Swabeng Thoughts: Why I look forward to stay at home after my contract

With my contract ending after Tonight, I know most of would worry what will happen to me if I lose my job. I assume some will ask what will happen to my finances and my ability to support my family. Others may say it would be bad for my resume as it would create another employment gap. Well, thank you for your concerns as I do appreciate them. Don't worry. I won't bum around if that's what your thinking. =P

I got to read an article from Yahoo a couple of (weeks/days/months) back and tried my best to digest each of it. 


1. No Tuesday blues: Well, my work week starts on Tuesdays so I don't think I'll be missing this one for now. I never felt that I wanted my shift to end everytime I'm in the office. And as a member of the helpdesk, doing presentations are not part of it =P. 

2. No horrible boss: AFAIK, I had a good working relationship with my boss. Though we argue and shout at each other often during the early days, we made sure that our client's concern are taken care off. If you ask me, he's one of the best boss I've work with though he needs to improve on some aspects though =P. 

3. Drinking hot afternoon over a fancy lunch: Hmmmm. Probably the beer part would do as my lunch costs expensive whenever I eat out for lunch. I can't wait to have lunch at home every single day.

4. More relaxing: Relaxing? Is baby-sitting relaxing? I could say no but its fun and if you get to take care of your precious little angel. Well, my BP would go much lower compared when I'm in the office probably. I just wish my daughter has a yaya or two for me to be more productive. ^_^

5. Bonding with kids: This is one event I would never ever miss. My wife took care of our daughter for the first nine months before she started working. It could be tiresome at one point but I'm sure I'm gonna learn a lot from doing a hands-on parenting to Migmig. 

6. Work from the luxury of your home: I could rebuild my blog as well as finish all of my drafts (I hope) as well as edit some of my remaining sets for 2011 ans 2012. I'm thinking of doing freelance photography as well as do some IT work on the side as well. The risks are pretty much bigger but the rewards could be never ending. 

7. Happier married life: Uhmmm. I hope my wife would appreciate every chore I'll be doing at home as well as taking care of our baby while she is away.

8. Patience and empathy: This would be one of my ultimate test of both patience and empathy. Only a few people knew my patience ain't that long as well as I'm not empathic.With my mischievous daughter slowly growing right before my very own eyes, I've got more than a handful. XD

9. You get to cook what you want: Uhmm, Nanay calls the shots here unless my wife requests for a dish or if were back home in San Pedro. I remeber giving my wife a cookbook so she would learn how to cook but she has yet to impress me with a dish. I guess I have to watch Chef Boy Logro's Kusina Master.

10. Improved health: I'm pretty much skeptical on this part. Though I plan to jog every morning even before my daughter gets up, I need to work on my diet and sleeping habits as well. This would be much better than sitting all day doing facebook =P

At the end of the day, it should be you (me) who would be the main provider (and protector) of your family. I don't see this as an excuse but rather a diversion for me to try other things, and be more creative once in a while. 

Eight months

That's how long I have to stay with the company where I work before my contract expires. I have already made up my mind to go forward and look elsewhere. I know there is no looking back and I am up to it.

For the past month (January), there were some instances that the upper management in the US caught my attention but I know I had learned my lesson and I'll make sure it won't happen again. Not to the next company (or venture) where will I work for sometime soon.     

Though my wife didn't expect that I would renew my contract last September, I had to do it for several reasons. By the time it ends, I know I'm ready to move on and move forward.

But for now, I have to enjoy and do my best here in the office so I would exit with a clean slate.

Top Ten Reasons Why Large Companies Fail To Keep Their Best Talent

Its really ironic that most of the best talents the company has doesn't seem to stay there and stay put. Most of the best employees here in the Philippines seem to always look for greener pastures (I'll be joining them soon XD) plus boredom gets in the most of them.

While setting-up my work PC, I saw this from my friend's fb (facebook) wall and I couldn't help it but to take a peek. By next year, our company may lose one of their best talents LOL.

Here is a good read for those who have time to kill and for those who plan to go for greener pastures. 

