The Journey of Solitude

Finally, my soul is back to freedom.

Yesterday was my last day in the company. The period of 13 months is the longest duration I have in my “formal” career. My resignation, or even leaving from the industry, was stirred by various reasons. I will skip all the complaints here. As a consequence of those reasons, I decided to make a big change in my life to do what I can truly enjoy. Teaching is one of my dreams, so I’ll begin as a tutor. Most Taiwanese still need to be educated about what is right and what is wrong. My purpose is to teach kids not only those in textbooks but also everything we should know as Taiwanese.Read More »Pursuit of Dreams and Hopes

Since I came back from Hawaii trip last December, my boss had complained about me taking too many study leaves until I showed him the department website which I created a couple of weeks ago. His management indeed disappoints me a lot. I hardly feel his support on either work or exams. In fact, the first time I showed him the website was six months ago. He has no idea about why I created the website and he can’t see how powerful such tool can be. I was asked to present my work of model improvement at the department meeting last month, so I decided to present my work by web pages, using basic HTML with Notepad. It turned out to be a success. Everyone was surprised at the website. My boss was very delighted. He told me to show my work to the big bosses, so I’m going to present the website and the framework to them next Wednesday in order to obtain one or two more head counts for our team.Read More »Working Life

It seems that most managers don’t know how to ask for more for his team, especially actuaries. They are always asked to produce the required… Read More »Learn how to ask for more

Christmas atmosphere gets stronger after Thanksgiving. That is what I feel in my heart. Most people in Taiwan do not celebrate Christmas. Neither do I. But I have very strong feeling toward that holiday. It’s like a burning candle that warms my heart in the chilly winter. On the Christmas Eve of 2004, I went to the Cologne Cathedral with my classmates while I studied in the Netherlands. It’s an unforgettable trip to me. The night was full of music and joys, but the air was so silent. My heart was not there after all.Read More »Christmas is coming

My three bosses: team manager, chief actuary, and CFO, joined the company after me in October, July, and August, respectively. I joined the company in last April. Yes, we are all new employees in this company. This early month the chief actuary did the appraisal of performance for my team since the team manager just joined. He had to choose one out of eight in our department to be the ‘worst”. That is the policy from HR. Since he is new to the company, he doesn’t know who he should pick up. So, lucky me, I was the one. He explained that it’s not really about my performance. He thinks that my salary is higher than other team members and I took study leave of 20 days which might help me to pass the exam, so it doesn’t matter for me to get the worst performance ranking (better performance ranking results in salary increment next year). I told him I don’t care, but I still think the reason is funny. Do staff with high salary not have the right to be encouraged or promoted? What is the appraisal about? The boss doesn’t dare to make a right judgement which can keep the good ones and weed the bad ones. He doesn’t think I’m the bad one, but now I feel I am the bad one.Read More »Appraisal of salary or performance

For most people, it may be the easiest to choose not to do or say anything against the power. Keeping silence is what exactly the… Read More »The violence of silence

After senior high school, I have not spent more than two years in one place or institute. Two years in the first university, one year in another to prepare for transfer exam, two years in the one from which I graduated, and one year in Canada as an exchange student during my last year in the university. Then I spent one year and eight months in military service, followed by one year for my first full-time job, one year for a part-time job, less than one and half years in the Netherlands, 5 months for my second full-time job, two years in Boston, and nine months in a consulting firm. Now it has been three months since my current job started.Read More »Changes

My father is soon to be 82 years old. He is still working everyday, from day to night. He runs his own store for more than 50 years. It is fair to say that he has spent all his life in his store. Now all his children can make their own money, but he still insists to work everyday. My mother wants him to retire, so she doesn’t need to worry about his health or his business. I can’t understand why my father enjoys working so much. Does he love money much more than his family?Read More »Father

Due to some reason, I’ve not been allowed to celebrate my birthday since high school. So birthday doesn’t mean much to me, and celebration is not interesting to me either. Sometimes my friends would still have dinner with me on my birthday or send me wishes. One friend sends me birthday presents every year. Perhaps that is the meaning of celebration of birthday: reminding you of the love you have from your friends and family.Read More »Another birthday alone