Fwah!

Now you know why i have to bring Hello Panda from Singapore.

Cost almost S$2 in the supermarket here. Plus this is a heartland supermarket!

Arrived!

I know I have arrived as a home party host when I have this in my home.

We bought this at the hotel supplies place.

Given its the festive season and we have our new place, we arrange for our various group of friends to come over. We had one party last weekend with some of Someone's ex-colleagues.

Then on last night, we had another group of 12. We have just enough chairs and stools for everyone! We dont even have enough cutlery even though we bought some from the hotel supplies place.

Then today, my team will be coming over - without Old Aunty. She's on leave so I took that as an excuse to not invite here as "I dont know if she's out of the country".

Phew, cant wait for the party season to be over so that I can just simply enjoy my new apartment.

Yummy!

Someone had some friends over in Shanghai last weekend. Spent a good part of Saturday with them.

We are so different. I'm much more anti-social. When I know of friends coming to Shanghai, I lie and tell them I'm travelling. Haha. In fact, a Singapore friend asked me to join our other SG friends for dinner cos they knew that Someone was entertaining friends. I told her I wasn't feeling well.

With that, I began my perfect weekend of TV and more TV and one of my favourite drinks. Buy one and the second one is 50% off. W00t!

Well Hung!

Wanted to hang some pictures the other day.

Realised I never hung one before.

I have seen pictures being professionally hung before. There were a lot of calculations.

I decided that I needed to do a lot of calculations too.

It has to be in the centre of the wall. No shit.

Because the hooks we had were rather long, so we needed to use two so that the point of hanging can be lower and therefore not peek out of the frame.

Therefore, the hooks have to be equidistant apart.

Decided to draw a modal diagram.

Boring!

Saw this on my desk the other day.

Nice medium sized box, nice weight.. I was curious what it contained.

Turns out to be this. Boring.

Wonder why Chinese people like to send such stuff. Tsk tsk.

Dim and Dimmer

When I decided that I wasnt going to renew Old Aunty, I began to think about what I'd say.

Should I take the apologetic approach where I go "It's not you, it's us"?

Or should I go full on and let go a full torrent?

A few interesting ones came to mind.

I thought of pointing and saying to her..朽木...你是朽木！Hopefully that would be suffice.

And then I thought of another tack.

There's this lamp in our now old place. It's a lamp that looks interesting but it's actually made up of many little bulbs that were all working when we moved in. A year on, a lot of the bulbs blew and all that's left was this:

 

So I thought, I could show her the picture and saw you're dimmer than this dim lamp. 

Still undecided on this. 

New Furniture!

With a bigger place, we sought to find more furniture. Someone actually never asks me for anything but she had seemed keen to add more furniture so agreeing seemed to be a logical step.

At the same time, I was inspired by somebody who told me he likes quality furniture. I decided I shouldnt lose to him.

We passed by this Chinese furniture shop the other day. It advertised that it was having a closing down sale. I'm not sure how true that is but the stuff inside looked interesting.

We saw a table which looked interesting to be placed on this particular short wall for our wallets and keys. Then we saw another one exactly the same but in a different wood but double the price! Of course he said that the second one is made of a better quality wood.

After a quick google, we verified that this was indeed true (although there's no way of knowing that it's actually made of that wood. Haha) and whacked it. Subsequently, after we left, i was kinda surprised that we made a decision to spend so much on a tiny table in such a short time.

Here it is, in all its varnished glory. 

For some reason, I was very attracted to this table. Dont know why. Managed to bargain it down a little, then BUY! Havent really decided if I want to put it at home or in my office.

Saw this little stool. Thought it'd be perfect to be put in the hallway to wear shoes.

Then we asked for a bundle price for this as well. Too many stools in the house so this is beside the couch as a mini coffee table of sort.

Didnt Get the Hint

A few of you have messaged me to ask about Old Aunty.

Yes, she didnt get the hint. She thinks I was being too personal. Wrote me an email late the night of the review.

Now I'm pissed.

"看了你对我的一年的综合评价感到十分气愤，等我休假回公司后我需要与你逐条沟通，摆事实讲道理，希望你实事求是地正确地评价一个人，否则我会向公司申诉的."

 

Blah..

The review on Old Aunty's last working day for 2013 didnt go very well but that was expected.

She felt indignant and felt that I gave her a bad review cos I didnt like her personally.

I told her that I didnt didnt like her personally but I just didnt like the poor quality of her work.

She said that she felt that the President supported her more but little did she know that I'm already getting into trouble with the President for not getting rid of her earlier. Haha. What a douche.

I actually think I'll take pleasure in getting rid of her.

IT Box

In this day and age, I think there arent many households that do not have an IT box to put all their IT peripherals.

Given i'm a wannabe-geek, our IT box is super full and very messy. Took the opportunity of the move to sort things out.

Gosh so many things.. micro USB, 30-pin power cable, lightning, power plugs, battery packs...

 

Sounds like a no brainer but I have decided to categories them according to the type of connections. 

 

Then I have individual bags for them to differentiate. 

I like being anal at times. 

End of Days

I mentioned earlier about the timetable leading to the beginning of the end for Old Aunty.