Whether it’s a high-profile tech company like Yahoo!, or a more established conglomerate like GE or Home Depot, large companies have a hard time keeping their best and brightest in house. Recently, GigaOM discussed the troubles at Yahoo! with a flat stock price, vested options for some of their best people, and the apparent free flow of VC dollars luring away some of their best people to do the start-up thing again.

Yet, Yahoo!, GE, Home Depot, and other large established companies have a tremendous advantage in retaining their top talent and don’t. In our business, we see the good and the bad things that large companies do in relation to talent management. Here’s my Top Ten list of what large companies do to lose their top talent:

 

1. Big Company Bureaucracy. This is probably the #1 reason we hear after the fact from disenchanted employees. However, it’s usually a reason that masks the real reason. No one likes rules that make no sense. But, when top talent is complaining along these lines, it’s usually a sign that they didn’t feel as if they had a say in these rules. They were simply told to follow along and get with the program. No voice in the process and really talented people say “check please.”
 

2. Failing to Find a Project for the Talent that Ignites Their Passion. Big companies have many moving parts — by definition. Therefore, they usually don’t have people going around to their best and brightest asking them if they’re enjoying their current projects or if they want to work on something new that they’re really interested in which would help the company. HR people are usually too busy keeping up with other things to get into this. The bosses are also usually tapped out on time and this becomes a “nice to have” rather than “must have” conversation. However, unless you see it as a “must have,” say adios to some of your best people. Top talent isn’t driven by money and power, but by the opportunity to be a part of something huge, that will change the world, and for which they are really passionate. Big companies usually never spend the time to figure this out with those people.
 

3. Poor Annual Performance Reviews. You would be amazed at how many companies do not do a very effective job at annual performance reviews. Or, if they have them, they are rushed through, with a form quickly filled out and sent off to HR, and back to real work. The impression this leaves with the employee is that my boss — and, therefore, the company — isn’t really interested in my long-term future here. If you’re talented enough, why stay? This one leads into #4….
 

4. No Discussion around Career Development. Here’s a secret for most bosses: most employees don’t know what they’ll be doing in 5 years. In our experience, about less than 5% of people could tell you if you asked. However, everyone wants to have a discussion with you about their future. Most bosses never engage with their employees about where they want to go in their careers — even the top talent. This represents a huge opportunity for you and your organization if you do bring it up. Our best clients have separate annual discussions with their employees — apart from their annual or bi-annual performance review meetings — to discuss succession planning or career development. If your best people know that you think there’s a path for them going forward, they’ll be more likely to hang around.
 

5. Shifting Whims/Strategic Priorities. I applaud Yahoo!’s plans to build an incubator or “brickhouse” around their talent, by giving them new exciting projects to work on. The challenge for most organizations is not setting up a strategic priority, like establishing an incubator, but sticking with it a year or two from now. Top talent hates to be “jerked around.” If you commit to a project that they will be heading up, you’ve got to give them enough opportunity to deliver what they’ve promised.
 

6. Lack of Accountability and/or telling them how to do their Jobs. Although you can’t “jerk around” top talent, it’s a mistake to treat top talent leading a project as “untouchable.” We’re not saying that you need to get into anyone’s business or telling them what to do. However, top talent demands accountability from others and doesn’t mind being held accountable for their projects. Therefore, have regular touch points with your best people as they work through their projects. They’ll appreciate your insights/observations/suggestions — as long as they don’t spillover into preaching.
 

7. Top Talent likes other Top Talent. What are the rest of the people around your top talent like? Many organizations keep some people on the payroll that rationally shouldn’t be there. You’ll get a litany of rationales explaining why when you ask. “It’s too hard to find a replacement for him/her….” “Now’s not the time….” However, doing exit interviews with the best people leaving big companies you often hear how they were turned off by some of their former “team mates.” If you want to keep your best people, make sure they’re surrounded by other great people.
 

8. The Missing Vision Thing. This might sound obvious, but is the future of your organization exciting? What strategy are you executing? What is the vision you want this talented person to fulfill? Did they have a say/input into this vision? If the answer is no, there’s work to do — and fast.
 

