Good Ol' Times

I was a little apprehensive of arranging golf this time I'm back because it's been some time since I last played and it's going to be a horrible game.

However, on the way there, I began to remember the times when I was driving down the north-south highway, blasting my music, zipping around and then smelling the fresh air on the course.

Upon reaching, here's what greeted me. Aaaaahhh.. how beautiful.

I had a rather decent game because my friends were also having a bad game that day. Hee hee. 

Timings

CNY.. A time where traditions and obligations ring especially important.

A time where a lot of people are on leave for a long time but at the same time, obligations and responsibilities mount higher.

A time of reunion and an inexplicable need to queue for bak kwa and craving for pineapple tarts. It's inexplicable to me because I crave these all year round.

Shops are closed because everyone has to prepare for CNY.  Golf courses are closed for the same reason. It's a nightmare to find legs for mahjong.

In our frustration, we just made an executive decision to not come back for CNY again because time and leave is too precious to be chasing things can can't be chased. 

Slippery Packets

In my previous post, I wrote about giving red packets to my staff.

We werent allowed to use company red packets for personal stuff so I had to find alternatives.

In the end, I managed to find Heineken ones. A little odd because I dont even drink.

Alas, the glossy packet made it impossible to write on my roller ball pen. Ended up having to find postage labels to stick at the back of the packets.  However, the labels were wider than the packets.

Diao.

Had to then tear off a part of the labels so that it can fit. Super troublesome. Ahhh.. the lengths I go to for being nice.

Black or White?

It has been six months since I got my air purifier. There's a little timer on it that reminds you to change the filter after 180 days. After 180 days, a blue light pulsates until it starts to get a little irritating.


Here's the before and after for the purifier. Can you tell which is which?

Yearly Review

Just as I did my yearly review recently, my blog also has a yearly review.

As you can see, since the inception of the blog in 2010, we have had mixed fortunes.

Obviously 2013 was a high because of the deluge of posts of my time in China. Hopefully we can create new heights in 2014!

 

Packets of Blessings

I was wondering if I should give my staff ang paos. I think I should but I couldnt remember if I did last year.

I asked my secretary and she said I did and I also gave stored value cards for mobile phones for them for New Year too. She said she remembered because she said she told her mum that her mum so generous. New Year and Chinese New Year also got present and she even kept the red packet.

I forgot I was so generous. I didnt get them anything for New Year.

My excuse, if I needed one, was, I was away on holiday.

One dilemma is if I should give Old Aunty a red packet. I was irritated with her the other day because she was dragging her feet in giving me the contact details of the client for her project. Plus, she's basically ignoring me at work.

I was even contemplating in telling her that she's not welcome in the company anymore and everyone from the President, CFO, HR all wish that she leaves as fast as possible. I actually have the authority to give her garden leave so that she doesnt just come in and stare at the computer but I just dont feel like.

With that, i decided not to give Old Aunty a red packet. I called each of my team into my office on my last working day to give them. For my secretary, I specially included a stored value card, since she sometimes does things for Someone. 

Tarts

We flew to Singapore from Taipei when we were there in September.

My mum had wanted some pineapple tarts.

We went to buy a couple of boxes from two brands.

We also got a box from Someone's nice ex-colleagues. These are the same guys from here.

Turns out my mum preferred the one from nice ex-colleagues.

Therefore, when we were there in December, we decided to go get some.

Nice and bright shop! Expensive stuff though. The boxes in the back of the picture look so gold and so gleaming!

There was a more expensive variant versus the ordinary type. No idea what it entailed so we asked if we could try.

They gave us an entire piece of each type. Probably it's the greedy me who's impressed. There's even a little tasting korner. Turns out the cheaper one was more palatable to us. Heng.

Power App

I have longed expressed my admiration for some of these Chinese apps.

There's this flight app that allows you to get live update on the status of your flight, including whether it has taken off from its previous destination or if it's delayed, which terminal and which gate I should board at and even which carousel my luggage will be at upon arrival.


There's even an analysis of how punctual this flight is in the past. 

Power.

CNY

Once again, CNY is looming. Once again, the annual trepidation that I get when this comes.

In recent years, it has been relatively event-free but who knows?

Hopefully, with my sister's new-born, it'd take away some of the stress of who should visit who and where and when.

However, as i type this, I wonder if it'd actually exacerbate the situation.

*finders crossed*

Fly Fly Fly

It was a stressful time at the end of 2013 because we were in a big rush to close the deals and meet the target.

It was frustrating because even with the stress, we didnt manage to accomplish the target.

Therefore, I decided that come 2014, I'll travel more often to be more pro-active in meeting clients and showing my face more often to clients so that I can help push the deals for my guys.

