WHY I LEFT ALTHEA KOREA

Hey peeps, some of you may have known that I worked for Althea Korea and hearing the news that I resigned from this company might have shocked you as some have approached me asking why. For those who are new here, Althea is an online shopping platform where you could shop authentic Korean products which ships them directly from Korea itself. Its been almost 2 years since I worked there as a Social Media Executive from a fresh grad until now, which the time has finally come for me to say goodbye. Which to my surprise seems to be shocking to some of you as you've seen my insta-stories where I mostly post about the things we roll there which looks like a dream job for everyone. So why did I leave all that when its so hard to find a job now, especially when I've found the perfect job which I know most of you are still struggling to find. Well here are the reasons.

Before I go into the main reason, let's do a bit of recap of my time there as Pixie Mira. Before I went into Althea, I shifted from 2 companies within 6 months I ended my Degree. Why? Well, let's say the jobs weren't for me, I was so desperate to find a job that I could pay the bills and at the same time had a great working environment. That's when Tammy took me in. LOL... Actually, I saw Tammy's posting that she's looking for a graphic designer, so I sent my resume to her. It took months actually before she approached me back offering me a different position instead (cause I wasn't really suitable as a graphic designer), which was a team under her. I was so happy but I still had to go for an interview which the downside of it was in KL. I tried my best to avoid looking for jobs in KL but lastly, I ended up being there. Anyways to cut the story short, after the interview I was accepted. I still remember Tammy saying, 'actually there's no one else, I just called you'. LOL... 

So from there, my career with Althea started. As most of you may know already, Tammy my boss was also the founder of The Butterfly Project Malaysia, where I met her for the first time during her Spa event. So I actually knew Tammy way before I started working at Althea. Besides Tammy, there was Anis, yet another blogger friend who is now also my teammate/ superior. Anis and I were under SNS and when I came into the company, it still hasn't reached its 1st year so the group was still small. A week later came to Sydney, which most of you know as Althea's Mermaid. She's under Editorial but still under Tammy which makes us on the same team. So far there was only the 4 of us in the team that time and the company were pretty small back then also. Everyone seemed like a small family since other departments such as the CS team, Tech team, Design Team, Marketing, CFO, CEO were all sitting in one space. Oh... I was even sitting in front of the CEO during my first year there. LOL... At first, I was a bit uncomfortable but then I just got used to it and Frank wasn't really the type where you can't talk to him because he was the boss. He could even have a full conversation and joke around with the little fishes. Then when we moved to a new office a year later, I ended up sitting in front of the CFO instead. 😐

Anyways as the company was growing and so was our team. A few months after our first team bonding we welcomed Bo. Team bonding was one of the perks working here, it used to be just a lunch session every Friday with the whole company but when our numbers started to increase, it wasn't easy to plan lunch anymore so we got half day every month to play with our own department. Wohooo... and having Tammy planning our team bondings was also a blessing as well since she's the best in event planning. There was never a team bonding that went wrong and we mostly indulged in the best places around KL. You can check out more of our Team Bonding session using #GlamSquadOnVacay, we used to call ourselves The Glam Squad before we came out with our own nicknames. LOL... You'll probably find a lot of eating sessions because we all love eating and buffets makes everyone happy because there are a lot of choices. Anis and Sydney could eat almost anything while I'm more of a sweet tooth. We are so used to eating buffets that we all know each other eating habits and could predict what each person would go for.  Now I kinda miss those days where we end up having food coma and just zoning out after eating.

After Althea turned 1, our workload increased as it also expanded to other countries and we were desperate for help. That's when ducklings a.k.a interns started to join our team which started with Venice, then Pingo, followed by Janelle and they all look like supermodels okay, as Bo was not enough for the team. LOL... We always used to joke about that because Tammy is really picky with the people joining our team and it's a good thing too as until now it creates fewer problems with bonding. Then Eros came in (for full time) and we finally have a guy in the team which then completed our team. There are a few fun facts about our team though, which includes Tammy, Anis, Sydney, Eros and I.
1. We're all the eldest child except Sydney, the only child
2. We're all introverts except Sydney, the extrovert
Probably that explains why we all seem to get along, and we always say having 1 extrovert in the clan is enough as the introverts already need to recharge their batteries often. But after a while, even Sydney seems to be absorbing the introvert influence. LOL... but its always good having Sydney around or else it'll be too quiet and we can't take that as well.

