The true way to render ourselves happy is to love our work and find in it our pleasure.
-Francoise de Motteville
Makansutra-ed with Ivan and Muni yesterday whilst catching up with each other when Ivan posed this question, “Do you think you’ll stay in your current job for a long time?”.
Muni shook her head almost immediately.
I nodded my head, offhand, and then I realised I really meant it.
You see, despite always being pretty sure that this is what I really wanna do prior to jumping into it, I had thought otherwise as recent as a couple of months back. I’d had thoughts that maybe I was wrong all the while, that maybe I’m not meticulous enough to produce high-quality work needed in this field nor strong enough to handle the pressure that stems from dealing with difficult clients.
But then I guess this job grows on me, just as I grow on the job. And I’m not saying this because the money is good, because it really isn’t if you compare it with those banking jobs, but because of the fact that:
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My contributions are valuable in a concrete way (in layman’s terms, I help companies figure out how much tax they have to pay and submit their returns to this government agent every year);
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I have the chance to continuously upgrade my technical knowledge+skills, thanks to all those courses organised for us;
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The people I work with and for are a helpful, encouraging and generally patient bunch who don’t hold back in sharing what they know (truly learn a lot from them, and I increasingly find tax advisory work really exciting!);
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This job doesn’t entail much stress, at least not throughout the year (this factor is of paramount importance as my skin allergies get really bad when I’m stressed);
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I could enjoy good work-life balance (now I seldom stay in the office past 5.45pm, heh); and most importantly
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I could see myself progressing in this organisation.
See, I hardly have anything to whine about when it comes to my job. Except maybe for the timesheet, which is a real pain to complete when you don’t have much work to do (I shall spare you the details, but basically we need to account for every 0.1 hour of our time at work in the timesheet). Anyways, I’m definitely seeing myself staying in this job for quite a while.
On a side note, have just had my mid-year performance appraisal a few days ago. Not too bad, I think. My Coach even nominated me for the Go the Extra Mile award for helping her revise our tax software training materials during the peak period. Hee… I think the recognition is a little too much ’cos I wasn’t that busy anyway. Nonetheless, the award comes with a $100 shopping voucher, which obviously didn’t hurt :p
Anyways, enough of work matters. More pictures from The Inside Party!
I like the above picture of me and Mel :) The photographers were commenting that it’s really hard to get a candid picture of the both of us ‘cos we’re so camera-conscious! =D
Mel and her guest counter
The whole party committee, pretty in pink!
We were supposed to give the camera funny faces, but I ended up looking retarded dammit
Buffet spread to warm everyone up
The three fantabulous emcees for the evening -Aaron, Irene & Jeremy
A mini celebration for the January babies
Playin’ some games (trust me, I have lots more interesting pictures from the games but they could be detrimental to some important people’s reputation so I’d better refrain from putting them up, heh)
Lunch kakis!
Top lucky draw prize was a home theatre system!
Everybody started out sober, naturally
…and then got a little high…
Who says accountants don’t drink???
Hey, we sure know how to party!
K, I know this is rather abrupt but it’s now time for me to turn in. Brazilian churrasco with the tax party peeps tomorrow! =)
Photo credits: Aaron Tan & Darren Yang
