Business isn't good here in Kopitiam these days, is it? Looks like everyone has either gone on holiday somewhere, got stuck in Orchard Road traffic or maybe got stranded in the floods!? So it's left to pple like me with no holidays to take and no interest in shopping to keep the business going.
I've been wanting to join in the discussion on some of the earlier postings, but never got down to doing it. For this round, I'll pick the post by catalyst on whether or not you are an expert in your work. Btw, I'll stick my head out here and guess that your company is Grace.. something? And you sell catalysts? Or have you moved on already? See, this is part of the point for this post. In the spirit of Kopitiam, which is to get this bunch of 30-somethings connected, this is perhaps a good avenue for us to let each other know more about our work. More so because work is something we probably won't want to dwell too much on during our occasional gatherings. Maybe we should each have an entry here entitled "My typical day at work". I think I'll enjoy reading that from all of you, no matter how boring you think your working day is. Ok my contribution will come in the next post.
It's the last working day of 2006. My career, which is barely there, only just took off this year. After what seemed like an eternity, and after a long-drawn saga of fighting bureaucracy and politics, i finally got my PhD. The issue of being an expert or not struck a cord in me because PhDs should be experts in their fields, shouldn't they? But are they really? What do you put down as occupation in the many forms of all sorts that you have to fill? I struggle with this, usually ending up with "research", "researcher", "research fellow"... depending on what comes to mind first. I should really be putting down "scientist", but have never been convinced in calling myself one. This has been an issue that has plagued me from the day I decided on pursuing a PhD. What has a mechanical engineer got to do with biomedical sciences? Am I able to cope? I find myself caught in between two worlds many a times. On the positive front, this keeps me on my toes, because I have to work hard to carve a niche for myself in a world dominated by biologists. On bad days, it gets overwhelming, to the point that I stop and think about exit strategies. But it is a job that I'm proud of, enjoy, and one that I find meaningful and challenging, so I think I'll stick around for a while more.
So, expert or not? I say we all are. We are all knowledgeable in our own specialized area of work, aren't we? So bring on the forms, I shall call myself a scientist.
May 2007 be a great year for everyone of you, my friends. Live it well. Carpi Diem! Happy New Year!
2 comments:
Here's my little contribution to kopitiam. Now that Qiwei has brought up a topic which is easier for me to relate to, here's my 2 cts.
I work in a UK bank. Job involves selling structured products to SE Asian corporates. Fair amount of stress involved as the targets are high and the work environment stressful. Everyones' results are measured on a daily basis. There's perpetual competition to sell something "new and innovative" or makes "tonnes of $". There's some upside to this before I sound like a whiner, we get to travel abit round the region, meet weird clients, talk to craze colleagues,... So no entirely a bad life.
Have been in banking for the last 8 yrs. I've been told life will get better as u stay in the bank longer (coz you become more senior, your clients trust you more, blah blah...). However, ave been experiencing the opposite. Your colleagues are becoming younger and hungrier (and cheaper!) Some come with scary credentials (eg. Top 0.1% from top Indian U, top this top that...) Have to constantly run to make sure I'm in the game. As long as u make $$$ for the bank, they let you play for 1 more year.
Good thing is Ashleigh is here to provide some motivation. Now there's something else besides the paycheck to keep me going.
Happy new yr everyione!
i deal with systems/server management and administration in the entire IT world. more specifically i deal with the Microsoft technologies on the Intel platform as my main portfolio, focusing mainly on microsoft exchange and active directory with some dabbing onto other suite of accompanying products such as antivirus, antispam, as well as emc san storage.
in layman terms i deal with machines and servers which are definitely more predictable (and therefore better to work with, since i am engineer-trained) than humans. as such, 80% of the work are done via scripting and automation. for the rest of the 20% of work, i actually spend 80% of my time dealing them which are mostly unstructured work such as dealing with strange/unique user needs, managing vendors etc.
the work has been fullfilling thus far as computer centre in nus tends to embrace new technologies as an enterprise customer with more than 35,000 users. and as a big customer, most vendors usually cannot wait to bring in new things to you, and this makes learning new things and technologies easier; you save the effort in soliciting for solutions to satisfy new internal needs. as a big customer, you also have a big bargaining power, this again makes work easier.
as for the topic of expert, i guess it is really up to individual whether you treat your job as a career/profession or just some obligation which you need to fulfill everyday from 8.30am to 6pm. i have come across many who do not really have an interest or unable to solve the real problem, eg. programmers who copies code without regards for context, network administrators who makes changes to firewall by following procedures step 1 to 10, as well as managers who skillfully redirect problems away. are they experts? maybe, because nothing goes wrong in the entire career life, and they get a stable job and predictable output to their bosses. whatever is out of their job scope, the finger-pointing or tai-chi begins. its no wonder most people have their job description getting more and more well-defined. the more defined it is, the more specialised you are and the more "expert" you become in your own field, supposingly.
well, i think if your customers (whoever that may be in the appropriate context of your work) repeatingly prefer looking for you than your peers for advice or solutions, then you are the "expert". you may have understood the needs better or you were more creative in solving the customer concerns, so wont the customer remember you as the "expert" too?
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