Onboarding Experience

It's been exactly 2 months since I reported for duty for my new job in Miri. I can finally take some time off to share my bitter-sweet onboarding experience.

This whole week, I am attending a course on introduction to the oil & gas industry for non-technical staff. So I am away from office, and have no access to my emails until today, when TM sent their contractor to fix up my streamyx connection. But alas, a quick check of my mailbox today showed that I have failed to act within the deadline on 3 emails that came in late Friday nite and Saturday morning. I guess I will have to deal with the consequences when I return to work next week. I hope I will not be hanged for it as it involved the budgets for approval by our Partners. [wish me luck!]

My boss assigned me a "Buddy" from my first day at work. It's a system in place where an existing staff is assigned to you to help you get around and get settled in in everything from your IT logins, to your stationaries right up to eating places and recommended housing areas to rent a house. Yes, Jeffrey was a great Buddy, and he still is a great buddy today...a good friend you can turn to in times of need.

Apart from Jeffrey, my other colleagues have also been real pals in helping me to fit in workwise and social-wise. They are genuine in their friendship, and I enjoy their company as much as they enjoy mine. They are a bunch of people who are comfortable to be themselves at all times, thus making me feel at ease. This is also true of my current boss, who, apart from being a loud and forceful leader (very chinaman-like actually), he is also a truly caring boss who "protects" his staff in everything.

Why, just the other day, when my shippers wrongly billed my company a whopping RM16k for 2 containers of shipment for my personal effects of 14-cubic meters and a car of RM8k each, my boss came to my rescue unexpectedly. My HR counterpart had suggested that the RM8k differential portion would be deducted from my July and August salary (I am only entitled for 1 container, you see), and this had made me jump out of my chair with furious rage as I did not even see the alleged "approved quotation". My boss had calmly assured me that I would not have to pay for any differential amount, and asked me to reply to the HR email and to cc him. He personally spoke to the HR "big man" and sorted it out for me the next day. ...I assume it IS sorted by now, since HR did not get back to me asking me to pay such and such sum.

My 3-months quarter review is up soon, but looks like I have not achieved much since I joined. I am still trying to decipher the PSC concept (production sharing contracts), the process of certain areas, the focal points I am supposed to refer to, and my role in the whole process.

I have almost finished settling in into my newly rented house, except for my books and clothes which are still packed in my luggage and stacked up on the study table. I will do that when I have the mood...I guess :)

Infrastructure in my house has finally completed with Astro being the last to be installed this evening. Aah, bliss in my own haven of escapade. My friends and my boss have been bugging me to have a house-warming since last month. I have verbally agreed, but I am extremely lazy to actually put it into action. Well, maybe in 2 weeks time, since I'll be too busy getting some stuff and planning some outings with my friends this weekend, and I wont be around next weekend.

In a nutshell, the whole onboarding process has been both bitter and sweet for me. This is my first time relocating to a far away place from home to work...but it is my first step for bigger things to come. I hope in 2 years' time, I will have another onboarding story to tell...a much more exciting one in a truly foreign land.