Yesterday morning when I woke up I felt really bad. My throat was tight and was having running nose. Perhaps is inadequate rest from the previous days.
The whole scenario started on Friday evening when I join my friends for dinner at a local noodle stall after dropping my mom to a 'pre-wedding' buffet dinner. It was my sister-in-law's brother's wedding on Saturday (30th Jan 2010).
As usual, we sit and chit-chat until about 1am before calling it a day. Then, on Saturday morning I was already awake at 0800 to send my mom to attend the wedding ceremony at my brother's house.
The dinner was at suppose to start on 1900 hours but, as usual for all Chinese wedding dinner, the people have very bad habit of arriving after 1930. Worse, is at 2030 only the dinner starts. This is a very bad habit of the wedding dinner goers. It had just been a norm that when you attend wedding dinners, the dinner will not be served until about 2030 or so. I have personally attended one where the wedding only starts at 2100. Anyway, this can be a posting topic by itself.
The dinner only started at 2030, by the time, I had already had 2 glasses of red wines. The whole dinner only ended at close to 2300. By that time, I think I would have finished up a whole bottle of red wine. After the dinner, I send my lovely gf home and and as I am on my way home, there was a terrible traffic jam. 2 cars 'kissed and hug' each other and causing a half and hour delay in my journey back home. I only reach home at nearly 1am and I headed straight to bed only to woke up at about 10 am on Sunday morning and went for some local shopping for packet drinks at the hypermarket.
Then, I realise that my tight throat might be due to 'heat', so I went and bought myself 2 fresh green coconuts from the local stall and finish it yesterday itself. It really helped. Now although I am not 100% recovered, from my voice, you will know that I have some flu / sore throat kind of voice. I can't produce high pitch voice like I am able to previously, but I felt much better when I woke up this morning. I think tonight when I am driving home, I will again drop in the stall to pick up another fresh coconut to reduce the 'heat' that is still in the body.
I know in Chinese traditional medicine, there is such thing as heaty body which you must eat something cool to chill it down. That is why Chinese have such array of herbal teas and medicine that is meant to cool down the body. Besides that there is also Cold Cool and Wet Cool and they again call for other types of herbs. Even vegetables have been classified into this array of heat properties. Some vegetable are known to be cooling and give cold cool and vice verse.
However, when you ask a Western medical physicians, they will not tell you its heaty. For tight throat, they will prescribe you with anti-biotic and hopefully, it will clear the sore throat. Only when the physician that you consult uses his fingers instead of their ears to "listen" to your heart beat, they will tell you its heaty. Then, he will give you a concoction of dark, concentrated bottle of medication which by smelling itself it would be good to cure you and expecting you to finish the bottle within 3 days or so. I am just fearful of those thing.
But for me, when I am heaty, I will just drink tonnes of water, a few cans of isotonic drinks and lately I had added fresh coconut water into the list and it works. It is not a miracle medicine / solution, but it does help is cooling down my heaty body.
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Illogical Reasons
As I had posted earlier, I got a very cold feedback for the farewell dinner for my (now) ex-colleague, Red.
I was rather surprise the reason people can give for not wanting to attend the dinner.
When we first join this company, perhaps difference of about 1 month apart, Red join first before me, we both reported to this particular manager - Onion. Then, about a month later, Onion was then transferred to another location and we both reports directly to the Country Director.
All these times, we helped to resolve a lot of Onion's site issues. However, when I spoke to Onion asking if he wanted to join the dinner yesterday, he decline it. So, I did not ask further. Don't know for whatsoever reason, nearing the evening, just before Onion wants to leave the office, he walks into my room and inform me that the weather outside was excellent and he is going for his game.
I was surprised. Come on man, you can have your game anytime later, next week, next month, next year etc. There were so many more chances for you to play, but for farewell dinner, the particular person only leaves the company once, perhaps in your lifetime. Is playing game more important than keeping the friendship and showing token of appreciation to a fellow colleague?
At times, I really cannot comprehend the way people think. Perhaps we put different priorities differently in life. To me, without a doubt, family and friends always comes first before anything else.
