Goodbye CBA
As some of you may have heard, Kris’s Adventure in Corporate Land ends today. It’s been a challenging three months! I’ve made a lot of friends at CBA, and they’re the one reason I’m sorry to go. But the truth of the matter is that I just don’t think I’m cut out to work in financial infrastructure. It’s not that it was too hard; the learning curve was steep but after a month or so I found my feet. I just find it hard to get excited about backend systems. I prefer to work on things that you can see and interact with. And yeah, the working culture is very different to what I’m used to. While I’ve made friends in my department, I haven’t really felt at home in the bank. Part of it was that I’m a contractor, and part of it was the fact that I was shuttling between two offices. I felt a little like a square peg in a round hole. So when the opportunity came up to do explore doing something else, I grabbed it.
On Monday I start my new role as Iteration Manager at Mi9 (the digital media company that runs NineMSN* and many other media sites). My friend Jody is the Network Development Manager there, and she’s the one that convinced me to go for the role. It’s a new direction for me! Rather than being a traditional BA, I’m going to be heading up an Agile app development team. (If you want to see what I’m going to be working on, Jump-in!) I’m pretty excited. It’s back into the world of digital and media and apps, which is where I feel most at home. The offices are at Australia Square right in the middle of the CBD, so it’s a very easy commute from Chippo. I’m going to be learning new skills and finally taking on some people management responsibility. The dress code is much more “IT Nerd Casual”. And the role is a permanent one (rather than the contract I was on), so I’ve got a bit more security too. Like, I said, very excited!
So that’s that. I don’t regret my time at CBA; I’d never worked in this type of company or environment before and I think I gave it a good try. I wouldn’t discourage anyone from taking a job here. If you want to work in the finance industry or similar big corporates, I think it’s a great place to be. It just wasn’t a good fit for me.
* For the non-Australians, NineMSN is a joint venture between Microsoft and one of our local TV networks. So yeah, I’m now working for Microsoft! And Snook works for Google! BING VS GOOGLE SHOWDOWN, AMIRITE?
4 responses
Is now the “I told you so” moment? 🙂 CBA is one of the better banks to work for, but it’s still a bank and you really aren’t a bank type of person. But, as you say, it was good experience and you don’t really know until you try it. Good luck in your next job – it does look much more like your thing.
You couldn’t resist, could you? 🙂
Of course not! It’s OK – I did the same thing with the Boy when he finished up there after being frustrated all the time.
Good luck in your new job Kris! Well you gave CBA a go and it was a learning experience for you so that’s all the matters.