Work

     Hi. Rihanna once quoted "Work. Work. Work." I'm not sure what is the aim for this music but let me walk you through a life of working. I've been working in the semiconductor industry for like 3 plus years now. 3+ years is a small time for a working life. So I can only tell you a perspective of working as a freshman. Some of you will say that 3+ years are not freshman anymore. Well let me tell you, it depends on how you see this. 3 years for me is still not experienced enough to talk about stuff but I'll try to write things based on my perspective. Not like some people who worked for like 10 years plus. This is a 3 plus years experience working is going to tell you shit whether it is bullshit or not, it's up to you to decide. If you agree, just nod silently, if you don't agree, try write in the comments and I can look based on your perspectives.

    Now let's start. As I just wrote up there, I've been in a semicondutor industry for 3+ years now. 3 years in a company in Malaysia called Silterra Malaysia Sdn. Bhd. It's a semiconductor wafer fabrication foundry based in Kulim, Kedah. A small high technology park in Kulim. I was in a team for process engineering for etch. The team is more towards development rather than line sustaining team. If you guys work in a semiconductor industry, then you'll know it's hell to work in development area. On top of that, in an etch process area but somehow I managed. Previously I had a colleague named Izzatul. She's a happy go lucky kind of friend. We developed our knowledge in etch process together since from our first boss, Mr. Won (korean fella) and we used that knowledge when we were transferred to a new boss. So it's kind of hard when before that if we're facing a problem, we could just refer to Mr. Won. Once it's the new boss taken over, an issue arrived and he referred back to us. It's hard for us but somehow we managed. If you're working in this industry, you gotta learn how to catch up quick. Like seriously fast. Nobody is waiting on you to like understand what's happening. You also might need a good supervisor to help you out. Ask questions if needed, nobody gonna blame you for lacking of knowledge but they will blame you if you don't know shit and not finding the answer.

    Working in Silterra really put me in a tough spots for a few months. I was depressed for a good few months back then. Loads of work, little of time but I got a good team back then. Everyone was supporting each other's back. COVID man. COVID is the single worst thing happened in work life. It puts me in a spot where work is going and because of COVID, I can't do much. Had to work from home whereas my work usually is inside the fab (production site for semiconductor wafers). Had to build up a communication skills in order for me to tell the people who's in fab at that moment how to use the tools (process machines, semicon people call them tools, don't ask me why). It was so frustrating during COVID. I woke up every single day and just straight to my laptop. Because of working from home, my boss expected me to be on my toes with the work stuff 24-7. At that point, I was still learning process. I was still in the point where an issue came up and I couldn't yet came with an answer on how to solve them.

    After COVID, people started working as normally again. At that point, I was working my ass off to catch up back with what I missed. Slowly step by step I started to understand the process more clearly. End of 2020, my Korean boss left Malaysia to go back home to his family in Korea. I was transferred to another boss. He expected me to fully understand the project that I had worked on. It was a pain in the ass because every time in a meeting room, when an issue came up, he expected me and Izzatul would knew what is what, how to tackle the issue and sort. We were learning ourselves though. When we couldn't came up with an answer, he would just go "What did you learn all those times working in the project?" For fuck sake, we were still learning. Sometime in the middle of 2021, I would avoid going meetings with him, I would avoid having a discussion with him because I knew that, he would just pointing fingers and blame us. He noticed my actions and came up to me and started to threaten me to call up with HR. I was mad. I was enraged by the threats and I just said, yeah call the HR, the top bosses or whoever he wanted to call. We could have a "friendly" discussion with them. He noticed my anger and we sat down and talked without any pointing fingers and all that. Somehow, he understood what I was going through and yet he still pushed me to my limits. I asked him why and he answered (in Malay of course but I'm translating to English cause my posts in English), "I wanted you to be the best process engineer in a the industry. It is tough but you can tell me when I'm pushing you too hard." At that moment, I could understand him that he did all those things just to get the best engineer out of me. It's shitty way to do it but I can see the results. I was on top of my game at the time. I can answer in the meeting room, I can do data analysis more clearly, I understand the whole project more clearly. (on Etch process side) After that day, he would be less of an bossy boss, and more of a leader at that point. This whole rage story had broke out though, the whole team knew about it.

    Jump towards the end of the year, I was doing great in the company. No more pressure from the boss, only the pressure from my workload. Tons on my plate and such little of time to complete them all. Also, if I completed one task, another one would come in. It's like never ending tasks but I was doing fine. My team was the best team that I could've ever asked for. They helped me when I'm out of hand but then... one of team mate, Hazwan, he resigned from the job and got another one at a company called SPTS. A service engineer, better pay and better experience for him. He was and is still my friend. We're still in contact though. Previously, if I had a quarrel with my boss, I would go to him for advices or just releasing my stress. When he resigned, two things that happened to me, first thing was that I felt like I lost a friend to hang out during the day, and second thing was that, when he resigned, all of his projects that he looked after, got dropped on my plate as well and let me tell you. I'm fucked at that point. I got too many projects at that point. I'm super busy that I had to work overtime most of the days. My boss requested for a replacement for Hazwan's empty vacancy but the company was just sitting on their ass and said that the projects were still manageable by me. They didn't know a damn thing how manageable I am at that point. Sometimes, I would still answer calls from the company during the weekends. Izzatul would helped me wherever she could for one of my projects. Another colleague of mine, Farah, she would helped me with another project. They knew that I was tied up with fab works and meetings.

    May 2021. The month that I got married to my wife who is very supporting in my work as she knows that I was super busy at work but she understands. Sometimes I felt sad for her because I would leave her by herself alone in the house at night to go back to office if something came up but she never said anything about it. She would just smile and said, "You do what you got to do." Sometime later, I spoke to my boss about this and he understood. He told me to ask somebody else if I'm not be able to do extra work outside of working time. Sometimes I would just get help from Izzatul or Farah for the emergency work stuff, unless if they can't do it by themselves. Then, I would attend to the matters. Sometime they would call me when I'm on the toilet. The funny thing is that most of the time they called me, I would be on the toilet performing bowel movement.

    However, although I'm super busy all the time but I was independent by that point to do work. I can managed most of the stuff by myself like going to a meeting with the bosses or making a decision on how to solve or handle stuff or even I could decide when is the deadline for tasks. I was doing okay at that time but one day, one fateful day, I was at the smoking area playing my phone as I was waiting for Chin (my friend) to come by before lunch. We always waited one another at the smoking area before going to lunch. I was playing my phone and a Linkedin message notification popped up. It was a HR guy from Analog Devices in Ireland contacted me. He asked me if he could schedule a meeting for us to have a discussion on a job offer. I thought, hey what am I going to lose for a meeting, right? I agreed and he scheduled it that night 9pm, Malaysia time and it was 1pm, Ireland time.

    The meeting gone well. Everything was good and he invited me for another meeting the next following week. I agreed. On the 23rd of August 2022, I got the job to work in Ireland as a process engineer (in etch as well). I was happy at that moment but it was a huge decision to be made and it's not just me that can make that decision. I have to get a cumulative agreement first from my wife, her family and my family as well. I told her to contact her parents while I contacted mine to discuss about this and long story short, you know how it goes. We're in Ireland. I'll continue again with the story next time. This is a long post now. I'll write again for the continuation for this story.