Anticipated Serendipity II: December 2006

JC's Xmas Party : 16th Dec '06

This year, I've been to more Xmas dos and parties than I've ever been to before!

At JC's Xmas party, we were requested to do an impromptu salsa performance...

Lesson learnt : Try NOT to reveal that I do salsa so that ppl won't ask me to give a demo!

Food time!!!

The PMO Gang

Bored...

I...am...so...

BORED!!!

This week is gonna be a slow week coz almost everyone's off for the Xmas and New Year hols...

Merry Xmas & Happy New Year to all!!!

:-D

Ambulance Crisis???

According to NST, there's an ambulance shortage in the country (sorry, no link coz the article was back in Sept and their news archive only goes back 7 days but u can refer to the Monsterblog link).

I dun exactly doubt the above... but one thing I've noticed since I started work is that every single day, at the same locations (Jln Duta, Jln Kuching, Jln Tun Razak), at around the same time every morning, there will be at least one ambulance with its siren on, rushing its way thru traffic.

So while I'm stuck in the traffic jam, after the ambulance has come and gone, I wonder:

How come always at around the same time in the morning (between 8.15-8.45am), there's always at least one ambulance trying to make its way thru traffic with its siren blaring?

Seriously. Without fail. At least, from Mondays to Fridays lar. Is it coz ppl are rushing to work and are more prone to accidents during this time?? But EVERY SINGLE DAY??? :-O

Man, talk about crazy drivers!

Merry Xmas, PMO-Style!

We have been decorating our PMO room to get into the Christmas-y mood...

Here's our Christmas wreath on our door...

Here's our Christmas tree...

And here's our Christmas tree with the presents for our gift exchange on 20th Dec...

Oh, and all our decorations are handmade! Hehe... PMO can open up a side business. Handmade decorations for any occasion! :-D

What to do with people you are not fond of...

What do you do when you are in a situation where you are about to bump into someone whom you don't like or don't wish to meet?

Recently, I was in this unfortunate situation. From the corner of my eye, I saw a couple of people whom I didn't wish to meet or talk to. And I know they'd seen me. So wat did I do? I was far away enough and in such an angle that it would be quite natural that I didn't notice them. So I just stared straight ahead at my destination and made my way there. It was a good thing that I was late meeting a friend so I was naturally in a hurry.

When dealing with people that I'm not fond of, my policy is to stay away and have as little to do with them as possible. If I don't like a person, I will not spend time talking about him/her to others. Unlike some other people who seem to enjoy discrediting those that they don't like to anyone who'd listen. As Audrey had written about me once, "When AL runs across someone she dislikes, she doesn't start a big campaign to destroy/challenge their ideals/motives. She simply avoids them!"

I like my policy :-)

**********
I apply the same policy when it comes to unwanted attention from the opposite sex.

Over the years, my friends and I shared with each other the different methods which we use to handle members of the opposite sex who'd shown interest in us but the interest was not reciprocated.

Some only needed to give subtle hints and the other party understood and backed off. Some had to give not-so-subtle hints before the other party saw the light. Others (myself included) removed ourselves completely from the situation when the above failed. This meant that any communication from the interested party was not entertained i.e. calls, emails, any form of messages were deliberately ignored. Sounds harsh but sometimes, desperate situations require desperate measures when all else fails. And in some situations, desperate measures ARE required in order to get the message across to the other party. As the Chinese sayings goes "Short term pain is better than long term pain" or something to that measure. No use in prolonging the pain if your presence is only going to make the other person yearn for you more but you can't reciprocate his/her feelings.

**********
Unfortunately, when it comes to working with people I don't like, I don't have the luxury to stay away and make myself scarce. If the nature of work necessitates working with a person I don't like, I have to hide my dislike and get the work done.

Ah well, if it has to be done, it has to be done, rite? I win some, and lose some.

Dun Sweat the Small Stuff

Sometimes, I get upset to the point that I dun trust myself to speak. So I dun.

A few weeks back, Erica was advising Jean to not sweat over the small stuff and not to be such a stickler for details. I agreed. And I'm working on it too.

I get annoyed when I find out my time has been wasted for nothing when I could've been doing something else more productive.

Like sleep.

*Yaaaawwwwnnnn*

Flexi what??!!

The current company has a strange concept of flexi-time.

Official working hours are from 8.30am to 5.30pm. According to HR, employees can enjoy flexi-time where we can come in between 8.30-9.00am.

BUT this is where it gets a bit strange...