I was so frustrated and disappointed with the reason Onion refuse the dinner. It might be better that he did not come in to my room to tell me his reason for not wanting to attend the dinner.
Anyway, what had been said and done have been a thing of the past. We cannot reverse this fact. Overall, I think it was also a blessing in disguise that Onion did not turn up for the dinner, else the atmosphere of the dinner might be very different.
The dinner was nice. Only 3 of us went for this dinner together with Red. We went for seafood near the old airport area, had fish, squids, 2 different types of vegetable and a soy bean curd. Completed the meal with some coconut jelly was was something quite special.
The bill was suppose to be shared by 3 of us but, I decided to take it up myself as a token of appreciation to Red for all his guidance and friendship all these years. I can say, most of my current waste water treatment knowledge and experiences are from him. I had learn so much from him over the years. Therefore, what is a farewell dinner as compared to all the knowledge and experiences that he had shared with me.
I was rather surprise the reason people can give for not wanting to attend the dinner.
When we first join this company, perhaps difference of about 1 month apart, Red join first before me, we both reported to this particular manager - Onion. Then, about a month later, Onion was then transferred to another location and we both reports directly to the Country Director.
All these times, we helped to resolve a lot of Onion's site issues. However, when I spoke to Onion asking if he wanted to join the dinner yesterday, he decline it. So, I did not ask further. Don't know for whatsoever reason, nearing the evening, just before Onion wants to leave the office, he walks into my room and inform me that the weather outside was excellent and he is going for his game.
I was surprised. Come on man, you can have your game anytime later, next week, next month, next year etc. There were so many more chances for you to play, but for farewell dinner, the particular person only leaves the company once, perhaps in your lifetime. Is playing game more important than keeping the friendship and showing token of appreciation to a fellow colleague?
At times, I really cannot comprehend the way people think. Perhaps we put different priorities differently in life. To me, without a doubt, family and friends always comes first before anything else.
I was so frustrated and disappointed with the reason Onion refuse the dinner. It might be better that he did not come in to my room to tell me his reason for not wanting to attend the dinner.
Anyway, what had been said and done have been a thing of the past. We cannot reverse this fact. Overall, I think it was also a blessing in disguise that Onion did not turn up for the dinner, else the atmosphere of the dinner might be very different.
The dinner was nice. Only 3 of us went for this dinner together with Red. We went for seafood near the old airport area, had fish, squids, 2 different types of vegetable and a soy bean curd. Completed the meal with some coconut jelly was was something quite special.
The bill was suppose to be shared by 3 of us but, I decided to take it up myself as a token of appreciation to Red for all his guidance and friendship all these years. I can say, most of my current waste water treatment knowledge and experiences are from him. I had learn so much from him over the years. Therefore, what is a farewell dinner as compared to all the knowledge and experiences that he had shared with me.
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Cold Team
Today (28th Jan 2010) is the last day for my of my colleague - Red. Red joined about a month before I join this company and I have been working very closely with him all these years.
Both of us are in a supporting role in this company supports all the sales team throughout Malaysia. Therefore, we had travelled to lots of places together all over Malaysia. He is the one who taught me about waste water treatment and jar test etc.
Same date last month, when I was on leave for Christmas / New Year, he send me a SMS informing me that he had tender in his resignation and it will be effective today. Red will be joining a ex-colleague of his (from his previous company) to start up a new company.
Therefore, I had initiated an e-mail to the fellow colleagues in our office to see if anyone will be interested to join in for the farewell dinner. Unfortunately, the response was cold. No one wants to join.
This is something I have expected in a way. Previously, I was thinking perhaps those have left did not work across departments / teams, hence, the response for these events is cold. However, me and Red works across the departments, unfortunately, the outcome is the same.
I can say even our site operators are more humane and more appreciative then those sitting in this office. In Penang, where we have most of the operators, they have collected some money to buy him a dinner twice due to the fact that some of our operators works on shifts, hence, the dinner have to be split into 2 separate days.
I think very likely the dinner will have to be postpone or cancel all together. I am very disappointed with the attitude of the people in this office. When it comes to work they are good in their trades, but when it comes to things like that, they are all cold as ice.
