Storytime and thoughts
—-Sharing and organizing my thoughts a bit…
It’s been almost a year since I lost my job.
I was working as a finance production support specialist at Nomura Securities. I worked there for about 2 years since July 2020. I definitely learned and matured a lot. To me, it was a really good job. And I can confidently say that I was good at it. I worked well with the team. I worked well with my direct managers. If nothing happened, I would probably still be there.
It was unfortunate that I was not a permanent employee there. Instead, I was a dispatch/contracted consultant through a Chinese company. And the funny thing was I wasn’t directly contracted with that Chinese company either. For me it was: me -> dispatch company one -> dispatch company two -> Nomura. I wasn’t the only one, and from my understanding, there were quite a few of us in similar situation or worse. One of my colleagues had 3 “middlemen” and got paid even less.
The salary was okay, but definitely not enough with some questionable ethics in payroll. For those of us who were contracted through the Chinese company, our salary ranged from 200k to 350k yen a month. I was on the higher end of it at around 300k a month. But no overtime~ I had a small grudge against this. I had over 400 hours of overtime in 2021. Hey, that’s like working a couple of extra months for free.
(I found out from a friend that our salary was actually way less than it’s supposed to be… And from one of the job applications later, I found out that through an American dispatch company working the same position actually pays more than double.
So in short, Chinese dispatch companies take about 60-80% commission and American dispatch companies take about 20%.)
Back to the story: I think it was around March 2022. China-Japan relation was becoming tense. Nomura also had a new higher management and some restructuring. And the higher management decided that Chinese companies shouldn’t be touching the production data anymore. So all production support from Chinese-affiliated companies was getting laid off or moved to development. (Everyone in the industry knows how stupid it was. But you know, corporate.)
I was in shock and had to start looking into the next step. First, I looked into becoming a permanent employee. But it turns out the Chinese company had a no-compete clause in the contract with Nomura, so I couldn’t be hired directly within 6 months. I found out that it was actually illegal in Japan to do that, but eventually, HR didn’t want to risk it… Regardless, I am thankful that my managers really fought for me on that.
My next choice was to continue working through the Chinese company at Nomura, but in dev elsewhere. It took me quite a while, but I decided that I didn’t want to be affiliated with that company anymore. Yes, it would have been a somewhat stable income. And yes, I would be diving into the unknown for turning it down (two opportunities, actually).
But outside of my little grudge on the high commission and no overtime pay, what eventually got me to my decision was the feeling of hopelessness at a dead-end job. There’s no way of raise, promotion, or even personal growth. We were exploited and we couldn’t do anything about it. I looked at one of my dispatched coworkers who has been there for about a decade and is still at the exact same place. I didn’t want to be like that.
Also, it was honestly really demotivating when I found out how much more my coworkers were getting paid, even though I was doing most of the work. (it was a 5+ million yen difference) And I had to train the replacement team (who definitely lied and some barely know computers!?).
So then, I was on my own.
I started looking for jobs in fintech and some entry-level developer positions in different industries. From May 2022 to now - May 2023, I applied for around 60-80 jobs. I think if I had better luck or just gave in on standard a bit, I might be working now.
This happened three times: a big company took its time processing my application. Everything looked promising even with promising words from the hiring managers. A small company gave me an offer to start immediately. I decided to wait for the big company and turned down the small company… Somehow, big companies didn’t work out. (the first time, a regional manager decided to bring in someone from overseas; the second and third times, the company had a budget issue and closed/canceled the position.)
… then time was gone. We are here now.
To be honest, after all that, I am mentally exhausted, I am a bit lost, and I am not sure what I am doing.
I didn’t waste all my time away. I studied Japanese, some programming languages, and AWS. My Japanese isn’t quite good enough yet but has definitely gotten better. I got AWS Cloud Practitioner certified. I got familiar with some newer front-end languages.
Right now, I am still waiting on one big company, but I’ve also applied to a bunch of random jobs. Have a few interviews lined up…
“What am I doing though?” I wonder to myself every other day lately.
…
A few things I learned in the past year:
Sometimes, it really is just luck. It’s not a fair world where people start on the same line or where the same amount of work has the same output. No matter how much effort and hard work I put in, whether things work out or not might just be luck.
Work is just work. Business is just business. At the end of the day, there are more important things in life.
Since my 20s, I’ve struggled with balancing between idealistic dreams and realistic work. I followed my passion to different places and various different jobs. But realistically, most people on this earth will not be able to achieve their dreams.
Motivational speakers or people who’ve made it like to say “follow your passion” or “if you work hard enough, you will make it.” But the reality is people don’t hear from the ones who gave it their all and failed. The reality is sometimes there are things in life that pull us away from chasing our dreams and passion.
I think for a lot of us. Having to worry about food on the table is enough to drag us away from chasing our passion. And caring for loved ones can take quite a bit too.
It’s a privilege to be able to chase dreams.I’ve heard this since I was little: You can’t buy everything with money, but you can’t do anything without it. I think I am feeling it so much more now.
…
What do I want to do? What’s stopping me? What can I do?
After so many years, I am not quite sure exactly where my passion is anymore. But there is something that I want to do - tell stories. Whether through books, videos, games or other media, there are several stories I want to tell.
What’s stopping me is the reality of money. What I want to do can’t put food on the table. While being in Japan on a work visa and without native-level Japanese, I have few choices in ways to make money. I sometimes think about going back to Taiwan, so I can work whatever job and find time to work on my own passion. But I also want to have enough money to provide and bring my parents on trips they never get to go on because they’ve sacrificed so much.
What can I do? I have to find a job first. Money saved up. Then maybe I can find time to work on whatever I want to work on.
I just hope I won’t be too old before I get to work on anything.
…
I don’t have the time and energy to work on any big projects right now. But I have a couple of small projects in mind…
Hope I can get to them…
Good luck.
