Booklist

Now that I have started working, there is no need for me to do homework, study for exams or tests, I realised that I have more time for myself. I decided to pick up reading. I hope by reading, I will be able to improve my English language.

Here's a list of the books that I have finished reading and I will be updating this list here as and when I have finished a book.

10/06/2015: 木偶商店 - 辛欣
02/07/2015: The Notebook: A Novel - Nicholas Sparks
21/11/2016: Paper Towns - John Green
26/12/2016: Looking for Alaska - John Green
03/01/2017: An Abundance of Katherines - John Green

First blogpost after a year

My last post was on boxing day in 2015.

Today is 4 February 2017. It's been a year since my last post and it's great to look back at these posts. For example, the post on my first TGIF after I have started working back then. It really brings back memories. My learning stage as a newbie then after that it's my turn to teach the newbies. Until now, I am doing a totally different role in the team that I never thought I will be doing.

Here are my experiences I had thus far:

Sep 2014 - Sep 2015

1. Started off as an verifier for applications 
2. Worked on budgeting for 1 programme
3. Person in charge for managing a lettershopping vendor 
4. Moved on to an approver for applications 
5. Team combined with another programme and therefore started budgeting for his programme too
6. Worked on streamlining of processes to align both programmes
7. Became the secretariat of an upcoming conference in 2018. Started initial planning and researching issues for budget. 

Sep 2015 - Sep 2016 

1. Worked on risk management due to the amount of confidential and personal data we handle on a daily basis
2. Company took over another programme and therefore started budgeting for this programme as well
3. On top of being an approver, I became the disbursement officer for one of the 3 programmes that we are administering. Disbursement officer jobs includes checking of the payment list to ensure payment is in order very month, generating statistics pertaining to the programme when requested, providing statistics for reporting etc. 
4. Worked on fraud risk management as I had the experience with risk management previously 
5. Became the secretariat/collator for FASA workgroup. 
6. Due to streamlining of processes for the 3 programmes, the 3 SOPs are to be integrated. Started the work on combining the 3 SOPs into 1 Integrated SOP. 
7. Company has launched company wide Information Management Policy (IMP). Divisions manage different types of confidential data hence are to come up with their very own IMP, specific to each divisions. Started work to write out our department's IMP. 

Sep 2016 - current 

1. Continuing my disbursement officer role, working on the Integrated SOP, IMP, budgeting issues, FASA. 
2. Handing over my managing of lettershopping vendor role to my colleague
3. Coaching of another colleague to learn the disbursement role for the programme that I am doing every month. He will be my covering and most likely take over this piece if I were to move on with some other projects.

Ever since I entered into the working society, I learnt so much. A lot or even all of the things I learnt are things that I don't get to learn in school. I am only in my 2nd year and counting into my working life hence I still have a long way to go. I guess what I should start thinking now is.....what do I actually love doing and should start planning my next steps. 

What is important to me at work:

1. Working with numbers. For my disbursement officer role, I get to generate statistics hence numbers come into the pictures. Similarly for budgeting, I get to work with numbers too. I think that my love for numbers is still there. 
2. Do meaningful work. My current work provides elderly patients with financial assistance. Although I don't get to see the patients benefiting from the financial aid directly, I personally still feel that it is meaningful. I applied for financial aid when I was in university. The amount of money I got is substantial and really helped me a lot. Medical expenses in Singapore is really expensive so even a hundred dollar payout each month does make a difference to each of them too.
3. Working with nice, friendly and funny colleagues. Colleagues play a huge part here because I face them 8 hours or more, for 5 days a week! It would be really boring to be just working and not have anyone to interact and have fun with. I know I am quiet and may not be talking a lot. However, I am still someone who wish to have someone to talk to. Just to have a break from work, talk about anything under the sun. 
4. Teaching anyone at work. I love to teach anyone who yearns to learn anything from me. I like to teach what I know to people so that they can learn and not make the same mistakes that I did. I guess that's why I wanted to be a teacher at the start? 
5. Having opportunities to work on new projects and therefore be able to learn new knowledge. This is really important to me as I will get tired and bored of routine jobs. I am glad that my bosses gave me opportunities to work on so many different projects. They really exposed me to different kind of work and through these, I gained a lot of knowledge and experience in working with different kind of people too. 
6. Having work life balance. I think I have a good work life balance currently. I have a habit of completing my work before I leave or solve a certain problem that I encountered instead of leaving it for another time. I predict that this habit of mine might lead to me not having a work life balance. On days with tight deadlines I worked really hard. I worked overtime till 10pm in office and continue my work till 2 am to complete what I need to do. I have to do that because of my deadlines. I felt so tired after that. I was mentally and physically tired. I don't feel very good after working so hard. Therefore I having work life balance is important for me because I really don't want to put myself in that kind of situation again, unless it is necessary. 

That's all I can think of right now. I think it's good for me to blog about my thoughts at the different stage of my life. In future, I can look back and therefore do some comparison and reflection. I will try my best to take some time to jot down my thoughts here more often. :)