Besides focusing on my career in Althea, my personal life was also quite a journey. When I started working, I just got engaged, then a few months later was my graduation ceremony. Reaching the end of the year I was busy with my wedding preparations and on December I finally tied the knot. On January I went on my honeymoon sponsored by my fellow Altheans + blogger friends which I owe a big thanks to Tammy for planning it. Until now it's the best vacation I ever had and even for my husband as well. You can read the journey here and it might be a great place for your honeymoon too.  Around April I found out I was pregnant and it was then when everything started to change. I wasn't my normal self and pregnancy did change me a lot. I started being uncomfortable with myself and I kinda lost focus at work during my 3rd trimester. I was due on 15/12/2017 but in the middle of November, I just couldn't take commuting to work anymore. You can read my pregnancy journey here. So I asked to leave early and a good thing too because the baby popped out early.

Thank goodness Tammy found my replacement early as well, we welcomed our 4th Duckling / Danish Swan, Julie all the way from Denmark and also Dea our Indonesian Pixie. If you've been following Althea's Instagram page you'll mostly see the faces of our ducklings, cause as I said earlier, these ducklings are born superstars. Our department does a lot of multitasking with a face mask on. During the earlier days, we had every Monday as a face mask day where everyone will just put on a face mask to work, but now it seems that every day is mask day according to our moods. LOL... Only I didn't have the feels to pamper anymore ever since I carried a baby. So when Julie came she took over my job as I was on maternity leave and due to several complications I had to extend my leave until February which I didn't get to say farewell to Julie that left to Denmark at the end of January.  I didn't even get to say goodbye to Dea as well. When I came back there was already another pretty duckling at Julie's place, Karven and another full-time SNS Syahira (an extrovert + only child), Sydney's wish finally came true, she's like Sydney's little sister.

That's a little bit of my synopsis as a Pixie in Althea. It was a great journey and I learnt so much. I learnt the proper way of creative writing, content creating, the proper way of dealing with customers,  professionalism working ethics, searching for information, compiling, liaising with bloggers and so much more. I owe a lot to Tammy and Anis for this as they guided me to what I am today. I could say I changed pretty much and I'm more alert to simple mistakes such as grammar and ethics. Anis seems sweet but don't mess with her when it comes to work, thanks to her I'm properly trained and could walk on my own. She was really hard on me in the first year but we still have a great relationship inside and outside work. Probably that's why I'm more comfortable talking to her especially when we're 'membawang' (gossiping) but she found my replacement already with Eros. LOL... Eros really sparked up our team with his awesomeness and his jokes. He's so random sometimes and he could make up a joke out of anything. We're all like a big family and our boss/ Mamasan really is a loving Mama. She plans everyone's birthdays and gives the best presents to all of us. She takes us out for lunch and treats us a lot throughout the year. We're all grateful that she's our Head of Department since she takes care of us full of love. 💜

So why did I leave Althea then if the working environment was great?! It was to my surprise that it seems shocking to those who know me as I shouted out my leave through email to most of the bloggers as I was currently in charge of liaising with them for Altheas newest campaign. Some of you personally reached me and asked what went wrong? Did the working environment turn sour or was it just too much stress? Well here comes the story but I guess most of you could probably guess either way. I'm a mother now and no matter how much I love my career and my workplace, family comes first. I've changed, I've sucked all the motherly energy which I doubt I'll ever get since I didn't like kids but having one of my own made me have a change of heart. I swear that I also cried making this decision, I was so torn between working and resigning. I took a very long time to decide and kept procrastinating the final decision when finally I knew that I couldn't work any longer.

