Looking back at starting preparations for regular work life

This Sunday, woke up to torrential rain in Shanghai. Still a week to go before I can go home. Weekend has been lousy as it was either raining or heavily over casted skies. The weather put me into a pensive mood. It made me think back on the different paths I could have taken if I had taken different decisions when I had finished my Electronics course in TAR College.

I guess I was lucky and also fated to have pursued this career. After finishing MCE (O levels) with grade 1, the scores were not good enough to continue A levels in Government school, especially if I wanted to pursue Science Stream. I applied to TAR college, listing Bio Maths as my first option, Automotive as my second and some Arts Stream course as my third. TAR offered me my first choice. But between applying and getting the offer, I had time to reflect on what I really wanted and what my Mother could afford to sent me through. Finishing A levels meant that I should continue onto University and that would have put a very big strain on my mum. She had been working as a domestic help almost all of her life. IF I am lucky, I may have been able to get a scholarship, just as I did from Form 1 to 5. But that would have been speculative. I opted to take pursue vocational training, which would have gotten me into work life within 2 years and lift a burden off my mum. While waiting for TAR college's offer, I applied to FIT, a private college, taking an Electrical and Electronic course. I liked what I was learning but I did not like the college - it was noting more than a money generating concern with little care for students interest. I only studied there for 6 weeks.

So when TAR college's offer came in mid way thru my studies in FIT, I rejected the Bio Maths offer and asked if they could let me have a place in the inaugural Certificate in Electronics. Took them some time before they came back and said NO - because the class was already in progress. I had to ask my mum's boss to use his connections in MCA to help me wangle a place into TARC. The long and short of it was that I was able to get a seat in the class and went in 2 MONTHS LATE!!. I still remember my lecturer, Mr Wong Mee Choy, almost fainted when I walked in. "What? Another one?" were his exact words that i remember to this day.

The above photo shows the combined class of Electronics and Automotive visitng the Matsushita plant in Shah Alam in 1976. Look at the long hair and bell bottom fashion of those years!! I am in the standing row, wearing dark clothes in the middle of the pack.

Throughout the 2 years, I consciously made sure that I did not disappoint all those who helped me to that point in life. While not the top of the class, I did credibly well enough that the college offered me and 2 other a job when we graduated. I had applied to many other companies as well to hedge my job chances. Motorola had offered me a position as an electronic technician too, but I felt obligated to accept TARC's offer. Evelyn Chua worked in the same lab as me and the other chap (sorry dude, I can't remember your name) was in the Automotive lab. I'll see if I can find a photo somewhere to update this blog entry. Evelyn was the rose amongst the thorns of the class.

When I got my first pay increment from TARC, I was totally disappointed. I had put in a lot of effort (from my perspective) into my work and the increment was miserable. So I applied to Motorola again and was offered a job as an electronic Technician, again. 3 and the half years there, going from Electronic Technician to Maintenance Supervisor was quite an experience. Due to the heavy hours I put in especially in overtime, in order to pay back my friends for loans that they provided me in purchasing my first house, I had virtually no social life.

Working 2 shifts, that was how I met my wife. She was in a different shift and that shift always came in after my shift ended. Towards the last year in Motorola, I was actually on normal shift - essential 8 to 5 and then continuing till the end of night shift which was up to 10pm.

When HP had a position opened for a customer engineer, I confidently applied and eventually was taken in to support Medical and Analytical Instruments. I am trained on Ultrasound equipment operations. I had to learn from scratch how to use the instruments to take blood pressure readings (this was an invasive technique, not like today's instruments), place the leads on the ECG monitors to take heart rates. Learn to read ECGs and so on. In addition, I also had to recall a lot of my Science learning from my O levels to support chromatography instruments.

If I have to identify a high in my career in HP, that would have been my participation as the support team in Korea to support the Doping Control Center during the Asian games (1986) and Olympics (1988).

Dare I hope that TWO decades down the road, I will still have some contributions to make to Beijing Doping Control Center Support in 2008??