Going Cambodia for Hols...

Will be at Seam Reap for hols... see you guys when I get back!!








For those in the office, enjoy your "eat with your family day"!!

For buddies, I'll try to get some trinkets.

For bosses, "this is an automated response, please dial 3252525 for assistance". Ask for the big one with pineapples and they will put me through to you.

At the Office...

Hehehhe..hahaha.. hahahhaa... no I'm not mentally unwell.. I was just looking through some Dilbert clips.. Everytime something crops up in the office, one common banter I'd have is that situations are so much like Dilbert. Being insensitive, I'd fail to realise that not everyone has access to Dilbert. So, here's to doing my part for society.

If you've seen the series "The Office" you'd realise that funny things happen in the office...

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Part 1 - Whats Your Job? ...

I remember a someone telling me that theres too many things to be done that she can't afford to join a committee. And that since we had no excuse as we have nothing to do, we have to be in it. Hahahhahahaha.... You get the drift.. haha...hahaha.. I also remember my colleague being mistaken a clerk....hehehe....hahahaha...

Just a while ago, I was asking myself 'what the fish' am I doing arranging a meet the clowns session. Had to book a room, cater for food, arrange furniture, call clowns, print papers, arrange files...etc. Half way through, I sat back, and wondered...am I hired as an engineer? Or did someone mistake me as a clerk as well?..... maybe I really should've cut down on the hair gel during the interview.

Anyway, the fish seems to surface more these days, probably because someone has been playing in the water...

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Part 2 - Meetings

I just had one of those routine meetings this morning. There seems to be tons of routine meetings nowadays that we no longer have time for actual work. Sometimes I really do wonder if meetings were controlled by people....or if people need meetings to sustain themselves. To make matters worse, as a new policy, anyone that fails to attend the routine meetings will have to go for counselling. Wow... I am dumbfounded... I thought this only happened in comics..

Good thing though, chairperson failed to mention that those caught sleeping in meetings will be counselled too. I almost dozed off after a couple of presentations we had to sit through.

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Part 3 - ET

There also seems to be a bunch of unique beings who fail terribly in their jobs,who know nothing but still look great in front of their bosses. This is a high level skill...not for sentient beings or humans.

Hahaha... no need to explain la... u know who these animals are... u normally spot them higher up the tree...
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Part 4 - Incentives and Salary

Hahaha... hmmm... should we moving to another company? Or should we back off to a more competitive level...like level 21?

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Ok...time for bed... if you liked these... we will create a triology... or a prequel...

Hang out..

It's been a long week and tomorrow is a weekend. We made a good choice to hop over to Spizza @ Balmoral Plaza for dinner. Well, I've always enjoyed the ambience at Spizza. It's a cozy restaurant at one corner with an open space concept at the outside and a firewood setting on the inside. As usual, we got a table for 2, got the menu and ordered 2 Nabucco Zuppes (Cream of Wild Mushrooms soup and bread croutons) and a Quinta (Pizza with Tomato, Mozzarella, Egg and Black Truffle Sauce) which is practically what we always order. Being thrifty is a virtue, so this is as close to "truffle" that we will get for the mean time. Always wondered why "pig food" is an expensive delicacy for humans. We skipped the Traviata tartufo parfait this time though.

Well, 'Supernatural' is on now, so adios!

Different Characters..

I was walking to the office in the morning, when I met my director. He waved at me, said "oih" as I waved back and walked past him at the traffic light junction. As this was not the first time meeting him on the way to work, I sent an sms to 3 colleagues. In no time, I got 3 responses...

The first response, from the 'Management Guru': "He must be thinking...dam eng...take another route next time...hehe".

The second, from the 'AFUP' (Always Feel Under Paid): "Take the opportunity to tell him about the increment issue!"

And the third, from the 'Blur Queen': "Huh...you saw her?"

So you see, even in a small office with a few branch colleagues, characters are a infinitely diverse...

Integrated Resort!! Latest model at URA Building.

This is the latest model of the Marina Bay Sands Integrated Resort that is in progress in Marina South, Singapore available at URA Building. A few years back, the only image we had was an artistic impression of the three signature hotels. Now in URA, you can view the model of Singapore's first Integrated Resort. The model includes features of the three hotel towers, the arts and sciences museum and the convention centre as well as the helical Bay Bridge.

Where are the Lucky TOTO Zodiac 2007 numbers?

