Transfer to another department

I was called in by the MD yesterday afternoon, the instruction was out of the blue, MD told me that he has gotten the permission from my boss (who is taking a long medical leave for his knee operation) to transfer me to the project department.

This means that I will be reporting to Mr. cockroach... sigh... what's that idiom saying that your luck will change one day?

The notice was so urgent that I had to take up the task on the spot itself. Mr. cockroach, aka Mr. Bell, called for a department meeting within two hours, to brief everyone on this new arrangement. Basically the project engineer (one and only) and the site supervisor will be based for an oh-so-painful-job outstation, until it is completed (God knows when); on top of that Mrs. Azreal will be taking her maternity leave anytime soon within these two weeks; she will probably be back at the beginning of June, which then will be our procurement lady who takes her maternity. According to the MD, I will be in that department until (touch wood) July.

I felt exile from my own department for a moment there. Anyway, Mr. Cockroach doesn't seem to know what job scope does he want to give to me. I suspect that I will be taking over mainly the project engineer's job, as Mrs. Azreal's job is mainly to issue purchase request and follow up with the delivery issues.

I was given the user right to enter all project department related folders today, and started to look at their files. Man, those files were a mess! Apart from having single files dangling here and there, repeating files etc, Mr. LongArror's file were the worst -- the folders and files were named after dates.

E.g. an Excel file named 230708 consists of 10 purchase orders from various jobs to the suppliers. It is a purchase order file which he has made for that day. Note, he worked in the company for about two years... so imagine the amount of folders and files with dates...

On the face of it, Mr. Cockroach doesn't seem to care much about the action taken by the project team to resolve the issues. He is only working on the contracts, emails and documentations. The heavy load of being screwed by the customer, visiting job sites, solving the problems all fall solely on the project engineer and the site supervisor.

When I said that I don't have much street smart to act appropriately for the right place and time, asking for their patience with me... Mr. Cockroach said that they are not doing project management at all. In fact the department is only dealing with coordination between customer and supplier. The way he puts it, it reminded me of our Post Office.

To be frank, I am rather worried to work under Mr. Cockroach, because of all the previous incidents and his ally. I called my boss to verify the MD's words, my boss told me similar stories. Nonetheless, he told me not to feel overwhelmed by the things in that department.

On a different note, my colleague in the engineering department, the structural engineer have been feeling rather soury for my transfer. He mentioned a few times that why did the MD asked me to go to the project department, but not him? I did not know how to answer. I guess perhaps my work in engineering department is overlapped with my boss's, therefore becoming redundant and could be transfered, given the current situation where there isn't many new jobs to do.

I hope that I could eventually get back to engineering department, because I really enjoyed working in this department. Let's see how it goes.