I thought it would last longer. After being unemployed and on-and-off searching for a job in the industry since 2001, I really hoped it would last longer, but after 2.5 months the initial excitement of having the new job, the honeymoon period, was abruptly halted.
What do you take as tell-tell signs that a honeymoon period is coming to an end?
To me, an end of the beginning at a new work-place starts with uncovering of 'dirty laundry', which subsequently leads to the gradual loss of the initial 'magic'. And in my case, the big smelly pile showed up within a short period of time:
1) Barking-back at COO (the founder)
It all started 10 days ago, Wednesday the 23rd September. The first encounter with the dirty panties was the little dose of bellowed Singaporean 'scolding' attitude. As mentioned before, the founder is – with justification - sceptical of my technical abilities thanks to the lack of my industry experience. And for whatever reason, he felt the urge to remind me, and others, of this point. To make things even funnier, he is all into leadership BS. Guess, COO wanted to demonstrate how NOT to lead:
In the two meetings across two subsequent days with different set of colleagues attending, the COO directly questioned my competency, and in particular the ability to confidently convey to the client that I can 'walk the talk'. In addition, he communicated the displeasure at the title awarded to me (Technical Lead - as I applied for System Analyst role, the title was a surprise to me as well!) without having the extensive experience and going through the thick and thin of the lower positions. As this was all playing out in front of other team-members, I patiently listed.
You will appreciate the effort required to keep my quick tongue from unleashing the counter-attack. Surprisingly I managed to do so, while keeping myself 'amused' with the responses firing between my ears yet falling short from being verbalised.
During the meeting on the third day, some of the responses got to see the light of a day. COO and I were in the meeting room on our own, and shortly into the meeting he started with the exactly same tune as from the two days before. Though on this occasion, with no need to 'save his face' in front of others, I did not let him gain much momentum. I barked back as true ang moh does. I questioned his actions of criticising my lack of experience for three days in a row... pointed that I wrote my own CV, hence I understand the overreaching gap in my career path. - So what am I to do now? (i.e. where is the constructive value of the feedback, apart of bit of extra motivation from the 1st day of 'shooting'?). Also, I mentioned attitude of the company-wide unity instead of isolating one individual in a corner. The last point I made was considering benefits of positive contribution and strengths each one of us brings to the table instead of focusing on inadequacies. Maybe the best value I can provide is not in my technical powers, but rather through those of the BS kind. - I left out the point that they gave me the title so they can charge the premium for my hour to clients, as I'm sure Boss does not need a reminder on that one, though likely CEO had to persuade him to agree.
Later in the evening after that meeting, we caught up once more, where it seemed that my counter-attack had a short term success. Boss took a step, two back and even seemed apologetic. Then again, you can never win an argument with a boss, nor (easily) change first impressions – as seen with my NUS experience – and thus, the real consequences of my 'barking back' are still to be seen.
2) Senior PM departs
Exactly a week later after the 'dirty laundry' started showing up first, on the 30th of September, I was greeted with a shocking surprise from a collage: his thank-you-farewell email to the company following the resignation. Though, he held to his own, as much as I could gather, he was a busy guy. Apparently he was very busy and unhappy guy.
Speculation has it that similar issues that led to his departure, caused 13 (out of 50) employees to depart in the span of two months before my arrival.
3) Operational Deficit
On the 1st October monthly all-staff meeting, CEO shared the ugly graph showing that the company has been running the loss in earnings for the most part of the year. The related news that surfaced a while back is that few months prior my arrival employees were asked to accept for the percentage of the monthly salary to be payed upon the return of the better days. This has not happened yet.
4) Pre-sales focus
Last week after the positive feedback on my performance from the CEO, the two major pending projects that were to occupy my time got bad hits. One took a big step backwards, and the other – to my big surprise – went to another tender. This means that for a while longer I’ll be fully in the BS area of the IT consulting.
Note to self:
- put more effort into entrepreneurship
- apply for PR or business visa
- don’t expect 22% monthly-pay bonus due this month to simply show up in your bank account
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
UPDATED: 12th Oct 09
Tonight I had a 2nd chat with CEO. As expected, due the the fact that the major project I was working on has not materialised (as of yet), my bonuses will not happen at the first trimester. I played the understanding card, and suggested that instead of cash paid bonus we could possibly look into win-win training opportunities where they pay for the (part of) training that fills the company's need and yet satisfies my curiosity. Upon which I could give a seminar to share the knowledge acquired with the team-members. BI anyone?
