It’s about time to share another story of my life.. another step of my long journey. Last time I would always write it in Bahasa Indonesia. But this time, I feel like sharing the story with my English speaking friends as well. So I think I’ll need to think harder and spend more of my time to write in English.

Let start the story and look back to the time when I was retrenched. For anyone who never knew about this.. Yes.. I was retrenched by my previous employer. In the other words.. I was ‘fired’. My outlet was closed down, and other two outlets too.. six became three. Economic was bad.. and a foreigner like me was always in the best position to be laid off. No matter what the reason was, and whatever nice term to say that, it’s just the same meaning for me.. “fired”. It was April 2009, and I started my job there in April 2008. One year.. not so bad? I asked my operational manager whether I could keep my S Pass (work pass) so I would still be allowed to stay in Singapore to find a new job. Unfortunately he said no, and my pass had to be canceled soon. I didn’t blame him for doing so, because it’s in fact against the law if I still held the pass while I was no longer working.

The only thing I could do was going back to Jakarta, and considered that as a holiday trip. I was not retrenched alone.. Another more than fifteen employees were laid off together with me. Some of them had planned to travel to Indonesia for holiday in early May. They’ve bought the flight ticket before they knew about the retrenchment. To think positively, we had extra money for the vacation from the Notice Pay and Severance Pay, “thanks” to the retrenchment. So I spent around ten days in Indonesia before I came back to Singapore to start everything all over again, tried to find a new job.

One month passed, and I had not found any job yet. I couldn’t even get enough chance for interviews. There were some short interview calls that never went any further because of the fact that I wasn’t a Singaporean nor Singapore PR holder. Economic situation was indeed bad compared to last year. In my first month job hunting last year, I could get five interviews whereas this year I only got one interview, at Yoshinoya. But it’s just a start. I never expected to get a job in the first month. All I needed to do was to extend my social visit pass so I could stay here for another two months and continue finding a job.. and that was what I did.

Time flew so fast.. very fast! And apparently the so called luck wasn’t really on my side. Three months.. over hundred resumes sent.. less than one hand fingers of interviews in result. I had one interview at TCC which was quite a good interview actually.. but I had to (again..) facing the fact that they preferred locals than foreigners. Few weeks before my time was up, I got another promising interview.. this time at Thai Accent. Again.. same problem.. they didn’t have enough quota for S Pass. The good thing was.. they would open a new restaurant in October. The manager who interviewed me asked me to wait until the new restaurant opened and they would have more quota for S Pass. He said that he would contact me if they got the quota, and told me that I could still try to find another job while waiting. So I kept looking for another job, and started my move with ‘plan B’. The plan B was.. back to school.

I searched through internet to find a school that would be able to ‘upgrade’ my qualification. I don’t have a bachelor degree with me. In my other story (in bahasa) last year, I ever shared how that degree ‘paper’ was very important to find a job in Singapore. So that’s the plan.. if I couldn’t find a job then I would try to find a school. My search for the school led me to EASB. I spoke to the school consultant about my intention to take a bachelor degree in Casino Management. At first he told me that with only a diploma as highest education on my hand, I had to start from Advance Diploma before taking Bachelor program. But I insisted that I wouldn’t go any lower than a Bachelor degree because I held a 3 Years Diploma and had several years of working experience. After saw through all my ‘papers’.. all the certifications and reference letters, he said that I could even try to apply for Master program and skip the Bachelor. I was very glad to hear that. But I still had to wait for the decision from EASB academic department before I could do the admission. The consultant said that he would try to submit my documents for MBA, and if it’s not possible for me to take the MBA program then he would submit it for Bachelor degree.

My time was really up. I had no more interview call after that and I didn’t know why it took so long for the school to make a decision for my application. I gave up and bought a flight ticket to go back to Jakarta. I would like to stay and keep on trying, but my visit pass couldn’t be extended anymore. Two days before my departing date, the manager from Thai Accent called me. He said that he would try to apply EP for me instead of S Pass and asked me to submit all my documents on the following day. On the same day, the consultant from EASB called and told me their academic department said that I could go for the MBA program. So on the next day, just one day before I left Singapore, I submitted my documents to Thai Accent and did my admission at EASB.

I flew back to Jakarta with two new hopes inside my mind.. work and study. Ok friends.. I admit it now.. To some of my friends at Jakarta whom I never told that I ever back for two times in this few months.. I’m sorry about it. I just didn’t feel like seeing or talking to too many people during my ‘down time’. I came back to Singapore after ten days. Now it’s the turn to say sorry to my Singaporean friends because I didn’t tell you all that I came back here. Same reason.. I didn’t feel like seeing or talking to too many people during my ‘down time’. I even made myself “disappeared” from cyber world like MSN, Yahoo Messeger, and Facebook just to avoid all those questions like where are you, what are you doing now, how are you, and all those other similar questions. I let some people to always know about my ‘existence’ though.. those people that I knew they really care.. (you know who you are).

First thing I did in Singapore was calling the manager of Thai Accent, asking about my EP application progress. Bad news.. it was rejected. Reason? Education! My diploma wasn’t qualified for EP, it didn’t meet the EP requirement which needed a minimum of Bachelor degree. Time to check my plan B. I called EASB to ask about my admission progress. The school consultant asked me to wait longer because they didn’t receive the result from UK yet. All the final decision would come from UK because my admission was for external degree awarded by UWIC, UK. While waiting for the result, I continued to do job hunting and spreading my resumes everywhere possible.

