November 2008 updates

Time to jot down some thoughts and updates in my life ...

At work ...

They reorganised us, again.  2 of the IT's top staff are leaving, 1 retiring, the other quit.  Incidentally, both only joined around 2003 as part of the parent company's move to restructure the way IT services are provided for in the company.

P, who is retiring, had joined after LML left.  LML was also an outsider brought in to revamp the division.  Until that time, all the senior managements and VP level staff were all promoted in-house, so the change in direction, coupled with these new people brought in, saw a lot of conflicts at the top (of the division) with many long time senior staff forced out.  It was not a pretty picture.

But the worst thing P could have done was not that she joined just prior to the first Retrenchment Exercise ever in the company, but that the morning the retrenchment was announced and staff notified, while many long serving staff who remained were still sobbing, P went around chasing them to "get back to work."

The year after, our long-time Union rep took early retirement for health reasons - I took the chance to speak to him about the new ladies at the top.  I found retiring staff are usually most candid and less biased.  As member of the Union, he did participate in negotiations with senior management.  And he did share that P is not very considerate of the staff as people ... a feeling I had then.

Now that she's retiring, I found out from some staff who worked with her that she was quite professional.  I had never worked with her, so I do not know if that was another side I never saw or that she changed.

The other senior staff who is leaving, A, had been described as being more sympathetic by the Union rep.  I wasn't too keen on her because during 1 year, I was supposed to have transferred to her department.  But there was no news for a long, long time, and then I learned from my manager that the transfer was cancelled because A didn't want me due to blemishes in my past performance.

I got really angry, not because of the rejection, but because the matter was kept hanging in the air.  And I was angry at my manager because during the talk with her, she implied the fiasco of the whole thing hanging was my fault.  Bull.  My past performance was