What do you take as tell-tell signs that a honeymoon period is coming to an end?
To me, an end of the beginning at a new work-place starts with uncovering of 'dirty laundry', which subsequently leads to the gradual loss of the initial 'magic'. And in my case, the big smelly pile showed up within a short period of time:
1) Barking-back at COO (the founder)
It all started 10 days ago, Wednesday the 23rd September. The first encounter with the dirty panties was the little dose of bellowed Singaporean 'scolding' attitude. As mentioned before, the founder is – with justification - sceptical of my technical abilities thanks to the lack of my industry experience. And for whatever reason, he felt the urge to remind me, and others, of this point. To make things even funnier, he is all into leadership BS. Guess, COO wanted to demonstrate how NOT to lead:
In the two meetings across two subsequent days with different set of colleagues attending, the COO directly questioned my competency, and in particular the ability to confidently convey to the client that I can 'walk the talk'. In addition, he communicated the displeasure at the title awarded to me (Technical Lead - as I applied for System Analyst role, the title was a surprise to me as well!) without having the extensive experience and going through the thick and thin of the lower positions. As this was all playing out in front of other team-members, I patiently listed.
You will appreciate the effort required to keep my quick tongue from unleashing the counter-attack. Surprisingly I managed to do so, while keeping myself 'amused' with the responses firing between my ears yet falling short from being verbalised.
During the meeting on the third day, some of the responses got to see the light of a day. COO and I were in the meeting room on our own, and shortly into the meeting he started with the exactly same tune as from the two days before. Though on this occasion, with no need to 'save his face' in front of others, I did not let him gain much momentum. I barked back as true ang moh does. I questioned his actions of criticising my lack of experience for three days in a row... pointed that I wrote my own CV, hence I understand the overreaching gap in my career path. - So what am I to do now? (i.e. where is the constructive value of the feedback, apart of bit of extra motivation from the 1st day of 'shooting'?). Also, I mentioned attitude of the company-wide unity instead of isolating one individual in a corner. The last point I made was considering benefits of positive contribution and strengths each one of us brings to the table instead of focusing on inadequacies. Maybe the best value I can provide is not in my technical powers, but rather through those of the BS kind. - I left out the point that they gave me the title so they can charge the premium for my hour to clients, as I'm sure Boss does not need a reminder on that one, though likely CEO had to persuade him to agree.
Later in the evening after that meeting, we caught up once more, where it seemed that my counter-attack had a short term success. Boss took a step, two back and even seemed apologetic. Then again, you can never win an argument with a boss, nor (easily) change first impressions – as seen with my NUS experience – and thus, the real consequences of my 'barking back' are still to be seen.
2) Senior PM departs
Exactly a week later after the 'dirty laundry' started showing up first, on the 30th of September, I was greeted with a shocking surprise from a collage: his thank-you-farewell email to the company following the resignation. Though, he held to his own, as much as I could gather, he was a busy guy. Apparently he was very busy and unhappy guy.
Speculation has it that similar issues that led to his departure, caused 13 (out of 50) employees to depart in the span of two months before my arrival.
3) Operational Deficit
On the 1st October monthly all-staff meeting, CEO shared the ugly graph showing that the company has been running the loss in earnings for the most part of the year. The related news that surfaced a while back is that few months prior my arrival employees were asked to accept for the percentage of the monthly salary to be payed upon the return of the better days. This has not happened yet.
4) Pre-sales focus
Last week after the positive feedback on my performance from the CEO, the two major pending projects that were to occupy my time got bad hits. One took a big step backwards, and the other – to my big surprise – went to another tender. This means that for a while longer I’ll be fully in the BS area of the IT consulting.
Note to self:
- put more effort into entrepreneurship
- apply for PR or business visa
- don’t expect 22% monthly-pay bonus due this month to simply show up in your bank account
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
UPDATED: 12th Oct 09
Tonight I had a 2nd chat with CEO. As expected, due the the fact that the major project I was working on has not materialised (as of yet), my bonuses will not happen at the first trimester. I played the understanding card, and suggested that instead of cash paid bonus we could possibly look into win-win training opportunities where they pay for the (part of) training that fills the company's need and yet satisfies my curiosity. Upon which I could give a seminar to share the knowledge acquired with the team-members. BI anyone?
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