On a personal level, at that time my visa was still sponsored by the company, so if something unexpected happened and I was suddenly fired from the company, my situation would immediately become difficult, even more so than the company's issues. Therefore, in the final stages of the project, when it was nearing completion, that was also when I quietly found another company to continue sponsoring me, and the journey to find this company was almost like having to redo everything similar to what I had done at the previous company. I had to find a company that met all the conditions to sponsor me, and they had to agree to sponsor me, and then I had to work with them to transfer all the sponsorship documents from the current company to the new company.

The Most Difficult Time

And that was the starting point of the stories today that I want to share with you about my job search journey, which stopped at a company also in Sydney. This company later became one of the companies I stayed with the longest in Australia, but the initial meeting was quite challenging. The story goes that after a series of interviews with a senior manager of the company, everything went quite smoothly; we got along well, and I was to report directly to you. But until the last minute, after all the procedures were completed, and my visa sponsorship application was being transferred to the new company, in the final meetings, you introduced me to another manager, who I later found out was interviewed in parallel with me. During that meeting, I was informed that I would be working with and reporting to this new manager, not the manager I had been communicating with throughout the interview process.

Here, let's set aside whose fault it was; it could be my fault for not checking carefully, or the company's fault for suddenly changing at the last minute. But regardless of whose fault it was, at that moment I was unexpectedly put in a dilemma. Until then, whenever I went to work, I placed great importance on the person I would report directly to. I was willing to accept a lower salary if I could work with someone who had enough heart and capability. Conversely, no matter how high the salary and benefits were, if I had to work with someone I did not respect, I would not accept it.

Meanwhile, this person was someone I completely did not know until the last minute, and worse, during the first meetings, I had a feeling that this person had some issues. But because I had almost no other options at that time, my application was being processed by the immigration department, and I had already informed my old company that I was leaving, I did not have enough time to make any other changes. Therefore, I had to accept it, hoping that my initial impressions of this manager were wrong.

After that, we started working; this person and I were responsible for building a completely new department for the company, and I would be the one reporting directly to them, or to put it more simply, they were my direct boss. At that time, there were only the two of us in the team, and we were responsible for starting to build the team up. Immediately from the first few weeks, it became clear that my feelings were correct, and to put it briefly, this manager was one of the worst managers I had ever worked with in my more than 20 years of work experience.

I am not someone who tends to speak ill of others, but at this point, I must provide a few descriptions for you to understand. A manager who, when there are good results, claims it is due to their talent, but when there are issues, the first thing they do is blame others, especially blaming subordinates, is the type of "higher-ups stepping on lower-downs." There are many other characteristics that, if in another situation, these people were my employees, I would immediately fire them. But in that situation, I was in the opposite position; I was the employee of that person.

The Decision to Remain Silent

And throughout the working process, after countless arguments about how to handle work, about management, and how to develop the team, culminating in a heated argument about personnel management, I decided to meet with higher-ups in the company to discuss with them. After this manager found out, they reacted very strongly and demanded that the higher-ups in the company: if they listened to what I said, this person would resign. Unfortunately, in that case, the management in the company, for their own reasons, told me to just follow what that person requested. That was the first time in my life that I decided to throw away all my previous work principles to choose a final solution: I would remain silent.

I did not argue anymore; I would work in the way that person wanted me to do, and I would do exactly that. I did not argue anymore; all activities of the team would be decided entirely by that person. That was the first time I transitioned into a state of being a robot, doing whatever I was told, because that was what that manager wanted. And then, whatever was meant to happen, happened. I cannot say that I am talented or anything special, but before, the work was still running because I was still fighting to keep it on the right track. Since I accepted that I was a robot, doing whatever I was told, after a short time, everything in the team began to become chaotic.

And that manager, due to their limited ability, the more they tried to fix things, the more chaotic it became. As for me at that time, I was almost in a state of not caring anymore; whatever happened was fine, whatever they wanted me to do, I would do exactly that. Some of my actions at that time could be called irresponsible, and frankly, it was not good at all. But at that time, I only cared about one thing: keeping myself safe, my visa; I had to prioritize my highest goals.

A Happy Ending

When the time came to obtain Australian citizenship, because my permanent residency application was being prepared, I could no longer change companies. I had to choose solutions to stay at the company, and the best way to protect myself at that time was to remain silent, doing anything that the manager wanted. This was one of the worst times in my entire immigration journey in Australia. There were times I had to ask myself: was the path I chose the right one? At that time, I only used a few simple thoughts to pull myself through:

• First, I told myself: No matter what, I have come this far, I should try to go all the way to the end of the path I have set, even if the path I chose is wrong, at least I will have a result, which is still better than giving up halfway, and then there will be no path to reach the destination.
• Second, I told myself: I must try hard to work, so that the version of myself in 5 or 10 years, when I look back, I will have to thank the versions of myself at that time.

The truth is that now looking back, I am very grateful to my versions during those days for not accepting to give up, so that today I have everything I have. After a long period of ineffective work, one beautiful morning, I was informed by the company's CEO that that manager had resigned and would leave the company. Later, I learned the real reason behind it: that person was fired.

However, this story has a happy ending. After the managers left, the company invited a new manager to replace them, and this person was completely the opposite of the old manager. This was one of the best managers I have ever had the opportunity to work with. We worked so well together that we hardly needed to say much to each other, but in most cases, we still understood each other's intentions thoroughly. Today's story does not intend to summarize a specific lesson; I just share it so that you know another real story about what happened to me during my immigration journey in Australia.

In my observation, most people who choose the path of immigration have to go through very difficult roads, each person struggles in different ways. I was lucky to work in an office environment, but through today's story, you can also see another type, simply because for whatever reason, we are still passing through a foreign land, a place where we lose most of the advantages we have, and we have to use our disadvantages to compete with locals to be able to go through this path. Most of the time, we have to try twice, three times harder than the locals to keep up with them. And if we want to surpass them, we may have to try five or ten times harder. I hope that through today's stories, it has added a bit of motivation for those of you who are still on your own difficult journeys.