It's time for another update, I don't know if this will be the last post for the year. Maybe. So I am back for awhile now and that I really felt that I never really left Singapore after all this time. Well, 18 months to be exact. It still feels surreal that I was living an expat life in Sydney just 6 months ago. How strange that it felt like a long time ago.
I still can remember the particular corners and traffic lights when I drive to fetch Cat to and fro from work. The cold weather hitting my face especially during the winter time, the vast openness of their parks where Marly was able to run free without her leash and will always respond to us when we called her. She was so calm last time and unlike in SG where she is always triggered and will keep barking. And of course, my trusty Toyota Corolla aka Tofu, I wonder how he is doing now. Weird that I am treating an inanimate object as an animated one.
So, it has already been just over a month since I started work. Quite a couple of things had happened, I mean outside of work also...work had been quite alright to be honest. The pace is much slower than when I started at Hedge Fund and maybe because I had already been used to the system and all, I pretty much got up to speed with the systems at a much faster time as compared to my very first joining them from BNP. I think this time around, maybe it's just me or not, but I feel that there is added pressure since it was Steph who had reached out to get me back and of course Cheralyn as well. Then I seemed to like know quite a bit of the AVPs and the bigger bosses that I felt that maybe my other teammates would have treated me differently. However, I don't feel that's the case, so I think I am lucky. I still hang out with my old teammates quite frequently especially for lunch and all. I guess the Private Equity Team is small so people like Hannah got her own clicque but Bavani is usually alone though she seems ok with being alone. It's kinda a bit hard to like in my old team where we click pretty good together. Probably it is just me thinking too much again. In a nutshell, I think so far work has been pretty alright and it's just getting up to speed and to achieve my goal of getting promoted to Supervisor by the next end of the year. I think this time round I am back, I felt that I had to move fast and keep getting promoted because of course I had taken the time off back in Sydney and also about the 3 year period that the Fengshui master had told me that this 3 years is going to be the years where everything will be smooth and that I had to make the most of it. After that, it's not gonna be as good already. So it's like, it's all or nothing.
So the other big change that I had mentioned earlier in this post was also the reason why I need to get my promotions. Is that both Cat and Me had gotten a Penthouse EC at Bukit Batok which cost ridiculous money , it really stretch our finances nearly to the max. It is not impossible but it will definitely push us to our limits. So the days of free spending the past 5 years, means that we need to tighten the wallets more. So the only way to get back to those days, is to up our pay. Cat says her salary is pretty much flat the next few years unless she get fast tracked to Partnership, so it's just up to me now. I think in PE team, I don't know if there will ever be 2 AVPs , now there is only 1 and this 1 has been in the position for a very long time. But there are definitely vacant positions for Supervisor, so my goal is to get one of those positions and that will increase my pay.
I mean if you follow my past entries, I had always mentioned that I don't like this corporate ladder climbing, like if its get to political, I don't like it. Right now, I see that least up to VP level here, doesn't feel like there is any politics. Not saying that there wont be , but it feels like it. The Fengshui master also got mention that I don't do well in a planning kind of role aka higher management like C-suite. Do I aspire to be that ? Well I know that from the beginning I never really am interested in it. So as long as my role is not those planning kind , more of the hands on and more transactional kind, not those boring data entries kind then I will do well in them. It kinda reminds me why I actually thrived in certain customer servicing roles, like in IRAS and in BNP where I faced the different RMs. I like roles when people look to me as a problem solver , so that's kinda my interest. Frankly, here in Citco, I dont really like the long term prospects because more and more work are being moved to India and Manila. I think it will eventually be like an exclusive team of Singaporeans that will be working with not increasing much head count unless more biz is earned or if the clients specifically mention that they want Singaporeans and the not the offshore team(s). That will also mean how much higher can fees be raised , since Singaporeans are expensive and that the offshore teams are way much cheaper( I just learnt that a VP in Manila earns twice as less as me a Senior Officer).
Well I guess that I probably need to head to another kind of direction, but in the meantime, I need to secure my promotion by the end of 2025. That's definitely my goal for the year.
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