Classroom to Copy #21: Former Junior College Teacher Siti Zahidah on Becoming a Public Relations Manager & Copywriter

9:16AM Jan 19, 2024

Speakers:

Tania Yeo

Zahidah

Keywords:

teacher

job

teaching

imposter syndrome

work

kids

singapore

uni

school

writing

years

people

creative

feel

linkedin

career

pr

music

talk

bit

All right hey everyone welcome back to another episode of classroom to copy Today's episode is very special because I have with me a fellow Singaporean on the podcast who was, you know, she was just like me, taught at the Ministry taught for the Ministry of Education in Singapore and now she's working in marketing and public relations, and very curious about her journey. She also has a creative side as a singer songwriter. Lots of like creative projects on the side. So I'm excited to have that conversation with her. So I cannot thank you so much for joining me today. Do you want to introduce yourself to the audience?

Thanks for having me. So interesting. So we're gonna be talking about myself, but my name is Aida. I used to be a teacher in Singapore for eight years. Then I left because I wanted to try something new while I was still young, and while I was still employable. I use I used to teach general paper which is like the English language on steroids at the junior college level. I enjoyed it I enjoy the teaching part. But if you are remotely aware of how teaching is in Singapore, it also comes with all the other things which kind of can be some people like it. Some people find a distraction. I find it a chore.

And what what do you currently do?

I'm currently doing public relations for tech startup in Singapore. It's been fun.

The imposter syndrome is real when they decided to hire me. I was just kidding me really? Why? That was my first train of thought. But, you know, a month into this job and I realized that you don't want there's a lot of things which I did while I was teaching, that I could easily transfer the work I'm doing, you know, both the technical skills and even the soft skills. So if there's something that I appreciate, from my time as a teacher is this set of transferable skills. Awesome. Are there any questions? Okay, let's maybe let's just go back a bit to so you're talking about your experience as a general people teacher and you said that, you know, there are things that it comes with things that some people like and that you find to be a chore? Could you elaborate a bit more on that? Um, so, I really enjoy teaching this subject because I feel that general people is one of the rare subjects at the junior college level where I can literally use any topic under the hot sun and just say that I'm using this for lesson you know, so it gives me an outlet to really talk about often related topics, you know, things like racism, things like even LGBTQ issues. And a lot of teachers stay far, far away from that, but I thought that if I don't use that opportunity in my classroom, to talk about these issues, then they will never talk about these issues in your academic life, you know, so it was fun to curate a safe space to be talking about such sensitive issues. But the most fulfillment that I get this when they leave that series of lessons that I've played with, thank you for that, you know, like thank you for doing it in a very respectful, respectful manner. And, and thank you for giving me a different perspective about you know, different issues not just within the world, and making, you know, I like it sounds like I'm praising myself. Really, my students will be like, Oh, no, ma'am. You really showed me that. There is room for us to think about the real world even though we are so consumed by our preparation for edibles. And I think when I hear those kinds of comments, I think I've done my job as a general people a teacher, yeah. But, but back to what you think are the other things so that's when I struggle because it's my personal life comes into play because I have two kids, you know, and

being a teacher, you work notoriously long. hours and you go through the motions of paperwork, you go through the motions of just having to do all these little little things that they say is little but in reality takes like half an hour chips so we have time. Just like men, like it's more a better way to utilize technology. Like we are in the 21st century, all these things can be automated, still not, you know creative enough to do it. So that's not to say kind of teachers like that less because I think I see the value actually the importance in doing so. But after a while it it gets to a point I XP from things like our time for lesson planning for reflecting how my lessons go on on the lessons, which part of it? Which part of it then so after a while, you just come to class in autopilot. And I feel that the minute you go on autopilot, that's when you lose that motivation to improve as a teacher, because you think that you know everything. Yeah, yeah.

