It feels like been quite some time since I last post a birthday post on this blog. But , well going forward I will probably spend a lot of time on this blog because of the more time I have on my hands now. So, good news for Sam if you are reading this ! haha PS: When you mention you still got read, I was quite surprised and happy.
This is my current view while I am waiting for Cat to end work as EY and Citco Office is near the Opera House. If you had catch the words above, you will probably guess that I had left my job at Citco. It has been kind of a mixed bag for me during my stint with the company. I loved the people and management at the company but the learning curve and some of the clients were tough. Will missed the guys at work but I think the more scary thing is the fact that I will be for the first time ever. Unemployed. Is this the right move? I don't know. Is it scary ? yeah it is. After a decade of working , 8 to 10 hours of your daily routine is entrenched in work. All of a sudden, these hours are return back to you, what does one do with them ? Will I be able to get back into the workforce ? Lots of thoughts flow through my mind.
I remember the last day at BNP. It was also somewhat similar, my last few conversations were with the person replacing me, me letting them know that they will be ok and saying my goodbyes to the team. Also, thinking whether did I made the right decision ? Some say I will miss BNP because of the lack of politics. Some say go out and come back so to command a higher pay. In the end, the lack of progression got to me and a lot of colleagues I used to work with plus the fact that the company moved ops to India just convinced me to leave.
Joining Citco, I had zero expectations, I knew that I won't stay longer than 2 years here because I just want to get out of the shithole that BNP had start to dig themselves into. Little did I expect my first 3 months taking on Investor Relations with the funds that I was allocated to be a bit complicated with clients who are slightly more demanding. Coupled with my obvious lack of Fund Administration, it is tough and eventually lead to a lot of OT and basically trying to change my mindset 180 degrees. It caused quite a bit of tension between me and Cat because of the OT and my character of trying to complete everything before I logged off. So it hasn't been a happy time working from home. After a year, things have improved a bit but still not too happy. Popo passing also impacted me quite a bit, I became easily depressed and not able to control my emotions. I started to break down often and Cat isn't really quite the most empathetic person , so it starts to just eat me up.
My bosses and managers all keep telling me that I am doing well but I felt that I was not and that I keep thinking What's the future being in Investor Relations ? What does being in this role value add? Will it be sunset just like ops ?
The team is much younger than I had work with back in BNP and being a much smaller organisation, a lot of the red tape was not there and the management encourage open discussion. There was not like an age hierarchy and it's good that they are willing to teach and I was willing to learn. So it opened up my horizon about working outside of a big corporation and away from all the niceties email that one must adhere to in a bank. Of course the downsides are there are no guides around here and you have to start asking random people from other departments, eating humble pie and just hope that what they teach you is correct.
It's a huge change from BNP but it was a good one. It was a good experience that I had not envisioned it to be.
So compared to BNP, why I had to leave Citco, it's because for some reason having this job in my life is not really working out for me. I don't really know why also , but it's just not helping that's all. Wrong timing? Wrong Job? or maybe it's because I WFH too much with Cat? maybe it's just an accumulation of things ? lack of time for myself?
Looking back , leaving BNP was right, I was getting depressed n just daily pissed off. In Citco, I was not happy and it affected me and Cat. I used to think that quitting like its the end of the world. Quitting without a job is like the stupidest thing anyone can do. Some of my colleagues don't understand why I want to quit or rather why I would a reject a job at Citco Sydney Office. Maybe I wasn't thinking right? I don't know...but I felt that if I don't relieve myself from this job, I am just kicking the can down the road and eventually I would never get out of the loop. That scares me and since Cat got this opportunity here in Sydney, it kinda worked out for me I guessed.
One thing leaving BNP definitely taught me is that the world is truly a lot bigger and I should have left to explore it earlier. After all these years, I believe that there's a place and time for everything. It might be I needed to stay in BNP for that long so that I have the experience , the stability to get married and go on to the next stage of adulting. With that experience , it gave me a foundation to explore something new in Citco. It's always a hindsight thing isn't ?
Maybe it's the right time for me to move on then.
