Monday, May 28, 2007

Musing Over Friday

Today’s Monday. Dah namanya Monday – pagi2 dah terasa the Monday Blues.

Called Deli this morning. Sounds like he’s enjoying the trip coz this time around he gets to really be the boss and let his subordinate do the work. Lucky fella!

So.

What happened last Friday was really something. Left the office with a heavy feeling like I’m carrying a bag of stones with me. Felt bad that I had to cancel the session with my trainer but I reckon my emotional health comes first.

Initially, I seriously thought I screwed things up but when I check all my documents and communications to the Project Board, every single change was mentioned. I was convinced that I did what I was supposed to do. I was trying my best to run damage-control on my own and make sure everyone’s on the same page. I was a phone call away from meeting the COO when the Dutchman called.

The conversation left me even more confused.

I tried to keep calm all the way from 4th floor to 19th floor. By the time I reached my desk, I was reaching for a Kleenex. My boss was not around so I thought I could just deal with this for a while and feel better afterwards. He doesn’t even have to know that I almost finish my Kleenex (what’s left of it). That’s when I heard someone coming to the office. Damn. It was too late. He pulled a chair and made me tell him everything.

Received the longest text message from the Dutchman later that night. He mentioned that he had a chat with the COO (who happens to be a Dutch guy himself and very yummy looking, mind you) about what happened.

Hi you, I just spoke to the COO. He absolutely does not blame you. He’s just disappointed with Banca about a new product… (details had to be omitted). The project was just an additional issues to rub it in. I believe there is no other project as transparent as yours. This is your merit. Be proud with the good job you are doing.

So I forwarded the message to my boss, in which he replied:

So it’s okay to blow off someone just coz you’re pissed with another? It just goes to show what crap leaders we have.

It’s been hard for me lately – I can handle the project but managing the people, especially the project board is really killing me.

My boss and the COO are not in good terms. The COO and the head of project board openly screamed at each other in front of the project team. The Dutchman and my boss have some unresolved issues. I’m just stuck in between.

I can’t side the COO or any member of the project board and it’s hard to be impartial.

I have to support my department’s stand because that’s my job.

I can resign from being a project manager but I won’t coz that would make me a quitter.

Sungguh stress!!

Lagi 10 hari before I can pack and leave for the vacation. Lambat lagi.. :(

Friday, May 25, 2007

TGIF

Today's Friday. Yehuu!!!!

Countdown to vacation - 12 more days to go!

Deli will be off to Sydney on Sunday. Sobs.

Kakak is at school, parading a green attire that her teacher prepared for her in conjunction with the Teacher's Day celebration. Her teacher kept the dress unveiled till it's ready to be worn. I'm sure kakak would look lovely in it. Deli bought her a disposable camera so she can take some picts with her friends and most importantly with the green dress. Can't wait to see the outcome. I'm pretty sure we'll get to see headless or footless people in the picts. Hahah. Let's just see how she fares.

Adik on the other hand, made me bake a chocolate cake for his Teacher's Day party. The handsome lad also talked me into buying his teacher a gift. This is truly a gentleman in the making. A potential player indeed.

Anyways, school holiday is here again. First on my list is to catch Pirates of the Caribbean tonight. I hope we'll get good seats this time. We suffered major neck and butt pains after watching Spiderman III a couple of weeks back. We were seated 2 rows from the freaking screen. Urgh. Not something I want to go through again. Ever.

Just got an email from RA. We're going to Low Yatt for lunch & gadget shopping. I wanna get something for Syam NB. He'll turn 31 tomorrow.

Have a good weekend peeps!


Update as at 5.30pm.
I just got screamed at by half of the project board. VP of IT, VP of Bancassurance and the COO. Imagine that. I know I have done everything that I was supposed to do. I know that their ignorance was the match that had caused the fire. I know that the Dutchman was trying to be comforting by pointing out that it wasn't my fault. I know my boss meant well when he forced the story out of me when he saw me crying at my desk. But why do I feel that I could have done more? Why do I feel like a complete loser? I don't even have any stake in this project but why do I feel responsible for all that have gone wrong? Why do I have to feel so bad?