9. Lack of Open-Mindedness. The best people want to share their ideas and have them listened to. However, a lot of companies have a vision/strategy which they are trying to execute against — and, often find opposing voices to this strategy as an annoyance and a sign that someone’s not a “team player.” If all the best people are leaving and disagreeing with the strategy, you’re left with a bunch of “yes” people saying the same things to each other. You’ve got to be able to listen to others’ points of view — always incorporating the best parts of these new suggestions.
 

10. Who’s the Boss? If a few people have recently quit at your company who report to the same boss, it’s likely not a coincidence. We’ll often get asked to come in and “fix” someone who’s a great sales person, engineer, or is a founder, but who is driving everyone around them “nuts.” We can try, but unfortunately, executive coaching usually only works 33% of the time in these cases. You’re better off trying to find another spot for them in the organization — or, at the very least, not overseeing your high-potential talent that you want to keep.
 

It’s never a one-way street. Top talent has to assume some responsibility as much as the organization. However, with the scarcity of talent — which will only increase in the next 5 years — Smart Organizations are ones who get out in front of these ten things, rather than wait for their people to come to them, asking to implement this list.

I am one of them. XD

How to Deal With Unreasonable Deadlines at Work

Well this is not yet applicable here in our office as most of us can handle certain amounts of stress as work here is quite laid-back XD. But for call center employee and the rest, this could be a good read for you as I got it from yahoo (rhymes! XD).

If you find yourself constantly struggling to meet impossible deadlines at work, it's worth stepping back and taking a different approach to the problem. Here are six strategies that might help you cope.

1. Look at your colleagues. If you have colleagues who do similar work, do they also face similar deadlines? If so, how do they meet them? Are they starting earlier, planning differently, pulling in additional help, or using any other strategies that you can copy?

2. Break the project down differently. Often much of a project--say, 85 percent--can be accomplished quickly, and it's the remaining 15 percent that will take much longer. It's worth asking if you can take longer with that more time-consuming 15 percent. Sometimes if you ask you'll discover that as long as you get certain pieces of the work done by the deadline, it's OK to take longer on other parts.

3. Tell your manager what you can do. Your manager doesn't want to just be told that you can't meet a deadline without getting some indication of what you could do. Instead of just saying a deadline is impossible, try saying something like, "With only 10 days, I can do X and Y, and I'll need to modify Z in the following ways. And we won't have finished fully testing it, but that could be wrapped up two days later. Would that work?"

4. If the problem is chronic, raise it as a big-picture issue. Aside from talking with your manager about deadlines for a specific project, make sure you address the pattern as well. For instance, you could say something like, "I've noticed that we sometimes have different ideas about what are realistic timeframes for many projects. I want to be able to do the job well and deliver a good product, but sometimes we're given deadlines that aren't possible to meet, not if the product is going to be any good. I believe in pushing myself and I think you know I work hard, but I'm concerned that we're on a different page from Department X about how long these projects take. Can we talk about how we might be able to address this?" (Note that this language puts you and your manager on the same side, rather than attributing the problem to your manager herself.)

5. If your manager pre-dates you at the company, ask if your predecessors were able to meet similar deadlines and, if so, what they might have done differently than you. You might find that there are shortcuts that you don't realize your boss wouldn't mind you taking. You might be aiming for more perfection than she is, and she might be willing to trade perfection for speed. You won't know if you don't ask.

6. Finally, consider with an open mind whether the deadlines might not really be so crazy. It's entirely possible that yours is a company with chronically unrealistic deadlines and expectations, but it might also be a company that strives to be exceptional and thus gets things done faster than industry averages. If you're used to a slower pace, it might take a while to get used to the warp speed environment of your high-performing employer (and if you never do, that might point to a bad fit). It's very hard to evaluate this objectively when you're struggling, but try. Look around at your colleagues. Are they struggling too?

This heart-to-heart with yourself, combined with a big-picture conversation with your manager, should give you an idea of whether you're going to be able to resolve the issue in a way you can be happy with.

