My Dream

I know what is my dream. My dream is to be able to throw in a resignation letter to my boss who for the past 8 years has never given me a clear direction as to where I am heading in this company and what is my job scope, what are my responsibilities and what kind of authority do I have. I am just a firefighter, deploy to wherever there is a problem and solve it. Then wait for another problem to arise somewhere else and then go there to solve it. 

For the past 2.5 years after my return from my secondment to HK, I have been given an ambiguous post of looking after 6 warehouse operations in Asia. Each warehouse operation is under each country's head and organizationally the staff in the warehouses are under their respective country head. That is to say, they do not report to me and neither have I any authority over any of them. I am just a consultant, but if any of the operations cock up, I will be blamed for not managing the operations well enough. In October 2011, I was sent to Thailand to evacuate our stocks due to the floods and move the whole operations to Singapore. Thereafter I run the operations of 2 warehouses in one premise for 6 months. After the floods cleared up, I was again sent to Thailand to find them a good warehouse for relocating the operations back. Then in July 2012, I was sent to Taiwan for their warehouse removal project. In December 2012, I was again back in Taiwan to bid farewell to the warehouse manager who was being forced to retire early and have all his duties handover to the next guy. 

February 2013 ~ May 2013, I was mostly occupied with some personnel issues in Shanghai and I do not know what else or where else will need me next. Maybe HK, for the new system implementation....again something that I have to be responsible for smooth transition but have absolutely no control or say over the system. I can only request them to do thorough system testing using various scenarios and hope that I have covered as much sh*t as possible before we actually start using the new system. 

Then today, there was this very urgent situation, line down situation in Thailand and they need to send some stocks from Singapore to Thailand using the fastest possible way. The manager in HQ Japan whom I had worked with in HK called me on my handphone and asked if I know of this case, I told no, not yet. Then minutes after that I received an email from Thailand copied to me but attentioned to the Business Operations Support manager asking him to help expedite the delivery. Knowing that he has absolutely no way to help this situation, I have to come in and made all the arrangements over at my end. So, why do we need him for? 

My dream is to be able to throw in a resignation letter and leave this company soon... 

Chasing Dreams

Went to my ex-secondary school friend's first book launch on last week at the National Library. Am so happy for her having her dream comes true although I didn't know that writing children's books was her passion...She has always been the brainy one among my old school friends, having been awarded an EDB Scholarship to study Chemistry at Imperial College London and attaining a PhD as well. She has been staying in the UK with her husband and 3 girls until about 3 years ago when her husband found a job in Singapore. She has been more or less a housewife since the birth of their 3rd child as it is not easy to get domestic helper in the UK. So she has time to pursue her dreams now that even her youngest child is away at school most of the day now. 

"The Magic Mixer" won her the rights to publish with the Strait Times Press. It was one of the five winning entries for Beyond Words 2011, an initiative by National Arts Council to encourage high quality literature. I am not sure how many entries were there but I am impressed that she won and she will receive royalty with every sale of her book. Although we all know that books don't sell very well in Singapore as Singaporeans are not that into books as compared to other nationals.

Anyway, this event set me thinking..."What is my dream and how can I pursue it?". Hmm...