When it rains

it pours… so don’t forget your umbrella! – quotable quote from my friend, Sheng.

I am taking a few minutes break from work and that break to me means scribbling down this post – I’ll take another break later to get a cup of hot drink from the cafeteria. Hay, I’ve been very busy since last week and my “system” is doing a total adjustment. It has been six months since the last time I was really busy at work. Wow, that’s two quarters! So what did I do all this time? Hmmnnn, two months was the official vacation leave while four months was spent at work but not really doing much. I even had to talk to my boss several times to ask for tasks to do. He did gave me some but weren’t that much to eat up the whole office hours so I still had chances to surf the net and update my blog/s.

Now that I am starting with a new project, I find it quite strange to see myself busy. But this is not even comparable to how busy I was for the past two years when even at the peak of my pregnancy, I got to work until 1am. Yes, I worked on more than 5 major projects by myself – that meant staying late at work almost everyday as I needed to collate and edit reports, update emails, generate my own reports, attend night telecons and do other things I shouldn’t really be responsible of. Good thing my Jade didn’t decide to come out while I was on a meeting.

If somebody gets back to me like this - I'm might not be able to control my temper and give him/her a punch (not the drinks, ok :) ).

I should be able to shrug off this kind of “new” working scheme yet I have to welcome the delight of not having to worry about overcoming a day-long or even worse, a week-long boredom that results from being idled. Gotta get that cup of drink now and finish my “to do’s” else I’ll end up dumped with more of it.

PS. I got several posts kept in my draft and I’m not sure when they’ll get published. Anyhow, I’ll get back on my regular blogging activities in no time.

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Office rant 3...

My colleague (let’s call her MC) and I (JM) were preparing our chopsticks for lunch today when…

Girl 1: Hey, MC, aren’t you going to the eng’g lab for lunch?

MC: Why? No, we’re going to the cafeteria.

Girl 1: Wait, girl 2 sent an email to everyone saying we all go together to the lab because packed lunched from outside will be served to the group.

MC: Huh! Really? What’s the occasion?

Girl 1: Wait, wait, wait …

(girl 1 looks at her email)

Girl 1: Sorry, sorry, I realized you’re not in the email chain

PS: Above conversation was in Chinese

_________________

On our way to the wash area:

MC: Girl 1 said … (related the above conversation to me)

JM: They always do that to us, that girl 2… she always leave us out of the list

MC: But why? She can do a mistake once, twice or thrice but not more than three times

JM: Maybe she intentionally does that – get rid of us

MC: But I still can’t understand

JM: You know, everytime I asked hubby why we’re not included, he tells me it’s time for us to move to that place so girl 2 will feel our presence…

- but then, I think, it won’t make a difference

- You know what, somebody from the group should somehow be curious why we’re not around, don’t you think?

MC: Yes, somebody should fight for us… pauses

JM and MC: But nobody seems to look for us…

________________

We headed down to the cafeteria and while queueing…

MC: I don’t feel bad because we don’t have the lunch box but I feel bad being not included in the chain. You see, they even included girl 1 (not a part of the group anymore) and the other lady whom we don’t even know

JM: Girl 2 also invited one of the girls downstairs before

MC turns back to our two other lunch buddies and told them what we were ranting about. Feeling for us, the other girl said we’d order our own drinks then. And MC blurted out “Yes, I’ll order drinks for everyone except her.”

MC: But that will be too obvious already

_____________

While we were eating our meals, we talked further:

JM: Who’s birthday is it today?

MC: I don’t know – I’m not sure – it could be the same guy who bought the 85degC drinks yesterday

JM: You mean the new guy

MC: No, should be from the other group

JM: Ah ok.

_________________

We finished our meal and as a final comment to our sentiments over not being invited to our group’s lunch-together, I looked at my platter and uttered – we got better meal than what they have in their lunchboxes!

___________________

THE END

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Earning Online

I once ran into a site that advertised a pay per post blog. I explored it for a while but one of the first questions that was raised by my curious mind is "does it really work, do people really get paid for their posts?" Definitely, to get the fee, one must provide an account number most probably a credit card account. It is risky, isn't it? There have been a lot of scams and it's hard for me to convince myself to go for the PPP thing.

