Sunday, October 30, 2005

Synopsis of S

Just in case you think its a really nice place, apparently it hasn't always been this way. Don't be fooled by the new office premises. It may be a somewhat 'new' company but its not. Among the people who can be classified 'management', they came from the parent company.

As I was going through some documents, I realised that the manager had never gone for more than 1 interview in his life. Yes, he came in, worked, promoted, worked, promoted yet again.Its been more than 10 years at least! This uncle (I shall call him uncle cos he shares the same name as my uncle) had never had to wonder what its like to be changing jobs, to be facing nasty interviewers and being interogated. I wonder if he even had to be interviewed to get into the company back then. To a certain extent, I guess all above him shared that same path. Sounds a little like my previous 'S'? I should think so.

The AVP (its very strange, AVP is smaller than mgr), was fairly loyal. He had been working on many projects for a software house till he joined this company. Coming in as SSA in 2003, he became AVP early this year.

This place keeps going on about how we are not a software house. Yet, some 2 years ago, they only employed programmers to code all the apps within the company. Lowly programmers I should say. The people who came in were fresh or almost fresh and expected to produce the applications for the company. No internet, nevermind. They were not even given email! Because, as programmers, your job is to code. There is no need for you to communicate with anyone. That was in 2003, where internet had come and gone years ago. I really cannot imagine life without the internet. And if you had to code and program and develop, I wonder how fast you can be when you are hampered by having no internet at your convenience. Things will still work, but I wonder how effective you are. Do programmers really use the internet only when they need to download stuff? Think again. That's what happens when they are not IT people. They think only business people need the internet to do research.

Today, there are no more programmers. They are called SAs. There are 7 in all and we deliver the IT apps the entire company requires. Supposedly, it customisation from a base application. So they say, I will wait and see. Coming from CL, we all know too well what code reuse and plug and play means huh? :P Object-oriented?

We were separated from our 'mother' only about 1 year or a little more ago. They say that, a lot of people left. And I believe there is some truth to it. I see many ads placed every Saturday.

Here, looks matter, if I like your face, I like you. If I don't, to hell with you. Maybe its true as well. My application form to the company specifically required me to submit a photo on my CV. The rest of the companies required too, but I didn't actually submit one. I don't really like the idea of being selected for an interview because of the way you look or the way you don't look.

I have a feeling, its also an emotional place whereby, its 'because I say so'. Not the people I deal with directly, luckily. I'm referring to, policies in place and things happening. No internet access, fine. But why, no good reason seems to have been given. And certainly, I am not the first person to be alarmed with such a policy.

$4 a month? Only $4? I'll gladly let you dock my pay in exchange for that. We do not need internet? That's impossible. And sharing a terminal is really painful. Because its not readily available when you want it. And for me, I cannot try to do 3 things at once, which I normally do. Why can't I do 3 things at once? :P

So I say, there is only 1 reason. The reason that they are unwilling to spell out. That, they pay you to work, not surf the internet. They are afraid that you will end up not working. So they rather give it not. When in doubt, its always better to say no.

To get internet access, the #1 man has to approve of it. That's your MD.

Posted by LiTTle-FooT at 2:34 AM with 0 comments