I had left the IT Trainer job at the end of my contract, and before I left, I informed all my students that I was leaving. One student asked if he paid me an extra few hundred dollars (as addition to my salary), would I stay? I smiled at him and said no.
At that point, and even now, I wonder(ed) why he stated what he did. I wouldn’t have been surprised if he could afford to do so, since the school was and still is rather known to be full of students from rich families. It was just that I didn’t think I had that much impact on him. There were students whom you know, you just connect on some level. Then, there were students who you just couldn’t tell if you’re connecting or if you’re just boring them and they’re just tolerating your existence as one of the things they have to power through during the school day.
In any case, I was quite happy that there were students who liked me enough to be sad that I was leaving. I was angry a lot of times when I was teaching. At the beginning, it was just the default mode I went to, when the students were noisy. Nearer the end of the 3 years I taught in that school, I mellowed quite a lot.
There are colleagues in the IT department, as well as a few MOE teachers and Allied Educators with whom I still keep in contact.
The jump to becoming an Instructional Designer was a huge gap from where I was. To be honest, I was not qualified for the position. One of the directors interviewing me asked if I knew ADDIE, and I had no idea to what he was referring. I understand later on that they were quite desperate for a warm body for the head count, and figured I could be taught what I needed to know for the job. It was a big leap of faith as I knew bits and pieces of what is required for the job, but not the main chunk of it. The same director ended up meeting me separately to coach me how to position myself as a good fit for the job, and basically taught me what to say to sell myself. Why? He did not have the final say.
The company was filling positions in a project they had won in the military. At this point, the project had been going on for several years, and was renewed for another 5 years, with the option for another 1 or 2 years. For those in the know, they would know the name of this almost accursed project.
I spent a lot of the first year waiting for my project clearance to go through. This meant I was not allowed to touch anything related to the project. I ended up watching a lot of Running Man since I had just started watching it about a year before, and had a lot of catching up to do.
There was also some drama within the team I was assigned. It was a 4-man team with 2 people already within the project from the previous phase, and I was placed in as the team’s second-in-charge (2I/C). The team lead was this lady who, I found out later on, was a part of a Multi-Level Marketing (MLM) scheme and had been pulling people around the project into it. There was another, younger lady, who I would characterise as basically in a Stockholm Syndrome relationship with the team lead.
Then there was this other lady, who joined at the same time I did. She was very outspoken and definitely not afraid to voice what she thinks, even if it was wrong, and without reading the room. I found out that she was in a managerial position prior, so when she joined this team just as a team member, I think she had a hard time adjusting to the “power” difference.
She also couldn’t stand the team lead, and rightly so, in my opinion. The team lead was very clique-y, and would, seemingly, purposely ignore others not in her clique. Not a very welcoming person, but whether calculatingly on purpose or just unknowingly, that I never ascertain. I believed the former, however, due to all the other actions she did.
It was fine if she only talked to her team members in Mandarin during lunch. It was fine if I was sitting at the same table and she did not include me in the conversation. However, when the same thing happens during work, then obviously we’re going to have issues.
It happened all the time to the point where I gave up asking them to switch languages. In any case, the drama started when the team member (who used to be a manager in her previous job) wanted to quit and aired her grievances to the Project Manager (PM), with me there to help explain certain situations and just as support to my team member, because what she was complaining about was 100% valid. The PM promised to do something discreetly to help us both out.
Discreet, my ass. She went directly to the director, and then we had a conversation with him within the next few days. Then the team lead was called in to HQ, and several days later, she finally told the team what happened. She was sat in a room facing the 2 directors and the PM, and was informed about the grievances brought up. Past complaints about her were also brought up, which she thought was unfair, as she had already been “punished” for them (I can’t recall what they were though).
She was then given a formal warning, which meant she would not get any performance bonus that year. Oof.
She then asked us if we had anything to say to her. Thinking back, I shouldn’t have said what I did, but I told her I was just there as support. I should have stood my ground as well, since like I mentioned earlier, the grievances were valid. The team member basically said she had nothing to say.
In any case, obviously things didn’t get better. Now we had openly angry people in the team, and we still had to work together. I definitely learned that the PM was someone I shouldn’t trust with anything at all. I thought the way she approached the matter was entirely wrong.
That team member left anyway not long after. Two months notice is a stupid thing, but apparently quite normal nowadays.
I just held on and tolerated the situation until the team lead was finally brought back to HQ to run another project. Allegedly, she was left to fend for herself with not much resources in that project, and she ended up quitting.
The next team lead was apparently brought in to fix the ship. He put in control items and tried to “manage” the team. I got annoyed at him very quickly because he seemed to keep second guessing what I told him. I understood later on that he was doing his due diligence and verifying information told to him, but his approach was definitely not very friendly, so it rubbed me the wrong way.
Funny thing is, nowadays we still meet up every once in a while for meals with a few other Instructional Designers.
Back then though, because he was told to fix the issues with the team, he went to find the issues. He didn’t find any, in the end, since the issues left with the cause. A couple of people came and went within the team – one stayed for a short while, and before he left he said that the only reason to stay would be me, and so he had to go. I was so touched by his words. We are still friends and meet up once a while too. He completed his double degrees and went on to earn more than double what I did very quickly.
So, at this point, the Stockholm Syndrome team member was on maternity leave, and the other 2 team members were an almost-retiree and someone who just joined who was about my age (and size, but that’s beside the point). This new joiner was an interesting story.
He… Kept making a lot of minor mistakes. So many that the minor issues became too glaring. He also was maybe colour blind. His role was Content Developer, which includes designing collaterals. The most annoying element of it all was his response when we pointed out his challenges. He laughed. He kept laughing as if we were making jokes. In fact, there were times when he really thought we were pranking him. We showed him 2 slightly similar, but still distinctly different colours and asked if he could see the difference. He couldn’t.
After too many non-colour-related issues, the team lead was ready to start the process of letting him go, but gave him the option to resign instead so that he didn’t have to explain to future jobs why he was let go. He took that option.
This post has gotten longer than I had anticipated. I shall end it in the next post.