Anyway, Red, I sincerely Wish You All The Very Best in your Future Undertakings, keep in-touch and Thank You for all the guidance, support and great experiences we had together!!
Both of us are in a supporting role in this company supports all the sales team throughout Malaysia. Therefore, we had travelled to lots of places together all over Malaysia. He is the one who taught me about waste water treatment and jar test etc.
Same date last month, when I was on leave for Christmas / New Year, he send me a SMS informing me that he had tender in his resignation and it will be effective today. Red will be joining a ex-colleague of his (from his previous company) to start up a new company.
Therefore, I had initiated an e-mail to the fellow colleagues in our office to see if anyone will be interested to join in for the farewell dinner. Unfortunately, the response was cold. No one wants to join.
This is something I have expected in a way. Previously, I was thinking perhaps those have left did not work across departments / teams, hence, the response for these events is cold. However, me and Red works across the departments, unfortunately, the outcome is the same.
I can say even our site operators are more humane and more appreciative then those sitting in this office. In Penang, where we have most of the operators, they have collected some money to buy him a dinner twice due to the fact that some of our operators works on shifts, hence, the dinner have to be split into 2 separate days.
I think very likely the dinner will have to be postpone or cancel all together. I am very disappointed with the attitude of the people in this office. When it comes to work they are good in their trades, but when it comes to things like that, they are all cold as ice.
Anyway, Red, I sincerely Wish You All The Very Best in your Future Undertakings, keep in-touch and Thank You for all the guidance, support and great experiences we had together!!
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Not Productive Week
This week I think is the most unproductive week for me for 2010. From Tuesday until today, my work horse i.e. my notebook PC decided to take a break and stop working. I have to send it to the IT dept to get it checked and until today (22nd Jan) it is not back to me yet.
The IT person is now giving me lots of comments / reasons for the delay and my patience is getting really thin.
Anyhow, its already 3pm on a Friday afternoon, 2 more hours the weekend will start, also, even it he gives it back to me in an hour's time, it will be end of the working weekday.
One consolation for the week is that the IT guy realise how annoyed I was, he gave me a temporary unit which can go-online so that I can check my working e-mails thru the web-based server setup and also I have communicated with some of my fellow colleagues to send me urgent mails via my personal mail account.
Just hope by early next week, my work horse is all well and done up and I can work effectively again.
Keeping my fingers crossed for that!!
The IT person is now giving me lots of comments / reasons for the delay and my patience is getting really thin.
Anyhow, its already 3pm on a Friday afternoon, 2 more hours the weekend will start, also, even it he gives it back to me in an hour's time, it will be end of the working weekday.
One consolation for the week is that the IT guy realise how annoyed I was, he gave me a temporary unit which can go-online so that I can check my working e-mails thru the web-based server setup and also I have communicated with some of my fellow colleagues to send me urgent mails via my personal mail account.
Just hope by early next week, my work horse is all well and done up and I can work effectively again.
Keeping my fingers crossed for that!!
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
IT Department
I remember not long after I join this company, one of my colleague which was with the IT Department told me that the IT Dept will be closed down and he had been given a retrenchment.
At that time, never have I heard of such thing. To me retrenchment only happens to very senior people or when the company decides to shut down. The reason they shut down the IT at that time was they had outsourced the IT to 3rd party outsourcing company. It was a global initiatives and that from that day onwards, our company no longer have any IT people sitting around. All repair, formatting, hardware/software problem we do it via Net meeting and also sending the laptop to the service center.
Initially, it worked well, but as more and more complicated issued starts to appear, the user i.e. our own employees start to have comments on the service we got. It started with the comment that the outsourcing company using a non-English speaking engineer, typically Thai person to attend to our problem. We have such great difficulties understanding their instructions. Then, the problem escalated until once I heard a very high level manager had a problem with his notebook, when he called the help desk, he was treated badly / mistreated and not clear instructions is given.
That had triggered a snowball effect and the company started to look into the feasibility of outsourcing this to others. Eventually, as the outsourcing contract comes to an end, the company did not extend the service and today, we have an IT person sitting full time in the office.
