Moving On

I accepted the offer for an IT position in a company located in Makati. It is a foreign-owned company, which does the management and development of its internal requirements in other countries. I guess this is the end of my days as a call-center agent. Although the possibility exists I'd be ending up in a call-center job one of these days.

It is fun to work at The Call Center. I need to put that as a definitive because the company itself should be the baseline or model for all other call center sites. The company itself is very dynamic. Although the dynamism sometimes leaves the employees dizzy. The people are young, though they have no concept of what tomorrow will bring. A lot of them think that they are earning a lot of money. They're just kids, actually. And yes, they are earning a lot of money, considering that most of them just got out of college, and in other companies can only give them half of what they're currently getting. The industry as a whole will only grow larger in the next few years.

Martin, the Operations Manager for the account, left at the year. Rudi, the German-speaking agent, will leave middle of the month. And I'd be leaving a week afterwards. In the meantime, the French-speaking agent will most probably also leave some time soon, once his father's appointment papers to a foreign-country job pushes through. Anyway, I'm not worried about her, as she still has about two more years of college to finish.

As the account trainor, I had the pleasure of recommending one of the ladies on the account to replace me for that post. A German-speaking agent from another account, will be coming on board immediately, and I'd be doing the training along with the new trainor. As for the QA, which I also do part-time, assisting Rudi, I recommended the Spanish-speaking agent for that post. For the Escalation Agent, I have no recommendations.

And the TL? He's been hinting about resigning since he came on board, and he still has not resigned. Anyway, I never did like him. Maybe I'd rant about him next time around. But not now. This is a happy post. (Not a ranting angry post kind of thingy. hehehe)

But why did I resign? A lot of reasons:

1. Working hours are on local day-time (8:30am to 5:30pm) as against 9:00am to 6:00pm Pacific Time;
2. The pay is better. It is roughly equivalent to two promotions in my current post;
3. It is the industry I've been working on for the past years, until the bottom gave way (or the bubble burst, whichever way you may call it);
4. I will be working with friends I've been working with before and who I've found to be great working with;
5. It would be a stimulating job as it is a totally new approach from the way IT projects were handled before;
6. Internet time, where there is no red-tape;
7. I will be paid to do research over the internet, and play around with the software;
8. Since this is from the ground up, I can mold a team culture, dictate a methodology and a work ethic;
9. As much I can be fired for not living up to expectations, I can also do the firing of guys who don't live up to expectations, the culture, the methodology, and work ethic;
   
10. I will be developing my own team; and, finally, the best reason I can give
    
11. I will not have my current boss.
    

As a whole, these are small reasons, but taken as a whole, I can't just turn around and ignore them. This should be a great ride.

--andoy
8 January 2005