This morning, one of my usual online e-chat friends told me about her friend earning few bucks from being a member of the PPP for almost a month now. You'd know my initial reaction - really??? Is it really real that she's started to get something back from it? The answer is "yes" and she can attest to that because her friend is using her paypal-SG account (PPP didn't acknowledge the paypal-Phils). Now, I started to be more curious so I asked her to send me her friend's blog URL and there I went exploring it and saw the link to PPP. Once again, I went into the site and learned more about it. It says you get paid for blogging something of your interest. So I thought, aha, anything under the sun will do. Then I went on searching one link to the other and one interesting I found out is that one can advertise one's self and get paid even more. Aha, nice idea huh! Now, what can one do to get more bucks? Offer to write something for someone - say, a product promotion or an ad. Hhhmmnn...

I went back to talk to my friend about it and mentioned that I may not have the knack of writing anymore. But then, on second thought, you really don't have to be a professional writer to come up with a piece, right? As long as you have a subject and you know how to present it - you already have the tools. Now, here's another catch. I learned from my friend that the bucks do not end in the paypal account as it needs to be linked to a bank account for ease of withdrawal - something she hasn't done yet. Do I need to wait and see how it finally works when my friend's friend is able to get the actual cash? I'd say maybe NO - I could start to give it a try so PPP can start to accumulate my posts. Note: the post needs to be submitted to PPP for review and approval before one gets paid. I don't have any question for this. What I plan to do now is to organize my blog posts, create another blog suitable for PPP, export my chosen blog posts and sign up for a PPP account. You may ask why do I need to create a separate blog - because I don't want my current blog sites to be flooded with even more advertisements. I noticed that the PPP members' blogs have a lot of ads popping in their sites - that's where the bucks are coming from.

Not a bad idea, err???

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Wheel of misfortune...

I was on my way to the RD lab when I saw my colleague from the window. I called on her to let her know someone’s looking for her only to see that she was weeping. Though she turned to acknowledge me, I just signalled her to go on her way… to the toilet… to weep…
When I reached the lab, I saw her project engineer talking to the team leader. His tone was not very nice until he was already almost shouting. Then I realized what caused her to cry… she had an argument with the guy over the project issues and she left him with the leader otherwise, they’ll be shouting back to each other.
Nah, I had my own share of those bad moments when some people or most people just don’t understand how much pressure is on us being the direct contact between our company and the customers. It’s not as simple as arranging the project schedule as they think. They don’t understand that we are representing the company and not our personal identities.
The team leader and the other team member are here now, trying to comfort her. I understand how disappointed she is with all these big issues and out of control situations plus people who don’t cooperate, and with the customer starting to complain…
I think I had more than that…
I cried several times in desperation feeling I was a failure because I, unlike the rest of the team members, get the direct feedback from outside…
My boss even called me a liar but people around me were more than a liar…
I even shouted back to one of my team members because she jokingly blamed me for the project’s failure…pish!
But now is my time to just watch them…
I can’t do much because of my company’s culture…
Later, when these two are gone, I’ll just listen to my colleague and empathize with her.

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Office rant 2...

The following phone conversation is based on a real scenario though the lines are modified so as not to disclose "confidential" information. It took place this morning. I was the one who initiated the call.

me: Hi (girl), did you see my email? Could you please get back to me on the information I asked?

girl: I can't find it.

me: Shouldn't you have a system where you can track it from?

girl: yes we do but i can't find it

me: but (boy) said he already generated it some time ago (around one month ago I think)

girl: let me ask from him. here he is now. i'll pass the phone

me: how come girl can't find the info in the system. you told the team you have already generated it.

boy: i can't find it either.

me: how come?

boy: let me check. i am opening my system now. (pause) i don't think i generated it.

me: what? why? didn't you tell us before you have it already

boy: yes, but i think i made a mistake on that

me: huh!

boy: i also checked from (another boy) and he told me he didn't receive it yet

me: huh! (eyebrows raised) (pause).. hey boy, how come you're telling me this now? we had daily meetings and you confirmed you already provided the info. we even argued with the other boy telling him you confirmed. because you did confidently confirmed back to us several times (strong emphasis on "confidently confirmed")

boy: i think i got things mixed up (or something like that)

me: what??? (again...) hei, didn't you know that we had daily meetings because of you. do you mean you were lying to us the whole time???

boy: perhaps you can say that!

