushered to my new office, a room with a view. Yeah, really:)

There were 2 desks inside, and I was told that the senior PR staff who sat at the other desk is leaving in early January. Obviously, he tendered his resignation the week after I got my appointment letter and wasn’t happy about having to report to someone. My staff were all on leave. The main office outside was almost empty with many people clearing their leave. I was introduced to a long hair girl who was supposed to be on leave but came to work. So, I do have female staff, unlike what I was told:)

At 10am, the GM called me for a briefing. Only then did I realise that he would be my immediate boss and we had not met before. I also discovered that the MD who interviewed me with his management team had just finished his contract and his successor will be coming next month. I was given the draft PR plan and budget for 2008 to review and add where necessary before tabling to the board of directors soon.

Customer relations was part of my responsibility. 1 staff there had just resigned and I was to interview a candidate on Thursday. The library is under my portfolio too and apparently, the new librarian (after 10 years of having the same person hold the position) was formerly the driver. He asked for a change in role. He also helped out the other staff, especially with carrying things for events. And interestingly, I was to keep a close look on another staff who was under probation, one with too many personal problems. Hmm…

Okay, so how’s that for a first day at work? Note that all of the above happened even before lunch time. LOL!

The last time I started a new job almost 3 years ago, I was a workaholic with work being the centre of my universe. A lot had changed since then.

Upon leaving my condo at 6.40am yesterday, I made a pact to drop the kiasu-ism approach and look at the whole environment from a neutral point of view and to have no expectation; no plotting, no strategising and no rushing to win. It’s not about turning things around or… achieving results or… being the best. On the contrary, I set a humble aim which is about ‘making it work’, mainly involved ‘fitting in’.

Luck had it that just when my career is no longer the love of my life, I got the ‘first day at work’ of my dream. Imagine the important management decisions to be made during my first few weeks. This job would call for every management and technical skills acquired during my last 3 employments. I never had the need to use all of them simultaneously before. Well, this is a department head position after all:)

I went out to lunch with 3 people of various levels and learned more things. (I asked the long hair girl, my staff, for lunch but she was rushing). I also learned a few things from the people outside my office that I talked to. In the afternoon, I took a walk down to the customer service centre and met the staff who had resigned. Such a waste, I thought she was pretty impressive, well-spoken and presentable. After a bit of chatting, I managed to dig out why she was leaving, much higher $$$. The other staff was on leave.

At around 4pm, the long hair girl came into my office, told me she cancelled her leave, she worked almost a whole day already. She had been with the company for a year and this was her first job. She asked me whether there was anything that I wanted to know. Startled I might be, but somehow I automatically took charge. I asked her to explain what she does. I found her well-trained from scratch. The important thing was that she loved her job, her peeve was just $$$. Hmm…

Other things spilled out too. The one with the desk in the room with mine and the other 2 staff did not communicate. She said she didn’t want to talk bad about him but she couldn’t list out his job descriptions for me. How does one head a department if one does not talk to the other members? Suddenly I find myself back at the hotel, same situation, only wearing different hats.

That wasn’t all. Now, for the grand finale of the day… The new MD came into my office at 5.20pm, my boss was showing him around. He asked me… "So, how do you plan to transform the company?" Since I was new and he was new, he wanted to see what I had in mind. He asked how soon could I get the plans out.

Remember that I had to do 2 proposals during their recruitment process? After getting the insider insights at work yesterday, I learned that I was on the right track. So, the plans were practically… ready. I asked him whether he would there on Wednesday (Tuesday is a public holiday). He seemed surprise. He smiled and said "I’ll give you until Thursday instead." I immediately fixed an appointment with his secretary:)

After a heavy duty day, I came home last night tired and groggy. It was quite an effect after being on holiday for 3 weeks, and waking up early too. Guess what happen after that? Mr Monorail couldn’t have chosen a worse time to finally asked me out. Yeah, he did last night. Nah, I was too wiped out.

Oh, I nearly forgot. Merry Christmas!:D