Work Life Balance?

Sow a thought, reap an action;
Sow an action, reap a habit;
Sow a habit; reap a character;
Sow a character; reap a destiny
-Professor Ooi

My faculty had a meet-the-practitioner talk recently. The deputy GM of Keppel Land came down for a sharing session with the students. After the session, students are encouraged to participate in a discussion forum and contribute their reflections.

I extracted two of the posts which I thought was particularly poignant. Read the following, and draw your own conclusions.

Post 1

During today's session, Mr Low shared with us about working towards your long-term career goal. Many of us have a dream job in mind but this job, whatever it may be, does not avail itself to us overnight. Some of us may wish to work for instance, as a portfolio manager or acquisition analyst but for such roles, companies may only hire professionals with experience and not fresh graduates. As these roles require specific skill sets and experience, a fresh graduate interested in these areas should gain experience in jobs that prepare him/her for that particular “dream job”. It would be useful to browse through classified advertisements and get a feel of the work experience and soft skills required for that particular “dream job”, and take up jobs that help prepare us for this long-term career goal.

Post 2

Hi all,

After attending this session, it convinces me even more that there will be no more work-life balance when we step into the working world, in order to have a successful career.

On one hand, one will be working so hard in the day, crunch figures late into the night (like doing projects in uni).

On the other, on your free days (should you even have any) you will be so busy trying to value-add yourself, attending courses (MBA, CFA etc.)

Where is the time left for family and friends?

Just to share, while I was interning at Far East Organisation in Property Sales, I guess our group of NUS interns are the only interns who possibly work 7 days a week, 830am to sometimes 12midnight during launches. I myself worked consecutive 15 days at one point, on weekdays its 930am to 830pm, on weekends 830am to 1130pm sometimes later.

What was supposedly my off day my clients actually called me saying they want to view the showflat, and you have to make your trip down because they are the potential customers who will purchase a unit from you. And since you are already at the showflat, you might as well make your time worth by serving more walk-in customers to increase your chances of closing a deal. Fortunately, when our boss see us working so hard he appreciate the fact that we are young and driven as well.