Was feeling a little bored, so before taking my bath and calling it a day, I decided to surf for the Lucky TOTO numbers by Zodiac for 2007. Well, you see, a year back, I received this e-mail on the lucky numbers and we pooled a couple of bucks to buy some. Result was, we won $60...which was our initial capital. The colleague who bought it then decided that we shouldn't stop until we won $600,000. And the winnings was history. I haven't seen one for 2007. Either it doesn't exist, or I can't find it! Perhaps a good samaritan will send it to me.....

So, the next best thing was to look at the lucky numbers... well, this being the Year of the Pig, the lucky number for pig was 1, 3, 4, 5, 8, 16, 18, 34, 41 and 48. Cross matching these numbers with the Dragon, i.e. 3, 4, 5, 6, 15, 21, 34, 35, 36 and 45, we have 4 lucky numbers i.e. 3, 4, 5 and 34.

Now... 4 numbers isn't enough to buy a toto ticket... we need at least 2 more, so I found out that the animals most compatible with the Dragon this year was the Monkey, Snake, Rooster and Rat.


Again, if you cross reference the lucky numbers for the Monkey (3, 4, 5, 7, 16, 23, 34, 45 and 54), Snake (1, 2, 4, 6, 13, 24, 42 and 46), Rooster (1, 5, 6, 12, 15, 16, 24 and 51) and Rat (1, 4, 5, 10, 11, 14, 41, 45, 51, and 54) with that of the Dragon, you'd get an additional 3 numbers, i.e. 6, 12 and 45.

Add these 3 number to the previous 4, i.e. 3, 4, 5, 6, 12, 34 and 45, you'd have 7 numbers for TOTO System 7!!!

Well, if at any point you thought I was bo liao and bored, you're damn right..

Today is Mother's Day!!

If you haven't wished your mum, brought her out for dinner, got her a gift, or even picked up the phone to give her a call, you'd better do so now.. you have officially 5 hours or less to do so.

While most kids would've gotten their mom a nice gift and brought her out for dinner, mine is miles away and back in my hometown. Woke up this morning, picked up the phone, and gave my mum a call. Though its not much, she sounded really happy on the phone and lamented that I should not tell my sisters to see if they remembered that it is Mother's Day. No doubt that they'd remember, they probably sent cards and gifts to her days ago. But today, I was quicker on the draw, at least with the phone, probably because my sisters are tied up with the kids.

Felt like I should be there to take her out for dinner or something, but being here in Singapore makes it difficult for me to be there. Maybe it's just excuses that I'm making. It's times like this that I wish I could teleport from one country to the other. Sharing Mother's Day with her would be a joy for me.

I saw this on Yahoo!'s logo which depicts what I'd want to say better than any other sentence or word I could think of. Yahoo! would probably sue me for copyright infringement, but I'd take my chances.





Well, for those kids whose moms are in reach, do treat them well, not only today, but any other day of the year. You don't know just how lucky you are.

We made a blunder... but its your problem...

eaWell, that was what we got today...

It started somewhere in April 07, when the Government announced that civil servants were being underpaid compared to the industry. Many were pissed that there wasn't a system to appraise how salary increments were given and what statistics the figures were based on. So we have all accepted that there is nothing we can do about it. No matter how we complain, things will still remain the same. This is one side of the story.

Now, for civil servants, the story is different. We got a pay cut a few years back amounting to about 5% of our salary due to the market condition then. Now that the market is picking up, we were promised that the salary cut would be reinstated. However, with the excuse that we were underpaid, we were told that, on top of the salary reinstatement, there would be a salary increment as a market adjustment component to match us to where the industry was.

As time went by, things seemed to take shape. In mid April, the HR Department hosted a seminar that informed us that we would be getting only 5% increment in salary, which was meant to be the salary reinstatement. However, to offset the difference in salary, we would be given 2 one-off payments at 2 different times throughout the year. This off-set was meant as a consolation to what we didn't get. Now we all know that Ministers got 25% salary increment. As civil servants, we expect that our increments will be moderated. As such, many of us accept the fact that we will never get an increment equivalent or near to what was conveyed to us. That being said, we were resigned to the fact that we will get at minimum the promised one-off payments.

At the seminars, what was stated by the HRD was that anyone joining the service earlier than 1 April 07 would be eligible for the market adjustment. As this was for adjustment of salaries, it meant that anyone joining the force before this date will be compensated whereas the salaries of new entrants would be revised accordingly.

