Truly a 20 Months Eye-Opener at SNEF

From the sheltered upbringing that I grew up in, I could not have asked for anymore than what I have learnt & experienced in my 20 months in SNEF. Well, I was given the opportunity to leave earlier & clear my remaining annual leave, so more accurately, it should be 19+ months. Okay lah, almost 20 months working in Singapore National Employers Federation (SNEF).

It has truly been eventful... in fact, I find it just TOO eventful for me. So much & all sorts of things have happened in such a short time & in such a small organization of less than 40 staff. Truly amazing. Thinking about it, I don't know whether to laugh, smile or feel sad about it. Oh well, its time for me to move on.

In fact, honestly... I was asked to move on. Why? Well, I have not been able to achieving consistently good KPI in the placements of Persons With Disabilities (PWDs) into companies. I know that I should not always think of the difficulties in doing this job, but I am a ground-level person & I have been on the ground, so I have a fairly clear idea of the unstructuredness & challenges that are going on... between ministries, between Voluntary Welfare Organizations (VWOs), between companies & SNEF, between VWOs & SNEF, between MCYS & SNEF, between PWDs & companies, PWDs' parents & companies, between companies' top management & ground-level staff, etc. Just listing out these relationships alone, makes me realise even clearer, how many aspects are involved in doing job placement for PWDs in Singapore.

I did the older workers project for more than 1 year too (concurrently with the disability project) & I still find that its easier to place more older workers in 1 project, compared to the totally small number of PWDs that can be placed in each project. Of coz, this is not to say that older workers are easy to find, easy to hire & easy to be retained in their job. The same goes to PWDs, just that it has a greater added difficulty becoz these are 'special' individuals.

I had to stop doing the older workers project & concentrate on the disability project, but with the recent Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed between MCYS & SNEF, there was another BIG initiative that just took up a lot of time. Plus when my co-partner in the disability project left (i.e. Steven Lingam), I had to carry the burden on my own, which has not been easy for me, especially knowing the KPI set by MCYS is so high. In addition, I had to train 5 new staff that recently joined the Projects Department - 1 project consultant, 3 executives & 1 temp staff. Just coaching them alone already takes up SO MUCH of my time... & I still had to go for 1 or 2 initial meetings with them, when we visit companies to share & discuss about the funding schemes.

On the other hand, I was told that the dept colleagues doing the older workers project were unhappy with me becoz they were asked to stop work on the older workers company projects & help out in the disability project. This hinders them from moving onto doing another project which will boost their career portfolio & enable them to get the promised promotion & salary increment after successfully fulfilling the KPI for the older workers project.

I felt deserted, with fingers pointing at me. With Steven gone, its just me... & I am the person who is most familiar with what's going on & people will look at me, when things are not going smoothly. I still remember how awkward it was, when my manager John Tan asked the rest of the department, whether they would prefer to drop this disability project & let me run it, until it fails... or take it up & for that, they will have to postpone their career & portfolio progression by 1 year. Everyone was quiet & the awkward silence was just killing me inside. But what could I do, I have been given this portfolio of handling the disability project. It was only a 2-man team doing tons & all sorts of work. 8 hours a day, even when I was working 9-10 hours a day, the work still continues to pile up.

In fact, just doing the reporting & admin paperwork for the disability project is difficult for me to cope. The only way is to work OT every day, which I already do often enough. My department is famous for being the last to lock-up & go home, on a daily basis. But I guess I didn't work as hard as some who work from 8am - 8pm or others who continue to work from home, jumping up from their bed to answer phone calls at 11:45pm, then working till 2 - 3am in the night.

To me, this way of working is absolutely unhealthy & drains a person out quickly, or soon enough. Being committed to work is good, but being on alert 24/7 is not exactly what's good. Some say that sacrifice is something that we need to give to achieve something. Then I will ask myself what is worth a greater sacrifice than health? By this, I mean mental & emotional health as well, not just physical health.

I almost got into a nervous breakdown in August, after being chased to produce results, day in & day out. I was SO stressed until my memory started to fail me even more than before. I remembered that there was this time when a new colleague asked me where is the fax machine & I just stared into blank space for about 20 seconds, searching my memory... wondering where exactly is the fax machine. That is terrible! And I have bad dreams about work at times too...

Almost every day when I come home from work, I would be so drained out that I totally KO on the bus home. I remember that in the beginning last year, I was so tired that I would only wake up when the bus 36 reaches Changi Airport Terminal 2! Then I would sighed & have to take the bus back, which would make me reach home at least 30 min later than if I had alighted at the correct bus stop. Even if I took the MRT, there are times when I would still KO on the short 20 min bus ride home.

And since I took this job, I hardly had the time, energy & enthusiasm to exercise, even if its just a 30-40 min run at East Coast beach. I know that exercise is a discipline, but its so difficult! And apart from fatigue, I still have to struggle & cope with unhappiness at work. Believe me, all kinds of things can happen at work. From e-mails flying around with angry messages, petty issues like not topping up the water cooler, to why we don't go for lunch with other departments, who is the one who share confidential information with external parties, 2 out of the 3 old & cranky lifts spoiling for weeks, gossip about a person who looks at women's breasts when meeting with a company, 'crocodile tears' e-mails, etc. All sorts of things! So amazing... the politics inside & outside of this company... I don't know whether to call this culture 'vibrant' or not...

But all this being said (though its just the tip of the ice-berg), I am thankful that I have spent 20 'fascinating' months with SNEF. I have learnt, seen, heard & sensed so much, both at work & outside work. Truly made me an all-rounded individual, with some experience in doing all sorts of things. Of coz, there are still many more things that I have not done before, but considering where I came from (in my last job), this place is truly an eye-opener. So happening!