P/S: My Business PM said a quick prayer for me when I was about to see the COO. That was very sweet of her.

Tuesday, May 22, 2007

Telling a little tale

That's it. There's no such thing as 'good Monday' except when you are on leave!

Things were rosy and yummy till noon. Everything after that went down the drain!

I was planning to have lunch alone & fast coz I wanted to have a report done for sign off later in the afternoon. The Dutchman called just as I exited the elevator and asked if I have any plans for lunch. We ended up having grilled fish and talked about the news he heard about me being upset with him.

Oh no. Danger zone.

Clearly it was a miscommunication coming from a third party. We quickly settled that and went on our merry ways to Starbucks for coffee. We were walking back to the office when I realized I was wearing my red babelicious thongs! Thongs as in seliper jepun okay, not the other 'thong'. Hahah. Spoil betul la.

We continued on with a report that I was supposed to forward to the project board when we noticed of an issue. We ended up talking and discussing and gossiping (my boss gladly joined in) till 4pm. By then, the one issue had birthed a couple more baby issues. Great. Just what I need. Bad enough that we're delayed by 2 days - this is going to add more to it. By 5pm, it's confirmed that the report needed a serious discussion. Damn.

Then I saw Deli's email - he's got a morning flight to Sydney instead of a 10pm flight and one of his staff just tendered his resignation. On top of that, he was piled with a whole lot of other problems. He called while I was reading his email. He said he's done something and he knew I'll be upset.

People should have just said it and leave the warning aside. It never helped!

All attention was focused to hearing what he had to say.

Deli: I bought a pack of cigarette and I've smoked a stick
Me: You managed to finish it?
Deli: Yes.
Me: Yummy?
Deli: No.

At this point, I almost wet my pants laughing at and with him. It never bothered me then and it won't bother me now. As long as he's not puffing at my face, I'm fine with it. He stopped almost 10 years ago (bravo honey!) at his own will. I hope he won't start again but if he does, I'm not gonna stop him. I'm just gonna stick posters on what smoking can do to a person, all over the house. Especially the one where they show what body parts can be affected and damaged. Probably I'll enlarge the groin section. That's a good place to start with.

Anyways, kakak is back to being her fussy self and refused to do her revision. Adik wasn't much of a help. He kept running around and annoyed kakak even more. She had a hard time focusing and resorted to being moody and grumpy. Yeah - like that's gonna make me stop yakking.

Retired to bed at 11.30pm feeling very, very tired and slept almost immediately.

Today's not that good either. I'll blog about it tomorrow.

p/s: VF, welcome back!

Monday, May 21, 2007

My Monsters Inc.

Today's a good day to start with. I hope it'll stay that way till I go to bed tonight. It's very rare to have such a good Monday.

Anyways, kakak is sitting for her mid term this week. She did her revision the whole of Sunday without a single word of complaint. I was totally impressed! Normally, she wouldn't last half an hour without voicing her need to take a break every few minutes.

Talking about that, adik is no different. Went to collect his report card on Saturday. He scored 90 and above for all his papers except Science and Agama. Looks like we need to hide all his robots, space ships, gundam and the sort and make him befriend nature instead. He needs to know how a frog looks like or any other animal for that matter!

He needs to have more exercise in his tulisan jawi. His tulisan jawi looked like a bunch of cacings! Adeh.

Nonetheless, I was quite impressed with him. Especially when he has a very short attention span. He can't sit still for a good one minute. His teacher confirmed this - said that he is a bit dreamy in class. I think I know what he dreams of most of the times - his gundam and robots!

Oh before I forget - while getting ready for an outing on Saturday, I heard adik asked Deli if he could buy hair gel for him. He's probably trying to don the hairdo of his heroes in those Japanese cartoons. Bad, bad tv influence!

