First, some background of my personality. I am a very practical person. Being practical, I try to see the value in everything, and if there's little value, I'm not very inclined to pursue it. This can be in the form of friendships, tasks, goals, etc.
Part of this 'practicality' carries over to form a long-sighted view - I tend to think about the future, about what I want next, about whether what I'm doing now allows me to step further in the future to something else.
With this background, let me explain how I came to in each of my jobs, and what I learnt from each.
Meen Deaf.
When I was applying for my first job, I had a pretty one-tracked mind that I wanted to work in the gahmen. Why? Because it was stable, because the pay was higher, because it seems to be the easier thing to do. Also heard that work-life balance is generally better in gahmen, so that was what I wanted too.
When I got the job offer, I was over the moon at first. I remember exactly where I was - I was walking towards Boon Keng MRT, crossing a carpark, when I received the call. And the HR lady made the job offer and I had to resist the urge not to jump but I did pump my fist.
I went down to the office, and that was when I felt a little uneasy. The location was very secluded, and took about over an hour to reach from home. I knew immediately that travelling would be a hassle and a burden. But could I stomach it?
I struggled with this for a while, and exchanged long email with my then-future boss. She was extremely patient and detailed in responding to all my queries. Trust me, our email exchanges were LONG. I think I was eventually won over by her responses, and accepted the job.
After about 6-7 months, I began hearing of friends leaving their jobs, and that somehow planted the idea in my head too. Am I enjoying what I'm doing here? No. Do I feel like I'm meaningfully using my time here? No.
As my job was newly created for me, the work wasn't really sized very well. And it wasn't like the work was fascinating or interesting or I was learning a lot. What I did learn was how the civil service worked, how convoluted clearance processes were, how silly email protocols and chain of command was. I saw how management fussed over nitty gritty details like punctuation and formatting, and how a sentence can be rephrased in 3 different ways by 3 different people to convey different messages but the same big idea.
There's this term called 'staff work', which basically refers to how well you check your work in terms of all these nitty gritty before 'staffing it up' to your boss. And he/she has to vet your work, do her part in polishing it up before pushing it up. It's a very tedious process, but is basically how the civ svc functions.
Over time, the push factor grew, as I became more free and my boss went away on a long course. I began job hunting, as my dissatisfaction with my current job grew more and more. I didn't know what I wanted, but amidst all the applications and interviews I went for, I eventually got an offer from my next company, girl reena.
Girl Reena.
Again, I remember exactly when I received the offer. I was in this big conference room which was our makeshift office as our existing office was undergoing renovation. I got a call, and I quickly rushed out of the room - I had been eagerly anticipating that call for over a day.
I was offered the job, and it took everything I had in me to not burst in happiness. I was SO happy.
This job was, not to be hyperbolic, a dream job. Working in games!! Who gets to do that! And with girl reena! Such a well-known ( I thought. I didn't know it was so well-hated as well) company with great office and great welfare! Woohoo! Goodbye shitty 1.5h journeys in a stuffy basement office with limited food choices! Goodbye long clearance processes and boring work!
It started off fairly ok, but there were signs of an impending collapse. I joined my team and there were already 4 of us, and I was a little bored some days, yet we had 2 more staff coming in. There were long periods of lull because the games were not launching soon, so I had no idea what to do, we just bummed around and did nothing.
When 2 more teammates came in, the boredom grew. There was some work to do, but in marketing, a lot of what you can do is limited by budget.
What made it worse was the lack of information from the management. Even my boss didn't know much of what was going to happen, there was little long-term plan, no KPIs, nothing. I felt like I was drifting through. It was very comfortable, yes, but extremely detrimental for my career. I was wasting my life away.
Eventually, my team (and dept) got downsized, and I quickly secured myself a move to the ecommerce biz in the company. Why didn't I apply for another position in another gaming company? 3 reasons:
1) I talked to a few people, and there was a general consensus that the gaming industry wasn't doing too well. There were too many (mobile) games and they were all the same and all sucked because of the current dominant monetisation model, and the big names were dominating the market share. So if you don't join a big name, you won't be doing much.
2) I also wondered if I really wanted to be working on games. Assuming my game was successful, I would be working on the same thing for a very long time. That sounds extremely boring? even with new updates, new features, it's the SAME GAME.
3) I realised I'm not THAT hardcore about games as I need to be to work in the gaming industry. Sure, I play a few games, and I love playing games. But I don't really understand games and the industry and play many many games and all sorts of games that well. I learnt this by meeting people who WERE like that. Very passionate gamers. Legit stuff.
I realised my dream was just that - a dream. The harsh reality is that it's not as great working in that line. My friends won't understand it - the thought of being able to play games for work sounds remarkably amazing. But it's not as amazing as it seems.
3) Shore P.
So here I am now, in what I call my 'temporary holding ground'. I definitely don't see myself doing this long term, so I probably need to look outside and look around for a different job. But what job? I don't know. And the job market isn't doing too swell either.
