Cleanthon is on again!

For the third time since January, the 5S cleanthon thing is on again. Someone labeled my umbrella this time....

http://myfoodforthots.blogspot.com/2009/04/awesome-office.html#links

DO NOT try this stunt

If you're having a tummy ache and you feel like going to the toilet but not just yet, DO NOT, I repeat DO NOT start driving yourself to anywhere even if the destination is just 10 to 15 minutes away.

It happened on Tuesday morning. I thought I'd be fine, it was just 10 to 15 minutes to office. So I went, but I was not even halfway through when I had to stand the churning tummy, the horrible tummy ache while holding it back as best as I can. Oh, and while concentrating on the road too.

You know sometimes when everything just comes crashing down on you at one go? This was the day - every car in front of me seemed to slow down or block my way. Actually it does not just seem so, the cars did slow down to a mere 40kmh and they did it on the day I had to reach the office toilet fast. That wasn't even all - there were no petrol stations on the way to work and that public bus chose to race my car that morning that it blocked the road entrance to my office. Sheesh...and when I stepped on and cut in at the right moment, the bus driver gave me a playful honk. What a cheek!

Guess what happened when I finally parked in the Vice President's car park and ran to the toilet? The toilet was locked - they were washing it. I almost banged the door down and the cleaner reluctantly opened it for me in slooooowww motion. Haiyo.

There was poo on my new Hush Puppies knickers. If it wasn't that comfy and if it wasn't new, I would have dumped it away but it was my first time wearing it. Sigh.....Too bad.

I was still having a little tummy ache so I called my boss who laughed (maybe she did it tastefully so it wasn't that bad). I had to go home fast now so that the 2nd round will be in my toilet at home and not on Hush Puppies again. And guess what? Some brainless fella had to park his bike behind my car. Well, maybe the VP should thank me otherwise it would have been him knocking the motorbike down. Luckily the fella wasn't on his bike. Phew!

Didn't I just say, everything just comes crashing down on you on a bad day?

My ex-boss

No, not the one I'm working for now...hmmm...come to think of it, isn't it funny that my boss now was also my ex-boss? Anyway, she's such a changed person compared to last time. For e.g., she called the rest of the staff who were working late today to ask if they wanted KFC or anything else for tea break.

Oopss..anyway, I'm not here to talk about her. What I wanted to say was that it's really important that you get bosses who would praise you and appreciate you and I don't mean by just actions but by telling you straight to face. My ex-CEO, TF was like that. He'd go around telling every other company and everybody nationwide that his most prized possessions were his staff. He'd go around telling you, "You're the best" right to your face when he sees you. He'd invite you over to Bangsar to have dinner with him and didn't even think that he's the CEO and you're some kuchi-rat in the company. He didn't want to know what position you're holding as there's no hierarchy in the company. He'd talk to you like you're his friend and not a staff working for him.

There was once he put on the ramp workers' (those people who carried baggages to the plane) jacket and went to carry up the baggages with them.

I suffered from culture shock when I changed companies. No regrets but I do miss working for people like him (minus the HR policy there and minus some other people who did it all wrong). It was fun.

Mummy-friendly places and breastfeeding rooms

Before you start commenting on anything, yes, I am still breastfeeding. Not so in really 'breastfeeding' directly but I still do give 100% breastmilk to the little man. What I want to write about here is how friendly this country's infrastructure is in providing this essential service to the group of mothers who would want to provide the best brained citizens for this developing country for their kids.

Yes, breastfeeding facilities are mushrooming in shopping centres. Even places like Tesco are starting to have it. I love the one in KLCC best - it's  equipped with play area and games for kids, hot water, basin, etc. The others are OK. Even LCCT has the facility now after their renovations, so my earlier post about pumping in the store room in LCCT does not seem valid anymore. Haha - maybe it was because of my complaint. And mind you even the Immigration Department in Setapak has it! I know because I've used it. Such a place and they actually had the notion to provide such facility.

What brought me to this write up is that our government has not stressed enough that all companies should have private clean rooms (not toilets!) for this matter. No, not for us to bring our kids to work (that's another issue) to breastfeed but more for pumping milk to bring home. Sigh! It makes me tired even writing this.

And you ask why do I even bother? Well, for the past 9 months, I have been using the dressing room downstairs. On several occasions, some brainless people actually come knocking on the door just because they want to use it there and then. I wonder if they do this in the shopping malls - Oh, you need to try that on? Just knock on the door till the person inside comes out, kick their butts out of the room and go try on your stuff for as long as you want. I know that they are the ones who bring money to the company and I am one whom the company need to pay money to and I guess any company owner will say that the previous is more important. PHOEEY! The day before yesterday was no exception. This woman came knocking on the door TWICE and THEN she went on to get the keys from the reception to open the door!