Kakak on the other hand is whining for a mobile phone and a handbag. I asked her why she needed a phone and her answer was - she likes to hear the ring tones and songs. I asked her why she needed a hand bag and she said, so she can put her mobile phone in her handbag along with her Hello Kitty purse.

So I told her she could have my mp3 player to listen to her songs and I won't buy her any handbag coz there won't be a mobile phone to put in!

So honey, do you still want more kids?

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

A Bit of This and That

Weekend was great.

Attended a 50th anniversary party for an uncle of Deli’s. Food was great and everyone seemed to have fun with the karaoke machine. Of course, the sky went cloudier and cloudier with each song. Hahahah. I wish Deli and I would be able to celebrate our 50th anniversary. It’d be so cool.

Went to Ikea after that to get my long-awaited glass cabinet to house my Hard Rock CafĂ© shot glasses and the sort. It was damn heavy, I tell ya! But It was worth the effort. I’ll post a pict of the new display later. My O2 camera can’t really produce decent photos. That reminds me, I should get a new phone. Sony Ericsson 880 would be just right for me. Yummy!

By the by, I’m going off for a short vacation next month. Can’t mention the location coz it’s a surprise for Deli (especially) and the kids (not that it matter to them). Can’t wait. Our last family vacation was 2 years ago. Dem. That was long. Anyways, flight tickets are booked and so is the hotel. All I need to do now is to carefully hide the documents and contain my excitement. I don’t know if I can stand the 3-weeks wait! Adeh. Can I start packing now? Hahahah.

Other news aside, I am happy to announce that there will be an addition to our family member in November. My sister is 3 months pregnant and I’m praying that she’ll have a boy this time. I don’t know why but I’m just so happy to hear the news. I swear I’m gonna spoil that baby with cutesy wardrobe and everything else along that line!

Okay. Back to reality. One Exception Report to prepare, one URS to be signed off and a million other things to do! Back to work now.

Wednesday, May 09, 2007

A birthday surprise

I hope I still have a job tomorrow.

My boss had a huge fight with his boss yesterday. He was totally upset and from what he told me, he has the right to be. Why bother fighting a losing battle. He’s done everything he can and if it doesn’t work out then leaving may be the best resort.

I can understand his situation. It happened to me in VS. So I just kept my mouth shut when his close friend advised him to stay and try to work things out.

To me personally, it all depends on you. If you know you have done everything you could to make things better, then maybe there’s nothing much that you can do anymore. Maybe it’s best that you leave. Be selfish because it's your life.

Anyways, if he leaves, I will need to sit and lay my game plan. It’s either I leave the division or I leave the company. God has created more than enough for all his humble servants to live on and survive.

My boss celebrated his birthday on Monday. We had a small party and everyone was stuffed with noodles, pizza and cake. Took loads of picts and best of all, he was surprised. Cool!


The blurriness is intentional. Heheh.

Friday, May 04, 2007

Silent Scream

Where do i begin. Today's such a bad day for me.

After 6 days of pure bliss (minus the red pontianak eyes) and not having to think about anything other than myself and of course the brood, I was rudely awaken by bitter reality. Cecewah..

Was back in the office to find my mailbox badly congested with emails. My project team members (yup, 2 of them) were extremely thoughtful and sent me 2 emails amounting to 10mb worth of duplicate documents! Goodness! Does uploading the document to project team site mean anything anymore? Damnation!

Had lunch with the Dutchman at an Indonesian restaurant and the food wasn't to my liking. They just lack the spice, salt and TASTE. One of these days, we should go to Malindo. Eh, is that place still open for business?

Anyways, we walked all the way to Starbucks at Standard Chartered building to find that it's no longer there! Gone. Kapish.

So we walked all the way to The Weld for coffee and made our way back to the office. That was one long walk, i tell ya. Not to mention that it was scorching hot! I swear i've lost like a pound, judging by the amount of sweat i had to gracefully wipe away. Adding to that, i was wearing black!

