Scheduling my life

As with all things, I have been reminded to post since Lovebell posted something today. :)

Many things in life are like that. You don't remember to do a certain thing because everyday you already have so many things to deal with. This is why I've been trying to fix my exercise days on specific days of the week so that it becomes part of the routine.

Likewise, I am thinking of fixing a specific time everyday to study French. Right now, I tell myself I'll study when I'm free, but as long as I have other things to see, read, do, watch, play, I'll never get around to reading the textbook.

So, what's a good suggestion for studying? :)

I know Yogi wakes at 430am to do yoga everyday. Should I follow his lead and wake up earlier to study and spend breakfast time with my boy?

'Mummy Porn'

This article really strikes a chord with me and it was doppy who pointed me to it. I am really blessed to have a husband who is 100% supportive of my decisions and perhaps more importantly, not buying into 'mummy porn'. Even when we were discussing about parenthood (yes, I know, it's hard to imagine doppy holding a serious conversation but he is really quite capable of having one, you know!) way before I conceived xp, we have both been very open with each other on how we intend to juggle family and work commitments. Doppy was worried about taking on a job that would require him to travel too much in xp's early years whereas I was not quite prepared to be the stay-at-home-mum. I am very glad that doppy has never expected my career (whatever little is left of it!) to take a back-seat in our marriage and he's fully prepared to work with me to find the best solution in which we can both grow as individuals and as a couple and parents too. I am also thankful that I have PJ who always gave it to me on parenthood which help to disbunk some of the parenting myths that the media and advertisements perpetuate (think all the pictures where the baby is lying contended at the mummy's breast, breastfeeding happily. Boy! I should have taken photos and videos of how difficult it was to get xp to breastfeed!).

I resolve not to feel guilty about having to leave my boy with my help for it does not mean that I love him any less. There is no one perfect way of parenting though I do take my hats off to mothers who choose to take on caring for the baby full-time for I know how all-consuming and tiring it can be.

The hardest part of my job is that everyone lies about parenting

When I was growing up, there was lots of chatter in the media about how models gave girls bad role models. Today that’s old news. What we should talk about now is how the media portrays moms.

Take a look at the spread in People magazine of Jennifer Lopez and her one-month-old twins. The photos are so elegant that at first I thought it was a parody. But in fact, it is mommy porn: the visual fantasy of what being a working mom could be. And it really could be that, if it weren’t that someone like Jennifer Lopez must have a household full of helpers in order to keep her career on track while she has kids: a cook, a trainer, two or three nannies, a cleaner, an assistant, a stylist. And others I’m sure I can’t even imagine.

Here’s another example of mommy porn: Angelina Jolie, and her fifty kids. She has a rule that the nannies (plural, yes, each kid has their own) cannot be photographed holding the kids, because it’s bad for Angelina’s image as a mom. But this is the problem: It looks like these very successful women have it all, even though they don’t.

Here’s what happens:  Some reporter interviews someone about their big job. And then the person ends up talking about the mythic work-life-balance topic. And they say something like, “Throughout my career I did [insert something that is supposed to be wonderful for children] for my kids.” And now, of course, we must assume that the kids are doing fine.  But why do we believe that? Why do we even ask? We have no hope of learning the truth. After all, there are very few people in the world who are in a position to say that their career is, as they speak, harming their kids.

So journalists writing about moms being moms are not reporting the truth. It is propaganda. It is parents saying that they lived their lives in a way that was good for their kids. But really, who knows? The reporter has little ability to check. So all we’re left with is the parents giving their subjective and hugely biased opinion that their kids are turning out fine.

I’m not saying that every kid is messed up from their parents’ careers. I’m saying that I’m sick of learning about how famous families want us to think they are doing by looking at what is really only mommy porn, what is really just parenting propaganda.

So look, in the interest of truth-telling, I’m telling you this: people are not being honest about what it’s like to be with kids. People are scared to admit that they would rather be at work than with their kids, because work is easier than parenting. (Notable exception: Sally Krawcheck.) If I have to read about how much someone loves their kids one more time, I’m gonna puke. Because we all know that parents love their kids. It’s not interesting. It’s not helpful. It’s not even very relevant. For anyone.

What’s interesting is the part where parents love their kids but don’t love being with them on a daily basis. It’s very scary to write. But I’m telling you, if the feeling weren’t ubiquitous then there would be no one to be in middle management working 9-5 because they’d all be home with their kids, doing freelance work after bedtime.

People are choosing to go to work rather than stay with their kids all day. But no one talks about making this choice because they are scared their kids will read it. I’m not sure what the right answer is. I just know that somehow there has to be a more honest discussion of parenting in this world.

So with all the mommy porn, the media does a lot to make us think that work life balance is possible, in the same way anorexic bodies without treatment for anorexia is possible.

