CHABOS: May 2007

Monday, May 28, 2007

Manager = Work with mouth

I have officially taken up managerial post since the beginning of May. Well, what should I say... as a manager, I basically work with my mouth most of the time - instructing and delegating jobs to my engineers, moving from meeting to meeting, giving advice and input on how to deal with different cases, deciding on the actions to be done, carrying out audits etc.... which means most of the time, I need to carry the 'teapot' pose, and behave like a 'kepo mah'.

Somehow I feel strange, besides talking I don't have much measurable output everyday as compared to before where I need to deal with many investigation cases, prepare many excel files and reports, and do presentations. Now, I went to work, first thing is to check and reply emails, then delegate jobs, then go to meeting, back to office check and reply emails again, then go to meeting, check and reply emails... is that what managing is all about??

My another function in the area is to cheer my engineers and colleagues up as our job is to 'sapu tahi' everyday, i.e. to deal with all the issues in the line. Most people's life has up and down everyday, but for us it's always just down, never up... so we have to keep cheering ourselves up... yeah that's right, that's my new job!

Toast Master

I was forced by my new boss to attend the Toast Master's speech craft program which I have to deliver speech in every session. To be honest, public speaking is one of my biggest weakness. I have been trying to avoid this all this while. I hate the feelings of standing in front of everyone and being evaluated, feel naked somehow. However I managed to deliver few speeches so far. Well, the response was not too bad. This evening I have to attend another session which again, everyone was required to write up and present a speech on the spot. Thanks to my blogging habit, I managed to come up with a topic easily as I have posted so many on my blog before. I grabbed part of the materials from my previous blog "What interest me?" and linked it to another blog of mine "Inspiration". Hehe, not bad. Now I realize blogging is not a waste of time, it gives me topics to talk about at anytime, any place. Hoho...

Monday, May 21, 2007

2 days -> 3/4 day Sibu Trip

PP, Pig Pig, Dom and I originally planned for a 3 days 2 nites trip to Sibu last weekend. We actually bought the 3D/2N air tickets online. However the 'amazing' Air Asia has turned our 3 days trip to 3/4 day. How did that happen?

Well the Friday Kch-Sibu flight was last minute cancelled by Air Asia and replaced by Sat morning flight. Moreover Sunday evening flight was replaced by Sunday morning flight. This makes 3D/2N becomes 2D/1N, in actual it's only a 1 day trip. Well, that's fine!

However when we reached the airport on Sat morning, we were told that the morning flight was delayed to afternoon which further reduced the 1 day trip to 3/4 day trip. Wow, amazing isn't it! Anyway, we have basically given up on Air Asia so we kinda just enjoy ourselves at the airport...

Dom wrote an interesting blog about the trip at his blog : http://chivas1975lppl.blogspot.com/2007/05/sibu.html

So I guess I'll just post some pix here...

Waking up earlier to have breakfast together before going to the airport...

Shit... the flight get retimed...

The pissed off Air Asia passengers wondering what to do for the next 3 hours at the airport...

Hehe... never under-estimate these passengers... they have learned and were well prepared for all kind of surprises from Air Asia... let's see the following recommended strategies...

1st kill time strategy... playing Doraemon 飛機棋

2nd kill time strategy... playing Uno

3rd kill time strategy... eating

4th kill time strategy... move to another restaurant and continue eating

5th kill time strategy... Jo started to tell amusing story about what she will do if she became the first emperor of Malaysia... basically she is gonna force everyone to change the surname to Wong and make Foochow the official national language, no other languages allowed etc...

Eventually we reached Sibu... went shopping at Sanyang shopping mall

Having afternoon tea break at Sanyang

Membeli-belah at kuih store

Sibu streets view

Continue shopping at 大強... guess who this is?? It's Bui Poh, poor her just had a bad hair cut by the nanny... looks like a boy.

Walk walk... look see look see at the river side...

Yes, Sibu still has whole bunch of birds flying in the skying dumping shits everywhere... Dom, beware!!

3 generation 坐蹺蹺板

Amos enjoying himself at the play ground...