I finally resigned from my first job after graduating.

Finally, after what felt like 3 extremely long years, I've tendered in my resignation from my current position as Audit Associate in Deloitte Malaysia.

Alhamdulillah for all the good and the bad. But let's talk about the bad first so I can end this post on a positive note. Hahaha. 

The bad. 

1. Long and unstable working hours. 

During peak season, sometimes I have to work up to 16 hours a day, sometimes including weekends and public holidays. But this doesn't last throughout the whole year. It's usually 4-6 months at the beginning of the year only. I would prefer working 8 hours a day consistently (with breaks of course) and NOT work on weekends or public holidays for the whole year rather than working like zombies for 6 months and having almost nothing to do for the rest of the year. It's hard having to get in and out of the zombie mode every time. 

2. Commute. 

Since I changed clients every 2-3 months, I would have to commute to different places for each different client. But of course for the past 2 years, a big portion of the time was working from home due to repeated MCOs but I don't want to stay in the firm knowing that I would still need to commute to client's place in the future. It's not my choice if I don't want to go to a client in Port Klang.. And God knows how many Port Klang clients Deloitte has. I've been assigned to two clients in Port Klang and it was hell having to commute there, me being from Bangi.

3. Nature of audit. 

Audit is basically checking other people's work. I feel like a fraud 95% of the time. When I first started I felt like a fraud 100% of the time. It only decreased due to the meager experience I've gained. Why do I have to check someone else's work when even I don't know what the heck is going on. But you know, at this point, I feel like majority of corporate people don't know what's going on. The remaining who do know, purposely makes things harder so other people don't get in on the secret. 

Aside from checking other people's work, audit is always tight on deadlines. They should put in the job description before people joined : "Must have thick skin and thick face as you would need to chase clients or else they would end up blaming you for not meeting the audit deadline, even though THEY are the ones who don't provide you what you need and THEY are the ones who need the signed audit report."

Also, due to changing clients all the time, there's a 'touch and go' feel to it. You feel stupid every time you start on a new client. You come in once a year and they expect you to know everything there is to know about the client. Even though every client is different. They are different companies, with different SOPs and different industries with different business processes and different people working there. You need to be careful what questions you ask or there will be a risk of clients replying to you 'Haven't I told you about this last year? Didn't you guys document it down or save it somewhere?'. What they don't know is, usually, almost half of last year's audit team probably aren't around in the firm anymore because the turnover here is so damn high. But at the same time, if you rely too much on prior years' information, the audit manager will tell you 'Why we follow last year for everything? If everything you want to follow last year, then no need to do this year's audit la'.

The good.

1. The people.

I've met so many people. Among them, I've made some good friends and interesting acquittances. But at this point, a lot of my good friends have resigned. So it's a good thing I'm leaving as well because let's be honest, a big portion of why I made it this far is because of good people. That's why I really respect those seniors that have been here since freshly graduating and they're still here despite being the only one left from their batch. 

...

I can't think of any other good things right now HAHAHAH. That's so bad. I'll add on more when I think of it.

I don't want to talk about the salary because I don't want to be ungrateful. Of course you have to fight for your rights but I would say my salary is average. It can be seen from two different perspectives, one, me being overworked and underpaid, and two, there are those who have it worse than me. So for me, it's not really the biggest thing to complain about. No matter what people say, I don't think there is such a thing as being 'compensated fairly'. The fairest way to compensate someone is based on their hard work because qualifications and experience includes factors such as luck, family background and upbringing. And it's very hard to measure people's hard work. So is there really such a thing as being compensated fairly? Take someone who works in F&B, their average salary is always around RM2,000. They definitely work harder than me. Yet I sit in the chair all day and copy other people's working paper and get paid more? And you see all those directors, CEOs and audit partners getting paid RM100,000 per month (and this is the lower end of the spectrum. Some CEOs earn up to RM700,000 per month). What exactly did they work so hard on for them to deserve that much? Nothing is fair.

