Current Job Situation and Previous Jobs Disillusion

For those who don't know, this is just an update.... I've changed jobs again! The lost little bird is trying to find her niche in this corporate jungle.

I'm back in the CAD line, doing sales... so it's something like a combination of my previous two jobs. I'm working in MLST (but the website isn't completed yet so don't visit it) where the lady boss is really nice and willing to teach me. I'm not allowing myself to be blinded by first impressions though; in my last job, the people looked really friendly but the ugly side began to rear its head after merely a few months. Thank goodness I didn't stay there long!

This job allows me a lot of flexibility; however it doesn't mean I get to slack off. There's a lot of pressure and definitely a lot of hard work needed; but as long as I get my results and get what is due it will be worth it. My boss lets me work from home and I don't need to report to the office every day. This is a far cry from my previous job at Dancom (don't visit this website either, it's hideous). The sales cycles were long and weary, no commission scheme in place (even though they have been distributing the products for years), a lot of tight monitoring and control (we have to clock in every morning before 9am before we go for appointments. With this policy in place, I certainly couldn't be bothered to clock out in the evenings after my appointments....), a lot of politics... in fact, the bosses wanted to make it a requirement for the women to wear skirts!!! I felt that it was a shot at me because I NEVER wear skirts to the office (if you see my legs, you'll understand why....). Initially I always thought it was a joke because my GM and the Corporate Services Director always told me to "wear a skirt" in a rather joking manner... but until the Human Resources Manager came up to me one day and asked me if I could consider wearing a skirt 2-3 days out of 5, so that she doesn't have to make it a policy (she apparently was being pressured by her boss, the CSD), I realised that it was serious. My dept was being targeted, but I felt most victimized, as among all the girls in my dept, only I and one other girl never wear skirts. And that one other girl (who is a close friend of mine) had never been approached on this subject. Although she is quite pretty, she is not very slim; and she feels this may be why they didn't ask her to adhere to such a dress code.

I feel it's extremely discriminating. In this day and age, pants are perfectly acceptable as business wear. I know that in previous generations only skirts were allowed but things have changed and we no longer live in the ice age (it would have been really cold though to wear skirts then! ;) ). The only plausible reason I heard from GM for such a request was that as a woman, I should make use of my feminity to meet sales clients.... granted that may work for some, those of you who know me know that I could never use such feminine wiles to get attention. But I don't see how a beautifully cut pair of pants that show off the gorgeous figure of a woman would not work any less.

Anyway from the day I started to my very last day of work, I never once wore a skirt to the office.

Don't get me wrong about my GM though. He's a really nice person, I just happen to disagree with some of his ideas.

Hmmm... I don't know how I got to start writing the above topic. I just wanted to talk about job disillusionments! :)

As for my first job, let me put it this way: it was a great stepping stone, but things went stagnant after a while. I felt that I was stuck in a rut, and the only thing I could do then was to break myself away from it. I was an applications engineer for CAD and civil engineering software, where I could marry both IT and civil engineering which seemed to be my dream job back then. Between here at Acad Systems (this website you can visit! I designed this website and they have not updated it since I left!!!!) and Dancom, this job was actually much better. It was kind of like from the pan to the fire but I have learned my lesson. I've received many job offers since I left Dancom but I was very careful in considering my options. It was bad enough that I took a paycut between my switch from Acad Systems to Dancom, but there were even some companies who wanted to offer me an even lower salary! (The reason I accepted a paycut was because I thought I could learn a lot more and that I'd receive my rewards in due time... only to find out from a colleague who was there for 3 years had never received an increment and whose pay was still exactly the same as mine)

I'm not writing this to vent my frustrations.... thought I'd just share with everyone some of my experiences. For you who are eagerly anticipating the working world, be careful about the companies you choose to go in. For you who are working a job you love in a great environment, good on you - you are one of the lucky few.