Getting ready for tonight

Right now, I'm at 90% ready for my shift after being down for 5 days. I know I've been away from work again since I got down with flu not because of my nature of work but because of my carelessness of not taking good care of myself. I won't be filing any leave for this once since its my fault why I wasn't able to keep myself fit for the job and I need them for more important things.

Hope I can get more sleep tonight so I could be at my 100% ^_^

My 6th month in the office

Actually, it would be tonight that I'll be on my 6th month at Grow/Greif. Time really flies so fast as I just recently signed for another year with them. Tonight will be a new beginning for me since I will be handling new issues but with the help of my friends. There would probably be challenges and obstacles along the way but I know I would be able to resolve each of these issues.

I am looking forward to the next 13 months (could it be my last 13 months?) of my stay at Grow/Greif.. But for now, I have to keep myself busy until I fall asleep in the afternoon. XD

My First Month with Greif

Current mood: Simply Happy

Why? Because I got my first paycheck in almost 8 months (I haven't got my backpay from my previous company yet XD). This would really boost my confidence and my desire to work harder so that I could get paid and even ask to stay longer with the company. The feeling was overwhelming that I acted like a kid with lots of money in my pocket. But, the test would be how to stretch my budget since we only get our pay every end of the month. I know its hard but I know I can take on this challenge.

How am I doing at Greif? Well I'm still in the learning curve. I have to admit that its not that easy to learn the process within a month or even less. Similar to what I do as a Tech Support before, work here is less stressful. There are times that I had my handsful since I'm still under training but I still have 5 more months to learn the ropes on how an IT Helpdesk work.

For now, I'll enjoy the moment of being PAID again. XD

5 Days

Current Mood: Fulfilled.

After a long while. I was able work for 5 straight days. Last week, I was only able to work for 4 staight days and the week before for 3 straight days. Since I'm still on training, most of the holidays were my day-off (weekends included). For the moment, I don't mind that since I have to sharpen my skills again in at least 6 months so I could be marketable in the IT field. I don't really know where this would lead me, but I'll have to enjoy the ride and learn a thing or two.

Back in the Groove

Current Mood: Excited

Starting Monday, I will be back in the workforce as an IT Consultant. I have to thank Grow Inc for giving me the opportunity to start anew and get back in the groove. My task will be as a Helpdesk Support Engineer for Greif Inc. I know this would be new to me since I don't have the experience yet as a Helpdesk person. However, I will use my experience as a Tech Support as well as my Quality Assurance skills to help me level-up in this field. 

I checked both websites (Grow and Greif) and they are promising to me when I was looking for work (or should I say a channel to put my energy to use).  Even if its a 6-month contract, I still took it since I need the experience on how to work not just as a Helpdesk person, but in the field of IT as well. I have almost all the pre-employment requirements with me and by Monday at 8:30am, I should be at the office. ^_^

Now so much for bumming around I guess. XD

The Manila Bulletin Jobfair Experience Revisited

Current Mood: Exhausted

Just got home from today's job fair at Glorietta. This would be their 2nd and last day of recruiting job applicants to fill-out that much needed gaps in their work force.

I got up early despite slepping late last night. I had to go online early in the morning thinking my wife would take the laptop to her office.

As I reached Glorietta, I had a quick brunch at Jollibee and got my free newspaper (Star). That gave me that much needed energy boost for me to last the day. Then I went straight to the job fair to attend some seminars there and listen to the speakers on how they will inspire us to do better.

The first speaker was from Stream Global Services (Ms Segovia). She talked about how their call center works and their achievements that they got over the past 15 years. I won't talk much about this because I felt half-hearted about this company.Initially, I am hoping to join this company before it bought E-Telecare back then. But now after the merge, It was completely different and I won't be telling it here. =P

The second speaker, Mr. Ricky Garcia was really able to get us glued to our seats with his interesting topic on "The World of School and The World of Work". He was able to stress out how being at work is almost the same as being at school. His topic was really inspiring that it made me even push harder to achieve my life-long goals in my career.

