Welcoming My Old Friend "Routine" with A Smile
In celebrating my new job offer and making the most of my last weekend of unemployment, Tim and I spent last Saturday shopping in central London. Although, it was really more like me doing the shopping and him doing a lot of waiting outside changing rooms. I did however, succeed at picking up a few new pieces of clothing for work, but have decided to try and be more disciplined in future and buy only one nice new item a month. Unless it was on sale and I could get 2 items for the same price, of course..
We also had a nice celebratory dinner in a Chinese seafood restaurant called Mandarin Kitchen. I’ve been missing the best seafood in KL (i.e. Fatty Crab) for a while, and sort of hoped in vain to discover such a restaurant. in London. Unfortunately, not knowing enough Chinese folks in London doesn’t make such discoveries easy, but I did find the Mandarin Kitchen after browsing through a number of food review sites on the Net. A number of people reviewed the place as reasonably-priced and rather tasty, with their signature dish being lobster on a bed of noodles. Naturally, I ordered a portion of that, but was served a whole lobster (doh!) which I pretty much ate on my own as Tim doesn’t enjoy seafood. He gave it a go but settled on a plate of barbequed pork (“char siu”) instead. All the portions were huge despite the fact that I told the waitress I wanted only 1 serving of each. It made us both look like we’ve been starved of seafood and pork!
Anyhow, celebratory news aside, I finally began my new job on Tuesday. It was the most interesting first day I’ve ever had in my entire working life. From the moment I walked in, I was handed a pre-planned timetable filled with induction meetings I was to have with a number of different key people in the company. There were stacks of notes carefully arranged in folders, with a few documents already bearing my name. I was to be inducted with one other new guy to the company, but he was in a significantly higher position (Director of Sales), which made everything all the more interesting. The fact that we were scheduled to meet and talk to so many different figures in the company really opened my eyes to how the company takes the act of hiring new people very seriously, and that they care enough to invest one-on-one time with their newbies, regardless of status. When lunchtime came around, my boss took me to lunch and said I was allowed to have an alcoholic drink too. Talk about radical.
After lunch, it was back to more induction meetings but I was also told that I would be able to go home at 4pm. Needless to say, I had an excellent first day at WWAV. I mean, I wasn’t expected to do any work at all on my first day and was allowed to go home an hour and half before everyone else! What more could I ask for?!? I’ve never ever worked for a company of this magnitude (250 employees) and professionalism. I do feel really lucky to be given the chance, cause I know for a fact it wouldn’t be easy finding companies who operate on a similar level in KL.
All the luxurious non-work aside though, I did get to do some work on my 2nd day (today). It began with a nice and comprehensive explanation from my boss about how some of the stuff we deal with works, and then he left me with the task of calling up our online suppliers to get ad placements done. In layman speak, I basically got to spend lots of money on behalf of one of our clients, by buying up online ad space with a number of different website publishers (or suppliers, as they are also known). It was a little bit intimidating calling up strangers at first, but I quickly realised that they were all nice since I was giving them huge orders. Then again, my experience in dealing with clients cannot be any worse than some of the snappy ones I’m used to working with back in KL., so this was really good by comparison. Not scary at all, really.
I also learnt a lot of basic stuff about signing off forms and using the incredibly slow fax machine in the office, but I think it was all pretty good for a first day of proper work. In fact, my work day ends at 5.30pm and though I left at 5.40pm, I was still one happy bunny. That’s what years of working 12 hour days will do to you.. Teaches you to be really grateful for simple joys like being able to leave work on time and not feeling guilty about it. Yiippee.
We also had a nice celebratory dinner in a Chinese seafood restaurant called Mandarin Kitchen. I’ve been missing the best seafood in KL (i.e. Fatty Crab) for a while, and sort of hoped in vain to discover such a restaurant. in London. Unfortunately, not knowing enough Chinese folks in London doesn’t make such discoveries easy, but I did find the Mandarin Kitchen after browsing through a number of food review sites on the Net. A number of people reviewed the place as reasonably-priced and rather tasty, with their signature dish being lobster on a bed of noodles. Naturally, I ordered a portion of that, but was served a whole lobster (doh!) which I pretty much ate on my own as Tim doesn’t enjoy seafood. He gave it a go but settled on a plate of barbequed pork (“char siu”) instead. All the portions were huge despite the fact that I told the waitress I wanted only 1 serving of each. It made us both look like we’ve been starved of seafood and pork!
Anyhow, celebratory news aside, I finally began my new job on Tuesday. It was the most interesting first day I’ve ever had in my entire working life. From the moment I walked in, I was handed a pre-planned timetable filled with induction meetings I was to have with a number of different key people in the company. There were stacks of notes carefully arranged in folders, with a few documents already bearing my name. I was to be inducted with one other new guy to the company, but he was in a significantly higher position (Director of Sales), which made everything all the more interesting. The fact that we were scheduled to meet and talk to so many different figures in the company really opened my eyes to how the company takes the act of hiring new people very seriously, and that they care enough to invest one-on-one time with their newbies, regardless of status. When lunchtime came around, my boss took me to lunch and said I was allowed to have an alcoholic drink too. Talk about radical.
After lunch, it was back to more induction meetings but I was also told that I would be able to go home at 4pm. Needless to say, I had an excellent first day at WWAV. I mean, I wasn’t expected to do any work at all on my first day and was allowed to go home an hour and half before everyone else! What more could I ask for?!? I’ve never ever worked for a company of this magnitude (250 employees) and professionalism. I do feel really lucky to be given the chance, cause I know for a fact it wouldn’t be easy finding companies who operate on a similar level in KL.
All the luxurious non-work aside though, I did get to do some work on my 2nd day (today). It began with a nice and comprehensive explanation from my boss about how some of the stuff we deal with works, and then he left me with the task of calling up our online suppliers to get ad placements done. In layman speak, I basically got to spend lots of money on behalf of one of our clients, by buying up online ad space with a number of different website publishers (or suppliers, as they are also known). It was a little bit intimidating calling up strangers at first, but I quickly realised that they were all nice since I was giving them huge orders. Then again, my experience in dealing with clients cannot be any worse than some of the snappy ones I’m used to working with back in KL., so this was really good by comparison. Not scary at all, really.
I also learnt a lot of basic stuff about signing off forms and using the incredibly slow fax machine in the office, but I think it was all pretty good for a first day of proper work. In fact, my work day ends at 5.30pm and though I left at 5.40pm, I was still one happy bunny. That’s what years of working 12 hour days will do to you.. Teaches you to be really grateful for simple joys like being able to leave work on time and not feeling guilty about it. Yiippee.