me: (very very surprised, disappointed, almost disoriented already as in duh!)...whoa! so you admit all these time you have lied to us? .....

boy: (i forgot what he said this time because I got disoriented by his earlier response )

me: what's wrong with you? how many times have you told us lies? (pause)

(long pause)

me: I will emphasize to you, you have lied to us. ( I really don't want to believe what I heard earlier again)... ( I had to calm down) ok, just give me what I need and I need it now. (deep sigh... phone down...no bye bye or thanks (what should I thank him for anyway, for his lies???)

minutes later, my colleague/friend reacted. " I thought you were talking the the other department because of this reason but when I heard you mention the name of the boy, I knew what it was. You sounded like a mother... (bwahahahahaha)

I shed some tears because of my great disappointment from that phone conversation. Could you imagine working with somebody who after all, is eventually telling you lies? I shouldn't be more surprise that he's done a lot of lies to his external contacts...pish na ketdi.

I got another call this afternoon, not from the "boy" but from somebody the boy approached looking for some reports. He asked me for some information (not related to the conversation). I just told him "let the boy figure out by himself" and whispered "he's a liar".

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Rant...

My colleague (& friend) seated right beside me sent me an email before 3PM today. It contains the following lines...

Why (other colleague's name disclosed) always wears lots of clothes in Summer time then turn the air con to that low temperature……………….Don’t understand……..

I can't help but burst into laughter. We had this concern for some time now. We take turns in changing our office room's air-conditioning setting that my friend even directed the pane right towards the other girl and had the fan setting increased instead of decreasing the temperature. Summer's over now but it is still warm in here so we still get to wear our summer clothes but because of the other girl's doing, we have to wear our jackets from time to time.

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Monday, July 2, 2007

I am officially back to work today after a two months vacation leave. Hurray, I am happy to hear from my colleagues that there are no big issues concerning the projects I left behind. People in my RD team now leaves the office at 10pm whereas they used to get home from work past 12MN. Unfortunately though, this means that we don't have new projects coming. On the other hand, this entails that I can go home exactly at 5:40pm everyday, yehey!

Hmmn, several things have changed in the office area. The layout of the RD lab infront of our office area has changed, half of my RD lab is left unoccupied, breakfast meals are sold in the vegetarian canteen (instead of the store), the store owner is new (or maybe just a reliever), two guys behind my office seat have left the company, there are new two faces I see around, one of my PM colleagues has transferred to sales and hey, my boss has also been changed. Oops, the 1pm bell rang already, got to get back to reality.

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Shortened day at the office...

Whew, we’re lucky to be home early this afternoon. The government announced that work stops at 4:00pm due to the heavy storm. Typhoon Talim (that’s how they named it here) has already reached Taiwan. Right now, the strong wind and heavy rain have started to pour. It’s expected to be in the vicinity until tomorrow. If it maintains its strength like this until the morrow, we might have a day off! On the other hand, I hope the storm won’t cause much damage in the place.

Hmnnn, it’s time to cuddle in bed.

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Working after a long "rest"

I am just two weeks old in my new job as a project manager for key customers but I am starting to feel the pressure already. Actually, the 1st week was more of familiarization of the work place, the processes and the people especially the key contacts from the different departments. It was just last Thursday that my projects were formally given, that makes it barely a week of formal job assignment. At first, I paid attention only to two major projects then at the start of this week, I realized there are so much things to do. Luckily, the engineering group I work with are very supportive and accomodating. My boss too is supportive but he got too many projects as well that is more of a concern to him. So I have to learn how to become independent. The bad thing though is I don’t know how to speak Taiwan’s native language. I attented few meetings where the people communicated in Chinese. I am lucky if there’s somebody who’ll volunteer to interpret stuffs for me. Today, I attended a weekly meeting for regular updates of schedule. After I raised my concern on the items attentioned to me, I excused myself since I can’t understand the rest they’re discussing. I had to spend my 1st official overtime to finish several tasks and project schedule preparation that my boss will check tomorrow. When I was about to leave the office, I saw my task lists for the morrow and shesh, my day sched is almost full, and I have an evening conference call meeting at 9pm which reminds me that I have to update the progress reports in the morning.

But then I realized that it’s how things are at work. You have to be tough to survive ( After almost nine months of unemployment, I think I missed working =)

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