Jobs Jobs...

I was at work till 4am on friday night again..and also the night before, which means i was at work on 3 days out of my five days of leave.. means i only took 2 days.. gosh.. means i've brought 10 days over from 2005 to 2006. I'm going to ask to encash my leave..

siong leh..

Before leaving on friday night, or rather saturday morning 4am, i asked my boss if there's any chance there'd be bonus this year. he said he'll be surprised if i didnt get any this year.. WHOPPEEE!! so happy.. first time im getting bonus.. dont wat it'd be like..

jobs jobs.. seems like quite a few ple i know are disgruntled with their jobs.. yokie jus quit her job after 1 mth, iRis is thinking of looking, iamshitfong knows his exact resignation date, ad is also looking, Powto sent me her resume but she prob wont get hired, jo thinks her job is killing her and my sis seems to have some probs at her new place.

so difficult to find a job you like. I promised iRis i'd tell her how i got my job and since i dont know when i'll meet her again to tell her, i think i'll do it here..

When i was job hunting, i sent my resume to all the consultancy houses cos i knew for the longest time that i wanted to be an analyst. Didnt really want to look for a marketing job cos i didnt think i spoke very well and i'd hate to meet sales quotas. after some weeks, i was a lil desparate cos no one seemed to be asking me for a second interview. Then one day, one of the consultancy firms called me and said he had a temp job for me. Full pay but w/o medical benefits for 3 mths temp... he said there'd be an option to go on permanant basis if there was enough workload. I rem being swayed towards it liao. He gave me one week to think it through.

I decided to email a couple of the other firms to see if there're any responses. Quite promptly, the company which turned out to be the one which won my heart called me (hereafter known as "Company"). i remembered the exact time and location i was at when i received the call. I was at a computer fair at around 5pm..The MD called me and said he was in NY which meant that it was 4am o 5am there. "Gosh" i thought. He said he'll need to come back n discuss with his colleagues first before getting back to me. but by the time he was back, it'd be past the one-week deadline by the other company. I was in a dilemma.

im too lazy to type more... more will follow...

*Sweat*

Phew.. it's 4am now on thursday.. ok.. technically friday now.. I just got home from the office. "Wait!," some of you astute ones might say. "Arent you on leave the entire week?". Well, yeah.. i was/am on leave but my boss called me when he landed in singapore from LA!! at 6pm and said there was something urgent he needed my help with...asked me can come down to the office tonite or not... so i went down by 8pm .. till now.. bleah.. i cant seem to take a long leave on one stretch...

and now i cant sleep.. whole head swimming with numbers...

Leave

I'm on leave this entire week. My first long leave after I started working in this company for the last 1.5 years. Not a great feat really but somehow all my colleagues like to take long leave to go on long trips.. going like once every 4 mths.. so my 1.5 years actually seems like a looong time to not take leave. One colleague from shanghai even emailed me to congratulate me on finally being able to go off!

I do the weekly asia pacific newsletter for my office. Which means, every week, i produce a newsletter which goes out to 7,000 ple in the asia pacific. it's a big pain in the ass to do it cos i have to take care of everyone's sensitivities including the sydney, new delhi and hong kong offices. and of cos any wrong info, means ple will start emailing my boss.. it's a whole troublesome process which i thought i can siam for this week that im on leave, which also means 7,000 ple in asia will miss their staple newsletter from moi.. muhahahahhahaBUT, for some reason, my boss saw it fit to decide to publish something this week, and so he emails me on monday, like machiam im not on leave like that.. bleah..

