A letter from Apr 14, 2025

Dear FutureMe, It is my 37th birthday today. A lot has happened since the last letter I sent on my previous birthday 14/4/2024. I have been living with Cherry mymy at 516 Jurong West St 52 06-77 for the past 1 year plus. Living here has been good so far. Being next to Lakeside MRT really saves a lot of time. For Cherry's work, the cheapo Alstron terminated her employment after Lunar New Year and she started working for Daiso on 11 March at IMM as a part time retail assistant. Her full monthly pay is a little more than what the cheapo Alstron was paying her. Hopefully, she will be able to work Full Time soon, as it will come with benefits As for family planing, today mymy did a pregnancy test for the first time after visiting Kensington Specialist Clinic in JB. The specialist has been good and affordable so far, much better than the GynaeMD. The test yielded 2 lines but it is recommended to do another test 2-3 days later. We shall see what happens by my 38th birthday. For work wise, I did not remember that I had been feeling stagnant at this time last year. "Work wise, now still at CELC. Starting to feel stagnant and might want to consider internal transfer in NUS. Not sure about that." Well, it turns out that I did take advantage of the Internal Mobility Policy at NUS. Due to several unhappy factors, I decided to finally take the plunge since Dec last year. I feel that I am not appreciated by the management and they would be happy to see my departure. Also, in the long run, I might have to report to the bà già khó tính if I continue to stay in the next 3-5 years, which will not be desirable for me. Lastly, if I were to stay, I would have to take over even more of the QET/DET portion, which also includes planning for the invigilator/rater scheduling and even briefing for the students! Fortunately, after some months of applying on CHRS via the job alerts, I stumbled onto a job posting with the Centre for Governance and Sustainability. It was a Senior Executive/Assistant Manager post and I thought I should just give it a shot anyway. (Looking back, the Michael Scott quote "You miss 100% of the shots you don't take" really applies here). A short summary of events End Feb - Applied for position on CHRS 4 March - Received email from Verity to arrange the short online chat for 6 March (Thursday). The short online chat went well, it wasn't so much an interview but more of her telling me what the position entailed and asking about what I could do in my current role. 7 March - Was invited for an in person assessment (not an interview) for Thursday, 13 March 13 March - Took AM leave to do the assessment as was WFH that day. I initially thought that I did not do so well for the assessment but at least I tried. 17 March - Was invited for a final interview with Prof Lawrence Loh. Very fortunately for me, most people weren't around and Regina was luckily on leave! So no one to really hide from and I could go for my interview in peace. 18 March - Was contacted on Teams and finally got the news that I was selected!!! At that time, there was some issues with HR due to the notice period and my job title/salary. HR took some time with the paperwork for the transfer process 1 April - Finally got notification from Janis (HR rep for CGS/BIZ) that the transfer offer was ready at around 3 plus. 2 April - after the fortnightly management meeting, I informed Regina of my acceptance of the offer. 3 April - was informed by Regina that my notice period of 2 months became 1 month. Did not expect this but this will also mean that I can escape the Symposium. This means that my last day at CELC will be on 30 April and my first day at CGS will be on 2 May. I am unsure how this will turn out but at least I know that leaving CELC is not a mistake. My open contract will be a 2 years renewable contract. During this year, I managed to gain some allies at CELC - Debbie, Jenson and Tony. Talking to them made me realise that my leaving is a right choice. My predecessors never stayed for long too - the longest people in the admin team were the bà già and Anwar. Everyone else was newer. Plus they never bothered to promote me or have any development plan for me. And their response on my announcement was not to keep me but ask why I did not ask for approval on the transfer. Perhaps, it is all due to praying to Guan Yin. I hope in 1 year's time, I will be in a better position career wise.