Loneliness at Work

I guess the nature of the job is really starting to take jabs at me. At 10am in the morning I feel sleepy already. The loneliness of the job really sucks away the motivation to drive on. I hope that after writing this, the sleepiness will just go away, so that I can concentrate on doing what I ought to be doing.

At times, I wonder why God put me into this position. Yes, I do learn to be more disciplined, which I never had; learnt to make cold calls, which I use to fear. Have time to sit down and slowly progress at work. But, ain’t I trained to work in teams, manage people, and build on improvements? That’s who I am. I’ll continue to do my best in this field. After that, we’ll see.

Life as a Conference Producer, so far…

Monday is a relaxing day for producers. We can’t get to call our sources because of their routine Mon meetings. Presently, I’m waiting for two reply calls in approximately an hour’s time. So, here I am writing my little experiences of being a conference producer.

I’ve been in the job for a little more than a month. Adapted well to the job. I was in the financial sector prior to this job. In this job, you can see people from very different backgrounds. We have people like investors, computer consultants, bio-chemists, lecturers, administrators, etc. It’s like “mized-rice”, with all kinds of ingredients from all places around the globe. Lunch time is an exciting time where I learn new things from these people.

This is quite a relaxing job overall, depending on how you define relaxing. We get to go home 6pm sharp. There’s seldom need for OT, except when I call some of the speakers overseas, at a different time zone. So, if you’re looking for a good working lifestyle, this is one that you should be looking at.

If you’re thinking what we do, basically, we research for a hot topic that the market needs but can’t find. We cater for that need. Research on what angle to cut in that will better benefit our clients. The toughest part here is the phone researches that we call the potential delegates to gather information as well as to see what are their response to such a conference. We then shape the angle of the conference accordingly. As you can see, it’s very much an academic job: study, research, fine-tune.

I have rested for about a year before this job. This job provides me the luxury to slowly attune to the work force. Not too stressful, yet challenging enough. There is the pressure side too. Every conference that we produce, affects the sales and marketing team. They are the ones that market our products. And if we don’t do a good job and be sure that it sells, we’re putting them into deep trouble financially. So, the weight is there. Responsibility, responsibility, responsibility. There is no one else to blame except the producers.

Overall, this is a good job in terms of working hours. The challenge is sufficient to keep one going. The pay is usually good. The downside is the loneliness in this job. 90% of the time, we work alone, doing research on the topics or talking to people in the market. Colleagues don’t interact much, if any. I’m lucky to be an out-going person whom people enjoys having lunch with. Otherwise there REALLY isn’t much interaction. Waiting for third party replies can also be frustrating. The speakers for example, may promise and yet not deliver. Let it be their replies to our invitation, our request to fine tune the syllabus, their delay in answering our queries. You know, it’s a waiting game. It's a very reactive job trying to be as proactive as possible. Having said these, I like this job. It’s a good job if you enjoy learning new things everyday, I do.