I am. So sorry. Lately my internet has been terrible and I have a feeling that this stupid thing Stop recording I'm so sorry. Oh, wait, is it recording

I don't know why. So I mean to be see and when the weather is cold. Every day everything just Oh falls apart. No power or something. Can't look sighs recording. I'm so sorry. But thank you so much for sharing all of that. Yeah, I relate a lot to what you just said. Like the part where you get to connect with the kids encourage them to think critically. I think I feel like I had that avenue as a teacher teacher also. But then a slight like grading and like the paperwork. I think were you like form teacher also. Oh, yes. That comes to the territory. Yeah,

lucky for me like when we see your form class is not as big as like secondary school. Right? So we're looking at a maximum of maybe 25 kids, but some people will be there are only 25 This will little I'm sure you can manage. But I think my challenge was when you're dealing with a bunch of 17 to 19 year olds, the the issues get deeper and it gets dark really quickly. Right. So it also takes a lot of emotional toil on you and the women when I first started teaching it was fine because I was single and married. I had all the time in the world to deal with all that. But the minute my kids came into play, I realized that I need to set boundaries for myself because if not, I'll be so spent and that's where burnout happens. And I've seen that happen to younger colleagues of mine, quickly burnout. So it was I felt bad because my later batches of students I felt that I wasn't giving them I wasn't there for them emotionally but then I said, You know what? It's fine. Don't like if you come to me with problems, I'll definitely help you because it's really the oath of a teacher. But if there is no need for me to actively chase you to ask you whether you're okay. Then I would rather protect myself and give my time to my my kids. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's like one of the

the biggest things teachers have to learn, right? Because we're always like torn between wanting to help everyone and then but also we need boundaries. To like my self preservation. I'm curious like what what drew drew you to teaching in the first place? Oh, desperation.

First Yeah, yeah, I mean,

my was interesting, because, I mean, I was doing the whole music thing when I was in uni, but I knew at the back of my head it wasn't. I wasn't that kind of person. We like musicians to suffer for the creative pursuit of music whenever I'm just like, No, I studied so hard. Let's get a job that rewards me Well, in that sense. And then so I knew that my music career was going to end at some point in time after I finished uni. So and then my mom, my mom started asking me here, what do you intend to do after uni? And I come from a family of teachers like there's so many teachers my family like my uncle's a teacher, my answer teacher, my cousins and teachers, my brother's a teacher. My sister in law said it. That career path was always lingering somewhere, you know? And then, one day I was going through my email and email by mov for the mov Teaching Award. And I was like, You know what this? I'm trying so I applied, and then I forgot about it. And suddenly like a few months later, we got back to me asking me for an interview. So I went long story short, they offered me like hey, Teaching Award for your last final year uni, you're gonna get a stipend. And it was pretty good money in that sense, you know? And I was just like, whoa, okay. I mean, I get, I get pocket money now. And when I graduate, I didn't have to worry about finding a job. So I was like, okay, and yeah, so that's how I became a teacher. I was in school, I decided at that point in time, whether I would like it or not. In fact, when I finally resigned and left service on my nit batchmates some of them texted me and I'm just like, you know, Mike was so surprised he lasted that long.

So for context, for our listeners who don't know NRT is like the teaching college for like we all have to go through and study and get a diploma before we start teaching in the public schools. So Oh, yeah, so I'm really bad at math. I didn't realize that so that part of your life where you know, so I'm going to read out her LinkedIn. Winner of 90 Chevron's next big thing in 2012 opening acts for various international artists such as voice Avenue and I can't pronounce his name was part of the initial lease, apprenticeship program, one best Singapore song and a new girl planet music 2011 So all that was during university there. Yeah. Oh, cool. This, I'm trying to think of how to phrase myself because I wish I had the same like, when I was in JC I was like, Oh, I wonder I want to study fine art. You know? I, I think I was a bit more idealistic than you were. I was at one become an artist, but I can afford to like go to art school anything. So I did that. That the whole teaching scholarship thing. So I'm curious how how you feel about being a creative in Singapore, because both of us kind of had to okay, but we have to do something practical. And let's put this aside. Right. How do you feel about being a creative example?

I empathize with the creatives who pursue it. As a career. Because in the five years that I was playing music,

it wasn't. I mean, it wasn't a career career. For me. It was just doing for fun. The uscca thing music was my CC

it's really hard to get money. The corporate gigs pay a lot. So everyone wants to go for the corporate gigs, but there's only a finite is a finite resource.

