Salam dears,
Recently I had the chance to meet up with a few friends from my previous work place. It was only for an hour, but it was so nice to be able to catch up with each other after so many years.
And it surely brought back many wonderful memories from when I was working in public relations and corporate communications line. It's so sooo different from what I'm doing now - human resources.
When I was doing PR and Corp Comm sometimes (or even most of the time) work feels more like play. I get to meet lots of interesting people, go out for 'working lunches', get to scout around shops/surf the net for door gifts (perfect for shopaholics like me hehe), do food tasting (one time we went to a chocolate factory and 'sampled' dozens of yummy chocs, how awesome is that?), do lots of creative writing and coming out with creative ideas for advertisements and events. And ohhh the adrenaline rush when organizing an event, I even loved that :-)
Plus, the job satisfaction and recognition was always there. The sense of achievement when an event we organised went well, when bosses and colleagues says thank you and congrats coz they too enjoyed themselves during the event, the proud feeling you get when you see the words you've written being printed in the media, the sense of accomplishment when you hold the perfectly done annual report in your hands after months of working on it. Owhhh how I miss all that...
Yup, there are things that can stress you out to the max such as when something went wrong during your event, or wrongly printed info in your press release/advertisements/annual reports, or when customers shouts & cursed at you. The workload & hours can be crazy (many late nights, working on weekends, lots of travelling and being away from family, back to back functions and crazy deadlines etc etc).
But for me, the fun I had working in PR and Corp Comm outweighs all the bad stuff. Hmmm how I miss all that...when work feels like play...*yearning*
Don't get me wrong though, I'm not saying I don't like HR. Its just that...it's different. The nature of work in HR is serious. Understandably so, because when you're dealing with human matters, people's livelihood, discipline matters, employer & employee stuff, of course it's all serious right?
In HR you don't get to have 'fun' when you're compiling staff attendance data, telling staff that they've exceeded their medical entitlement, informing staff that he/she will be on suspension (or even terminated), or when you're tabulating the figures for increment & bonus, scrutinizing the payroll data to make sure the hundreds of staff you have are paid correctly and such things. When holding PR function, sometimes you get to goof around, have a good laugh with friends, take selfies. But you can't do that when you're holding a domestic inquiry, can you? Well, u get the picture right? ;-)
And when it involves people, when you see all the P&C stuff that sometimes you don't really want to know about, when people say you don't have much work when truth is you can barely catch a breath (but you can't tell people what you're doing coz it's P&C so they think you have no work), it's hard not to be affected by it at all. After all, you're only human right?...
But, that said, I believe that this is the path that God has chosen for me. Alhamdulillah I've been given the chance to broaden my experience & knowledge in 2 different lines of work. Though I didn't go into HR by choice, but I'm choosing to stay. I do like the challenge of doing HR work.
Plus with 3 small kids (and no helper/maid at home), I'm not sure I can easily be away from home on weekends, work outside till 2-3 am like I used too anymore.
So, yakinlah pasti ada hikmahnya. Most important, doing the best with what comes my way & am learning to be the best at what I do now, InsyaAllah :-)
Labels: rants and ravings