Standards are very high, and there have been some casualities that didn’t make it. I am talking about my job. I have just finished my 3 months probation, and have been duly confirmed. Hard work is what it has been (hopefully that explains my neglect of this blog, my wonderful other home). There is lots of flexibility in the sense that we have no fixed work hours…..as long as work gets done…., is the mantra, but I have come to learn that that can be misleading. Very.
I don’t recall a time I put in so much effort in anything, job or school. I have had to read volumes of manuals to understand our products, markets, clients, processes etc. Only then could I begin to fathom where I fit in within the whole scheme of things. At first it felt weird to go to work and spend a whole day reading. Little did I know that that is exactly what was expected at least in my specific function.
At one social event at work, I came to learn that a lady that had joined about 2 weeks before me had been asked to leave. Aparently, after it was ‘discovered’ that her skills were mismatched, and that she was in the wrong job. It is not the prospect of losing a job that worried me. For me what is worse is the thought of failure. I can withstand my things but I have a phobia for failing-at anything.
It didn’t take me long to realize that I work with very intelligent people. Really. For once I felt extremely inadequate, and somewhat threatened, wondering whether I would ever match up. But then, I realized this is what I have always wanted, to work with intelligent people, so, I grasped the opportunity to up my game and to live up to the challenge.
It has been more like climbing a very steep hill, thereby sweating off the cobwebs that have built-up in my head over time. A clear mind has been my number 1 most important and necessary tool at work.
When I said it was a mathematical job, I did not anticipate the extent of math I would need to dig up for daily use. Little did I know that I would look up logarithms and examine integral curves on a constant basis. And I have had to train my mind to store several numbers of upto at least 4 decimal places, then be able to recite them over coffee, as we haggle on about which of them is a good rate to charge the client! Just to let you in, I work in the acturial department.
The culmination of my 3 months probation was a 2-day visit to the Isle of Man, for a newcomers workshop and to visit the main office for our Business unit.
I should be signing with relief, which is well in order, — but not just yet. There is still some more cobwebs that need to be swept out, especially considering I have been allocated a region to take care of. I guess that is why it is called a job.
