A Most Sobering Experience

One of doppy’s colleagues remarked that it was a sobering experience to take the CFA examination and he had a new-found respect for people who had passed the examinations.

It is also a very sobering experience to start writing your resume and take stock of what you have done professionally for the last x years of your working life. Depending on your experience and achievements, you will also either have a new-found respect for yourself or sink to a new low in your self-esteem.

As most of you are well-aware, the Annual Posting Exercise (Open) for MOE officers has just started and I am acting on my resolution to seek greener (read ‘saner’) pastures in other MOE organizations. Fortunately, doppy has just updated his resume in preparation for the day the counter for his bond counts down to zero and he can start seeking greener pastures too. Hence, I merely asked him to gdrop his file to me (no point in starting from scratch when I have his for reference) and modified it.

When I was trying to recall my experiences and achievements, I was struck by how empty my page of resume would be. Apart from teaching my students, attending some key courses, conducting sharing sessions for my colleagues and participating in conferences, my job experience has not changed much over the last 8 years. If you have been granted access to Olie’s blog and read one of her most recent posts, the job description she listed pretty much sums up my entire working experience. My assumption of a middle-management post as Level Head has broadened my horizon and expanded my skills set somewhat, yet when you strip away the fancy titles and verb choice (“co-ordinated” instead of “worked with”), I am still doing the same things just perhaps at a larger scale and having more autonomy. It is really a sobering experience when one takes stock of what one has done for the last 8 years of one’s life professionally. Considering that our work takes up a large part of our waking moments and is one of the major sources of stress in our life, you will be stunned by how little you have achieved or what little difference you have made after all the sacrifices.

It becomes even more depressing when you put your husband’s resume and yours side-by-side. Beyond the fact that he has even more fanciful titles and verbs in his job description, the breadth of his experience and the scope of his work seemed infinitely more challenging and impactful (gosh! I am turning into a true-blue civil servant in the use of this word!). Though he is likely to brush his work experiences off as inconsequential work that hardly matters to anyone, somehow “being responsible for formulating long-term growth strategies” sounds a hell lot more impressive than “being responsible for designing and implementing the Language Arts programme”. And all these only come after he has listed his stellar academic achievements where the grades are consistently ‘A’s or distinctions for Special Papers or graduating ‘Cum Lade with Honours’ and making it to the Dean’s List every single freaking semester. Mine? “Graduated with a pass degree with merit” and the only times I have even heard of the Dean are when I need his or her approval to take or drop a course! This is not to mention that his right hand corner has Singapore and USA appearing as the countries where he gained his experiences whereas mine is consistently just Singapore. :(

Lest you begin to think that this post is being self-defeatist and I am just going on an unwarranted self-bashing (afterall I am not the si-ko-la in the family!), hold your horses. The point of this post is to remind me that between doppy and I, he should definitely be the one to make something out of his career. My goal of becoming a tai-tai should not be disputed or contested. Other than the obvious fact that he’s earning more than me (even though I had a head-start of 3!!! working years), his resume speaks for itself. In terms of CEP, his is definitely higher than mine. In terms of going out to work in the private sector, he will definitely make a deeper impression even if it was just by his contact email address alone (cornell.edu vs gmail.com!).

Hence, let all readers of this blog remind my dear dear doppy, whenever he should for a single moment think he can rest on his laurels and depend on his wife to support him for the rest of his life, that he has another thought coming! It is imperative that he obtains his CFA certification so as to open more doors for him and if that means dreaming of formulae chasing him in his dreams, so be it!

And of course, you should also keep me in your prayers and wish me luck that after reading my pathetic resume, people would still want to grant me an interview and give me a chance to beef up my resume for the future. :)