The third speaker, Mr Benedict Hernandez talks about The Global Talent Marketplace and the impact of BPO in our country and how we could be globally competitive. He also mentioned how this industry has helped the economy and how it helped the jobmarket. Though his speech was enlightening, I can't help it but feel half-hearted again because of some issues which some people I know from the industry may feel also.

With the fourth speaker, Mr Ruben Anlacan on his topic on Winning Interview Tactics, I was expecting that the topic would make me awake and interested. Instead, I almost fell asleep from where I am seating at. Moreover, he was either wasn't that prepared or he is not the actual speaker for the topic. Finally, I stand up and left to submit my resume to the companies I'm looking forward to work with.

After attending this jobfair for 2 straight days, I really felt tired and exhausted that I have to eat again before going home. The question is when will I get a phone call from the companies I've applied to. That I have to find out soon.

The Manila Bulletin Jobfair Experience

Current Mood: Fulfilled

Just got home today from Glorietta after attending a job fair there courtesy of the Manila Bulletin. But before that, I attended another job fair in Trinoma courtesy of another leading broadsheet (The Philippine Star). Since there were free complementary newspaper for the day, I didn't pass-up the opportunity to get one copy for today before heading to Glorietta for the job fair.

As a background, I've been attending to job fairs since 2001 (I got my first job there =D) and even when I used to be active at work before, I never let these kind of opportunity slip away.

Moving forward, I was surprised to see a very long line in front of me. The line was so long I thing it almost reached the entrance in Glorietta 4. Since I don't want to join the long line, I decided to take my lunch first at the food court (courtesy of World Chicken). After eating, I joined the queue but this time, it was much shorter than what I saw a while ago. It didn't take me that long before I familiarize myself with the area before deciding to which company should I apply to.

But my real purpose there was to attend to their free seminars that would help me not just to land my dream job but to stay long in my chosen career as well. The first topic was about resume pitfalls and how to avoid them by Ms Jhoanna Gan-So. Her talk has something to do with resume and it was so interesting, I decided to make a new resume and this time, I will include her advice on how to improve it so I could increase my chance of getting hired. The next topic was how to manage your finances while job hunting. This was facilitated this time by Mr. Mark So. This really helped me on how to stretch my budget though I am still guilty of buying my collection of men's magazine every month. After attending the seminar, its back to job hunting and I'm interested to join in any of the 4 companies I've talked to.

Even if my legs got cramps due to standing long hours, it was all worth it knowing that I have learned something from this experience. And as I got home, I received a call from the company I've been interviewed last Monday and they are pleased with our conversation. Though Its not 100% guaranteed I'm in, I hope for the best whatever the results may be.

For now, I have to rest and get ready for tomorrow since I will be back at Glorietta to attend the other seminar topics that I'm interested in ^_^.

One Sad Day

Current Mood: Sad

I got a message (thru chat) from a friend (college friend) of mine regarding my application at their company and he's sad to inform me that I'm not hired as one of their Service Desk Analyst. I know my skills and know-how are totally way off, in a way that I've never been an IT-Helpdesk nor worked with any position in IT. I felt sad not for myself but for my wife who was hoping I could make it.I felt I let her down.

My friend referred me to their company back in November 2009. Though I was a bit hesitant to submit my resume since I am in the middle of our wedding preparations last December 2009, I still submit my resume after doing a research about the company hoping get another career. I was supposed to be interviewed last November but I got sick that time. The interview was re-scheduled last January after I re-submit my resume again to my friend. Though the interview last January 11, 2010 was difficult, I was able to answer some of their question and my friend told me that I have a chance. A chance that is still uncertain yet I'm full of hope.

I went there at least thrice (on a weekly basis) and the last time (January 27, 2010) I was invited to sit-in at their office to let me feel how they work. The atmosphere was cozy, the people were nice also but the question that time was am I hired or not. It wasn't answered until now. After 5 weeks of waiting, now I know my status there. Thanks to my friend for the effort of helping me join their company.

And moving forward, I have to work harder to get my goal and to help my wife build our future. I have to exert more effort on how to work as an IT-Helpdesk despite the limitations that I have with my previous work. I have to be stronger. I have to be better. I have to... And I will be.