So there’s real damage from mommy porn. Everyone begins thinking that every woman should be parenting gracefully while working full time. This gives people the temerity to ask me, nearly every day: Who takes care of your kids?

That’s right. The genesis of this rant is that I was meeting with an investor – a guy in his early 40s – and we were talking about my travel schedule and he asked, “Who takes care of your kids?”

I told this to one of my board members and he said, “What??? Why did you answer that question?”

I said I answer it because I get the question every single day. Literally. And I don’t think twice about it anymore. But in fact, it’s a totally offensive question. Here’s how I’m so sure: I tried it out on Mr. Sales Guy. And even though Mr. Sales Guy and I work the same number of hours, he said something to the effect of, “I’m not really sure what goes on with the kids all day, you have to ask my wife.” He answered the question as if we were doing girl talk. As if I had asked him, “What brand of tampon does your wife use?”

So I want to tell you something: Women earn more than men in most major cities today. And in corporate America, up and down the ladder, women and men are on equal footing in the workplace in terms of who gets paid what, as long as neither party has kids. But the level of expectations people have for parenting is absolutely insane. The mommy porn feeds this problem. Everyone is drawn to the ideal of Angelina Jolie as the perfect combination of careerist and mother like the Pied Piper’s tune, and these attitudes are more exhausting to me than any amount of actual parenting ever is.

The hardest part of my job is that everyone lies about parenting » Brazen Careerist by Penelope Trunk

Will you get promoted? Take the test » Brazen Careerist by Penelope Trunk

I remember in the early days of our service, PJ once nicely asked her HoD to make explicit the criterion for promotion as we perceived that we were passed over for people who were contributing less to the organisation than we were.

Though very few of us entered the service thinking of climbing the corporate ladder (truth be told, many of us just want to be left alone to do what we love best, teach!), undeniably when the promotion list comes out on April each year, there is bound to be talk and feelings of discontentment. Some may wonder why certain people are on that list and others may wonder why their names are not on it.

I used to believe that if I was doing good work, there is no need to sound my own horn for surely good work is plain for all to see and people are bound to recognise it for what it is. If the organisation fails to recognise the good work I am putting in, then surely it is the organisation's loss and not mine.

Of course, I have failed to realise that the above belief only holds true if one reports to a competent boss. Unfortunately, I have come to realise that not all bosses are competent and at the end of the day, if we do not take responsibility for our own career, then we really have no one else to blame but ourselves when we realise that people who are less deserving end up getting promoted over us.

So go ahead, take the test and see if there's anything that you need to do to chart your career better. After all, if we are spending so much time at work and getting so stressed by it, we might as well be duly paid for our work. :)

 

April 29, 2008

Will you get promoted? Take the test

 

One of the most important indicators of whether or not you should switch jobs is if you are in line for a promotion. It’s not so much that you should be climbing a ladder, but more that if you are not being recognized for great work then you’re probably not doing great work. And if you are not doing great work, this is not the job for you. We should all be doing great stuff.

So take this quiz to find out if you will get promoted.

 

1. Are you friends with your boss?

 

2. Are you working on high-profile projects?

3. Are you paid at the high end of the range for your position?

4. Do you work fewer hours than everyone else?

5. Do you feel like you are due a promotion because of your experience?

Will you get promoted? Take the test » Brazen Careerist by Penelope Trunk

TODAYonline

Stumbled across this article on my staff's notice board in the pantry area when I was getting my cup of water.

Struck a chord with me. Worth a read.

HO KONG LOON

IN 1983, my school head nominated me for the post of vice-principal.

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But he was shocked when I turned it down, persuading me to reconsider my decision because that rejection could adversely affect my career advancement.

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He relented when he realised how resolute I was. I thoroughly enjoyed doing what I loved most: Teach with passion, dedication and, compassion.

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A decade or so later, the education landscape underwent great change with improvements in salary scales, better and faster prospects for promotion, attractive study bursaries, generous sabbaticals, annual performance-based bonuses and so on.

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Still, there were teachers who much preferred teaching to fast-tracking their way up the pecking order to become heads of department, subject or level heads or senior teachers.

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The ranking of teachers set many teachers working feverishly to come up with the best possible professional portfolios, one that their reporting officers have an avid interest in.

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Differentiation took on an added significance when ordinary teachers and their hierarchical counterparts worked from different rooms.

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Staff camaraderie nose-dived. Contact time, originally intended for busy teachers to interact professionally or socially once a week, was transformed into lengthy staff meetings, in the guise of sharing sessions, mini meetings and briefings.

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Walk into any school before assembly, during the breaks and after dismissal, and it is not uncommon to see teachers working at a frenzied pace — marking written assignments, keying in data at the computers, responding to the voluminous work-related emails from colleagues or superiors, keeping an eye on the kids at the canteen, supervising silent reading ... and the list goes on.