When we heard that the IT will hire, the first name that all spoke out was the previous IT guy that was retrenched. However, things does not always goes as what we wanted. They company hired a guy from the outsourcing company instead.
I am not saying this person is not good. He had tonnes of certificates with regards to Windows OS System but he is lagging in our main mail software (it is not convenient for me to say the name of the software here). I notice whenever I have any problem with the mail software, he will take the PC and call his friend(s) over the net meeting / skype / chat in his old company to help him troubleshoot.
This is the incident that happen at the week I came back from Perth. I notice there is something wrong with my mail software. Then, I took the notebook to him, he admitted that he had requested help from his friend which is "more expert" in this software to resolve my problem.
The nightmare did not end there. From the day I took the notebook back after the repair, I begin to experience the software 'hanging' and the whole notebook not responding. Again, I told him my problem, and again, he tried a few attempts to resolve the problem but not successful.
Until yesterday, he promise to re-install the software for me and from about 10am in the morning, until now (its about 10am already) he had failed to resolve my problem, giving me reason that the software from the server is not installing properly and that the whole Pacific is facing this problem for new installation.
Yesterday evening at about 6.30pm, he called me in my house and told me to use the web-based e-mail address, however, only this morning he realised that to access to the web-based mail server I need to reset the password in the mail server which he had denied me access with his setup / repair yesterday.
I was so mad this morning when I realise this. Get real man, you are suppose to the the IT expert in our company, such simple issue you overlook and now, again, I have no way of accessing my e-mails and in today's working life, without e-mail is like 'lost' and not much of work can be done.
Now I can only sit around in the office, surf the net while waiting for him to restore my mail software back. Until then, I can't do any 'fruitful' work at all.
Hopefully everything can be restored by later today. Keeping my fingers crossed!!
At that time, never have I heard of such thing. To me retrenchment only happens to very senior people or when the company decides to shut down. The reason they shut down the IT at that time was they had outsourced the IT to 3rd party outsourcing company. It was a global initiatives and that from that day onwards, our company no longer have any IT people sitting around. All repair, formatting, hardware/software problem we do it via Net meeting and also sending the laptop to the service center.
Initially, it worked well, but as more and more complicated issued starts to appear, the user i.e. our own employees start to have comments on the service we got. It started with the comment that the outsourcing company using a non-English speaking engineer, typically Thai person to attend to our problem. We have such great difficulties understanding their instructions. Then, the problem escalated until once I heard a very high level manager had a problem with his notebook, when he called the help desk, he was treated badly / mistreated and not clear instructions is given.
That had triggered a snowball effect and the company started to look into the feasibility of outsourcing this to others. Eventually, as the outsourcing contract comes to an end, the company did not extend the service and today, we have an IT person sitting full time in the office.
When we heard that the IT will hire, the first name that all spoke out was the previous IT guy that was retrenched. However, things does not always goes as what we wanted. They company hired a guy from the outsourcing company instead.
I am not saying this person is not good. He had tonnes of certificates with regards to Windows OS System but he is lagging in our main mail software (it is not convenient for me to say the name of the software here). I notice whenever I have any problem with the mail software, he will take the PC and call his friend(s) over the net meeting / skype / chat in his old company to help him troubleshoot.
This is the incident that happen at the week I came back from Perth. I notice there is something wrong with my mail software. Then, I took the notebook to him, he admitted that he had requested help from his friend which is "more expert" in this software to resolve my problem.
The nightmare did not end there. From the day I took the notebook back after the repair, I begin to experience the software 'hanging' and the whole notebook not responding. Again, I told him my problem, and again, he tried a few attempts to resolve the problem but not successful.
Until yesterday, he promise to re-install the software for me and from about 10am in the morning, until now (its about 10am already) he had failed to resolve my problem, giving me reason that the software from the server is not installing properly and that the whole Pacific is facing this problem for new installation.
Yesterday evening at about 6.30pm, he called me in my house and told me to use the web-based e-mail address, however, only this morning he realised that to access to the web-based mail server I need to reset the password in the mail server which he had denied me access with his setup / repair yesterday.
