How's Work?

i think the time is ripe for me to talk about my work on the little island, east of singapore. i wasnt sure what was my job scope. i also wasnt sure if i would be doing what i am doing for the rest of my national service term then. but now i think i am in a better position to talk about it.

lucky, or unlucky, or very lucky, i am the few out of the 100+ sergeants chosen to work in an office environment. when i was posted to tekong, i was hoping for a 'dream job' like this. i declared interest to work in this area, but i didnt bother to attend the interviews, as an awful lot of people went to try their luck and i didnt fancy my chances.

thats where the luck comes in i guess. out of the blue, i was called up for an interview together with some others for my current department. i managed to impress sufficiently in the first interview and went on to the second/final one. two of the four who went was selected to work in the office, and i was one of them.

i was appointed the project guy in the office, which was a newly established role. therefore it took me a while to learn what exactly i have to do. basically, most of my work is done on the open office software (something very similar to microsoft office, but not so user friendly). i help to do up the presentations and reports that my boss requires. sometime i have some other ad-hoc assignments, but most are still on the computer.

there are times where i feel the heat and get all stressed up about work. but there are also times where i have nothing much to do. thats when i will read the papers, have some snacks or take a little snooze. sometimes i take up the role of personal assistant of the personal assistant of my boss, collecting newspaper, calling people up, jotting down minutes and playing with the shredding machine.

my work officially starts at 8am and ends at 5pm, but i have to wake up pretty early in the morning (5:43am to be exact) to make it in time for work. it takes me about an hour and a half to travel to work. i have to walk to the train station, take the train, transit into another train, take the shuttle bus and lastly the ferry to reach my workplace. i usually take the 5:30pm ferry out of the island, and then the shuttle bus, followed by the train and another train, and finally i walk home. i normally reach home at around 7pm.

the traveling sounds tedious. but is it worth it? a definite YES. the traveling is nothing once you get used to it. everyday, i get to have 3-4 hours to myself, which is simply wonderful. guess what? i no longer feel like a soldier. im almost a civilian, reporting to work in the morning and going home in the evening. there is so much you can do, since the night is all yours. although it seems im under-utilizing it at the moment xP