N00bs and jobs

Finally the long weekend is here and what an awesome day it has been. Even though my body hurts and I feel a bit woozy but everything is fine. On second thought, my wallet is getting dangerously thin now. Anyway, I guess I pushed myself too far yesterday during a jogging session as my whole body feels kinda numb. I was feeling pretty down throughout the whole week and it was finally my chance to let it all out. Too bad I can't scream all the way while running around the track. I was cursing under my breath though. Don't ask me why but it works. I was also motivated by my own desire to look better and to improve my image. Furthermore I am also suffering from celebrity crush and this only feeds my dislike for my current fitness level. I do not have the resources for the best diet or even a gym so I need to do my best whenever possible. Hopefully my body doesn't break down.

This morning I woke up quite early and proceeded to head over to the cybercafe after breakfast for a round of Call Of Duty fun. Okay, a round is an understatement. I spent more than 3 hours there. A lack of sleep plus long hours of intense concentration tends to screw your brain a bit and I was visibly disoriented by lunch time. I think I was mumbling to my friends. Luckily we win most of the games with some of it in my favor as the MVP of the match. We were thrash-talking other players that came back with witty remarks after I typed 'GG' at the end of the matches. 'GG' is actually gamer slang for 'good game', sort of like the handshake after a badminton match. But it might be interpreted differently by other people as an arrogant declaration of victory. The power of being anonymous and getting away with whatever you say is indeed intoxicating. It feels better when the witty dudes finally shut up after continuous pummelling. Nowadays I am just trying to spread fear of the generic name 'abc123'. Addictive as it may be, I should be aware of how much time and money I spend.

Now for a short story of how I ended up at JustJobs, my current company. It was December 2010 and as I mentioned before I was contemplating if I should jump. After a long period of hesitation and dilly-dallying I finally made my decision and planned out how I should execute my resignation. I will only take the year end bonus and skip the March bonus. This is largely due to the additional 2 months notice before I could leave the company. If I only quit after March, I will most likely end up in a new company around June. Previously, I joined my first company on the first week of July and ended up losing both the annual bonus and increment for my first year. With the letter in hand, I requested for a short discussion with my manager to disclose my decision without making a scene. I think he was shocked and frustrated when he saw my letter as our team is already suffering from a lack of human resources.

I will skip the gritty details as some of my former colleagues still have access to this blog. My manager was trying to talk things out with me and he even came out with a counter-offer which doesn't happen to everybody. However, my decision is already final as there is no point continuing to work after this. I will be a bleeping beacon in their radar for the rest of the year if I decided to take the counter-offer. The funny thing is that I haven't started to look for a job when I resigned. You can call me naive but I consider myself lucky that things somehow clicked and here I am with a job. The remaining 2 months that I work there is rather carefree though the team relationship is strained. I started applying for jobs outside of my comfort zone. Perhaps I am just sick and tired of working in a MNC company and migrating old systems to new coding standards. Hence I realized the gravity of my situation - potential employers will view me as a jobseeker with zero working experience.

I applied for game developer, web developer, multimedia and also system developer as a backup. I was feeling pretty good as most of the positions that involve coding to some extent provided me with an offer but it was lower than what I used to earn. I didn't get the multimedia offer though. I press on thinking that the new job should at least match my current pay. The job search period extended for almost another month after my final day at my previous company. I was basically burning my savings. At that time I told myself that I really need to get a job by April or my economical planning will be thoroughly screwed. Well there isn't really any real planning but at least there is a savings target to be met. While holding a few job offers, my mum persuaded me to try applying for The Star as she saw an ad and The Star is actually quite a big company. I couldn't think of any possible harm and to my surprise I was called for an interview just as I wanted to say yes to one of the offers.

This blog post has gone long enough and I guess I will continue tomorrow. If any readers would like me to blog about something else in my life, please drop a comment. I understand that some of the things I write is boring but I do want to revisit various aspects of my life in the past year. I want to improve the viewership of my blog but since it is a rather personal one, I don't think random people will be interested in the daily routine of a typical youth working in KL. Maybe visitors can treat it as a story that gets updated daily. Anyway, that's it for tonight and enjoy Sunday everyone.