My boss was on half day leave today so i took the opportunity to skip the boring and unnecessary department meeting and went to see the Dutchman instead. We talked about the scope change in our project and the discussion went on for 4 freaking hours! I felt like a complete loser during two of those hours. There are so much to learn and be good at. If it's not because of the passion to learn and improve myself, i would have submitted 'the' letter.

We talked about career development and the sort. I just don't see a future in this company. Fortunately, i was not the only one with that point of view. The Dutchman is seriously thinking about quitting himself. Sigh.

Anyways, it didn't stop there. Earlier last month, 3 of my project team members asked if i wanna join them at their table for I*G annual dinner and i gladly said yes. I was a bit surprised when the 2 (out of 3) decided to join the IT leng loi's and wonder if i'd still be interested to be at their table coz they have one last spot to fill. I didn't really gave an answer coz i was in a discussion then. When i was about to leave the office, the 3rd team member called and asked if i wanna join her and the Dutchman at their table. I never knew making arrangement to attend annual dinner would be this hard. I politely said that i'll let her know on Monday. Sigh.

Left the office a little after 7pm. The road was badly congested coz some moron decided to have people working on potholes at 7pm, closed 1 of the 2 lanes, on a Friday evening! I was stuck at that particular area for more than half an hour! Damnation!

When i got home, kakak told me that her school bus had some problem and she had to wait for an extra hour to be picked up by a school van, had to sit on some sort of a heater and her bums were burning from the heat, but enjoyed the experience nonetheless.

I couldn't believe all these happened in less than 24 hours!

By the way, someone called and asked about Chiam Tow Loong. Hahahah.

Here are some picts of him. Pardon the quality. I don't have a scanner so i had to use digital camera to capture images from the actual photographs.

Mr Chiam, the eye candy.
Sekali ada orang kenal dia. Malu gua! Hahahha


So VF, stop pestering me for his picts!

Tuesday, May 01, 2007

Sugar and spice, and everything in between

Changed my banner last week. It's an old pict of Baby Cat. Back when he's still innocent and less noisy.

Anyways, Tok Mak arrived at Puduraya station with Hani last Thursday. Deli arrived from Hong Kong a few hours later and decided to have everyone for dinner at GE Mall. All went well and everyone was stuffed with scrumptious food and piled themselves to my mpv to find that it refused to start. Deli tried and tried to get it started but to no avail. He had to take a cab to our house which was thankfully, a few minutes drive away, to get his car and hopefully, do some magic to mine. Chu Boy and wife took a cab back to their pad. We sent the rest to my place and the two of us headed back to GE Mall to try and jump-start my car.

It didn't work. We had to leave it in GE Mall basement and have a tow truck bring the car to the workshop later on.

Apparently, there was a problem with the battery. It was swollen for no apparent reason and since it's still under warranty, we got a new one and my car is as good as new. Yey!

Still, it was such an experience. Imagine if my car refused to start while we were in the airport. Or if it stopped on my way to KLIA. Urgh. I shudder at the thought. I might just cry on the spot. Not to mention that i have 3 noisy kids with me then! Thank God, it didn't happen that way. Alhamdulillah.

So, Tok Mak left for BP on Saturday. Deli had to work so i chauffeured them to Puduraya.

We had dinner at Prince Hotel and I noticed that my right eye itched and became red for no apparent reason. Adik had conjunctivitis a few days ago and it's no surprise if I'm catching it as well. The next morning, my eyelids were glued and the knight in shining armor came and rescue me. Well done, honey! hahaha..

I am branding Pontianak Harum Sundal Malam's red eyes to this very day.

This is not what i have planned for the long break. I have countless sessions of retail therapy planned and movies to catch. To add to my misery, the bank had some technical glitch and our salary were credited 3 days later than usual. Dang.

I'm still trying to persuade Deli to let me out of the house. Wish me luck!