p/s I know it is broken because the other morning, I used my ezlink card to tap myself into office. For a moment, I was wondering how come this is not working? Then I realised with shock I had used the wrong card. This has never happened to me in my entire working career; which led me to conclude that my mind is so exhausted, it has stopped functioning properly. In addition, I am starting to repeat myself and stop in mid-sentence not quite remembering what I had said earlier.

It pains me to resign from JPMorgan; I still remember the good days when I was offered a temp position after graduation and at $6.50/hour (before CPF) - it was like a big break for me. June 20, 2005 was an exciting day for me; I knew I had my foot in the door and I will make my opportunity good in JPMorgan and prove myself.

My plan sort of worked out; although the temp to perm conversion took longer than I anticipated. Luckily, I had a good manager in CDG who valued my work and saw the potential in me. I know she fought hard for my permanent headcount and for her hard work; I am willing to give it my all for her. Unfortunately, she left the bank shortly after I became permanent and it took 10 months to find her replacement.

I transfered to another job function within Credit Risk Management Operations as a fresh start to my 1.5 years in CDG. Decided that I needed to move beyond the documentation space and learn more about banking products and systems. It was hell of a move; I never did such long hours (7 a.m. - 7 p.m. and then back home for dinner and continue again from 9 p.m. to 11 p.m. I had to work on the weekends too to catch up with work). It felt like I was working non-stop. I only slept, worked, had my meals, showered and travelled to and from between work. My social life is non-existent and I had totally lost contact with reality; trapped in my little bubble of overwhelming work.

Initially, I consoled myself that the long hours were due to my new jobscope which I was unfamilar with. Plus, the hubbing migration was going on which meant that there was alot of remote training going on in addition to my daily work. So I bore with it and marched on.

The months zipped by and there was no additional resources for my team. Both my team member and myself raised our hands for additional coverage (there was only 2 of us doing Asia Ex-Japan so if one member was down, the other person had to do everything which was not possible). Higher management (i.e. not my direct manager) said "Yes, yes, we will do something about it."

The months flew past again and whatever crap they had proposed did not materialise due to "timing issues". All these while, I have repeated again and again that our team is drowning in work and we NEED the additional resources. Nothing was done. All higher management said was "We are working on it". I do not fault my direct manager because I know she is on our side. She has been repeating the same stand to higher management that we need additional resources but it fell on deaf ears.

Enough is enough. I love JPMorgan for its wonderful people (excluding my current crappy higher management) but I think some issues are beyond my manager's control. The bad workload has taken a physical toll on me mentally and making me bitter. I was complaining about work to my boyfriend and being so unmotivated and tired at work; it was scaring me. Therefore, I decided it is time to leave.

Luckily for me; good work always shows for itself and one of the Credit Executives I supported in Sydney headhunted me to join his team. He had left JPMorgan back in May and was now in Singapore heading the Treasury Credit Risk team. He got to know I wanted to move from my ex-CDG manager and was happy to invite me to his team. He gave me a good pay increment; promotion and 24 days of leave.

I accepted and my last day at JPMorgan is August 31, 2007. They are making me serve one month's full notice and encashing my leave. My other colleague is leaving August 17. I hope my departure (and my colleague's) serves as a big wake-up call for higher management that they need to take us seriously. I am leaving for the better pay and better jobscope; but ultimately, I think it was the bad management that drove me away. I felt that I was working my life away for a management that did not care about my hours despite me raising this many many times. So all I was doing was to work my life away while higher management look good without increasing headcount and still "coping" with the work.

I want to thank everyone who has been patient with my incessant complaints the past months. It is time to look forward to another good beginning where management values good work.