My New Job As A Surveyor Assistant

Unlike my usual post, this time, I’d like to talk about my “new” job.

Before Hivefest, I happened to be reconnected with my biological family again who owned a community advocacy & empowerment institute. The business revolves around advocacy, legal aid, capacity building, consultancy, and research. While I used to be in this business almost 9 years ago, I left to find my own path up until a few months ago, I am going back again only to start from the very bottom.

Some of my siblings also work within the institute and they take care of different projects depending on the ongoing needs and projects. Since basically I am only starting out, I am simply a surveyor assistant. My job revolves around administrative tasks, talking to people, and management too.

When needed, most of what we do is field work. We visited many government buildings, institutes, and communicated with locals.

One of the best parts of this job is the ability to travel around the country and getting paid for it. However, after being in this job for quite a while, I’ve noticed that some people just couldn’t stand the constant travel and having to adapt to a new environment, culture and working environment.

For me, those things aren’t really a challenge. In fact, my main challenge now is a lot of free up time that I have because we have done our job as surveyor and now it’s time for the reporting officer to actually write up the reports. So, while we’re still stationed around the area, the waiting part sucks. For someone like me who is capable of writing those reports, my only constraint is my role within the institution. If I had full authority, I would have written those reports and been done with it.

I haven’t received my official assignment letter to be the executive director of the institution but it’s a role I am going to handle starting next year. Since this line of job requires someone to have a master degree and Phd, I have a lot of catching up to do. All of my siblings have done their masters and are on their way to Phd or doctorate. But here I am 😂 starting from the very bottom again.

If I were to give the leadership role, I definitely plan on fixing some of its management. It’s not really a far-fetched dream for me but these two months, I am given the ability to observe how this job works and see what needs to be done and fixed.

But at least, I can confidently say this line of work is where my heart is. While for its technicalities, we typically outsource with our partners, for the social economy and anthropological approach, we could handle it on our own.

One thing I love about my family built is that in our institution, some of the people that worked quite long for us have the ability to get a scholarship from us to advance their education. Since we are also compliance specialist, we needed our team to constantly keep up with their education and certifications too.

So far, I am just happily tagging along and learning a lot of things that are so different from previous fields I have been into or a part of. This is quite a stretch but if I were to brag a little, I have the brain to do it all. I've always been just caught up in my own world and being in a place where I feel so tiny and learned helplessness. But now, I am reminded that this is my place in the world, a bigger pond, somewhere I could actually make a real contribution and real impact for things that mattered to me.