Corporate life so far

I left a small company to join an international corporate, and started here on 3 May. I left the Garden because I wanted/needed to earn more money, and the opportunity to do so in an international company that seems to be doing really well was appealing. 

So far, I must be honest, the experience has not been great – apart from the four half-days I worked last week. But that’s a bit of a mixed blessing, I guess.

Day 1 was induction, which was in Germiston, and lasted half a day. I wasn’t convinced – for a company that makes such a big noise about safety, the safety induction was laughable. The people that were there to answer questions couldn’t answer any of mine, but at least they could refer me to people that they thought could. Turns out, when I called them – they couldn’t.

Day 2 I reported to my site, to meet with my direct report, who informed me that she would be leaving at 12 to go on study leave for a week. She gave me a few bits and pieces to do, and set up a few meetings, but pretty much told me to do what I thought was best for the rest of the week. I thought it best to leave at 13h00 to go and jump through some more admin hoops set up by the Germiston crowd.

Day 3 was a bit of faffing here and there, reading up some stuff, and chasing my computer – the only device with which I can do anything in this company. No, you cannot connect your Macbook to our network they say, it’s not safe. WTF? Yes, we do understand that you can’t do your job, and if you try to, it will cost you your own money, but tuffies. Maybe you’ll be able to have a computer by next Wednesday, but you won’t be allowed to use it until we’ve trained you. No, we won’t set up training until you’ve got the computer, and then we’ll see…

Days 4 and 5 were a bit more interesting – spending time with the Technical team as they brainstormed Stuff. Full day on Thursday, and half day on Friday. Refer to lack of connectivity to anything, and I left at lunchtime to go home and replant my veggie garden.

The other theme through all this is a refusal to budge on the company pension fund. I already contribute a very significant amount of my earnings to an RA, but they are insisting that I contribute to the company’s provident fund. Not negotiable. If I stop or reduce my RA, I will literally lose millions in the long term. If I don’t reduce my RA, and contribute to it and to the company’s provident fund, I will be putting around 40% of my income into my retirement planning. Not a bad thing, in the long term, but the main reason I left the Garden was to take home more money.

Yes, I should have insisted on a dummy payslip a long time ago, but the HR lady kind of fobbed me off when I asked for one. And in all honesty, with the increase in my total package, I thought I would be more than covered.

Right now, it’s feeling like I made a significant mistake in leaving the Garden. Thankfully I left on very good terms. I must be honest, it is occurring to me more and more that I should phone the boss of the Garden and humbly ask if she’ll have me back.