That's why before the end of January, I'd have taken eight flights.

*gulp*

Being Watched?

I have so many watches at home that the helper asked Someone that day if my work involved watches.

Gulp. That's not good.

Just when I was eying the Yacht Master II.

China-tised?

It was a little weird for me when I first touched down in Singapore last week.

First of all, gosh the humidity. Hit me like a brick wall. A hot brick wall.

Then I had the inclination to speak to the taxi driver in Chinese. That was fine until i wanted to ask for a receipt. I said 发票 instead of 可以给我receipt吗？Stunned the driver for a while before i recovered and used the right terminology.

When I entered cars in Singapore, I was sometimes surprised that the driver seat isnt where I thought it'd be.

The oddest was when I was in a restaurant then I heard Singlish from another table. I spun around immediately, glad to hear a familiar accent in a foreign land. Oh wait a minute, I'm not in a foreign land. Im back in Singapore. This is how everyone speaks!

Have I been china-tised? How weird.

Yilan

Someone had some ex-colleagues based in Taipei and gosh they were nice people.

One couple knew we loved to eat and decided to plan an itinerary for us and take us for a whole day of eating and hot springing.

I was actually hesitant because I didn’t want to feel indebted to others and also I wasn’t sure if I liked their company.

However, they were impossibly nice.

Came to pick us at the hotel at 10am. Drove an hour to a place called Yilan. I never heard of the place before the trip. 

This is Yilan. Looks kinda backward. 

Upon arrival, whacked a brunch which was nice and very cheap beef noodles.

Then they brought us to a cheap but good hot spring place.

S$40 for two hours! With a room and a bed and a view! Sure, the view is tranquil and all. Not really my cuppa tea but that’s what the Taiwanese like. The agricultural feel. Hey, it’s real cheap! 

 

After hot spring, we went to queue for bao. Yes, it’s pretty insane but apparently, they only make a batch every 40 minutes and there’s limited quantities. Here’s a pic of the queue. 

There's a little white board there that says that each person can only buy 5 baos and 2 man tous. So they estimated that if there are more than 24 people in front of you, you probably shouldnt queue!?!? What kinda place is this? It's a small little backward town!!?!

We told ourselves that we would queue only for this batch. We were lucky in the end because we literally got the last three baos!! That was insane. The friendly couple shared one and Someone and I each had one. It was good! But I wasn’t sure if I’d queue for it.

Then we drove off for the next stop. Minced pork noodles. 

After minced pork noodles was juices – papaya juice and green bean juice.

Thereafter, we drove off to a night market. Yes, by then it was already almost 5pm and the night markets are beginning to open. We were pretty much stuffed by then but they told us that the mutton soup was to die for and we should try it even though we are stuffed and especially since there wasn’t a queue then. 

Of course, we tried and yes, it was good. No mutton stench and all.

At the night market, we even packed some snacks back.

Then it was another hour’s journey back.

All these, they didn’t let us pay a single cent. I had to fight and force my way through so that i could pay for both our hot springs but that was just S$80! Definitely not enough for all that they've done.

Stash

Here's an obligatory pic of the stash I brought back this time. 30kg with SQ allows me this.

Review

I did my review with my President and CFO when I was Singapore. It was a nervous one for me because this was my first year and I didnt meet the main targets. Previously I mentioned that I signed a lot of LOIs. In fact, my team eventually signed 12 LOIs in 2013 as compared to 2 in 2012, so eventually I bought a good pipeline for 2014. Plus, we signed two LOIs in the first week of 2014! But alas, I missed another target, so yeah, it was a nervous time.

It's particularly scary because just as I could easily terminate Old Aunty without much reason, I thought that they could terminate me just as easily.

We started on the topic of Old Aunty. President said she sent him a note saying how I wasnt a good leader.

*Gulp*

"Good job" was what he said next. "Good job getting rid of her. If anything, you took too long."

*PHEEWW*

The rest of the review went along the lines of how they think that it's a year of transition for the team - new head, new team members, new policies so i shouldnt dwell on the missed target but make sure i dont miss it this year.

I guess that's the best well it could have turned out given the circumstances. I was relieved.

Making a Stand

In the iPad crazy household that is mine, where we each have two ipads, I bought this for Someone so that she can watch TV on ipad without holding it.

Retro

Lest you think that all train stations are so cool and high-tech.

Here's an old school station in Taoyuan.

Taiwan

Taipei.

A city which I have never been to since 2013 but ended up going there thrice, twice of which being for vacations.

It's an odd city. People say it's a mini Japan. We agree. It's clean and everything works.

Check out this display panel outside a toilet at the train station.

Different colored lights to show availability. And no, yellow doesnt mean you're halfway through a pee/shit.

