Skip to main content

Do a Good Job

Do a Good Job

I remembered in 2001, my boss, a Japanese who is also the company's Chief Financial Officer cum Senior Managing Director, called me into his room. He said, "Andy-san, we need to look for one senior person". As the person responsible for HR, I asked "What post?" He said, "Senior Managing Director"

I was speechless. "Boss, isn't this your post?". "Andy, yes. keep cool, Do your job well. The Chairman (also the founder in Japan) wants to interview 3 good candidates in 2 weeks' time". I told him, "No problem, I will get it done"

In the end, we got a very experienced person and he became my new boss. While I was in Australia handling some issues, he called me and said that since I am so busy handling Finance, HR, and Admin portfolios, he wants to take away my HR function. I said yes, as I think he is now the boss he can decide everything.

Soon, this new boss made things difficult for me. I decided to tender my resignation in April 2001 as I felt a sense of loss with my old Japanese boss gone, a person with whom I had such a good working relationship and respect. This new boss in the end created big profits for the company and left the company 1.5 years later.

I think I did a good job in getting such a good Senior MD for the company. Just that this 'good job' does not have a good ending for my career. But I have no regrets. Thanks for reading this story. I hope it brings you some value.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

What an Executive Coach and Business Coach Does

Post a Comment
Read more

The Secret Under the Mattress: Why would a 79-year Man Bet So Big on 4D?

It was 2007 when we discovered his secret. While moving my father’s mattress, we found them: heaps and heaps of Singapore Pools 4D tickets. They were stacked in layers, a paper trail of lost hopes. What shocked us most wasn’t just the volume, but the stakes. He wasn’t betting a few dollars for fun. He was punting hundreds of dollars per draw—nearly ten times a month. At the time, my siblings and I were furious. Our father was a 79-year-old retiree. We wondered, with a mix of anger and confusion, why a man at his stage of life would need to win such "big money." What was he going to do with the money? We saw it as a reckless habit, a sign of poor judgment in his final years.  Some of us would say, "If I were to give him money to buy 4D, why don't I use the money and buy 4D myself?  At least I have better discipline".  It has taken me two decades, and the experience of raising my own three grown-up children, to finally see the truth that was hidden under that matt...
Post a Comment
Read more

Head Bleeding when the Chair Falls

The Weight of Silence: What Were We Really Arguing About? My earliest memories are punctuated by the sound of shouting. In 1970, when I was barely 6 years old, I stood as a small witness to the fierce quarrels between my father and my late eldest brother Kah Yang (he passed away in 1971 at the age of 17). As I grew up, these contradictions became the soundtrack of our lives, usually centered around our family's shoe shop and clothing stalls in Chinatown. In the court of family opinion, the verdict was almost always the same: my father was "wrong." He was judged as a man who didn't fulfill his role, who wasn't "burdening" enough for the family’s success. But as I look back from the vantage point of 2026, I have to ask: Was that actually true? Let me finally put to rest what my father did right: the truths that were buried under decades of criticism: Unseen Labor: He worked grueling, long hours. I remember him hauling boxes of goods and equipment to set u...
Post a Comment
Read more