Scenario 1
If we clock in at : 8.30am
We must clock out at : 5.30pm or later

Scenario 2
If we clock in at : 9.00am
We must clock out at : 6.00pm or later

Scenario 3
If we clock in at : 8.31am
We must clock out at : 6.00pm or later

Scenario 4
If we clock in at : 8.29am or earlier
We must clock out at : 5.30pm or later

Am I missing something here or is that NOT the definition of flexi-time?? See, my definition of flexi-time is that we just need to work the stipulated number of hours based on the time we clock in. So, logically, if I clock in at 9am, I will leave at 6pm and if I clock in at 8.31am, I will leave at 5.31pm, and so on. This was how the first company that I worked for operated their flexi-time. We even had staff come in at 7am and leave at 3pm! So, this company's concept of flexi-time isn't flexi-time at all!!! I'd just call that 1/2 hour between 8.30-9am as a grace period for us to get in to work. Of course, this being KL, we almost always never get to leave on time anyway. Examples above are just for examples sake. Heh.

Duh, flexi-time my foot!

**********
Another thing that doesn't make sense here is the date when our salary is banked in. For permanent & confirmed staff, the pay date is 22nd of each month for the current month's salary. For non-confirmed and contract staff, the pay date is on the 1st of the next month for the current month's salary. Which is fine by me (I'm contract staff). But see, ALL staff gets their payslip on 22nd of the month, even those who get their salary on the 1st of next month. Which is quite useless to people who get their salary on the 1st of next month coz all we can do is look at the payslip and anticipate the $$$ that's going to come in.

And the reasoning that HR gave us for this is "Oh, we give out the payslips on the same day for all staff so we don't need to do double work". But see, aren't you already doing double work by paying out salary on 2 different dates???

I've noticed a trend here... some of their processes just don't make sense at all. It's like they just blindly follow whatever is already in place.

Geez!!

o_O

Deceptive & Deceitful, That's What They Are!

It's amazing to see the extent to which some people would go to to discredit another person/entity.

Our current vendor is one such being. Up tp this point in my career, I've never come across anyone who displays such lack of integrity and huge amounts of sneakiness/deceptiveness just to get their way.

Not only do they NOT own up to the fact that their system has more problems than expected, they sweep the problems under the "carpet" and even go straight to the CEO and users (bypassing PMO, the gatekeeper of standard processes and procedures) and use their sneaky tactics to get these 2 groups of people to agree to their demands so they can proceed to go-live. And these users also, dunno why they trust the vendor sooooo much... go and listen to them and agree with their demands! Like, WTF??!!! It's YOUR system, man... YOU'RE gonna have to deal with it and all the problems that come along with it after going live. And you're stupid enough to agree to proceed with so many problems! Hallo, have some common sense, will you???

Anyway, the vendor seems to have a personal vendetta against PMO coz we're putting in place (or rather, TRYING with not much help from the users) some procedures to try to ensure that the system is as bug-free as possible and this inevitably causes people to raise questions about the stability and reliability of the system and as such, might cause delays in the go-live date (but better late than sorry, methinks). So the vendor is going all out to discredit PMO, even up to the extent of going straight to the CEO to get certain things their way and complaining about the PM's decisions being made on the basis of "emotions". Which is not true, as PMO reports the status of the project and make recommendations based on facts.

Geez, what is wrong with this vendor????? If their system is not good, then just admit it lar and everyone works together to get the problems fixed. Every system will definitely have problems, everyone expects that... but they just make it worse when they keep saying "Oh, our system is fine. You can go-live any day." with the large number of defects staring right at our faces. They think the client is that stupid, is it??? Even if the users are blinded for now, eventually someone will see the light and all the shit that comes with it.

Bleecckk... I can take the fact that some things may go wrong and some people may not know how to do certain things. As long as they are HONEST about it. But I cannot tahan all this sneakiness and back-stabbing. Makes my blood boil and feel like smacking someone.

This is so unbelievable *rolling eyes*

Ramblings while on sick leave...

Oh wow! I haven't been here for so long that I even forgot what pic I had of myself on my profile! Haha!!

Today I am on sick leave. Been feeling off since last Friday... but I degil, still go to work on Mon, Tue, Wed... until I couldn't tahan anymore (my nose was running full-steam and eyes tearing)... finally went to the clinic to get an MC for today.

Which is why I'm actually ONLINE in the middle of the day!!! Haha!!!

**********

I do not like the HEAD. I get along with the other ppl fine... but the HEAD just gets on my nerves. She has this fierce auntie-type look on her face all the time. And when she talks to ppl, she always sounds like she's scolding them (maybe she is, who knows). Geez...

**********

The D show is off coz of some stupid VIP who couldn't make it. Wasted our time practicing and choreographing for the show. Why is it that these VIPs are never considerate about other ppl's time and effort??? Same goes for the Don show, which was also cancelled coz another stupid VIP couldn't make it. These ppl think we all got no other jobs to do but practice and rehearse just fo them is it???

**********

I finally watched The First Awakenings in full today!!! I've had the VCD for ages now and I'd just only managed to watch the full thing! Haha... maybe coz I was too nervous to watch myself dance. Anyway, this was the first show we had which had paying audience... and as I was watching myself, I realized that my posture could be better, my spins could be more stable, my chowka could be lower, my movements could be bigger.... so many things lar!

Anyway, since I'm in my Odissi mood...