Adult Parties

As mentioned before, we had three parties at our new place over the Christmas period that doubled up as a housewarming party as well.

That's three more parties compared to what we did over the last twelve months in Shanghai. Our old place was too small.

Doing these parties again made me remember how much work it was. I remember our first party in our new apartment in Singapore. I was so bushed from cleaning up that I stopped halfway to call my mum to tell her I now know how tough it was.

It's better in Shanghai because the cleaning aunty comes every other day.

Having said all that, it's more fun having our own party because at least we can decide what food there is and what the program is.

What immediately comes to mind was the Supposed-to-be-Thai-but-turned-out-to-be-Singaporean-food party. At that said party, there was red wine, white wine and whiskey. All very adult drinks. The only other drink was plain water. Seems like everyone is an adult there. To add to the adult-ness, they played Texas Holdem after.. complete with the carpet thing and chips and all.

Somebody tried to bring an adult element into our house party once by bringing a bottle of wine.

Here's how much there is left:

We will stick to our bubble tea. Thank you very much.

Most Anticipated Post Ever!

D-day was today.

H-hour was 4pm.

Early in the day, some of you have messaged me to ask me how it went.

H-hour was 4pm, so a lot of the messages were premature.

After it all happened, and throughout the evening, some of you messaged me to ask me what transpired.

I decided that it best be detailed in a blog, because I am too lazy to reply everyone in the detail you deserve.

H-hour was 4pm.

At H-5, I discussed the strategy to take down the objective from HR.

It wasn't so much of a strategy because I just told her that I wanted her to break the news in Chinese so that there isn’t any misunderstanding. She was agreeable. That was great because I was feeling all clammy and distracted all day.

Technically, we were going to non-renewal of contract, which technically didn't need a reason. So the plan was to say we will note down her concerns and avoid answering “Why is my contract not renewed?”

That sounded like a good plan.

So HR went ahead. Not surprisingly, she asked “Why?” Then HR deflected by saying that she will be compensated XX amount based on Chinese law.

OA asked again, “Who made the decision? Who’s the highest level?”

“President”.

LL.

“Ok, since it’s the decision of the company, I will accept it.”

(Bravo, spoken like a true communist minion. W00t!)

“Will I be paid bonus for last year’s achievements?”

(Not so much of a commie I see)

HR said “It’d have to be a function of your achievements plus your review by your supervisor”.

When I heard that, I was like diao. The poor review was precisely the reason why she wrote me the “hate mail” some nights back.

OA then took out the review which was by now strewn with Chinese words she wrote as notes for revenge. She went on for 15 minutes on how anal I was about paperwork and spotting typos and her not updating the project update list because as Business Development people, her jobs is only to sign deals. Of course, before she said all that, she praised how I was so detailed and all. Blah blah. She then argued why she should be graded higher on some aspects. Blah blah.

After the initial tirade was over, she went on again about how she should be paid her bonus.

HR said they’ll check policy and then reply.

And then it was done.

It was actually bitter sweet. I was expecting a big ruckus so I had steeled myself. My adrenalin was pumping and al poised but I never got to use it. I had even told IT to back up her emails, back up her laptop and also change the back-up cycle of our server from weekly to daily in case she decides to obliterate it. Well, maybe she might. She still has 20+ working days.

Well, it wasn't over.

After an hour, HR came to me again and said that OA came to her and started talking about bonus and then bitched about me again about how the review was done in 仇恨. How I came in late to work and how she gave me a lot of tips at work and the markets and how when she doesn't know some things about the work, I asked her how come she don't know. Of course, she went on about how she shouldn't be judged on paperwork.

Man, I wish she would leave as soon as possible.

Quiet End

It has been a relatively quiet end to the year. It was a quiet Christmas Eve eve dinner in our favorite cosy japanese restaurant and then countdown to the new year in our hotel room in Taipei.

It was a Christmas Eve eve dinner because Sushi Oyama was fully booked on Christmas Eve. We wanted to give ourselves a treat so eve's eve is fine as well. It was the usual top quality sashimi and sushi and I was at my sociable best (my best is really simply my best and not other people's best because Im really coming off a low base) so that we get some freebies. True enough, we got free oysters. W00t. S$60 saved!

As we were leaving, we told chef that we were leaving for Taipei soon. The guest beside us said she was from Taipei and then we started talking. That was kinda weird really because we didnt talk the entire hour plus we were eating. The lady was really hospitable and said her friend bakes home-made pineapple tarts in Kao Hsiung and she will ask her friend to send us a couple of boxes for free (w00t??!?) That was also kinda weird but hey, who am I to refuse free tarts?

We always meet weird people at Oyama.