One more week to go to embrace my first work anniversary here in Vietnam. Taking advantage of the days-off during the Tet holidays (in Vietnam, that’s how they call lunar new year), I’d like to quickly write down a brief update on my recent 6 months, while I’m still in the middle of the tough journeys, I consider.
When looking back, the changes at work in 2020 have been far more exciting than riding a roller coaster. These were more or less attributed to certain trust, the trust from the customers and my boss. However, these also came along with tears and stress in quite some evenings and sleepless nights.
If only looking at the surface of my career path, it may seem to have gained some breakthroughs or even success. However, I view this gradual but seemingly fast-paced adjustment has two sides of a coin. On one hand, I’m sincerely grateful that I’ve been quickly seen and even put in an important position with great responsibilities. On the other hand, these change of positions put me in perspectives of watching a workplace filled with unrighteousness and unfairness happening as usual. This makes me desperate and outraged.
The turning point started from the moment that my boss offered me an opportunity to learn sales/business in July, which at first I was not sure if it’s the path that I would like to go for. At that intersection, aside from my original position in administration in the development center (which covers CSR, HR, product security, finance and general affairs), I was asked to choose between going on a path in sales/business and managing CSR in the factory. My intuition would have guided me to take on the latter challenge because sustainability has always been my passion and aspiration, without a doubt. I understood that this opportunity came to me with some reasons, not merely coincidence, but I didn’t have any clue. I have prayed for a few weeks for more clear answers, hoping a better decision can be made. While waiting for a determined answer to pop up in mind, I have been avoiding my boss for the follow-up conversation on this.
After 2–3 weeks, I had nothing, literally nothing. One day, my boss directly asked me to talk to him. During that talk, he didn’t ask what my choice was; rather, he directly talked with me as if I have already opted to go for business/sales. I couldn’t really express how I felt about this at that moment. But rather than dwelling on the feelings, I considered it as if God had guided me this deviated path in business to broaden my horizon outside of sustainability. But funny enough, I still ended up taking both responsibilities and workloads.
Till now, after six months, I’m absolutely grateful for being able to have the opportunity to learn and take on a position that I had zero previous experience in. In retrospect, I couldn’t imagine that I could learn and absorb all these at such a fast pace. I understand that everything did not come for free, but with efforts, sacrifices, tears and reflections.
However, there have been hundreds of nights that I questioned myself, “what have I been leaving behind? Does this experience worth it?” Frankly speaking, I still consider these are not yet paid off, with no clear sign showing that darkness would lead to lights any time sooner.
However, I still choose to continue. A sense of accountability keeps me fighting a little more. I somehow believe that God has put me here and led me to this position for reasons, even I still haven’t figured out the implications of the dots.
You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that dots will somehow connect in your future. — Steve Jobs
I still haven’t been through the phase of connecting the dots and really realizing why all these have happened in this course of my career. But I have faith that all these painful and tearful dots will somehow be connected into a beautiful and meaning shape in the future. (I just put my fingers crossed that the future will not be too distant)
