The Appropriate Response
Ever thought that how would/should you respond when someone tells you, your colleague is leaving?
I find it kinda funny today when I told a colleague that someone will be leaving, and she responded a simple “good lah”, instead of “really?” or “why?” with astonishment.
I remember I reacted in the same way not long ago. Apart from asking the colleague about his new job, I then said, it’s good to make a change and try different things in life.
His last day was on Friday. He brought his digicam and took photos with everybody in the office. His leaving made me think a lot, especially after I left the office and drove 125km back to hometown.
I had my last day in my previous company too, about half a year ago, which was on 30 June 2006 (Friday), the end of the financial year. I will never forget the farewell lunch we had at the Thai restaurant, the chat I had with my GM, the sincere appreciation I expressed to him, the card from my fellow colleagues with their blessings, the gift from my Sun team members, the first time I asked everyone for photos, the last time I sang birthday song together with them for the month’s stars, the last time I threw myself onto the bean bag in the office, their hugs and kisses, the feeling I had when I left the office, the last sentence Matt said to me when we separated at the station etc.
Sometimes I find myself really miss them, although I don’t miss doing programming too much, especially when I was stuck. ^_^
I used to wish somebody can stay just because I felt reluctant to see them go away and we can no longer work together. Over time, I learnt that distance beautifies things. When the official relationship ends, the personal friendship grows. We most probably find that there are even more topics to talk about or we no longer bother to discuss some work-related “sensitive issues”.
Read from newspapers before that the so-called “strawberry bunch” (those born >=1980) is said to always change jobs. The older generation feels that, we should appreciate what we are having and not to switch job constantly. They claimed that in the past, they didn’t have much chances to choose, and could only stick to or be satisfied with what was given to them. Their first job would probably be the only job in their entire life.
From my point of view, the world nowadays is much different from the past. Changing job is a means of challenging oneself, to always look for better opportunities/salaries, and the most important thing is to get different experiences and to meet various types of people. Hence you will know how great some people and/or companies can be.
Excerpt from Mark Twain: broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime. I agree with this very much.
I admit that I’m not meeting good people and good boss everywhere, everytime, and for sure I’ll be having hard times while I’m still on the bumpy path, because I’m a Virgo. But when viewing such unluckiness from another perspective, I, from time to time, warn myself not to be like them.
I told myself, I should never be like the lawyers, earning big money but use their legal knowledge in playing the legal games to obtain the low-cost accommodation targeted for the people with lower income. And I should not be like them, look down at poorer or not so highly educated people and can’t stop kissing the rich people’s asses.
I told myself, I must gain real working experience from the industry, so that I won’t be just a blank tin while holding high educational qualification, and do not have much convincing facts to tell the students. In other words, I don’t wish to be solely a bookworm just like my previous research supervisor and being extremely narrow-minded.
I told myself, everbody does have his/her specific skills and we can learn from a lot of people around. It’s okay for us to ask the younger people as long as they are knowledgeable. We should not put ourselves in high position (due to our age, years of experience or title) thinking that we are so great and having the strong desire to control others.
Basically I keep on telling and reminding myself a lot of things. When I confront with bad people, I truly hope I will not be like them.
Sometimes I feel grateful that this is not the first company I join. When the job doesn’t really provide you much opportunities to meet/work with the outside world, I think it’s easy for people to feel content with everything and assume everything is alright.
I don’t think this is something good to have, although proverb says, we need to feel satisfied in order to be happy. In my opinion, too much satisfaction may result in stagnancy, or if worse, deterioration, which I don’t wish to happen to me.
Anyway, from a company’s perspective, perhaps it’s time to ponder, why a current employee will feel that being able to leave this company is something good? Why a company is unable to make its employees feel, staying here is the best?
11:41pm
17/1/2007
I find it kinda funny today when I told a colleague that someone will be leaving, and she responded a simple “good lah”, instead of “really?” or “why?” with astonishment.
I remember I reacted in the same way not long ago. Apart from asking the colleague about his new job, I then said, it’s good to make a change and try different things in life.
His last day was on Friday. He brought his digicam and took photos with everybody in the office. His leaving made me think a lot, especially after I left the office and drove 125km back to hometown.
I had my last day in my previous company too, about half a year ago, which was on 30 June 2006 (Friday), the end of the financial year. I will never forget the farewell lunch we had at the Thai restaurant, the chat I had with my GM, the sincere appreciation I expressed to him, the card from my fellow colleagues with their blessings, the gift from my Sun team members, the first time I asked everyone for photos, the last time I sang birthday song together with them for the month’s stars, the last time I threw myself onto the bean bag in the office, their hugs and kisses, the feeling I had when I left the office, the last sentence Matt said to me when we separated at the station etc.
Sometimes I find myself really miss them, although I don’t miss doing programming too much, especially when I was stuck. ^_^
I used to wish somebody can stay just because I felt reluctant to see them go away and we can no longer work together. Over time, I learnt that distance beautifies things. When the official relationship ends, the personal friendship grows. We most probably find that there are even more topics to talk about or we no longer bother to discuss some work-related “sensitive issues”.
Read from newspapers before that the so-called “strawberry bunch” (those born >=1980) is said to always change jobs. The older generation feels that, we should appreciate what we are having and not to switch job constantly. They claimed that in the past, they didn’t have much chances to choose, and could only stick to or be satisfied with what was given to them. Their first job would probably be the only job in their entire life.
From my point of view, the world nowadays is much different from the past. Changing job is a means of challenging oneself, to always look for better opportunities/salaries, and the most important thing is to get different experiences and to meet various types of people. Hence you will know how great some people and/or companies can be.
Excerpt from Mark Twain: broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime. I agree with this very much.
I admit that I’m not meeting good people and good boss everywhere, everytime, and for sure I’ll be having hard times while I’m still on the bumpy path, because I’m a Virgo. But when viewing such unluckiness from another perspective, I, from time to time, warn myself not to be like them.
I told myself, I should never be like the lawyers, earning big money but use their legal knowledge in playing the legal games to obtain the low-cost accommodation targeted for the people with lower income. And I should not be like them, look down at poorer or not so highly educated people and can’t stop kissing the rich people’s asses.
I told myself, I must gain real working experience from the industry, so that I won’t be just a blank tin while holding high educational qualification, and do not have much convincing facts to tell the students. In other words, I don’t wish to be solely a bookworm just like my previous research supervisor and being extremely narrow-minded.
I told myself, everbody does have his/her specific skills and we can learn from a lot of people around. It’s okay for us to ask the younger people as long as they are knowledgeable. We should not put ourselves in high position (due to our age, years of experience or title) thinking that we are so great and having the strong desire to control others.
Basically I keep on telling and reminding myself a lot of things. When I confront with bad people, I truly hope I will not be like them.
Sometimes I feel grateful that this is not the first company I join. When the job doesn’t really provide you much opportunities to meet/work with the outside world, I think it’s easy for people to feel content with everything and assume everything is alright.
I don’t think this is something good to have, although proverb says, we need to feel satisfied in order to be happy. In my opinion, too much satisfaction may result in stagnancy, or if worse, deterioration, which I don’t wish to happen to me.
Anyway, from a company’s perspective, perhaps it’s time to ponder, why a current employee will feel that being able to leave this company is something good? Why a company is unable to make its employees feel, staying here is the best?
11:41pm
17/1/2007
0 comments:
Post a Comment