Everyone wants you

to pay for free exposure. And, but to me, playing music was a breath of fresh air. It gave me that space to just break out of the rat race that I was in, you know, like, in that's the value that that seems on writing get hit for me. So which is why me was that my therapy that I was going through, like, literally, some of the worst things in my life. I mean, for an 18 year old, so dramatic thing of it. No, not at all. But yeah, I was writing songs about it. So it was very it was like catharsis for me. So appreciate it. And you know, if if you feel better writing and for me music and get paid for it to me that's just a bonus. But as a newbie i 21 year old getting $200 For kick off this thing half an hour, it seems like oh my gosh, yay. But as you start to, you know, you're reaching the end. People start talking about internships. And you start to realize that oh, and then you know, your uni career talks will be like, Alright, here's the Salary Guide, and I'm just like, oh, okay, so reality starts to like, I wouldn't use the word crash, but it starts with someone says like, I Yeah, again, like I knew in the back of my mind that it wasn't something I was gonna push for full time. And I think it would have been so angry if so have you musician anyway. So, yeah, but again, I have so much respect like I know, people who, who still pursue it full time. Even some of my music friends are doing full time and the the, the most interesting part is how they managed to pivot the creative side to something that's so practical, that still allows them to be still in touch with for example, music. So I see people who play music when you are in your young, early 20s. But when it's time to get into a full time job, you're now doing a&r for a record company. And they still get to touch touch, touch base with music and it just find it so interesting, because I would never do that. Yeah. So do you feel that you

had you went through you sure that your reality was like looming when you know, you're on the cusp of graduating and they're like, start exploring a career option. So what was it like when you first left teaching, like by then so by then you already had kids, right? Like, yeah, yeah. Oh, it was so scary. It was so scary. The thing is teachers leaving service. It always comes up on Reddit threads, right? Oh my gosh, that service and here's my story and let me get some A's and normally, but I think there's something about COVID really does something to your your hidden people just like living by the true like throngs of teachers and even surveys, right. And I realize that as much as I'm scared, but again, if I don't try something new, so when I saw this, I was two years old. Think a lot of the times was don't teachers don't leave service because they know that the employment market the job market out there is not very forgiving. Because employers don't know what teachers can offer. So I knew that the longer I stayed, the more difficult it is gonna get, the more difficult it is for me to get out. So it's either I leave now or I'm going to be stuck there for probably being very angsty and happy teacher. But of course, with that comes

comes a lot of political life concentration, right? Like, oh, if I pivot to a new industry, that will mean that I will have to take a pay cut. That's my lifestyle. So allow me to take a peek at you know with teaching, I know a lot of teachers. They say that, Oh, I bring mocking home and all those kind of things. But I like to give myself credit that when I was teaching, I was very good at not bringing work home. I'm the sort of person where when I enter a situation I will analyze it and be like, Okay, how can I make this most efficient so that I don't have to do work? I mean, the crux of it is laziness, but

I'm just too lazy. Tiktok Yeah, so I think I may find to crack the code somewhere somehow in my, in my fourth year, fifth year of teaching, so it wasn't a situation where I was working extremely long hours. In fact, I was always like, okay, by 3pm I was more or less done. So I hit that space to kind of do my thing as well. So and so many. And I knew that if I were to leave that that will mean that I'll be working eight to five and it's not just day to day, right we're talking about holiday is December Are you okay with not having six weeks of break kind of thing. And so it's a huge lifestyle change in that sense. But I told my husband that we don't want let me just try this out. Because if I don't try then I will never know and also, the beautiful thing about teaching, especially when you're a gerund people teacher is that the demand is always there. Like, I hate to sound like I am taking this for granted, but I do know that if this PR writing whatever the journey that I'm on, right, it doesn't work out. I know that there will always be a place for me to go back to teaching, whether it's in the government schools, or whether it's in the shadow industry, if it's just tuition. Yeah, I'm not worried. So there's always that safety net, and it's nice. It's nice to have a safety net to be able to then explore and try new things. So yeah, so I just got myself like, let's just do it. This is when I threw in Manitoba, I was in a letter with an email. I was just like, it just my entire body is like just shut down from that box. Like all right any moment but yeah, yeah, I'm happy. I'm happy I did.

Was there so it sounded like you You were already being very like efficient with your workload and very assertive with your boundaries before you even left.

Was there like,

like, a turning point, you know, like a point of no return where you're like, Okay, I'm doing this and events that actually triggered the action, or it was just something else.