Today, we received an e-mail from HRD telling that those that joined after 1 April 06 are not eligible for market adjustment, which effectively meant that we only get reinstated what was taken away, but there is NO...i repeat NO adjustments given to us. The reasoning was that the HRD made a huge blunder in communicating the information to the staff and that what was promised was all a misunderstanding and we were meant to get nothing from the start. So, HR does many seminars to explain that we would be getting something, and at the last moment, when we are supposed to get pay offs, we get nothing. Period.

The officer I spoke to added that we should count our blessings that we are getting something and that what we are getting is much much more than others. What she doesn't know is that we had a salary cut and is now being reinstated not that it is free!

The best part is that HRD managed to tell everyone what we'd be getting, send e-mails to confirm it, and at the end of the day, say that the salary adjustment follows a completely different guideline which no one in the company has except her department and that they are not supposed to disclose this. Her colleague is very sorry that they made the blunder, but they can do nothing about it and we should keep quiet because we are civil servants.

Perhaps the country should consider taking back the salary adjustments, considering it was meant for us in the first place but we are not getting anything at the end.

Yahoo!

Was pretty upset for getting a traffic summons for violation of red light. Posted a question on Yahoo! Answers to see if I could get any innovative ideas for request for leniency. Replies came in pretty quick. And in about 25 mins, I had 3. After the first 3, I realised that I had phrased the question in a totally wrong context, but the responses on the question kept coming in...










Here's the link:
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070507071819AAAfsLO

The first excuse was quite humorous, a common excuse a mother of a child could use. The next few was ok. Up to the fourth response, a traffic police officer gave his 2 cents on what he tought of excuses. Interesting to note that I already had 4 replies in 36 minutes. Wonder how many more responses I would get..

Phenom..

I've always been a blog shy when it came to posting my personal info on the net. Never came to posting my name or pic online, with the exception of one incident where a bug posted my name in his blog...IN FULL ...

So after a long struggle, I decided that it was time for me to get out of the nutshell and show the world who I am... hence I have posted a pic of me at the sidebar... Don't complain la...it's a good start..

A sleepless night..

Labour day was a good rest day. I spent almost the entire day sleeping. In the evening, we went to Ten Mile junction for dinner and I bought a half dozen pack of brands essence of chicken. Upon reaching home, I opened the six-pack, took out a bottle and downed its contents in one gulp. Then came 10pm, 11pm and 12pm. Something seemed awkward. Then came 1am. I finally realise that my eyes were wide open and I wasn't the least bit tired! Problem was, I have a meeting the next morning at 9am... and that meant that I had till 6am to sleep. Not too bad considering that I'd have 5 hours of rest, and I slept the entire day.

At 1.30am, I switched on the TV on channel 8 and there was this wacky Korean show on air. 'The Perfect Match'. Having not watched any Korean Movies after "Jewel in the Palace", I decided to watch part of the movie, at least till I am tired enough to doze off. The movie is one of those Korean romantic comedies. The story is about a girl, Hyo-Jin, who works in a match making company. As you'd probably guess, on comes a wierd customer Hyun-Soo, who enrols for match making. As match after match is made and rejected by Hyun-Soo, a bond is formed between the two.

At 2.00pm, I told myself that I'd sleep by 2.30. At 2.31, my eyes were still wide open, my fingers refused to click on the off button of the remote control, and it was then I decided "ah, what the heck, I'll watch the whole movie". That is when I knew there was no turning back.

The light-hearted comedy proceeded with Hyo-Jin pretending that she was still attached to her ex, whom she had broken off with a year ago. Hyun-Soo on the other hand, was at his 10th match. On the 11th match, Hyun Soo's ex turns up and demands that Hyo-Jin sets them up for a date. The date proceeds but nothing turns out of it. On the 12th match, Hyo-Jin invites Hyun-Soo to a company match making event, at which Hyo-Jin's ex turns up and proclaims that he is single. Hyo-Jin gets heart broken and runs off in tears. Hyun-Soo catches up with Hyo-Jin... and the rest is history...

Well, it was a good movie for me. It's not the typical Korean movie which has a sad prelude to the ending followed by a less then complete happy ending. No one dies or gets physically impaired. Plus I guess we need a break from Jeon-Ji-Hyun.

If you missed the movie, you can catch it here. Just click on the picture:


Yup, if you're surprised, I was too.



The next morning, a colleague asked if I stayed up till 3am to catch UEFA Champions League. You'd probably guessed his expression right when I told him I watched a Korean comedy instead.