EP 7: My Career Switches
Hello and welcome to this episode. As some of you listening in may be aware, Singapore is a small country and we have rapidly developed the country from a third-world country back in the 1960. Today we can count ourselves as a first-world country, with efficient public transport system, housing for both public and private sector. We have comparative medical infrastructure and healthcare system. Efforts are put in by our government to ensure core part of medical care is still accessible to the poor. Education is structured and nurture our young. I am often reminded how fortunate we are in Singapore to be taken care of, as I travel to some of the surrounding south-east asia region that are less developed.
As I joined my first company after my post-graduate degree, I came to realise architecture is a sunset industry in Singapore. I was definitely late in the game, we already have pioneers in the architecture realm that have put forth master planning that shaped our country, put in-charge of key infrastructure works. These pioneers have worked hard and left the younger generations with works of monumental works. It was no surprise this is a cut-throat industry which is highly competitive among firms for the limited number of built projects in land-scarce Singapore. The hours were long, the clients were demanding and the authorities required projects to satisfy an ever-growing list of regulations. And I haven’t mentioned the legal liabilities this profession carries.
As I work through the years in architecture as a consultant, there was always episodes where I experienced burn-out. The effect from working long hours snowballed as I took on bigger and more complex projects. Although I have alot to learn while I was working which kept me engaged, I was physically exhausted. It wasn’t something that could be erased if I took a couple of days off for mental wellness. But that short relief will soon be taken over by the punishing hours it wasn’t long before the exhaustion will set in again. Coupled with life experiences change, I got married, I had a new baby coming along, priorities shifted dramatically. It was no longer just about myself. It slowly dawned onto me I cannot throw my new family aside and bury myself face down into work, work and work only. What is work if it kept me away most of the time and when I come back everyone is already asleep and you don’t know what is happening to everyone in the family? Home is not a hotel like in my younger days when my mother used to complain that I only come home late into the night to bathe and sleep. Then in the day I disappear out of the door and not to be seen again until late. That repeat mode cannot be the way I choose to live my life with my family. I thought deep and hard, eventually convinced that there is the need to spend time to care for my family, to connect with them, to be there with my family.
Besides, work is never smooth-sailing. We have our ups and downs in our work. There will be days we are seen doing our best delivering projects, handling everyone on the construction team with stellar outputs. On the other hand, there will be days of stress to deliver a project that is already way overdue, or we met with lots of challenges at work. These are days tensions rang high, when your client breathes down my neck constantly to meet certain deadlines. These deadlines were committed by them to their own bosses and they just stress me to deliver so that they could deliver. Coupled with limited time with stretched manpower resources that can help with the drawings, the submissions, the backend work and so on, sometimes I ask myself if my clients think I am seven-eleven. For those of you that may be unfamiliar, Seven-eleven is a chain convenience store that is open twenty-four hours a day, 7 days a week. So I feel like being treated as if my client thinks design options and proposals of materials or response to any Buyer’s request is like them walking into a convenience store where the things are off the shelf to grab and go. But it doesn’t work like that in the backend. I need to speak to my other consultants to ensure the change can be carried out, I need to get my Contractor to assess it to objectively say it can be done with no implications on their end. At times we need to challenge each other a little to stretch possibilities based on the conditions at that moment, based on work progress at that point in time. Little steps of fact-finding that take time. Because it goes against my work principles to agree to do everything at no additional cost to anyone. I learn that this would be unfair. If changes take rework, changes take compromise, I think it is only fair to talk about it openly to discuss and validate and convince and then a decision can be made whether to go ahead or not.
This was one of the key reasons I eventually left my first job. Because I did not feel that my boss at that time was administering the contract fairly to our Contractors. If there is a change in design, they should be paid fairly for the re-work. Even when there was already another consultant who verified separately and confirmed it was a fair amount with substantiation, my ex-boss refused to endorse the necessary paperwork. I was sandwiched in-between and felt embarrassed by the lack of professionalism from my ex-boss. But other than preparing the necessary paperwork with drawings and speaking to clients who were also convinced to pay for the additional amount, I couldn’t do anything else to make my ex-boss budge and sign on the certification paperwork. Some clients simply gave the additional payment directly to the Contractors. I learnt through this experience that if certain practices do not align with my professional values then it is time to move on. For a period of time I personally felt bad about not being able to process the paperwork needed to administer the additional payment due to the Contractors. But over time and reflecting on these incidences, I concluded it only makes my ex-boss look bad because this is ultimately his decision not to endorse on the paperworks and not because I did not diligently follow up on the paperwork. For you who is listening in this episode right now and you happen to face a similar episode, I hope my sharing will help you to reflect and choose the right way forward.
Coincidentally, my company where I did my internship was expanding their teams and had reached out to me to join them again. I was happy to accept their offer and I was very grateful. It showed my hard work and efforts paid off while I was an intern that they remembered to ask me when there were job openings.
Two years went by before I decided it was time to move on to another bigger architectural consultancy firm and work on even bigger projects. I had wanted to see more and I bade farewell and made another job switch.
All in all, I spent ten years as an architectural consultant, moving from small, medium and large firms. Finally I decided I need to expand my horizon to see more things related to the construction industry and not get stuck as a consultant. I had to find a way to evolve and it was part of natural progression that as a lead consultant overseeing construction projects, I managed to land myself a job as a project manager for a developer. Unfortunately in the short two years I was working for the developer, their business focus changed and with the increasing prices of land and en-bloc sales prices coupled with the growing authorities requirements, my developer employer had to re-focus back to other parts of their businesses that are more lucrative.
But I had learnt a thing or two during my two years as a project manager in a developer firm, during which I broadened my perspective and I was able to apply my knowledge into my current job that my recruiter recommended. I was offered and even though I had no prior formal training in what I do in my current job, I jumped at the chance. It was a steep learning curve with on the job training in a huge organisation. I am ever thankful the company was willing to sponsor my request for training to get a professional certificate by an international institute for the subject matter that I do. With this change, I evolved and learnt because I was not afraid to try something new. I was willing to approach this career switch with an open mind, something that was related to the construction industry but in a different realm.
The path may not be always smooth sailing in a new career but it helped that there was a team within which we exchanged work experiences to help us better handle stakeholders to push for a culture shift. I have learnt that sometimes when the opportunity present itself to us, it may not be apparent what it may mean for me a that moment. But it is entirely up to us as individuals to make the best out of the experience. We owe it to ourselves to ask what do I learn out of this and how can I apply it to add value to others’ life in future and to make the process of what we do a meaningful journey for ourselves.
To some of you listening to this podcast right now and are considering a career switch, my experience tells me it is possible, provided you approach it with an open mind and you are willing to learn. The learning may be on the job learning, or getting a certification before starting. There will always be surprises along the way as theories remain theories on paper. A lot of knowledge is not taught through books, but through life experiences and handling work along the way. Along the way as you learn, collect experiences and examples to demonstrate “theories” you learn. These remain the most precious knowledge because these examples show that you are able to flesh paper theories out in real life and give you lessons learnt.