I think I think I was thinking about it, to be honest, and fake Yama. I was I was feeling very unsettled. And I thought that oh, maybe I've been too I spent too long in this school. Maybe it's a school thing, which is why I changed school. Right? So I was just like, maybe it's just a school thing or if I put in different environment. So it was like, oh, okay, let's go to a different different detox school in Singapore is a whole different ballgame. And then COVID happened. So like, all the things that we know about school activities, like it just went away, and then teaching became a new thing. Like it just felt I was starting from ground zero. So the fifth year mark was really feeling it. And then COVID happened and COVID was nice, because like, all the activities was killed. It was pretty chill. Cozy that the first two years that I was in RI raffles institution. I was cruising there my way when the government lifted all the bands, right, I think the bench was lifted almost overnight. So when they made the announcement, right, the next morning when it came to school, there was a big meeting, I remember and suddenly the principal was just like, Alright, let's go. And it just shifted gears overnight and also was going really well. So cch school events that that you will suddenly find myself in like so many meetings, for so many different things. And I was just like, Whoa, no easing into this. You just really, really cool 100% And I feel that it's not running I haven't ran for so long. Right? And you saw me start to go on to sprint you. It really takes a toll on you. I think to answer your question. The defining moment was when it was 2am. And because we are so busy, right so when things got busy naturally, you don't have time for marking, even though no matter how much I try not to bring work home your exam period is always marking. So it was to MOS in my dining room and was marking and it was a poor as poor handwriting. Oh, no. What's your

like, oh, so

it was a Friday night, you know, Friday night, and I just drew my opinions. It's like, do I really want to do this for the next 10 years of my life? You know, and the answer was pretty clear that I wasn't no. And I was just like, That's it. Let's explore. There's no dramatic turning point in some life event. I think it was just that I think it was like accumulation of the stresses and then this would have been it was mocking Yeah.

So when when you first left what were the the options you consider? Like do you like take a break first before even thinking about any of that? I knew that I wanted to

leave, but I knew that I didn't want to leave without a plan in place. So I was already on active job search. When I offered it to me. The next day I was like Alright, time to revisit my resume, you know, blew off the dust off the cobwebs.

Let's do all this and then let's do LinkedIn. And yeah, so I just I just applied to so many random things, you know,

marketing writing. I can't remember right now. Key R, I think mostly was a lot of writer jobs because I think it was a low hanging fruit for me in writing. Right? So it was a good thing. And I think after three months of like, just, I wasn't even actively looking at just like you know, LinkedIn this is your player this clip and then I remember it was a very I just any job that has that LinkedIn easy apply, I just apply. And then for it I applied for like almost 80 jobs and spend all that on one. And I think two months later, I receive a call. And they say that oh, we received your application on LinkedIn I was like, sorry, but which application which one? So it was the most understated so when the sending the link back to the job right was the most understated Job.

Job Description ever was very harsh, harsh, very secret, but it was fun to go through that and maybe do a writing interview. writing tests and a bunch of interviews again. And then you just like, Alright, we're gonna offer you a job. I was like, oh, oh, this is really happening. Oh, wow. I started panicking a bit because it like in my mind, it was always like, it's something I will do but I don't think it's gonna happen. So when there was an actual offer on the table, that was like, Alright, I need to make this decision. And yeah, it was that joke was like in politics. So my rationale was, I think it was German people. There's always a political element. So it was not something completely new. And it's writing and I'm a decent enough of a writer so why not? So again, spoke to my husband. I mean, it helped that the pay was pretty cushy. So I was like, Okay, this this make the job. So after I accepted that job, I think two days later, I threw in my letter. Well I know that you indicated there's no job interview right. So even back to your time in as a doing other singing songwriting you know, you you you had to market yourself right like you had to know how to market yourself. Do you think you could talk about how all of these things that came together like your experience your skills as a GP teacher and then promoting yourself as a creative how they tie into, you know, that like political communications role and then your current role? I think the part about so in terms of teaching, the skills that I got from teaching is not so much of the technical skills that are mentioned. I think it's really the transfer the soft skills, know how you speak to people. Even though you may not be an expert at the topic, you you. You've trained yourself enough to be like, let's do a quick glance. What's the best, most efficient way to learn as many things bought something within the shortest amount of time? So those things out and then in terms of my past experiences a creative so I mean, there was the writing part, I mean, the creative part but when you are independent musician back then you are your own spokesperson. You are your own PR person, you have to pitch to media, you have to do this you have to meet me you have to find interview. So I felt that my music experience allowed me to have like a 360 understanding of how the media play actually works. So when I joined the job,

so initially it was supposed to be a writer role, right? But then it slowly transited to become a general comms manager role. So I wasn't just doing writing I was I was doing strategic comms. I was planning for things you know how, like, here are the key messages. So how do we best present them which platform? So I thought that I mean, I haven't touched base with that skill set for almost eight years. But once I was pleased in that situation, and