Thankfully the whole process was so disruptive that I came out of the room on time to see the receptionist walking with keys on her hand to open the door. I don't suppose you want to know what would've happened if I were still inside and they actually opened the door. It's too horrendous to write about.

What a blog

OK, I'm truly mad. I kind of forgotten about the stuff until D told me to go read 'his' blog about how he 'pengsan' in LCCT.

This blog of mine - read by no one I think, probably only occasionally by some friends who know about it has been nothing since I started it four years ago. 'His' blog? His first post was written by me, similarly his 'About Me' section. I can see, he left it as it is and didn't change anything. And what do you know, 50 comments on 'his' first post. My blog - probably 50 comments in 100 posts! Jeez......

And I can't even tell everyone that I started his blog for him coz there's no proof. Phooey!

OOPSSssss! Most embarrassing moment in life

Well, maybe not so embarrassing but it bruises my ego. I wish that I could bury my head somewhere. This is the second time that something like this happened. OK, here's the story.

Take 1:

Imagine skipping work to go to a movie with your colleague. Thankfully not many people are able to fill up the cinema seats at this point of time. The movie finishes and you're all ready to go, have lunch and probably laugh over the movie. Because the cinema is not full, you choose better seats at the back. You're so hungry by the time the movie finishes that you don't wait till the lights are turned on. So you get up and place your foot on the carpeted stairs and this is where your foot goes into the hole between the steps and the chair and you go tumbling down all the way to the bottom of the cinema.

I think the laughter of the day wasn't the movie but it was me. Thanks to my ex-colleague who offered to buy Starbucks afor me to use the paper bag to cover my head.

Take 2:

This happened this morning. I know, yikes! I wore my newest show which I thought was a good buy at RM24. Unfortunately, I didn't check it's soles to see if they were slippery. It was bad enough that I was late for the meeting as I could not find the so called HR meeting room which wasn't at HR at all but at another building with hidden entrance. As I came out from the wrong entrance - this entrance is where everyone including public who came for shopping would be at - kaboom! Is this the sound of someone tripping over the steps with the laptop flying off onto the floor?

I'm alright, checked my bones laptop and it seems to be fine. But my ego is bruised.

Awesome office...

I just realised my last post was in January. I've kept several pictures for my blog posts but somehow never got to write any - like the picture of melamine biscuits and those early sunrise pictures I took from my balcony.

Anyway, what brought me back this time was the fact that my office never fails to shock amaze me. What with the spirulina issue, it's now the 5S issue. As far as I know, what I read from the 5S board, it's about increasing productivity and providing customers with best service, something like that. But somehow, the whole office is busy cleaning every nook and corner and tidying every shelf, desk and store room. Everything on everyone's table must look the same - you must have 5 L-boxes on the right hand side of your L table, the phone must be on the left side placed in front of you, the stationaries must be kept in this little drawer that everyone has and placed on the left next to the in-and-out tray, etc. One of them actually came around my table and commented that I have only two L-shaped boxes, which is more than sufficient for me since I'm such a paperless person and everything is on my laptop. Then they told me to stuff all the rest of my stuff in my car boot for the week because the auditors were coming for a check. GOODNESS! Auditors to check how clean and similar your desk is to everyone elses! Hearsay, the auditors also check for dusts on chair legs, air holes on the monitors, desk corners, etc. So, on Thursday, I had to wipe clean the legs of my chairs - why on Earth my boss decided to give me 3 chairs and a longer table when all I needed for work was my laptop and nothing else! Heck, I don't even clean the legs of the dining chairs at home.

Before the auditors came, a couple of my colleagues came to brief me about it. They said the auditors like to ask newer staff to get certain files from the cabinets and they'd want to see how organized you and your department are in getting a file. That really put me in panic mode. First, I don't really belong to the department. I'm sitting there just because I'm still a one-woman-show and there is insufficient office space for a new department. Second, what file? I have never ever opened any of the cupboards to look for any file which is not in my own department! And lo-behold they actually name every cupboard and file (which is by the way how I should be labeling the files on my table) and when you want to retrieve it, you have to use this magnetic stripe with your name on, to stick it on the panel of the cupboard and file name that you take. I was actually using those magnetic strips to stick my post-it-notes beside my table. Sheesh!