I think my colleagues miss me.. on my last night in jakarta, while lying in bed watching tv at 12mn friday (singapore time), my office called me!!!!! they said that when they stayed late at nights i was always there and then tonite i wasnt there with them. so they decided to call me and put me on speaker and make it feel like i was there!!! so incredulous... ended up "chatting" for half an hour on long distance talking and bitching abt bo liao stuff.. they even asked me out for lunch on monday. "but hey, im on leave, guys!!!!". Not that i mind going back for a nice lunch but the thing is one of them usually has lunch at like 3 or 4pm even thiugh we always jio her to come with us during the normal hours like 12 or 1pm.. and so she decides to have a normal lunch hour when im on leave. gosh.. why like that? WHY??

landing on sat morning, i got 2 voice mails from my new colleagues (defined as newbie 2 and PRC earlier) asking me abt bo liao stuff.. which was fine la.. since they were new in singapore and needed to ask me some singapore stuff.. but also quite weird, how come they dont ask the other colleagues but knowing im in jakarta they'll call me. turds.

Monday was my first day of leave. got a call from the office to say that i needed to go back and sign a report, which is fine la..understandable.. so i went back to office after gym to send the report. When i went back, everyone was out for the "nice" lunch, which is fine, so that i dont have to PR with anyone.. then i saw my beloved pillow on the chair of PRC!!! argh.. so disgusting... yucks.. how can anyone share this kind of things one. and she didnt even ask me!! gosh.. such impudence! she's going to get it when i return. YUCKS.

More Jakarta pics...

this time when i went to jakarta, i visited some hospitals too. one of them is supposedly the best hospital in jakarta.. i just took it with a pinch of salt since everyone says they're the best anyway. but in all credit, it was quite a nice hospital. nothing much i could take in a hospital really cos not supposed to take patients and how interesting can hospital beds be anyway.

so i took a pic of this.. notice the mortuary? they offered to bring me there but well, i opted for the kitchen instead.



and this was on the walls of the pediatric ward.



this previous two pictures made me realise how a hospital, whilst small, evokes a whole range of emotions.. mostly sad i guess, but joy at times when one gives birth or a loved one recovers and discharges from the hospital. such ambivalence.

on an entirely separate note, Jakarta is relatively low-lying. here're some pictures i took while on the roof of a, get this, 5-storey building... amazing (to a singaporean)

Jakarta

Once again, it's a long time since i updated my blog... quite lazy nowadays.. maybe cos jakarta was so boring that there's really nothing much to blog about..

i stayed in this room..







it's actually a pretty nice hotel..

act im very sian... no mood to blog

Small World...

I was at raffles place one night that day running some errands when i saw the Goddess' colleague, the one whom she said was from my JC.. for some reason, i was able to recognise her. Of course she looks different now but i still recognise her. So i msged Goddess...

her usual nonchalent reply ran along the lines of " No big deal wat.. we're all in the vicinity, surely will bump into ple"

Fair enough.

the next day, i was on the mrt and i passed by bedok station and i was standing near the door that Goddess usually gets on.. i was thinking that it'd be tooo coincidental for her to step through the very same door i was at but i thought if i saw her at the adjacent doors, i'd msg her "it's prob no big deal if we took the same train to work since we live quite close by"

She stepped through the door i was at.

Jakarta Yet Again

long time no post.. simply too busy.. leaving office at 12 and reaching the next morning at 7+.. sorry, my fans..

leaving to jakarta today.. coming back on friday and im on leave the entire of next week... whoppee... so technically today's my last day of work till Feb...

New Colleagues

I welcomed 2 new colleagues this week. One on Monday and one on Wednesday. the one on monday was a PRC gal (hereafter known as "PRC") and she pissed me off within the hour.. haha.. first she complained that her laptop was too slow and asked me if i had another IBM like the one i have.. i said i have another and she asked wat brand wat brand. I said "Dell" n she said chey.. 不要. i was thinking "你要也不可以！".

the thing abt all the colleagues in my office is, other than my boss and I and his PA, the rest of the ple are from the same sch and they have a strong alumni so everyone knows everyone..

