What If?
In my current company, all engineers need to be on 24 hours technical support duty for a week in every month. Whenever it is my turn, all I could think of is how much I hate this part of my job (i.e. this horrible technical support thingy) although there are many other parts which I still like. Because I usually get so engrossed in this negativity, this would be the time when I would start going through the recruitment sites and sending out my applications. When my technical support week's duty is over, I would be back to normal until the next time when I need to do it again.
Although most of the time there isn't any support cases, I have encountered a very bad week end of last year. That week had traumatised me so much that whenever I am on this stupid duty, I wouldn't be able to sleep well and feel so stressed thinking about the beeping pager. What doesn't help is that we are supporting an old product which I am not at all familiar with, plus the fact that I am not a very technical person!
Well..it is my turn again next week and I am already stressing about it now.
Anyhow this is also the time when I tend to think a lot about the past. An ex-colleague recently asked me whether I regretted leaving this ex-company in which I was doing pretty well. I thought about it for a while and told her that I think it was a mistake for me to leave that company to join another company which I refer to as "hell" (FYI, this is not my current company!).
I was tempted by "hell" during that time because a friend who was working there told me about how good it was (well she was supposed to get referral fee if I join); and the money was way better than what I was earning then. I lasted only 4 months in "hell". The office politics there was crazy, and turnover rate was very high. The worst thing of all was that when these people left, I was the one who had to pick up their mess although I was still in the midst of culture shock! It came to a point that I couldn't take it anymore and took the drastic action to resign without a job in hand. 4 months after leaving "hell", I joined my current company.
Looking back, that period of time was really like a very black patch in my career. Because of that one mistake, I felt as if I am starting all over again. I do wonder at times, what if I have not made this mistake? Would I be where I want myself to be now?
I know, there is no point to cry over spilled milk. I made the decision, therefore I need to bear the consequences. After all, it's already 2 years.
Well... I am sure I will not be thinking so much about this once my support duty is over. I just need to remind myself to be patient for that time to come.