I was so mad this morning when I realise this. Get real man, you are suppose to the the IT expert in our company, such simple issue you overlook and now, again, I have no way of accessing my e-mails and in today's working life, without e-mail is like 'lost' and not much of work can be done.
Now I can only sit around in the office, surf the net while waiting for him to restore my mail software back. Until then, I can't do any 'fruitful' work at all.
Hopefully everything can be restored by later today. Keeping my fingers crossed!!
Monday, January 18, 2010
Happiest Moment
Today (19th Jan 2010) at approx 9.45am is one of the happiest moment in my life. While I am working in my office, I got a SMS from my lovely gf which was really a surprise.
I was really surprise to see that SMS. I am not in the position to write the SMS content, but one thing I can say is that I have been waiting for that similar kind of SMS for a few years already.
Thank you Dear, you made me a very happy person and thanks for your kind faith and trust all these years and many many more enjoyable years to come.
I was really surprise to see that SMS. I am not in the position to write the SMS content, but one thing I can say is that I have been waiting for that similar kind of SMS for a few years already.
Thank you Dear, you made me a very happy person and thanks for your kind faith and trust all these years and many many more enjoyable years to come.
Sunday, January 17, 2010
Great Saturday
Last Saturday was really wonderful. My gf and me both went for a comedy ballet performance at KLPAC entitled "Men In Tutus". It was a show recommended by my gf and one thing I can say, it was really worth watching and I really enjoyed myself.
The Saturday (16th Jan 2010) was like normal Saturday, I went a bit late to see my gf as there was an appointment with a lawyer about some house MOT issues which I need to clarify. So, I only arrived to see my gf at about 3pm.
We went to a place for tea in which I had a glass of "Healthy Detox" drinks in which, celery, apple, ginger and cucumber are blended into juice. It was a bit heavy on the ginger side as the drink tasted a little strong on the ginger side. My gf had herself a glass of banana and yogurt blended drink.
After the drinks and some chit chats, we drove our self to Jln Ipoh to try find the KLPAC. After locating, it, we decided to have our dinner before going for the performance. Previously, I have heard from a some of my friends that Jln Ipoh (or Ipoh Road in English) is good for Chinese "Dim Sum". However, I have never been there myself.
As we drove around, we decided to stop for some stir fried stuffs (vegetables + rice), but out of coincident, we walked to a shop that sells "Dim Sum" instead. Initially, I didn't know if my gf would like to have that for dinner or not. To my surprise, she also loves it but did not mentioned it to me before, or perhaps she did and I could not remember as we rarely have "dim sum".
We had our share of chicken with glutinous rice (lor mai kai in Chinese), some meat balls, some "pau". The price was really reasonable as well. For all we stuffed ourselves, the bill came to less than RM30. I think we had about 9 types of different meat stuffed configurations e.g. meat stuffed in egg plant bitter gourd, stuffed meat with eggs etc etc and one big "pau", one B-B-Q pork "pau" and not forgetting 2 "lor mai kai". I would say a good value for money.
Normally, "dim sums" are taken for breakfast or brunch. It is very rare to see people having it for dinner. However, this shop or perhaps street had a couple of shops selling it for dinner and also for supper perhaps. I think the concept is that they start selling at the evening, all the way until the morning ready for the early breakfast serving and only close in the afternoon and re-open in the evening again. Don't know. Didn't ask.
Anyhow, after the nice filling dinner, we drove to the venue and collected our pre-booked tickets from the counter. The show started a bit late. It was scheduled at 8.30pm but only started 10 minutes or so later. Malaysian timing. What to do??
The show as full of laughter all the way from the very beginning until the end. Even for someone like me who don't really have much of imaginative mind and never able to grasp much of abstract arts / performance, seems to find the show easily understood. I really had a great laugh and really enjoyed myself a lot. I hope my gf had enjoyed herself too!!
Like all live performance, there is an interval of 20 minutes in between the one and a half hours performance. The part I like the most is the "Dying Swan" and also the "Swan Lake" performance. These performer are all tall (approx 6' 3"), well build (muscular) professional male ballet dances wearing the ladies ballet costume.