The whole department looked spick and span on Friday when the auditors came. I went to the toilet twice, not because I was afraid but because I really didn't want to mess their cupboards or failed their department of something that seems more important than real work itself. The auditors went around checking on everyone's desk, the notice boards and shelves. The moment they stepped in, they commented that not everyone's cables (telephone, computer, etc) has been tied up neatly. If two or more people didn't have properly tied up cables, then the department fails. At this point of time, my mouth is opened in awe - tied cables? How does that link to increasing productivity at all? Plus, the partitions had proper spaces where they hid all the cables neatly but they still had to tie the cables up before hiding them in the partition? It's a waste of tapes and wires if you ask me!

Then one of them ran his fingers on someone's paper tray and oopss.....he said it's got dust. At this point, I truly give up and pengsan. Throughout my working life, I've never seen a company which strives so hard at being spotlessly clean. Not that it's a bad thing but everything's got it's limit. I could have sat back on Thursday afternoon and learnt how to create a flashy banner for them instead of going on all fours to clean chair legs, digging the inside parts of partitions for dust and finding space to hide my lucky coin charm, the food on my table and my plant.

The Year of The Ox

It's been a pretty long time since I actually used my camera for 'real' photography shots. I've somehow forgotten how to use some of its functions! So, I finally made some 'Chinese New Year' resolutions not to let the kid run my life. I need some time for my own life too. Starting with some Chinese New Year shots, I hope to publish more photos on this blog soon.

My favourite photography object. These are the only pictures I have in my camera for a pretty long time since I stopped using it or bringing it wherever I go. It's been a year! Gosh! This also means its been more than a year since I travelled anywhere. I think the furthest I've gone within these two years is Ikea..or maybe Kota Kemuning (minus the Seremban trip I just made two days ago). Hah!

Ahh, the famous "low sang" that Malaysian Chinese have as the first dish. I wonder who invented this (as well as who invented giving angpows with money inside which really, like Chinese weddings, makes one bankrupt for a month or more). The higher you toss the nine kinds of err...shall I say vegetables, the more you will receive. More what? I am unclear but I guess it's more of whatever you've wished for during the toss. I'd choose health over anything coz it's not been a blissful start of the year with me having bad diarrhea and tummy upsets so often. Hmmph!

I now remember one of the reasons for naming my blog the way it is. It was then for pictures of food. I remember posting up pictures of Chinese New Year dishes way back in 2005, or was it 2006, from what was then one of the more well known photo sites - Photobucket. I have long deleted off my account and what's left in the blog post is nothing but signs of lost images. But if I can remember, the pictures look the same with this one that I took - same old yummy dishes, same dining table, same Balinese dining mirror. Just a different house.

I used to love my little apartment because of the busy, you-can-get-anything-downstairs, convenient place. But I guess it's not healthy to live in such places where you breathe in dust from the highway and have possibly about 20 steps in the living room and 10 in the bedroom to walk about. Yes, I could see Genting from the balcony but it's only after the ten thousands of roofs and billboards and buildings and highways. This new scenery that I see almost every morning beats the Genting view handsdown. I now wake up to fresh air, birds chirping and squirrels running in the garden.....It is indeed a good New Year for me and the rest of the clans who moved down to this place called home.

Lessons To Be Learnt

This is the 2nd time that this has happened in my entire working life. You try to do some people a good favour and a whole lot of people come back to you saying that it's not what they want. What is so bloody wrong about a CNY e-card that everyone in the company can use?

Nevertheless, I've got to swallow all such nonsenses that I wish I've not done the favour and just let them all create whatever image with short, fat, ugly ducklings losing 30kg in a month as the CNY e-card as usual. What with comments from changing the words on the card (from 2 people) when the words are actually from the company's theme song and the card is too late (hello, I cannot be creating an e-card two weeks ago when they agreed only yesterday at 5pm to have it) and it will jam up the server with all the forwardings (from the person who sends every notification out to everyone in the company TWICE every single time). 

Dare I still hope for big increments and bonuses and angpows?

Oh, and Happy Chinese New Year everyone! 

When I Hate my Office Space

Sometimes (like now) I really hate my office space. I still don't have a proper department since I am the only one right now and thus am placed in the Advertising and Promotions department temporarily. It's not the colleagues surrounding me but this department especially my area can get very busy at times, especially when the people who hang around there don't have any reservations about talking loudly, using part of my space as their standing place, using my stationeries or are just clueless that I need my space to work and not to listen to them conversing on the phone or doing some other stunts behind me (like now). 

I can hear the man whom I suspect is one of the MLM members asking his pal on the phone now if his a** is clean. Gawd. And now they're having a meeting right in front of my place like I'm not there.

Sometimes they are just so noisy that I can't hear my phone ring and the other person on the other side of the line must be thinking what sort of wet market am I placed in the company.

Don't some people get it that other people are trying to work too?

OK, now I feel like pushing my chair to the back so that the woman taking up my space would be stuck between the back of my chair and the metal panel.