She applied for leave the other day so her last working day is 16 December, returning to work on 2 January.

I am on leave and back in the office on 6 January.

Then the entire department is supposed to be fly off to Singapore on 8 January for a meeting. Since we arent going to renew her contract, no point wasting money for her to fly to Singapore.

So with that, i'm going to have to not renew her on 6 January.

I wanted to give her a subtle warning so i told her that i wanted to do her review before she went on leave but she went back and forth on why it should be in January since she should be graded on full year results. I actually thought it might be easier on her if I gave her some subtle head's up before January so I insisted.

Oh well... so difficult this one.

Saint

Someone is a saint sometimes.

We found a new Taiwanese hotpot place recently which was very delicious. We have been going there twice a week.

One of the waiter is from Taipei and he didnt look too happy working in Shanghai.

So, Someone brought him a packet of ready-to-eat braised pork gravy thingy which we bought from Taipei to help him with his homesickness.

Moved!

We moved today.

Someone basically arranged for our move with the movers from Singapore to Shanghai in May.

Then in July arranged for the unpacking of the stuff.

Then now the packing and unpacking of all our items. She's getting very experienced, but she hates it. She's very good at it though. It's exactly 12 hours since we started the process and now everything is in order.

The weather was good today too. From psi of 600+ last weekend to 97 today.

Remember a time in Singapore when 97 was hazardous and everyone get their undies in a bunch when that happens?

Now 97 is the new 27.

I'm bushed.

Departures

A few weeks ago, I received news that the President of my previous company left the company, presumably due to poor performance of the company. That was shocking to me because he was actually one of the founders and part owner of the company.

He has a very bad temper. I once saw him throw his cell phone on a restaurant table WHILE WALKING TOWARDS THE TABLE. That was scary.

In any case, I guess his temper didnt go down well with the board members.

Then just this Monday, I heard that my first ever boss left the company. That was even more weird. I guess that gels with my earlier post in which he said my note "came at the right time".

I texted him the other day and he hasnt replied. So many questions are swirling in my head.

Smog or Fog?!?

Sometimes I get confused on whether it's foggy or smoggy.

I'd like to think it's foggy cos it's winter but these few weeks, it's more likely due to the smog.

Here's a view from my office in the afternoon.

Hotel Supplies

We have long heard about wholesale warehouses or the likes where they sell hotel operating supplies like cutlery, crockery and what not.

Always interested to go but our current apartment is just so small that there's hardly enough space for additional stuff.

Of course, now it's a different situation so we went the other day.

It was surprisingly run-down but even more surprisingly well stocked. For someone who has travelled as much as me, it's actual kinda familiar seeing those items in hotels I have stayed. It actually felt like toy 'r' us but for adults.

We saw this. Wonder if we should buy this to put ice milo since our house is so big now.

Of course, given that we love to eat sushi so much, we contemplated getting this dragon boat to put sushi in. That'd really signify that we have arrived!

Taxi Stand

Sometimes in the morning peak hour rush, it's hard to get a cab.

Sometimes I have to resort to waiting outside the public toilet where I heard that taxi drivers will come here to pee.

WIFI? Repeater?

Landlord just texted us to say he has installed the internet and WIFI in the room.

Now I dont know what to do with my WIFI router. Maybe use it as a repeater since the house is SOOOO big. Haha.

Have I mentioned how big it is?

It's 203sqm. I think I might get a little scared if there's a thunderstorm and I'm alone at home.

Blah

Another downside of managing people is that you have to do yearly reviews. It's like playing Santa, remembering if they have been good or bad all year round and thus determining what "gifts" they get for, in this case, CNY.

Last year, I only had to review three people but now that I added two more people... more work.

All these review criteria have these corporate speak that I dont really understand at first glance and that makes it taxing to read and understand and then assess against my team.

I wonder what my review would be.

*scary*

Gay?

It was the Shanghai marathon today and I had seen from my Landlord's wechat this morning that he was running it.

Later in the afternoon, he sent me some pics of him at the starting line??!?

I didnt know what to say so I gave him a thumbs up emoticon.

Then he said, I should go train up so that we can run together??!?

I told him that Someone and I had signed up for the gym at the new condo.

Then he gave me a thumbs up. 

.....

I believe Landlord is going to feature quite a few times over the next two years.

Bummer

I was informed by HR that the cleanest way to remove Old Aunty was not to renew her contract.

Her contract expires 1 March.

Then I was further informed that I need to inform he 30 days before then in order for it to be valid.

That means I need to tell her at least before the end of January.

CNY is 31 Janaury.

Damn... that means I am going to sack a PRC person before CNY.

I am so not looking forward to that conversation. 

SMOG!

Seems like I am always talking about the weather.

The weather has been getting from bad to worse these few weeks.

It almost reached the peak of 500 today and I decided to work from home. Called my team up to ask them to work from home too.

Scary!

Landlord

We signed the lease for the new apartment the other day. I was quite apprehensive leading to it because the place was just too cheap to be true. For a 14% increase in rent, we got a 93% increase in size! That didnt make any sense.

It was a kinda weird process because for the first time, the landlord and I exchanged name cards.