We were so busy we had to order KFC in, which was kinda embarassing cos we had a new colleague. at one time, PRC and I were alone and she told me she met some of their alumni and heard from them that one of my existing colleagues is gay! i nearly cnoked on my zinger burger and went "waaatt??" i mean, im fine with gays but im sure i didnt need that kinda information. and i thought " wat a bitch, first day come in then bitch abt ur colleagues liao"

PRC's pretty weird. i was talking to another colleague at my desk and all of a sudden, PRC jus let out "are you talking to me?" EVERYONE turned and looked at her and i was like "erm.. no". uber WEIRD!

the other newbie (known as "Newbie 2" from now) came on wednesday. pretty ok guy i guess.. but when i had dinner with another colleague (not PRC), she told me that Newbie is also gay! i was like gosh.. how come so many gays one? i only know one other gay friend and then in my small small office already got 2. so i asked my colleague wassup with ple from her sch.. how come so many gays.. she shrugged. i ventured and asked if she was a lez, she only smiled.

More Blackheads

I bought this new porepack which is black in color so that the blackheads are more obvious..

here's the link to the pics..

Viewer discretion is required. Orly? Rly.

Pic

Shopping

It was a rainy day today.. it seems very representative of my mood these days..

In a continuing effort to connect with others, i decided to go shopping with my mum who wanted to buy an oven from Tangs. Braving the car and the horrendous traffic, we went. As the model she was eyeing was out of stock, the promoter convinced her to get another one which cost S$90 more.. and to my horrors, my mum asked him for a discount. right there and then, in the middle of Tangs, she asked the promoter for a discount. i was pretty shocked but the promoter didnt flinch. i think he was used to the aunty-types asking for discounts.

We bought the more ex model in the end.

Later, we passed by this Goodaire booth.. those air refreshners with a plastic leaf on the top. I have one of those machines but it's those cheaper imitation brands so i was looking at the solutions which smelled pretty nice. Mummy said the promoter (a different one) how come her machine so ex when other brands are cheaper. She said her brand was the original and my mum promptly replied " U say u original and others say the original. how?". the promoter put a stout defense and said, "our brand is the real one. Made in Singapore." She didnt realise that "Made in Singapore" doesnt hold much weight with mummy dearest. Walking away, i told my mum that Goodaire was the real deal and she said she knew, she was just trying to disturb her.

.....

I thought it'd be nice to get my mum a pair of birks since mine are so comfy..i had to convince her to go over as she said they're so ex and so huge, not nice la..but we went nontheless.. within 5 mins, something caught her eye and 5 mins later, we walked out with a pair of "limited edition color" birks for her. fwah.. faster than me sia.. i had to go there a million times before deciding to get a pair.. *sweat*

i wanted to bring her to Marriott sunday brunch for lunch but when she saw it was S$58++, she didnt want to, exclaiming "this kind of place, u better run far far..". We had Pepper Lunch for lunch(duh!).

Attack of Life

I think i had an anxiety attack today.. i always thought anxiety attacks were really jus sudden feelings of panic like "how how how.. what to do ah?". I nvr thought it'd manifest as real physical pain. it wasnt util iRis had it too and blogged it that i knew that anxiety attacks are like mini heart attacks.. this sudden heart wrenching pain in the chest that leaves u breathless and u cant breath too hard.

I got that today.

of cos it freaked me out and my mum too. i didnt feel like going to the doc cos i didnt really wana know wat's the bad news but at the same time, i was curious and maybe the knowledge would jolt me into some constructive action to improve my quality of life.

the short story is that they did an ECG and blood pressure test and they found that i was fine. I'll go back for a blood test and cholestrol test another day. i dont suspect (i hope) there's anything wrong with those...

i slept the entire afternoon.. till 9pm and im wide awake now at 2am.

i was chatting with someone who had a depressing day too. we were talking abt how work is a good way to drown our sorrows. work has definitely been an avenue in which turn to to for solace and comfort in the world. People who know me long enough know that im not a particularly hardworking person and actually i always come in last in position in class. 2005 has been a tough year.. im glad for work to be around to keep me occupied (very occupied mostly).

