Hey folks what up! Once again I'm back from my small little hellhole from work and doing up an increasingly rare blog post.
Not surprisingly, I've been holed up at Starhub for the past 2 weeks, facing the computer up to 10 hours each day, logging data, provisioning application forms and tolerating each day. And man, it's really tough physically, challenging mentally, and damaging on a social life.
The other day I was about to take a lift up to the 6th floor where I work, in my T-shirt and jeans, carrying a cup of coffee, looking like I slept on the streets the night before.
This well-dressed office lady with a nice leather bag strode into the lift as I did, looking alert and immaculate, and she proceeded to the 4th floor to Nucleus Connect, this Starhub subsidiary for doing up the broadband networks in Singapore.
There lay the stark difference from both of us. For the first time in life, I felt like a techie. Not the Dota mine-laying goblins. I'm talking about the geeky, nerdy teenager who stares at the computer 20 hours a day, smelling like yesterday's clothes, whose fingers can type faster than they can form a coherent sentence in their heads. Those typical kind that you read in books and comics. I didn't really feel happy about that.
It's been nearly five months of working, and it both feels like a devilishly long, seasickness- inducing bus ride and a blink of an eye at the same time. Before I ORDed, I heard others saying that, many guys who started working outside start to feel it's better to be back in the NS days. I didn't believe it at first, but two weeks after working in December, I can't help but feel the same.
I thought it'd be the prime of our lives. Freshly out of the army, loads of free time before university, hungry for adventure and experiences, brave and perhaps a tad reckless. Who knew it would turn out this way?
It feels as though my life was a game of Snakes and Ladders. I rolled the dice, moved up the squares, hit a ladder and went 10 years ahead of my personal schedule. Wake up in the morning, two cups of coffee and a hot shower, take a bus to work and brave the barrage of work coming in. Dodge the political daggers flying from all directions (thankfully it's at a minimum level here), dust yourself and head back home. Have dinner, log onto MSN, relax a bit, get some sleep and get ready for yet another round the next day.
I guess it's like a sneak preview into the dreaded common adult working life, and to be honest I'm a little scared at what I saw.
Sure the money's great, but the opportunity cost for return wasn't pretty. I felt that my friendships with close friends, time with family, health and fitness took a blow from spending majority of my time at work. And I don't know if men do say it out, or if they even feel it in the first place, but I'm a little sad about it, and I have no choice but to knuckle on sometimes.
I typed out and finally handed in my resignation on last Sunday. I'm going to quit for real this time. (Sounds like I'm quitting drugs or something, haha) But I hope I can catch up a bit on the other facets of life that I've missed out, have an awesome three months before school start, and dive into my university life.
I don't know whether I should say sorry, or whether there is a need to, but I do want to apologise to the people who I've turned down countless times for the outings I should have been there.
8 more working days to my second ORD!
