First post of the Year!

First of all.. HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!! May Year 2012 brings us happiness, prosperity and good health to everyone in the world~!!! ^^

It's an unusual way to start off a new year by sitting for an exam paper.. OH YES! A paper~ of advanced statistics.. had a hard time figuring out the different statistical methods. But eventually, i did just alright for the test. hope that i won't let my lecturer down this time, as he's a great Prof. First time in my life feeling statistics is pretty fun~ (well, if you understand them.. else it's really a pain in the ass @.@").

And so, it's the first week of 2012! despite from the exams, I've been delaying my research work for quite some time now. After today's announcement and good chit chat session with my boss, never have ever in my life that i'll think that the research which i'm conducting now, has got so important to an extend that it'll determine the direction of my company. And so.. i'm so much more powered up right now~ have to really utilize my time more efficiently.

Our company is still very dependent on our "sister" company, i'll called it our client. It's really complicated and i wouldn't want to bore you with how did the company i worked for, was created in the first place. Being the first staff joined, it's really interesting to see how this company has grown into.. It's been 2 years, 2 months, and 6th days, I've worked under my boss.. he's an awesome guy to work with.

This is another post to him, to thank him that what has made this job, a near to dream job for me as a Scientist in Malaysia. I use the words "near to" is just plainly because the pay is not as attractive as what others might offer, with the amount of time and effort i've put through to make things work for the company. But well, put that aside, i'm still very driven to work here, all because of my boss's character and the way he lead this company.

Given that i've joined this company at year 2009 right after graduating from UTAR, the job description for the position of Microbiologist is challenging enough. Because i'm not tied down to laboratory work, and it requires me to go to the site, with estate environment, to deal with people of all levels and different nations from time to time, and to setup a QC lab and its standard operating protocol.

During the interview session, what really went through my mind is that, "ARE YOU SERIOUS THAT YOU'RE GETTING A FRESH GRAD TO HANDLE ALL THESE?!?!!! He must be out of his mind.. lol~!" and "well this is really interesting, let's just get started and see how it goes..". And yea, whatever will go wrong eventually will went wrong, and without any scientific guidance at all, i'm relieved to be able to pull through.

Second amazing thing to happen while working in this company, my boss gave his second bet, bet that the research i've proposed will work out for sure. Well, any of you running research will know, research is to test and to understand processes that we don't understand. And whether the test is favourable or not favourable at the end, that is also considered as a result. So, with my boss's support and believe, I've managed to run my one-man research till today.

Now, he's telling our team of 3 (Yes, there's only 3 of us in HQ - boss, me, accountant) that the company's direction very much depending on the grant application, the success of my research product, and his effort on other certain things (non-disclosurable). At that instance, i've just realized that he's really serious in believing the success of my research. And again, i really admire him for investing the setup of this company, given that this is not his core business or core area, he's only the CEO, and yet, he put a lot of time and effort here, to set a better direction for us, only with one reason.. his interest lies in here.

People sometimes might think that i'm a workaholic. But to say the truth, i'm a dreamer, a person who's driven with dreams and passion. I believe in what i'm doing will benefit the society in a way. I believe in transferring my knowledge to application on field, i believe in the importance of experience than the money i'll be able to earn. And i've never thought that my first job will be my dream job, with such trust, faith and support from my boss and colleagues. Well,It's almost near to impossible for a freshie to get bosses listen and trust in their thoughts these days. Especially with our asian culture, most of them will go like "i'm the boss, you should listen and do what i say". Here, there's always room for discussion, room to share thoughts, faith, trust and teamwork given to me to complete a task that's uncertain, a work place which requires creativity skills applied to research and work..

This job is filled with hell lot of excitement from time to time. Challenges of dealing with different people with different background, qualifications and attitude. With all of the good and bad, I'm just simply loving my job. I've learnt a lot through this job, especially to appreciate every single minute as time has always not been enough. Learnt to multi-task, to scold, to hire and to fire, to get a team together, to plan ahead of time (as far as months ahead which i never managed to do it during study life), to lead, to have a higher EQ while dealing with idiots, and to gain trust. Hope that this dragon year will bring us more successes, and all of us might as well get a rewarding bonus by the end of this year~!!! ;)