halfway through my conversation with depressed gal (hereafter known as "DG"), i went to bath and i was thinking (i think a lot when i bath, cos that's abt the only time im away from the computer). I thought "work so hard for wat. die already also like that. work so hard then in the end, dont go out with frens, no time to msn with frens, no time for movies..jus simply no time for things that matter to me". i made a semi-new year resolution to focus more on quality of life more than work work work.

freakingly enough, when i was back on msn with DG, she said almost exactly the same time.. abt the fear of working so hard that close friends and ple who matter to us jus move on and forget abt u. i used to think i can operate alone and screw the world but at the end of the time, it's depressing to know that u dont matter to anyone.

i stared at the screen (all 17" of its LCD fine-ness) at the last 10 mins and i dont know what to say.. so i'll jus end here..and if u dont see me posting for say 1 week or not, maybe i didnt wake up from my sleep.

The Week I Yelled at Three People

As stated, the week isnt the best of my weeks...and I yelled at three ple..

1. First off, i yelled at the shittybank gal. well, i didnt REALLY yell but started raising my voice a lil and using bigger words like "incredulous", "umpteen time" to ask her how come they can send the cards wrongly TWICE!! i mean, i filled up the form and sent them copies of my IC and they can get it wrong on the first time and then on the second time. oh come on, you dont become the biggest bank in the world by doing this. she was entirely apologetic but she didnt offer freebies..

2. the crazy shitheads i left my laptop with still hasnt gotten back to me. my laptop's been left there for 2 mths liao and they havent repaired it. again, i lapsed into big words like "inconceivable" and "incredulous". she promised to call me back the next day but she didnt. she's gonna get it from me when i call her later.. muhahahahah

3. My company printed some new covers and we actually wanted all grey, meaning front and back sides of the back and front covers all grey (no typos there, read properly) but the crazy ass printer printed grey on the front side and white on the back side for the front cover and grey for the back side and white for the front side for the back cover (no typo here either). my boss told me to yell at him so tat they can re-do it at a lesser cost... and i did.

Horrendous Week

Someone asked me how come never update my blog..and also how come nowadays so quiet on MSN.. well, bascially it felt as though im well into 2006 liao but hey it's only 7 days into January.

jus to cut the story short, i've been dumped with the management of 3 portfolios cos of the irresponsiblities of my supervisor as he zips off on his hols so i got to kio the sai he left behind lor.. and he does it so nicely like it's a given that i shld do it.. fine.. he sure aint gonna get a good peer apparisal from moi next mth.

in between there's this issue with my credit cards... i posted in spug that how shittybank cocked up my credit card delivery and Dvirus was very kind to send me an email ...here's an email i sent in reply. (forgive the bad english.. i was running out for a meeting)

"Well, the long story is that I waited very long for my cards then I called citiphone. Tuns that they sent my cards (m1 visa and dividend) to my neighbour .. But my time neighobur v v weird one.. Doesn't come home n lives alone n no one ever sees him. So I told them my correct address and asked them to cancel the first 2 cards then send me agn lor..

After I waited for a long time, my mm told me tt one of my neighbour's letters fell into our mailbox and turned out to be mine!!! Turned out to be one of the credit cards (the dividend card). So I called citibnk agn n it seems like they sent the 2nd batch to the WRONG ADDRESS AGAIN!!

Amazing..

So I have one card with me and three cards inside my neighbour's mailbox.. my mum tried to knock on his door many time but no one replies..
Sianz..

So I jus called them today and asked them to cancel the 2nd m1 card inside and send me another m1 card (my 3rd one)

And I asked her abt payment of citibank credit cards using DBS, she say she duno.."

i actually didnt expect her to do anything so i tot she was being a kaypoh..BUT she sent me this reply.

"Wow this is really bad. Do you mind giving me your full name and I can forward the concerns to the right party? Did you get the name of the CPO you spoken with?"

being the cheap ass that i am, I replied:

"Will I get any freebies? Like vouchers or wat? :) please?

Sanjana was the person I spoke to the other day.