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Gone were the days when teachers could take time off to relax with their colleagues after school hours.

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But I soldiered on. The children in the class were my main concern and if my portfolio seemed embarrassingly slim, it did not unduly bother me.

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When it was time for the battle-weary horse to move on, he did. I was an anachronistic remnant from a bygone time. I was nurtured and trained to be the front-liner in the education of the child, who held centrestage in the process.

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It is the passion, creativity, love, care, concern and commitment, which collectively make the learning process enjoyable, productive and permanent.

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Now, it is rare for the teacher to have all that time with the kids.

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Teachers today have an overflowing plate attending to issues well beyond the classroom. There is only so much they can accomplish daily.

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The better-qualified ones are not necessarily more committed, nor are they, in comparison with their lesser-qualified colleagues more effective teachers.

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Grow 2.0, while welcome and comprehensively packaged, aims at institutionalising the culture of reward for diligence, upgrading, multi-tasking and versatility.

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A tsunami-scale mindset revolution, to get back to the basics of dynamic, creative and dedicated classroom teaching, is hopefully attainable, too.

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The author is a retired teacher.

TODAYonline

Job Applications (2)

A few of those who are interested in my pathetic existence have already found out that I got the job with CPDD. :)

I must say that it was indeed with God's blessings and his grace that I managed to get the position.

It all started with my applications and ETD (Education Technology Department lah!) asking me to attend an interview. I went to MOE HQ as one of the best-dressed person around, figuring that I would need to make a good first impression. I even deliberately kept my hair so as not to appear "non-establishmentish".

The interview went as well as it could considering that I had no absolutely no idea what it was that the department did. When the main interviewer asked if I had seen any of their work, I had to admit honestly that I didn't. At that point in time, I thought to myself, That's it! There is no way in hell now that they will offer you a job especially when they expect you to maintain a website and you can't use HTML to save your life!

Miraculously though, they rang me up a few days later and offered me the job. I was over the moon when I received the call. You must understand that apart from that one interview that I went through for my Teaching Award, I have never had to pass an interview to secure a position (lest you count the one I had to attend for my head's position ... but my bosses prepared me for that one and even asked me to seek help from my husband!).

Luckily though, my years of being nagged at by doppy helped to preserve my cool. Instead of accepting the post straightaway, I told them that I would need some time to think it through. Moreover, I have not heard from any of the other departments that I applied to.

It was more out of fear of doppy's scolding than real career consideration that I requested CPPU for an earlier interview. I was also a little apprehensive about the ETD position as I was not sure if the work I would do there would stand me in good stead in my career development. They also came across a little desperate (they contacted me for an interview within two hours of the submission of my application!) and that made me wonder why they were so short of officers. Well, to cut a long story short, CPPU sent me an email to state that they had received my application and would conduct their interview in end June. I replied to request for an earlier date as ETD was pending my reply.

And thus the interview with CPPU was set up for a Friday afternoon. And who should call on Thursday but Staff Training Branch (yep! You can see that I was desperate and basically applied for all the positions I qualified for. I was initially going to get down to applying to the stat. boards no less but my laziness got the better of me.) asking me to go for an interview. Once again the date they offered me was a late one and I told the person that I would need an earlier date. Initially she told me that her boss was only available at the time she offered me but apparently she consulted her again and the DD decided to make time for me.

And so Friday came and I was in school for a Planning Committee meeting. When I looked at the agenda, it totaled 300mins. I figured that since we started at 0830hr, factoring in half an hour for lunch, we should be done by 1500hr. Plenty of time for me to go home, work out, grab a shower and change into professional clothes befitting an interview.

But of course, what can go wrong will go wrong and indeed the meeting took longer that it was stated. By mid-morning, looking at the rate that the agenda was being cleared, I kinda knew that I would not be able to make it for the 5pm meeting. I thought to call ahead to apologise for my possible tardiness and request for a postponement of the meeting to 5.30pm and that was when the clerk informed me that it was a group interview and they could not possibly delay it for me.

You can imagine my disappointment and the wild thoughts that were going through my mind. So they are not serious about offering me the position. I am not even important enough for them to grant me an individual interview. They must have already knew who they wanted for the position and this interview is probably just a farce to show the world that APEX is real. To make my day, I could not get a cab when I got out of school at 4.45pm (I could not walk out any earlier as my P was chairing the meeting!) and not a single cab wanted to respond to my call. The only reason I managed to make it to MOE HQ at all was due to the kindness of my colleague who stopped to ask me where I was going on his way out. To say that I was panicking, frustrated and harrassed was an understatement.