You can see that they are really good dancers and they have added a touch of comedy into their performance making it very fresh and hilarious. Only after watching, I understood how come this show was so highly commented and recommended from various parties.
The one thing a bit disappointing is that the show ended too soon. The one and a half hours performance seems a bit short for me. Perhaps as the saying in Chinese (Cantonese) "Fai Lock Pat Chee See San Kor".. which literally translate to "when you are having fun, you don't realise time passing".
As soon as the show started, that I felt like only few minutes ago, it ended and when I look at the watch only to realise it was actually 2230 hrs already. We left the hall a very entertained people.
I would like to thank my gf for such a good choice of show. Good thing that I did not miss it. Thank You Dear!!
The Saturday (16th Jan 2010) was like normal Saturday, I went a bit late to see my gf as there was an appointment with a lawyer about some house MOT issues which I need to clarify. So, I only arrived to see my gf at about 3pm.
We went to a place for tea in which I had a glass of "Healthy Detox" drinks in which, celery, apple, ginger and cucumber are blended into juice. It was a bit heavy on the ginger side as the drink tasted a little strong on the ginger side. My gf had herself a glass of banana and yogurt blended drink.
After the drinks and some chit chats, we drove our self to Jln Ipoh to try find the KLPAC. After locating, it, we decided to have our dinner before going for the performance. Previously, I have heard from a some of my friends that Jln Ipoh (or Ipoh Road in English) is good for Chinese "Dim Sum". However, I have never been there myself.
As we drove around, we decided to stop for some stir fried stuffs (vegetables + rice), but out of coincident, we walked to a shop that sells "Dim Sum" instead. Initially, I didn't know if my gf would like to have that for dinner or not. To my surprise, she also loves it but did not mentioned it to me before, or perhaps she did and I could not remember as we rarely have "dim sum".
We had our share of chicken with glutinous rice (lor mai kai in Chinese), some meat balls, some "pau". The price was really reasonable as well. For all we stuffed ourselves, the bill came to less than RM30. I think we had about 9 types of different meat stuffed configurations e.g. meat stuffed in egg plant bitter gourd, stuffed meat with eggs etc etc and one big "pau", one B-B-Q pork "pau" and not forgetting 2 "lor mai kai". I would say a good value for money.
Normally, "dim sums" are taken for breakfast or brunch. It is very rare to see people having it for dinner. However, this shop or perhaps street had a couple of shops selling it for dinner and also for supper perhaps. I think the concept is that they start selling at the evening, all the way until the morning ready for the early breakfast serving and only close in the afternoon and re-open in the evening again. Don't know. Didn't ask.
Anyhow, after the nice filling dinner, we drove to the venue and collected our pre-booked tickets from the counter. The show started a bit late. It was scheduled at 8.30pm but only started 10 minutes or so later. Malaysian timing. What to do??
The show as full of laughter all the way from the very beginning until the end. Even for someone like me who don't really have much of imaginative mind and never able to grasp much of abstract arts / performance, seems to find the show easily understood. I really had a great laugh and really enjoyed myself a lot. I hope my gf had enjoyed herself too!!
Like all live performance, there is an interval of 20 minutes in between the one and a half hours performance. The part I like the most is the "Dying Swan" and also the "Swan Lake" performance. These performer are all tall (approx 6' 3"), well build (muscular) professional male ballet dances wearing the ladies ballet costume.
You can see that they are really good dancers and they have added a touch of comedy into their performance making it very fresh and hilarious. Only after watching, I understood how come this show was so highly commented and recommended from various parties.
The one thing a bit disappointing is that the show ended too soon. The one and a half hours performance seems a bit short for me. Perhaps as the saying in Chinese (Cantonese) "Fai Lock Pat Chee See San Kor".. which literally translate to "when you are having fun, you don't realise time passing".
As soon as the show started, that I felt like only few minutes ago, it ended and when I look at the watch only to realise it was actually 2230 hrs already. We left the hall a very entertained people.
I would like to thank my gf for such a good choice of show. Good thing that I did not miss it. Thank You Dear!!
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