Isabelle is the other I spoke to today."


being the person that dvirus is, she called me in the MIDDLE of my meeting to say she "escalated" this matter to the relevant authorities and someone will call in in 5 mins!! and someone did.. (gosh, these people are serious!). he apologised profusely n promised to courier the card to my house the next day.

So that's how i got my card... actually i dont really need the card la.. jus that i scared that it get to the wrong hands then siao liao..

i need to meet dvirus to collect the LEGO she ordered for me..

New Year

it's the new year.. somehow it jus slipped in without much of a bang.. maybe cos i was already on leave on friday and then by the time it was new year's eve on sat.. like nothing much already..

as promised (to myself), i went to do facial, got a hair cut and also dyed my hair.. the facial gal said i long time never come liao.. almost 4 mths to be exact.. my hairdresser also told me i long time nvr come liao.. i told her i cut my hair in vietnam so didnt come.. she wasnt too pleased cos my hair was in a pretty weird shape (accordingly to her). i dyed my hair also.. she somehow managed to get me to dye AND do highlights...so actually i look pretty beng.. hee hee.. fat beng..

gweneth powto asked me how come i never blogged that i went for a movie with her after my hair cut/dye. well, nothing much mah.. jus a movie on new year's eve.. i was home by 10pm on new year's eve, which was good in a way, cos most of the ple were going in the different direction (to town) when im going back to the far east...

Goddess wanted supper so we did supper at BCM where we kinda witnessed a weird scene where aunties and uncles (those u see drinking beer and peanuts) popping the confetti and spraying the faux snow at each other.. that's REALLY weird man..aunties and uncles behaving like immature orchard bengs and lians.. really disturbing..

Gosh, i spend 3 paragraphs not getting to my main pt.. anyway, Goddess was telling me how some of her colleagues were from my college so when i reached home i took out my year book.

*in between typing this, keeve told me he cried watching shawshank redemption again. this is a guy who also cried when he watch Final Fantasy :Advent Children, which is a lil cartoon cgi thingy that is like the story of this instalment of the FF franchise.. he apparently teared he said.*


so that's how i spent new year's eve.. supper with goddess n then at home with my year book.

It felt weird.. opening the yellowing year book. memories jus flooding in.. almost 10 years ago these pictures and boy, how some have changed. as i pored through page after page to find the colleague in question, memories of how i knew this person and how i didnt really like this person.. back then, IRC was a big deal and me, aaron and dax were some big shit ops in some channel, so we kinda knew tons of ple, including the juniors, in our college who frequented the channel and i swear, some of the ple i see in the year book, i only know them by their nicks..haha how geeky.

i spent quite a long time looking at the year book.. probably 2 hours.. (i went to bed at 5am) i looked through every class, including the junior batch and all the ECAs, every picture.. i went like "i wonder what happened to this shithead", "hmm, get a life man", "haha.. big ass karen", "mmm.. wonder wat this chio bu is doing these days". I literally looked at every face and wondered what my last interaction with the person and for some reason, there felt the need to connect.. to jus contact the person n find out who he/she's doing nowadays. of cos that's not possible.

Well, coming from the college that i come from, i think most of the ple are having great careers out there.. seems like everyone's a scholar of something. the more i browsed the book, i thought, "wow, i shld have studied harder and maybe i can be some stat board's scholar instead of being the recepient of my parents' scholarship fund". Actually not a recepient la, cos im still paying for my Uni loans.. muhahahah

Amongst my peers, i already know 2 have gotten married.. so nice.. and two have passed away...in fact the two died due to SAF mishaps.. in fact one of them is the RSAF fighter pilot in the mishap in US. duno him very well la but jammed with him a couple of times in the guitar room...

so there u go.. a nostalgic walk back to yesteryear..it's quite an apt way to usher in the new year.. 2 hours of introspection and reflection. i dont know what came out of it.. maybe i sensed a need to be more social and connect more with ple.. who knows.. ill have to think abt it..