It turned out that we both knew of each others' companies and I even knew some people from his team. It was a quick 5 minutes of reminiscing. Haha. He even said he would ask me out for drinks if he's nearby. Landlord was quite a senior person and of cos my namecard made it look like I am a senior person too. Anyway, it turns out that Landlord works for the company which developed this condominium development. Now it made sense to me that he probably got the unit cheap and was more concerned about finding a good clean tenant than the rent quantum.

He quickly signed the lease without much checking and didnt even count the three months' worth of rent in cash.

After signing everything, he asked if we were free to go to the nearby electronics store to pick out the appliances we needed him to buy.

That was a little odd for us because we had originally offered to go buy it ourselves and save him the trouble if he just gave us the budget. He told the agent to tell us - 自己的 东西，我会自己去买。

We first went to the TV section. He said he wanted Sony.

WHAT??!? Sony? For your tenants?

He pointed to one and asked me what I thought. I told him that Sony is overpriced and I think other brands like Samsung was better. He then went to choose a 51" and 32" for the living and master room after haggling a bit with the sales person.

He then chose a huge-ass two door fridge (local brand) and a Siemens washing machine.

All throughout, I was telling Someone that the bugger was choosing them faster than us when we were buying appliances for our place in Singapore! So this is was 受宠若惊 is about.

All these in contrast with our current landlord who didnt allow us to terminate the lease earlier and insisted we pay for the full term. 

*At the time of typing this post, Landlord sent us pictures of the TVs that arrived. He even applied for internet for us which he will be paying for.

W00t!

Fruitcake or Fruitloop?

When I told my President of my decision to drop Old Aunty, he told me he always thought she was a fruitcake.

A fruitcake!

Gosh. He's British, so I guess his terms can sometimes be from British teatime snacks.

When he was in town a few weeks back, we talked about this again and he called her a Fruitloop.  We are going American snacks now I guess.

Told me to ask HR to begin the proceedings.

Then he asked me when I'm going to let go of Small Boy. He's called Small Boy because he felt that he was rather immature. I agree but I thought that he can be nurtured and trained. A year has passed but the improvement isnt that great and now President is impatient. That is/was a hard call.

Serendipity?

It was a little serendipitous how we found our new apartment.

Someone has been trawling condominium developments in areas that we think we like to live for quite some weeks now. Not a mean feat considering it's cold and she had to contend with agents who would promise to show her the units that she saw in the ads and wanted to see, but end up bringing her around to others because the ads are either outdated and units were rented out already or they are just fake ads. The ads here that show very nice pictures are fake because these are showroom pictures.  I typically let her go alone because if it's a unit she doesnt like, I dont need to bother looking.

Anyway, we kinda identified a development which we prefer because three of our friends live here. Two of them are a childless couple who are rather nice but rather odd at the same time. (I just found out the wife switches off her 3G most of the time due to the radiation. She only whatsapps on WIFI or switches to 3G when she wants to whatsapp.)

Anyway, on one of her solo trips, Someone saw an apartment there which exceeded our size requirements but was kinda old and dirty. But it's cheap! In fact too cheap to be true.

We went the next day to see other units in the same development. We saw one unit we liked alot and my mind was set on it. Someone thought it would be good to see the big and old but cheap unit but then it was raining and winds were howling and I thought I had already found our unit already so I wanted to skip it.

We found out that the agent had already made the appointment for us and the landlord had already arrived, so we thought just do a quick one.

When I went in, the unit was brightly lit and very clean! Someone was shocked too. It didnt look like the unit she saw the day before! I was like, this unit has become big, clean, bright and cheap!

This was how we found our new apartment. Big, clean, bright and cheap!

W00t!

Flaking

It's getting dry with the winter.

It's time to moisturise or fossilise.

But I dont like to moisturise. I hate the sticky and oily feeling on my feet, my hands and my thighs.

YUCK.

Therefore I always avoid applying unless it's absolutely necessary.

It is absolutely necessary when I saw all the dead skin when I removed my leggings the other day.



That night, I immediately buah-ed big time!

Gulp

After more than a year in my job, i have had enough of the old aunty in my team and have decided to sack her.

The truth is on the first day of work a year back in Singapore, the head of HR told me that my predecessor said that she was useless on the last day of work.

Then on my first day in Shanghai, the head of operations told me that I should just sack the entire team (Old Aunty and Small Boy) and start over. More about Small Boy later.

On my President's first trip to Shanghai after I came onboard, his first statement to me was that he was worried about the quality of my team.

The straw that broke the camel's back for me was that the Old Aunty made a mistake the other day in the contracts that puts the company in default IMMEDIATELY upon signing. The best thing is she didnt realise the mistake and it was the client who found it. I called her and the analyst into the office the next day at 8am to explain what happened. The meeting was at that time because i had a 9am meeting for the whole day for the same project in question.

She came in at 815am all huffed and puffed and said there was a traffic jam.

After some questioning which I dont want to get into too much details, she said we can still be 理直气壮about it because the contract isnt signed yet!

理直气壮！！

I said that how can you say that when it's your fault and if the client hadnt pointed it out, we would have been in default!

With that, she sealed her fate.