Citizen Eco-Drive Gents Sapphire Crystal Watch BM6750-59A

Watch 2 – For Graduation & 2 Jobs

I purchased this watch on Mar 2014. This was a watch that I decided I shall wear from graduation. From March till May, there was about 2 months where I waited before wearing it.

Frankly, working life was a little disappointing. Work was more mundane than school and to some extent, the work I did at Dragonfly was more exciting. However, it’s also through this that I understood — Day to day business is boring, but it creates value to people.

I first started work at ExxonMobil, where I worked as a Pricing Analyst. I was doing analytics and it was fun doing the analysis and finding out trends that were hidden. However, I also learnt that data can be, and are frequently manipulated. As I observed the Oil market, I realised this is not where I want to be 20 years down the road. In fact, I started a prediction where oil as a transportation fuel will not be the main source of energy that people use. I decided to go into technology industry. I was thinking of either doing Sales or Product Management to ‘lead’ the business front of technology.

I then went to Singtel to do a role as Pricing Manager. B2B pricing was vastly different from B2C. The fact that Singtel was much less strategic also created the difference. Instead of looking at analysis to value-add, I was doing very mundane transnational pricing. However, it was still on-route to my short-term goal to go into Sales or Product Management. After 6 months, an opportunity came and I took it. I was the Sales Specialist.

Through my stint as Sales Specialist, I found that the Sales I was doing wasn’t as value-adding as I thought I would be. I then make another decision to change role, to a Pentester this time.

Cyber security was something I am interested in. I remember loaning “Hacking Exposed 5th Edition” from NLB during secondary school and reading on how to hack. This topic has also came back to my multiple times but it wasn’t a career choice I took seriously till now. The changes in career is also the reason why I decided to retire this watch. In some sense, this watch was the watch of uncertainty of career.

On good side in the relationship front, I met Geraldine. This is perhaps the most important takeaway of this period as I met her as the love of my life.

This is probably the watch of trying. I tried, things didn’t work out, I tried again, and again and again. It’s also the watch of hope. As I retire the watch, I hope my career and relationship seeds will come to fruition on the next watch.