the gears came shifting very quickly, so it wasn't like a fresh great starting for you don't I just told me that maybe a month to just ease into it. And then I was running back up again. So it was the transition was easy for me. Because of my past experiences. Which is also why ask me like if I have any advice for them posi levels because of especially for the girls right? You have a long break for uni starts, always tell them go do something crazy, you know, like don't don't do the boring internship when you want to do like to pursue like you like knitting, go set up your own home based business to do knitting. So I've got students, some of my experience, they set up their own home based nail salon. I'm like, fantastic. I'm so happy that you did that, you know, just for them to get a sense of what it is to interact with people outside their social circle. And I always tell them that feeling uncomfortable is growth. And it's important for I think it's life changing for an 18 year old, just fresh out of like 12 years of compulsory education to be feeling that way.

And especially for the raffles kids, right, like a lot of them wants to be doctors want to be lawyers, and honestly I think especially the doctors I told them, I don't have I have no doubt that your intellectual capabilities are there. However for some of you I doubt your EQ some you'd like to go out there, talk to people outside of your social circle, and that's how you can be a good doctor because really, like you've been to GPS or general practitioners where their EQ is terrible, right? And I'm just like, Oh, you don't have a teacher like me back then. I see. Yeah, and they bring up

this really good point about how I remember when I first left. I was not going to have as much of a plan as you I just knew, I just want it to be done. Yeah, and I was seriously procrastinated, even exploring my options. I was just drawing every day and I was like, in denial of everything. Because I really believed I had nothing else to offer you. But you're like, as you said, on the job, like your first job teaching you're drawing not just from your teaching experience. But even things from long ago they will consider to be relevant to the next stage of our careers can come back into play. I'm just saying this to like, maybe give some courage to whoever's listening and Withings, who maybe was like, as low as I was like that and thought that there's nothing else that we can do like, you know, going all the way back to is that he does experience you know, as a musician and having to promote herself and then using that in a political communications role, right that's that's incredible. About like your, your current role, how how did you come across it and like, what was it that you do right now?

So I do public relations for a tech startup. It's a Singapore company, but

its main markets are not in Singapore. It's actually a pretty global company. That the challenge here is that it's a tech product. Right. But how do we then humanize the tech product? Because I cannot keep you know, it's like an iPhone nine. It's a tech product but what why do people resonate so much with an iPhone, you know, so I think I enjoy what I'm doing right now. It's because it's a new challenge. Where like, how do I how do I make something so cold? Become relatable anyway? The key messages especially a startup is all about profits and revenue and from consumer perspective, and especially if the business objective is to get new people to download your stuff. It's they need to resonate with the values they need to resonate with the story and as much as people want to sell the product. And the other part of this is how do we craft angles, you know, for the consumer. So like my role is to deal with the media coughing pitching stories to the tech media show they are interested in all the text boring stuff I find boring.

But the other aspect of my job is also how do I craft a story of seemingly cool product? So that's when that's where I get to stretch my creative muscles a bit. And yeah, so i really i i draw inspiration from I was just telling my teammates I draw a lot of inspiration from Kpop like the industry not much on the song because I find that as an industry Kpop is so fascinating. Like how the rise of Kpop is so interesting to me. And yeah, so I I do a deep dive and I'm just like Okay, let's try to adopt this into here. Let's try to adopt this and today. Yeah, it's been fun. So cool.

I don't know if you mentioned this before we hit record or after. You know, you said that you were really pleasantly surprised to get this roll in action imposter syndrome. But if you finish it, you know what I'm talking about. I don't know anything about public relations.

You know, so,

I don't know what you mean by imposter syndrome. Like do you want to like walk us through that? Experience of applying and then

my imposter syndrome is really more because when I came in, I only think you have two years of comms experience. Like if you look at my CV, but then I came in as an assistant manager. So I'm already expected to lead the team. But then, so when, across my organization, the marketing comms team is pretty flat. So everyone can come to each other. We are helping each other out on projects. So I have like the younger executives coming in it, how do I do this and in my mind, I'm just like, Girl, I don't know either. GPT I don't know. And then it's moments like that when they come ask me for like help or solutions. And I'm just like, I'll get back to you. And then I'm like, on Google. They tried to make some sense and that's where my transferable skills for being a teacher because like, sometimes when you're putting this point in class when they ask you questions, yes, you just have to think something on the spot. And just like, yeah, give me five minutes. Yeah. So it's all making that mental connection from the information and yeah, so the, the imposter syndrome. Is the end in my field that sometimes my boss, my head thinks too highly of me because you roped me into all these like big meetings with different stakeholders. And I'm just like, why am I here? Like, why? Why do you see the need for me to be here? Because I have no idea and half of the jargons that you're using, but I'm just like, yeah, and had to say googling. So the imposter syndrome can come quite jarring me in that thing. But that's not to say I don't know what I'm doing, but it's just that there are certain things certain situations where it happens. How so how do you

