4 weeks on...

4th week back at work and I am more or less getting used to the routine, although waking up in the morning is still a struggle...I am still breast-feeding and baby J wakes up several times at night...Hubby has resorted to sleeping on the floor so that baby J and I can have the whole bed to ourselves. I feel kind of bad...since baby J's arrival, I am so overwhelmed by the motherly love that I am experiencing, I think I am neglecting my hubby. Initially, I had planned to just breast-feed for 3 months then go for a romantic holiday with hubby and get back in shape as soon as possible and quickly go back to my "normal" life. However, baby J is 4 months 3 weeks old now and I am still terribly stuck on him! Other than signing up with Contour Express for workouts in attempt to loose weight, I have not done any of those things that I have planned!

Post-pregnancy and post-confinement, I am still weighing at a massive 62.5kg and the worst thing is I am loosing a lot of hair! It's worrying to see so much hair fall out every time I shampoo and the top of my head getting quite scanty...Why must women suffer such consequences for bringing a precious life into this world? I think it is unfair! If only women can become healthier, slimmer and prettier in terms of better skin and more luscious hair for having babies!

Evaluation and Promotion

Had a meeting in the morning with the Admin Director regarding the evaluation of my staff for the annual increment and promotion exercise. She mentioned that I have not evaluated my staff according to the company's guideline and told me to re-evaluate them.

According to the guideline, I can only evaluate 5% A, 25% B+, 55% B, 10% B-and 5% C out of the 27 staff that I have. So that is to say, I can only have 1 grade A staff, 7 grade B+ staff, 15 grade B staff, 3 grade B- staff and 1 grade C staff! I asked what is this guideline based on and she said it's the company's policy and I will need to pick and choose among my staff the ones that really deserve A and B+ gradings...But what if I really 40% of my staff are above average and should be graded B+ according to performance? What if I really do not have any grade C worker? I think this guideline is really stupid. And apparently, double promotion is not recommended and neither should a staff be promoted yearly. A staff have to wait at least 2 years before his/her next promotion! How do we as department heads motivate our staff to perform? Most of the long-service staff knows about this policy and since the company do not terminate staff as well, most of the staff are just going through the motion at work. As long as they come to work on time and don't mess up their duties, they can be sure that they will be given the company's average yearly increment until the day they retire.

I have worked in this company for more than 9 years now but lucky for me, my promotions were not decided by this Admin Director. I have a boss whom I report directly in HQ and I made it to AGM in 3 years...but then again, I got this promotion because I was offered a job at another company and I resigned! So they retained me, seconded me to HK, made me the AGM of IT and Logsitics and of course doubled my salary. I did well in HK and if not for baby J and other family commitments, I don't think I would come back. I think hubby is thinking the same, especially now that he's lack of luck in his job search...

Back at work...

My 16 weeks of maternity leave have officially come to an end and I am back at work from last week. I am not unhappy about going back to work but I miss my baby...being with him 24/7 for the past 16 weeks and breast-feeding have made me a sucker for my baby. How I wish that I can stay home longer with my baby! Before baby J arrived, I was telling myself that I would only spend 3 months fully attending to him and then take the last 2~3 weeks to go for a holiday to rejuvenate myself and that I would wean him off after 3 months...However, I am still breast-feeding up till today and I even try to sneak home during lunch time to feed him!

Back at work, the first task that is presented to me is staff appraisal as well as appraising myself. I have to think of what I have achieved in the past year and give my boss reasons to appraise me better and perhaps promote me? I have afterall held this AGM title for the past 6 years with no GM above me...so I guess it's high time they change my title to GM? To be honest, title is not that important unless I am looking for another job and having the GM title in my CV will probably boost my next salary. Will I start looking for another job? Hmmm...I don't think so...unless I want to look for more challenge and more work that will need me to apply what I have learnt in my MBA course to my work. In this present company, I don't really have a chance to do apply what I have studied and my boss doesn't really care if I have MBA or not...which is kind of sad...

Hubby has started seriously looking for a job about a month or more ago and has yet to receive any offers which is quite demoralizing for him. Initially he had wanted to take a half year break, keep me company during my maternity leave, spend time with baby, watch him grow...Then now that I am back at work and he is still not employed sort of hurt his ego and he is beginning to doubt his decisions...thinking that he should have gone for a MBA instead of a MSc in IT Management. I understand his frustrations but am helpless as to how I can help. I can only try to encourage him and cheer him up. I believe that there are timings for everything and maybe it's just not the right time yet. The right job, the right package will come by eventually...Then his life will be perfect. It is now just 1 step away from perfect although it is a big step...