Thus when I stayed behind to apologise to the AD for my tardiness (I was the latest to join the group and when she told me that they were merely introducing themselves, I pulled a, 'Hi! I am so-and-so from xxx school. I have been with the school for 8 years. So what would you like to know about me?') and my disrespectful attire (I was in T-shirt, jeans and boots ... hardly appropriate for an interview!), I was very pleasantly surprised that she thought me a good fit for the job and promised to revert to me by the following Monday.

Nonetheless, I told myself not to harbour any hopes. Afterall, she did say that she needed to consult her team and one of her staff was a former NIE mate of mine. I was not exactly the friendliest of persons in NIE and most of the time, people who do not know me well, think me arrogant and aloof. Moreover, I know that CPDD was a coveted department (apparently it is an open secret that the staff who passes out from CPDD is most highly valued in the service!) and amongst all the candidates who were there the other day, I was the oldest one with one of the lowest positions. Amongst the candidates, there was a lady who has only taught for 2 years and she was already made an acting HoD! Gosh! What have I been doing with my life?

Thus it was with God's grace and blessings that I received an email on Monday morning (I have never checked my phone and edumail so frequently in my life) from the AD offering me a position. I was extremely excited and happy especially when she assured me that she would still hold the position for me even if I could only join them in June 2008. Yet she also knew that at the end of the day, negotiation of an officer's release date boils down to powerplay and she was not a lady to be taken lightly too. Hence she also took care to reiterate that the release date was up to her to negotiate with my boss.

And thus it is. I am going to be a Curriculum Policy and Pedagogy Officer come 2008. The EL department from CPDD rang me today to ask me to go for an interview and I had to reject them as I had already accepted the post at CPPU. In my conversation with the Senior Head, I unwittingly let slip of the fact that I wrote to CPPU to ask for an earlier interview. I think she was a little offended that I did not do likewise for her department. Truth be told, I thought I did not stand a chance with the EL department because they required the applicants to submit a resume and a one-page continuous write-up to tell them about ourselves and why we wanted the job. It doesn't take a lot for you to figure out that I obviously did not get around to doing that. That was the reason I did not even bother asking them for an interview. The Senior Head however, must have thought that I preferred the CPPU department to hers. I just hope that she does not bear a grudge as afterall CPPU is also part of CPDD and I would probably get around to meeting her one of these days.

And it is with this that my job application saga has ended. Now it is riding out the rest of this year, giving the best that I can to support my Head and department and leave the school knowing that I have tried my best but it is time to move on.

And it is also with this post that I want to thank all for your encouragement, faith in me and kind words throughout this period of uncertainty and anxiety. This is especially so for doppy who faithfully vetted every single important email I sent out for the appropriate tone and grammatical accuracy. :) Thanks all!

Job Applications

Believe it or not, I have never submitted a job application before in my entire life (does registering with a job agency when I was 18 count?). Thus this entire application for job openings in the Open Posting Exercise is new to me. After signing on the dotted line that sold 5 years of my life to the Ministry of Education, I have never had to look for a job on my own before.

Just today alone, I have submitted applications for 4 different positions: Curriculum Policy & Pedagogy Officer, Curriculum Planning Officer, Education Technology Officer & Staff Training Officer. I am still considering two other positions, Teaching Fellow at NIE (distance is major off-putting!) and a position with a stat board, Singapore Evaluation & Assessment Board (SEAB).
And guess what! I have already received a call for an interview with ETD! Gosh! I couldn't decide if they were 1. desperate, 2. used to hauling every candidate down for an interview, 3. found an ideal candidate in me?

My monies are on the first 2 guesses but hey, I am going to take all the chances that come my way man. I will going for an interview this Friday afternoon. Wish me luck!

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. :)

The death of ambition

In her regular column today, Lucy Kellaway talks about the death of ambition as seen from anedotal evidence in her 50-year-old husband, and extrapolates her thoughts to the rest of corporate society at large. It is a very interesting concept.

To summarise, she thinks that women are more well adjusted than men, and more willing to face the truth. The truth in this case, being that not everyone can be CEO, that out of 100 MDs, perhaps only one will become CEO, and often times, its more luck than skill that leads to it. Her closing sentence, echoing the thoughts of her husband, states that "Ambition is nothing but a displacement activity for unhappy people."

Her advice is to therefore have lots of ambition while we are young, to work hard and aim for our goals. But as we get older and become fairly successful, to realise that fulfillment and happiness can come from other sources, and to gradually allow our ambition to die off. Only then will we be happier.

I only have one point to make. It's a lot easier to say something like that when you've already achieved some semblance of success. It's another thing altogether when you're starting out at the bottom of the food chain. However, I take heart that even if I do not achieve my goals in life, I'll still be able to claim that it is because I decided to let my ambition die away.

:P