like how do you move on from like the political comms role to like this role? Like what was the job search and like the interview, like? I think

with my job, I remember having this conversation, my ex boss saying that, hey, you know, I want to learn as much as I can within the shortest period of time. So you need to throw me into the deep end of the ocean, I will struggle like crazy, but I will make it out alive. So he really did just that. Like he was just like you say wanna like Project social media or it's like what is going on? So the learning curve was really steep, but those opportunities it also made me realize what I want and what I didn't want from my comScore. And as glamorous as Olivia Pope makes up political comes to be reality. Singapore is very, very far, far away from sorry. So tell us is like, I appreciate the opportunities, but I think it's time for me to explore a different space while the same kind of thing so then this This job came around. In fact, in my current organization, I didn't even apply for this position. I applied for social media because that was something closer to what I was doing in my previous job. But then, you know, I went through three rounds of interview I had checked in my current boss, and she was like, You know what, I think you might be suitable. For public relations. And I was just like, Oh, thank you. Okay. And now I went back home on like, what is public?

So, I was like, Okay, let me try to find out more about it. And I think it was just happenstance where during the period where I was like, trying to figure out what public relations is, I think I came across this thick top. I think it was the time where Joe Jordan's was going through his divorce with Sophie Turner, and I came across this account of this PR expert and she was helping viewers this, which is a PR plea, what is authentic, what we should look out for in press releases, and I was like, Oh, this is so cool. So I was Yeah, I think tick tock for giving you a bit more of enlightenment about what PR is about. I mean, of course I don't work in that space. But it it really allows me to see to look at things from a more critical lens in that sense.

So I always ask this question, because like, I don't have kids. I don't always feel like I have any authority or give someone advice on quitting a job. When I don't have kids. I always if I find out someone's a parent, like how did you do it? You know, like, do you have, you know, how do you manage the whole career transition and like pivoting, getting used to a new role while parenting two kids?

I think this is this job switch as much as it's a personal decision. I think for me, me and my husband, look at it as okay, this is a family decision. Right? So we came to the conclusion that for the next couple of years of our family life, he's going to give me the space to explore. And he's going to stay on his job. So at least, is that he constantly said requirements. And so even if there's like some sort of variation, in this case, the variation in me, at least for my kids, there's a lot, a lot of stability in other aspects of your life. So I think that really helped. That my husband gave me the space to explore, you know, it will be a different thing where

I probably wouldn't have quit my job if my husband had somehow indicated that he's going to switch jobs because then the stability gone. Can I have two unstable parents in a professional professional trend? So things are coming keeping. And I think it's help that my kids when I mean, they're not being easier? preschoolers. So this isn't level of independence already. And what I struggle most is now having to tell them what I actually do for a living. Because so easy to say that I'm a teacher, right? He got it. And it was especially concrete. Number one, because for the first half of his life, he knew that his mom was a teacher. So now that I can like for me now when you ask me actually, what do you do? You know what I don't know either.

So, with my kids, when they ask me what I do, and I just say, Oh, I write I'm a writer. So that it helps them to in their own little minds to kind of understand a little bit about what I do. And the struggle a bit with my working hours as well because my husband works in a school setting as opposed to not a teacher but he so during holidays is at home at home. In fact, my husband made the pivot to join a school setting because of me. We were like me enjoy the two years. Of like, oh my gosh, it was great. You know, it was it was so fun. But no when I left like that, that familiarity also kind of got broken right in the past is actually only over your working hours at home with us. But then you have to work and then you come back home and you reach home at around 645 Seven, because of my car and you're in your 20s and they will have dinner the three of them will have dinner together and then I'll have dinner on my own and then they will ask difficult questions that how can you don't eat dinner with us? So I that's where my struggle is when it comes to with this change of jobs and trying to help them understand that it's just different. People have different types of jobs.

