Thursday, September 03, 2009

Memories of Canada

Reading Wei Ling's article about her life as a student and the hardship she undergo brought memories of the hardship we went through ourselves when we first moved to Canada. Time has passed very quickly. It is more than 16 years ago. B1 was 8 month old when we moved back to Singapore. Today, he is going to 17 in December.

The 2nd time we relocate back to Canada was a lot better. I was hired as a manager and was promoted to a Director in 5 months. A year later, I have to manage two department. I made lots of friends and I was very happy to have many of my direct reports growing and promoted within the company. Those who did well had significant pay increase. A couple of them more than 50%. In Canada, the pay increase is 3% to 5% annually. If you get promoted, then the increase may be up to 14%. The reason some of my staff get more than 50% is because they moved from Customer Service Rep annual pay of C$36K to Sales Rep with base pay of C$56K. Sales rep in Canada work from home. So they get tax deduction for the home office. Sales rep also get company car and sales incentive depending on performance. Incentive payout can be more than 100% of base pay.

I was very happy to see my team members growing in their capabilities and earning power. I feel proud.

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