Well, so much for ending this post on a positive note. I'm still very grateful for the experience I gained here though. I won't go so far as to say I couldn't have gained it anywhere else or that if I could do it again, I would because hell nah. I'm not a Big 4 glorifier. I'm a firm believer of any experience is the best experience for you because Allah put you there and He put you through it. And the fact is I can't rewind anything, and whatever happens, life moves on, so I'll take what I can get.

Perspectives

 Who are we to decide if someone is happy or unhappy? Why do we always tend to judge other people's choices based on conventional standards? 

I've come to realize that no matter how much I consult people on the decisions I'm about to make or decisions I'm avoiding to make, in the end, I will be the one to live with it's consequences. But then, why do I still care so much about what other people think? Why does what other people think still effect my decisions? Is it because I think that some people have more experience than I do? Is it because our pathways in life are so similar? I'm so scared to make the wrong choices. But what is wrong and what is right? I don't know anymore. I suppose I should take time and sit down and properly go through whatever choices I have before I make them. I think at the end of the day, there are no good or bad choices. There are just choices and it's just a part of life. You have to choose because it is impossible to do everything all at once. And it is impossible to puaskan hati semua orang. In the first place, there is no need to puaskan hati semua orang sangat. This is your life. And that is their lives. I have no say in what they do with it. And they should have no say in what I do with my life. 

Today was promotion day. I didn't get promoted last year. I was quite dejected about it but I thought maybe it wasn't my time. But today I got promoted. I'm happy but at the same time, without helping it, I compared myself to other people who got double promoted. My company was more generous with their promotions this year so a lot of people got double promoted. But I didn't. It is such a shitty feeling. It's the same feeling as last year all over again. That feeling of I'm not good enough. What did they do that I didn't. Did they work that hard? Did I not work hard enough? Or did I just not show that I worked hard enough. I mean, who decides these things? You can't measure hard work. You're not God. You don't see the sleepless nights and all those hours people worked outside of working hours. 

I always tell myself I never want to aim high. I want to be average. I don't want to put in so much extra work only to be given more work. Was the extra compensation worth all the sleepless nights and all the days filled with anxiety? Are my colleagues who got double promoted after working their asses off happy with their choices? Only they know right? I also know people who are like me, saying over and over again that they want to resign, but after one year, they're still here. Suddenly jumping to senior can be good or bad. Or maybe I shouldn't be so rigid about it. Of course your salary increments are high, but your workload will also increase. I'm sad that I didn't get that much salary increment but I don't know if I want to be given the extra workload. Are those people happy or scared or anxious or excited to be given new responsibilities? Do they think of it as a challenge and to improve their career, skills and all that? Or do they think it's a pain? I don't know. 

I know I'm all over the place. I'm always like this. I don't know what my point is exactly but I guess I just wanted to console myself and tell myself that just because I think people are happy, maybe they're not. And just because I think they're sad, maybe they're not. Maybe they have other plans. Maybe this is what's best for them and maybe it's good timing for them. So maybe the fact that I didn't get double promoted does not undermine my efforts for the last one year and it should not mean that I am better or they are better. Or maybe it does mean that? I don't know! Maybe I'm just a bitter person.

But I just want to point out that one's salary or career or whether or not they got promoted does not define one's worth. We are not our work. I don't want to be identified by my work. But sometimes I wonder, if I were one of those excellent employees, would I still be able to think the same way?

Kelly Services and PCAOB Audit

I've been recurred for the audit of Kelly Services. Kelly was my first job after I joined Deloitte. Actually it was my second. My first job was Lafarge for 3 weeks. But I didn't really do anything at Lafarge. Just helped an SA2 with her vouching. haha. It was right in the middle of the engagement so I guess they also don't know what jobs to give me. So I always like to think Kelly as my first job. At Kelly, I got to audit individual sections by myself like Cash and Bank, and Interco. I honestly had no idea what I was doing. I just followed last year's working papers and for things that I really don't understand and have no prior working papers to refer to I would just ask my senior and she would give me some other engagement's template and I would just blindly follow that one as well. Hahah Well not exactly blindly la. I do try to make sense of it. But we have a deadline so I can't waste too much time trying to understand it. Maybe I'm not as fast a learner as I thought I was.