Simply Shattered

My hopes of finally having a well-paying job with potentially good prospects have been dashed… shattered… crashed & burned… crumbled… dropped from a high… & smashed onto a rock. And I’m once again back to square one.

I had been waiting for this day very eagerly & with much hope, for over the past 5 days. Yet each day, carries with itself, its own surprises. Yes, this is true… for it really happens in the life of people like me.

Throughout these few days, I have been praying to God many times & discussing with my parents, Rebecca & her parents. Each day a new piece of information update or opinion crops up & changes my situation. This is the first time that my life treads on changing circumstances, different every new day & has the direct impact of impacting my life to a large extent.

I finally gathered the courage to call MDIS to postpone my job start date till one week later, because of personal reasons. The HR Executive was shocked & sounded quite annoyed. Clearly she was taken aback & unhappy. I knew about this huge possibility of creating a negative impression, even before I started my new job there, but I wanted to give myself the chance of going for an interview at Singapore Teachers’ Union (STU) coz the prospect is very much better there, with a much higher salary, a new industry where I could learn new skills & work experiences, as well as being recommended for the job by a fellow friend & SIM course mate of mine.

I had prepared for the interview, printed out & read up about the company, ironed two sets of clothes in the morning, sent my friend an SMS to remind her to call me, once she got an answer from her boss. I didn’t even intend to eat too full in the morning, so that I could perform to my best at the afternoon interview.

I decided to rest awhile on my bed, while listening to the downloaded sermon by Rev. Tony Yeo, the invited speaker at my church yesterday, so that I could feed on God’s word & at the same time, regain more energy before the interview that I was hoping to go to later in the afternoon.

While listening to the sermon (at about 3pm), I received the phone call from my friend working at STU, giving me the bad news. I have never before imagined how such a simple & innocent reason could turn everything around!

My friend told me that her boss decided to change the requirements for this position, to either ‘O’ or ‘A’ level, with a sharply decreased salary of $1,400 & turning this job into a 6 months contract, instead of the previously permanent position! I was shocked, though I did not show it at all. My heart didn’t skip a bit, but if it was possible, I believe my heart would have jumped & did a full 360 degrees rotation, with the receiving of such a shock!

Despite my shaken state, I was able to be stay composed & thanked my friend for her recommendation & said that I really appreciated her help, especially when she’s so busy at work.

After putting down the phone, I still couldn’t believe how my situation had just flipped a full 180 degrees in the opposite direction! How could a degree qualification suddenly become either ‘O’ or ‘A’ level?! What’s more, it was previously stated as preferred marketing specialization, which I had as well! My friend was confident that I could get the job, coz I fit ALL the requirements of the job!

Furthermore, how could a mentioned salary of $2,400 suddenly drop to $1,400?! It was stunning, not in a good way, but it really stunned me! And how could a permanent position just suddenly switched to become 6 months contract?! What & why the heck did this happen? Sigh…

But what to do, my friend said that the boss decided to change the job requirements. It isn’t her fault & neither was it mine. But all our hopes were up, my friend’s, mine, my parents’, Rebecca’s & her parents’. And the worse of all, I’m the direct person involved & my heart dropped like a stone.

Its such a simple & innocent reason, yet it had such an impact that could just turn my situation from good to bad. And the worse of all, I had created a negative impression with MDIS this morning, because I had called to postpone my job start date, solely so that I could hopefully go for this interview at STU in the afternoon! In a matter of hours, I had literally lost both jobs!

I regarded the MDIS job as almost literally lost, coz the HR Executive is already annoyed at me & her tone gave me the impression that she thinks I’m an irresponsible person, who doesn’t have commitment in this job that had just been offered to me. If I turn back to MDIS now, it would be obvious that the other company did not accept me & I’m just falling back to MDIS… which really makes a really bad impression.

Being an almost all-female work environment, Rebecca warned me that my working life there would be hard & complicated, coz my department people were all expecting me to turn up for work this morning, but I chose to take the risk of giving myself a chance to go for the interview at STU first, before finally deciding. Plus, I had the full support of my decision from my parents, Rebecca & her parents. And I prayed a whole lot as well…

And now, I’m back to square one again. But that’s the thing about giving myself a chance about something. There is always a risk attached with it & consequences that can be either or both good & bad that would follow from the decision made.

Why does this have to happen to me? I really don’t know… It’s not that I have lost faith in God, coz I haven’t… but I’m just so sick & tired about being jobless & without any career future & means to save for the future! It’s like competing in the 100m sprint in the Olympics & losing the gold medal, or even failing to get a single medal, just because of some situational factor like a sudden headache or cram in my legs. And based on how close the time lag was between my phone call to MDIS & my friend’s call to me about the bad news, it feels like I have just lost my chance to get an Olympics medal, by as close as 0.001 second.

Fancy that… coz the feeling sure sucks… even though I didn’t really like the MDIS terms & conditions as it was selfish towards their organization & I found it rather unpleasant to sign on as their employee.

So it’s just ‘great’… so now I’m without any job. All I wanted was to give myself a chance to go for an interview & I ended up having lost both job opportunities… one because of my choice to take a chance & the other for some generic decision by the boss. Sigh…

But what’s new… in my colorful life that I have been living in, since the very young age when I realized my life’s tendency of having such fascinating ‘colors’. After breaking the bad news to Rebecca, even she had no choice, but to finally admit that I really have a very ‘happening’ life.

Well, I’m surely not the only person who has such a ‘happening’ life, but it sure puts me in the finest elite minority category of one of the more unfortunate people of my generation in Singapore. I’m not looking at this based on one incident, but based on the many happenings in my life. And it really proves that I’m definitely not one of the average kids who grew up in Singapore.

The word ‘Success’ is a really big word in modern day society. This is one aspect which I’m the worst at, among the majority of my peers. But I have quite a bit of confidence to say that I have learnt much through these incidents in my life. It has helped me grow & mature, becoming even more insightful than I had been each year as it passes… & giving me a wealth of stories, analogies & testimonies to decorate my life’s history till this day.

I learnt that there are two possible constructive outcomes of any negative situation – either it has a lesson to be learnt or this was planned to develop resilience & build up our character. Sometimes it’s the first, but most of the time; it is the latter for me. And it has made me strong… & even stronger as I grew over the years. For that I thank God… for at least that is still something, though many times I just feel like yelling at Him. Maybe if it was possible, I might even want to grab hold of the moon & throw it into the far distant planets of the solar system… just to vent my anger & frustrations.

My Mum was very disappointed too & she broke her record of the number of consecutive times she said “Aiyoh” in a single phone call. This time, she said it FOUR times in a short span of less than 5 minutes… & I considered that a new record for my Mum… & another experiential mark in the history of my life.