After more than one week, I got a news that my admission was approved by UWIC. Next issue.. payment. We all know there isn’t such thing as ‘cheap’ for MBA.. and I’m not that rich. But I was quite ready for that with some payment alternatives. My choice went to Citibank Education Loan. That’s the only bank I found here that provide education loan for foreigners.. of course with some terms and conditions. One of the requirement was letter of acceptance from the school. So I called the consultant to ask for it.. and unfortunately he said it wasn’t ready yet.. and it needed some more time to make it ready. After another week, he called me with the news that UWIC suddenly had some concerns about my English because I didn’t take any English test. I indeed didn’t take it because the consultant said I was exempted for that test due to my working experiences outside Indonesia included Singapore. All I could do was just another wait for the outcome.

Third week.. and as always.. my visit pass only valid for 30 days. I had to extend my visit pass again, so I applied for the extension. Then I received one call for interview from Prata Wala at Jurong Point (they don’t have website and I can’t find any full review of it to put here as link). The interview was pretty good as well, but again.. as always.. I had to wait for the result. Then came another bad news.. my application for extending my visit pass was rejected. It shocked me to the core.. I never expected at all that it could be rejected. What now!?! Then I decided and planned to just make a short trip to Batam to renew my visit pass.

Finally I heard a good news from EASB, my letter of acceptance was ready. My admission was in principle approved but I need to take an English test provided by EASB. Problem settled? Case closed? Not yet! The school administrator said they would do the application for my student pass, but there’s no assurance that it would be approved. It meant I still had to hold the application for education loan until my student pass approved.

On the day I had to leave Singapore and make a short trip to Batam, I had one interview at Makansutra. This interview was very promising. I had a one-hour interview with the director. The last words I heard at the end of the interview were actually very common words to be said by anyone at anytime but that was the first time I heard those words spoken by an interviewer at first interview.. “See you again!” After that interview, I straightway went to Harbourfront and took ferry to Batam. I stayed one night at my friend’s house and came back to Singapore on the next day.

Wednesday, September 23, I did the English test at EASB and fortunately I passed the test. Thursday, September 24, I had a second interview with the manager at Makansutra. Friday, September 25, the director called me to inform that they would like to hire me and apply for my S Pass. Monday, September 28, I submitted all my documents to Makansutra for S Pass application purpose. I was very grateful with this, but on the other hand it evoked another worry and dilemma inside my mind. I was afraid that submitting student pass and S Pass application at the same time would cause a bad result.. yet, I didn’t want to withdraw any of the applications. I could only wish for the best to come. On the same day in evening time, Prata Wala called me and asked whether I was still interested to work with them. I told them that I had found another job. Maybe it’s still fine to apply student pass and S Pass at the same time.. but I think it wouldn’t be a good idea to let two companies applying S Pass for me at the same time.

Tuesday, October 6, one big news.. my student pass was rejected. Reason? According to the school administrator, for foreigners who held a work pass before, if they apply for a student pass within one year after cancellation of the work pass.. the application will have a big chance to be rejected. He said I could appeal and normally it would be approved if I could provide some supporting documents which related with financial. It would be around SG$30,000 in saving account and monthly salary not less than SG$10,000 of local/PR sponsor (in my case, my brother). Note that I couldn’t find the official source for this, so it’s only based on experience of the school administrator. I was a bit down with this rejection. I nearly had a complete set of rejections.. EP.. extension of visit pass.. and now student pass. There was only one hope left and I really wished I would never have a total complete set of rejections including the S Pass.

Thursday, October 8, Makansutra called… my S Pass was approved.. Yes.. it was approved! I felt a big relief.. I can stay here in Singapore and I will start my work on Monday, October 11, 2009. Makansutra.. did anyone of you ever hear about this name? Let me tell you what their business concentrate on.. hawker center food! Yea.. but check their website first before you make any comments in your mind (I’m quite sure nobody will say it out loud to me even though some of you might look down on this job). And if after reading the website you still have the same feeling.. then too bad.. You might not be proud of the fact that your friend is “only” working in hawker center environment now. But frankly, I can say I’m quite proud that I can get this job and believe me.. it is not just because at least I can find a job.

Looking back to what I’d been going through, it was totally not me who decided which one to choose so I could stay and make a living here in Singapore. There was one Power somewhere out there that always directed everything in my life. And I still believe that I was always led to the best direction.. until now. For some reasons, if I had a chance to choose.. I would still choose Makansutra to be my future employer. In my consideration of many aspects, it’s the best among the other choices. I believe it’s even better than my previous job and I’m quite confident that I can have a good future there. But then again.. it is not totally up to me to decide what will happen next in my life. If the Power bring me to other direction then so be it. My next plan now is to work my plan B.. to advance my level of education.. together with my job. Most probably, I will start my part time study for MBA at EASB in January 2010.. again.. if the Power out there allow me to do so.

It’s been five months since the last day I worked at my previous job. I brake my own records on job hunting period. This was the first time I was unemployed for more than three months. I wish I will never break this record ever again. I was so down these past five months.. but I am very thankful that I was never really alone. Thank you and You.. you know who you are and Whoever You are.. for always being there for me when I was “dead” and for helping me to make this happen.