My first 2 days at work

Ok ok... I know I should be writing how I went on my first day at work. Well, yesterday was my first day at work. HR orientation? Yes right, took just about 45 minutes and then I was already brought up to see all the other engineers in the module. Followed my buddy engineer most of the day. Basically there will be 3 of us doing our machine group and there are about 35 machines plus all other adopted machines in the lithography module.

Man the workplace, is freakking huge. I estimated there should be at least 3000 workers there. I get lost all the time. The company produces many different microchip devices, one of them being the popular camera phone chip. Yesterday already I was in the fab snooping around machines, the same old ones that I used to work on, yes I don't know if that's lucky for me or not, but I think that's why I got hired. They needed someone to support the line fast fast fast. So, without even being briefed on safety, cleanroom protocols, security (which will take about 1 to 2 weeks worth) I was already in there. I could hardly believe it.... the yellow light environment... the bunny suit (smocks we call it), the droning of machines and the seemingly unending machine process end alarms. Yes... it was all coming back to me. Before that I was already asked to read the machine manuals. Well let me tell you what the machines are.... discounting screws.... there are about 5000 working part in there and the stuff is pretty intricate.

Today I also realised that last time when I couldn't solve any problems, there was always the shift coordinator (who's a senior technician w experience), the equipment owner, the equipment engineer, the senior/principal engineer for a particular machine. Now, I'm it! I am the only calvary best known to me. OF course for the first few months I will have to depend on my buddy senior engineers. But I suspect the boss is putting me on a high learning curve bend. Yikes. But there is no pressure from anybody as yet.

And yes in months to come --- I will be fully 24 hours on call even weekends, and maybe looking at the bleak future of an 8 to 8 job 5 days a week. This spells "Tua ki lan" in Singlish. Now that I mention it... I'm already morphing back to a Singlish-speaking engineer. I think it is more beneficial to me and my job in the long run. Language does play an important role in how much coorporation you can get from the people around. I guess in any place, if you push the right buttons, you'll just have to sit back and watch the good stuff roll in. I am remaining hopeful that that will happen. My boss is southern Indian, damn if I can speak Tamil... I would.

Ok, just took this test on someone's blog. Here are the results



which is why I need to be harvesting some agressive skills. I could see the similarities between highly effective middle managers. Neh somethings can't be changed but I do hope I can be more firm at times with people.

Work is quite tiring despite the "cho bo"ness at this stage. Like today I almost fell asleep while standing in the MRT and would have slumped onto the lady in front of me if it wasn't because the sudden weakening of my right leg that woke me up. After dinner I totally collapsed but I woke up an hour later. Right now I am listening to a song that I came accross from this a someone's blog. No idea if she composed it herself or its a known Chinese song, but it seems alright to me.

http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=cristochan

Still wondering how to insert some sound into the blog leh so I can irritate pple with some sounds....