I think it's so cute. How you have to like contextualize what you do for them because they're

like sometimes I will have to take meetings that when I work from home, I have to take meetings right in my previous job whenever there are like Parliament sessions, so I have to like watch the entire like nine hours. And then so sometimes we will do it at home. And I remember this very clearly. So forming a heated discussion was happening in Parliament and my kid came to the room and my kid was just like, why is he so angry? I'm just like

oh, that's adorable. I know it's late in your office where you are so I don't want to hold you back for for any longer. You should go home to your kids. Do you have any advice for anyone in teaching who's like on the fence? You know, and not sure what to do next? Any anything that you would share to get them off the fence?

It was a funny I when when I left teaching right i mean it. I had a social media post. Just explain to everyone that I left the number of DMS that I got from the teachers asking me why and hung in there. Like whoa, you're so brave was so many so I've got like friends or friends. They're not even following me but it just happened to find out that I left. So I was having so many private conversations on Instagram and vote when they go I show you so brief. I want to do this. I've been thinking for the longest time. And my response is always the same. I'm just like, you need to think of your personal circumstances. So when I have discussions if like always convincing them is Are you married? And do you have people depending on you? Yeah. Because if you do it complicates things a lot, then I cannot just give you advice and Jesse quit, you know, and then there'll be irresponsible of me to say that. But when I found out that, oh, you're single and you don't have any dependents, I'm saying go quit, go exploitable. Oh, you don't like why not? But when it's teachers who are moms with teachers who are caregivers, then it my advice to them is just weigh the pros and cons. Sometimes it's really not worth it also. I mean, it's not as easy. I mean, yes, people will always pin out leaving teaching to be all like, oh, the grass is greener. Yeah, I'm so happy but I also know people who are suffering after leaving teaching, you know, and I always say that actually a good litmus test to see if the nonteaching work is for them is to actually go for the work attachments program. We as well the attachment program, I'm just like, oh, go for it. Spend I mean like spend your three weeks of June holidays working in different companies see whether it resonates with you and if it doesn't, then maybe just stay in, try to change the conditions of your teaching life when you change school. Ask for a different portfolio. You know, there's many, many different ways around this. And I think even I mean let's face it, once you do it for more than five years, again, autopilot sense of comfort. Even when suddenly the school asks you to change CCE you will always be meeting some some form of pushback, right? And so you need to judge and assess yourself. If just change your CC already makes you so upset. What makes you think the entire job change what made you happy? You know, because it's 180 change from your current life. So I told them like to see whether it's worth it. And the reality check is that you will be you have to be ready to take a pay cut. Does your financial circumstances allow you to do that? You haven't seen it for that. And it's very important because

like right now I'm in the process of hiring. I've gotten a few a few applications from teachers and the job that you're hiring now is a key for executives. So you know, executives are usually for fresh grads, like a certain key skill, right? And then this teachers wanting new careers because they're asking for the moon and I'm just like, you also need to do your research like you know you cannot be very realistic about such things. So it's all about managing your expectations. If you're not willing to, to make that lifestyle change, whether it's in terms of the nature of the job, your working hours, or really the pay that you need, then you might be better off just thing as a teacher just in a different bandwidth or capacity. Yeah, yeah, for sure. That's, that's super nuanced. Thanks for sharing that. Well, so I know it's super late in Singapore. What's the best way you know anyone? Can missionary who anyone who's listening can connect with you online. You can reach out to me on LinkedIn. Sure.

I mean, the nature of my job is all the time. But if you want to have like a friendly conversation with me, then just drop me a DM on IG. I may respond late because I'm so busy at work, but I'll definitely respond and I love to have private conversations about people and the circumstances. I mean, sometimes I do feel that since I left teaching, I become some sort of a life coach. With different people access it since the shadow career that was meant for me.

But yeah, it's nice to be able to talk to people and it doesn't have to be teachers thinking about makers, which was love I think in general I've been lucky enough to be surrounded by a social circle that gives me a lot of insight into the hiring process into how the corporate life is like and they give me good advice and I think I am in a better position. To now. People want to make careers which was a bit more advice and bit more clarity to us about your wants and your needs and your purpose for even wanting to switch careers in the first place. So I'll drop the links to the HEDIS LinkedIn and Instagram in this post. Thank you so much for the office to talk to us. It was delayed by like a month. It's okay I hope you're feeling better from from COVID by the way. November was such a bad month for me I was sick for like three weeks or something. I'll say hi to your kids and your family for me and have a great weekend. Take care. You too. Thank you. Bye