And Now the End Is Near

We’ve been handed our marching papers today so officially my last day of work should be 8th of March 2006 (I have 3 months’ notice period). But my very last day of being here on site would be 23rd December. After that none of us are required to come in to work.

*sigh* Such an ignomious end to a 10-year tour of duty in this company. Despite knowing for about 2 years, since it was taken over by a large banking group, that we had to go most of us are still kinda wistful in leaving this company. We surely are gonna miss the heyday of our IT dept. The time when we didn’t have enough man power and resources to fill our growing business requirements, the time when our customer base were soaring, the time when everybody was eager to work towards a lofty goal – to be the very best company in our industry.

Our old CEO was very charismatic and he was in the thick of things. You often saw him walking around talking to people and he took time to listen to gripes and complaints. There were certainly problems and troubles, afterall there’s no such thing as a perfect company. However, a lot of our former colleagues who’re now employed in other firms often say that our old company was the best working environment they’ve been in. Certainly among us IT people, there was this palpable feeling of trust from the business people that we will do all we can to help them in the resources available to us because ultimately that was our role – to support the business. Unlike a lot of IT people I know who keep dissing users and generally want them all to go away. The work environment that I recall was that in say projects – the budget, resources, and deadline are all agreed with all parties. After that we were generally left to get on with the work. Not many managers micro manage their staff. It’s one of the reasons why most of us are multi skilled. Sometimes one may be resolving some technical issues with an intranet server when his main job was project management – that sort of thing.

Well so much for my reminiscing. I’ve got to wake up to the truth that I have to find work again. One thing I hate about it is the interviews. It just gives me the jitters so much so that often I get mental block especially in technical interviews. And god help me if it’s a panel one. Once someone asked me something about ‘triggers’ and for the life of me I couldn’t remember a thing while just the day before I was using it! Duh! Then one time I kept on nodding while the interviewer chatted on and then he stopped he was waiting for me. It turned out he was asking a question and just kept on nodding. Hehehe. Must be because of his heavy Indian accent. I think I have to learn to relax, yeah right relax … just don’t let my mind drift to the fact that if I don’t land a job my kids would be starving – talk about pressure.

These days I just quote the US $1 bill – In God We Trust. :)