Thes reason to this because I was miserable after work, I was torn between my son and my husband. My little family were apart and I couldn't take that, I had to have both beside me. I may seem greedy but it's really not a pleasant feeling. Why are we apart? Well, my husband and I work in the city, I'm at  Kuala Lumpur while he's always on the go around Klang Valley. We live at the edge of the city near my husbands working place as he travels a lot so we wanted to cut his cost of travel. He's a property agent so his working hours and place are not at a specific time or place. It's good enough for me that the house we live now is really easy to access public transport even though it's quite hidden at the edge of the city. As long I could access to public transport I'm fine to go to work even though it's tiring since KL is quite far from my place.  We only have 1 car since I gave my car to my dad, we couldn't really afford expenses for another car as we both are still struggling to make a decent living. So I was okay taking public transportation to work but when I got pregnant I couldn't take it anymore. It was so tiring and adding the pregnancy symptoms back then I was not okay. Which caused me a lot of cold fights with my husband as he was so busy with his work and I ended up back home tired and annoyed. This actually is still ongoing until today and the worst part now that my baby isn't with me and I get more emotional because I'll still have to pump milk and wake up in the middle of the night without the warmth of my baby beside me.

Where is my baby then? He's with my mother outside of the city near the suburbs, a 2-hour drive from my place. Since he's having issues with adjusting without me, we didn't want to take the risk and send him to a nursery since in Malaysia the death rate of infants dying at a nursery or with a babysitter is high. So my mother volunteered to take care of him but the downside is that I could only see him on weekends as I couldn't possibly commute 3 hours every day to be with him and it's very costly as well. But it didn't turn out so well either, my baby kept crying night and day, refused to feed and me myself got swollen breast since pumping and direct feeding was not the same. I was tired and in a lot of pain, not having my baby around and hearing him cry in every video call added the heartache. I couldn't take it and I surely didn't want this to be ongoing. My husband, on the other hand, was always busy with work and I couldn't cope with his schedule any longer. We still had arguments because we were both tired and I kept persisting that we go back to my mums' house. And to my stubbornness, I'll usually find ways to go back on my own without him so he'll just allow it anyway as long as I can manage travelling from my mum's house to work. My dad had several times of outstations so when he's away I'll usually use his car to commute to the nearest LRT which was usually a 45min drive from my dads' place and followed by an hour train ride to reach Bangsar. It was really tiring but at least I got to be with my baby at night.

I tried that for a couple of weeks, it was okay for me and my parents were being very supportive too but the problem was the cost. It was just too costly and even with my husband helping out, it wasn't convenient. I'm just going to work to get tired and exhausted at the end of the day, there was no way of earning as the money went back to the transportation cost. So that earned a strike in my resignation but what really caused me to be sure is when my baby stopped feeding and only wants to be fed directly. It became really difficult and my mum wasn't in the greatest health to take care of him as well. So that's when I knew it was finally time to say goodbye and it was so hard to tender the letter because I knew Tammy wasn't gonna be happy but I just had too. So I worked there for another month and last Monday was my final day. It felt so heavy leaving behind people that felt like family that I used to see every day but I'm sure there's a reason for everything that happens. Besides I'm still gonna see my fellow teammates as their all bloggers. I just left Althea but I'm not leaving the community. We're all in The Butterfly Projects community as Tammy is the founder, so we're all basically still one little family and I'll meet them again soon since TBP always have events and projects running. If you're a new blogger and looking for an awesome blogging community, you should check out our community here.

Anyways, the main reason why I left behind an awesome team is to become a full-time mother/housewife even though I have no idea how I'm gonna do it. I rarely do household work except for the basic stuff because I'm always out and about doing this and that since school. Now the idea of staying at home and taking care of a big and small boy kinda scares me but I'll still have to cope with it. I'm sacrificing my dream for the better and I hope the decision I made is the right one. But still, I don't think I'll be able to be just a housewife, I still need something to depend on so expect to see more of me here in the future. In the meantime, I'll need to start adjusting my routine and start being a better wife and mother. Thank goodness my husband is starting to get more stable with his career now, I hope with me focusing on our family he'll be able to achieve his hopes and dreams for our family as well.

Till then peeps.