Goodbye....and hello!

11 April 2007 was my last day of work at WTL. By sheer coincidence, I had spent exactly 10 months in WTL, and I am grateful for the learning opportunity which it had proved to be. Much as I feel bad about “abandoning” the firm which very obviously needs its associates, I guess I simply had to do it for the greater long-term good of my career path. I will certainly miss the great work-life balance though.

After returning from Macau, it was a week of rest for me, but it flew past in the blink of an eye. Before I knew it, I had started work at A&G on 23 April 2007.

It is only now that I realise why my first employers cannot compete in the big league yet. This place is truly huge, and has brilliantly solid infrastructure to facilitate the management and day-to-day operations. Evident of this is that fact that I had a proper orientation programme planned for me on my first day, taking up ¾ of the day with personal briefings from the various departments - HR, Admin, Finance, IS, etc. I am duly impressed with my new employers.

And frankly speaking, they do take care of their lawyers pretty well. Save for the workload, which I have yet to properly experience, I think this place might well be worth staying for some time. Plus the fact that God has blessed me with seemingly nice bosses, and I haven’t heard anything to the contrary yet. :)

My first week was really quite boring, as there was no work for me. I toyed with the idea of going to ask for work, but was advised by various parties that it might prove to be suicidal, and that I should just enjoy this slack period while I can. Finally attended a kick-off meeting for a new IPO this Monday, and the work should start building up soon. Am currently slated to head off to China from 14 to 19 May for due diligence, and while it sounds somewhat exciting, I’m not sure whether I should be looking forward to it at all. After all, due diligence is NEVER fun! And it doesn’t help that we’ll be dealing with Chinese clients, which means a lot of drinking. The bosses have asked me to brush up on my drinking ability, but that’s a really really tall order.

Been bugging the IS Dept to give me a blackberry, as I keep harbouring an irrational fear that I could be missing some urgent email from the bosses after office hours. Much as I don’t want it, I hate to admit that a blackberry is essential for the job. :( They appear to be currently out of stock, so I’d better enjoy this period of freedom from emails while it lasts.

I am also pleased to find out that A&G has a pretty active badminton thing going on as well. Have signed up for the legal vs. business services challenge in late May, and have been playing with the legal team for the past 2 Wednesday evenings. Coupled with my existing sessions on Saturday mornings, it should help to maintain a bit of fitness. Should throw in some jogging as well though. Sigh.

So that’s that. A new milestone, a new journey. May God direct my path. :)