The Desire To Change

I love changes and I have high adaptability. I’ve always had the desire to change. Even small changes will do.

Looking back at the jobs I had in previous years, I tend to change them in every 2 to 3 years. The reason is that I didn’t have the control to change.

Five years ago, I started my online bookstore as a side business. I love the full control on how I manage the operation of the business. Most importantly, I enjoyed a lot on the flexibility I had to plan on my schedule. Sadly, due to family matters, I was forced to relocate and found a 9 – 6 job to pay the bills.

2 years after I started working on my current job, I have the sudden urge to make a change again. That’s when I started to do a casualĀ search and reading for freelance jobs. I was hoping that I could take up some freelance jobs and slowly switch over to a full-time freelancer. During the search, I learned a new term – digital nomads. And this keyword leads me to Automattic’s Work With Us page.

I have explained a bit why I’m interested in joining Automattic and why I didn’t apply it right away when I discovered it. I considered myself a jack of all trades, master of none. I know a little bit more than my peer but I’m not really expert in any of the skills I’m having. To me, investing too much time in being an expert in a subject matter might be a waste. As long as I have a good understanding of the knowledge to apply it to a problem, I would prefer to spend my time to learn something new.

The exact triggering point in making me take the leap to apply for the Happiness Engineer post in Automattic is when I was admitted to the hospital for dengue virus infection. I was admitted for five days so there was plenty of time for me to think of my life as a whole. I decided to have a change.

Soon after I was discharged from the hospital, I visited the Happiness Engineer hiring page again. I searched and read almost all blog posts I could find regarding the job application process. Though I admitted I was over-confident and underestimated the requirements of the job, I applied twice in 2 months and failed. But I’m not giving up.

To move closer to my target, I took further steps to purchase a web hosting plan to host this blog and my WordPress test projects, I volunteer to help out in the upcoming WordCamp Kuala Lumpur 2018, I bought business and self-help books to improve my soft skills and effectiveness in performing the tasks in order to achieve my ultimate goal.

I don’t know if I could make my dream come true. But I see encouraging progress so far. Even if I failed, I won’t regret that I’ve taken this journey in my life.

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