Settled a few things today, most notably the signing of my offer letter with the IP firm. as expected, the firm presents its best side to guests and prospective hires. i was told that the place where i'd done my test and had my interviews was not the main working area, and that i'd be working in another office in the same building but on a lower floor. kind of expected, actually. for a supposedly big firm, there was a conspicuous lack of people on that floor whenever i was there. i'm quickly finding my favourite seat in that particular meeting room. it was the same seat in which i sat when i took the test, so maybe it's lucky for me? the offer letter was pretty standard, i guess. the usual clauses about duties, benefits, not doing anything illegal. somehow, it felt more exciting to sign this letter as compared to the learning lab one. i guess it's because i never viewed tuition as a career, whereas there's that chance for this job. also managed to ask about season parking. the HR lady wasn't that familiar with the application process, but she quoted about $400-$500 per quarter. that sounds about right, given the area in which the building is located. anything below $500 would be amazing, between $500 to $550 is expected, and hopefully it won't hit $570. will have to get more clarity on that closer to my start date.
i also called the learning lab to ask them about reducing my teaching hours. before i tell you how that went, i want to talk about how my mentor reacted when i gave her a heads-up yesterday. apart from being a good teacher, i must say that she's a really good manager. i'm constantly in awe at how she conducts our interactions, and really admire how she frames things to make them as positive as possible. take this past meeting as an example. i told her that i would probably need to give saturday up. she started by saying that it probably wouldn't be a problem, since most weekend tutors only taught for one day while i was the exception who taught on both weekends. she then moved on to say that there would naturally be a corresponding reduction in pay, so i would go from getting double the pay to just 1X. i was simultaneously impressed and amazed when i heard that! most people would say something more like "so, you know that your pay will be halved..." but instead of emphasizing that i was earning less, she set it up so that i was actually making more than most previously, and would now be on the same level as others. it's essentially the same message, but the delivery is worlds apart. i wonder if this skill is learnable, or is it just her natural talent? the thing that mildly frustrates me is that she's only a year older than me, but she's so much more polished. ok, granted that she didn't have NS and didn't do grad studies - that means that she's got about 8 years of work experience under her belt already. i'll have to consciously think about wording things better until it becomes second-nature.
the call with the learning lab HR lady went well. i proposed two options to her - change my saturdays to ad-hoc, or half-day (afternoon). she said that the first would be possible, but had to check with her team for the second one. we're due for a follow up either tomorrow or next week, which is fine with me since i'm not rushing to come to a decision yet. at this point in time, i'm actually more inclined to the ad-hoc conversion option. while it will mean less money overall, i think that the free day in my schedule is more than worth that financial loss. we also settled on an end date for my full-day saturdays - 13 april. considering that i'm due to start with the IP firm on 15 april, i think that it works out nicely. what works out a little less nicely is that i remembered the dates for the upcoming taiwan trip wrongly. it's for kurash, and was scheduled over the good friday break. i didn't realize that we were flying on the early morning of the day before, so that's one extra day of leave that i have to ask for. i doubt that it'll be an issue, but i'll have to inform the IP firm for clearance. apart from that, i'm also taking another 4 days (which may possibly be shortened to 3.5 days) of leave in june, to go to china for a wedding. this means that if they so choose, the firm can extend my probation by another week. that's no issue to me. it also means that both parties will make a decision around 15-20 october, assuming that my probation doesn't get extended for a further 3 months. hopefully this year's birthday present will be confirmation of a permanent position.
feeling a little relieved now that those crucial things are out of the way. the rest of the to-do list is a little more flexible, except for things that are on a fixed time, like japanese class. am a little hesitant to register for the july JLPT, since taking the mock test has shown how abysmal my japanese is. we'll see if tomorrow's results are better than expected; maybe that will give me some confidence. the more likely scenario is taking the test in december at the earliest, maybe even next july...if i even take it at all. it does seem like a waste to come this far and not have anything to show for it. but i suppose the bigger question is how everything lines up with my plans. if i don't have plans to go to japan for work, the JLPT qualification goes from being essential to being a personal achievement and/or something to decorate my resume with. of course, the other perspective is that having it does open doors, and having more doors open is never a bad thing. still, it's no longer as urgent as before, so i can afford to spend more time thinking about it.
i also called the learning lab to ask them about reducing my teaching hours. before i tell you how that went, i want to talk about how my mentor reacted when i gave her a heads-up yesterday. apart from being a good teacher, i must say that she's a really good manager. i'm constantly in awe at how she conducts our interactions, and really admire how she frames things to make them as positive as possible. take this past meeting as an example. i told her that i would probably need to give saturday up. she started by saying that it probably wouldn't be a problem, since most weekend tutors only taught for one day while i was the exception who taught on both weekends. she then moved on to say that there would naturally be a corresponding reduction in pay, so i would go from getting double the pay to just 1X. i was simultaneously impressed and amazed when i heard that! most people would say something more like "so, you know that your pay will be halved..." but instead of emphasizing that i was earning less, she set it up so that i was actually making more than most previously, and would now be on the same level as others. it's essentially the same message, but the delivery is worlds apart. i wonder if this skill is learnable, or is it just her natural talent? the thing that mildly frustrates me is that she's only a year older than me, but she's so much more polished. ok, granted that she didn't have NS and didn't do grad studies - that means that she's got about 8 years of work experience under her belt already. i'll have to consciously think about wording things better until it becomes second-nature.
the call with the learning lab HR lady went well. i proposed two options to her - change my saturdays to ad-hoc, or half-day (afternoon). she said that the first would be possible, but had to check with her team for the second one. we're due for a follow up either tomorrow or next week, which is fine with me since i'm not rushing to come to a decision yet. at this point in time, i'm actually more inclined to the ad-hoc conversion option. while it will mean less money overall, i think that the free day in my schedule is more than worth that financial loss. we also settled on an end date for my full-day saturdays - 13 april. considering that i'm due to start with the IP firm on 15 april, i think that it works out nicely. what works out a little less nicely is that i remembered the dates for the upcoming taiwan trip wrongly. it's for kurash, and was scheduled over the good friday break. i didn't realize that we were flying on the early morning of the day before, so that's one extra day of leave that i have to ask for. i doubt that it'll be an issue, but i'll have to inform the IP firm for clearance. apart from that, i'm also taking another 4 days (which may possibly be shortened to 3.5 days) of leave in june, to go to china for a wedding. this means that if they so choose, the firm can extend my probation by another week. that's no issue to me. it also means that both parties will make a decision around 15-20 october, assuming that my probation doesn't get extended for a further 3 months. hopefully this year's birthday present will be confirmation of a permanent position.
feeling a little relieved now that those crucial things are out of the way. the rest of the to-do list is a little more flexible, except for things that are on a fixed time, like japanese class. am a little hesitant to register for the july JLPT, since taking the mock test has shown how abysmal my japanese is. we'll see if tomorrow's results are better than expected; maybe that will give me some confidence. the more likely scenario is taking the test in december at the earliest, maybe even next july...if i even take it at all. it does seem like a waste to come this far and not have anything to show for it. but i suppose the bigger question is how everything lines up with my plans. if i don't have plans to go to japan for work, the JLPT qualification goes from being essential to being a personal achievement and/or something to decorate my resume with. of course, the other perspective is that having it does open doors, and having more doors open is never a bad thing. still, it's no longer as urgent as before, so i can afford to spend more time thinking about it.
-random thought of the day: Plan the tailor trip!-
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