Blogging at Work

I am co-managing a second blog at the moment. My company had designated a person under me who focuses on internet marketing initiative which basically revolves around content generation, managing social media sites like facebook, twitter and blogs. This initiative aimed at creating some hypes in the market and of course increase brand awareness. Yes you heard me right, my company paid people to be on facebook 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. 

So one of the initiative is to come out with a lifestyle blogs which focuses on health, genetics and informatics. Since I am ahem-season blogger-ahem, and blogging is a thing which is close to my heart and what I'm absolutely passionate about. I have spent a fair amount of time hand guiding my colleagues to implement the blog for the past one week. This includes doing some magic with the html, writing scientific articles, photoshop-ing images etc.  

Anyway do check out the blog. I wrote an article about Therapeutic life style changes a few days ago and I have a few more under my sleeves waiting to get published. Feel free to leave comments but please do not link my personal blog to the site. I don't want my curious boss to sniff around and figure out I'm blogging during working hours. :)   

Anyway, I guess this is the first step towards my serious writing (which I am harping on for ages but never have the time to do it), although the content are pretty much scientific or product oriented, but at least it forces me to write in a discipline manner. 

You can never make friends when...

You can never make friends when... 

it comes to business and work related matters.

I dont know whether those of my friends who work as sales person/product specialist/business executive (or anyone who has interaction with customer/ vendor / business partners) agree with me on this or not. When i first started in the business line, i was the forever sincere and accommodating person. I will try my best to fight for customer rights or benefits (even though it requires me to face my boss head-to-head), working late hours and all means to cater to business partner's need (although sometimes its ridiculous and trivial matter such as printing 100 copies of the same documents and send to their office in person ) and the list went on. If you want to laugh at my naiveness after reading all this, by all means. Because sometimes i laughed at my own stupidity as well.  

Sadly, being 4 years in the position had taught me a hard lesson that no one appreciate you being sincere when it comes to business, in fact the client will try to take advantages of your courteous; boss will scold you for being too nice with the vendors and not squeezing till their last drop; business partners will said can you make another 100 copies of the same for the other client of his as well. 

As the result of the bad experience, i have try my best to stay professionally when it comes to business, there is no i-friend-friend-with-you, cuz its all about business. I don't wish to befriend you but its nothing personal because business is all about being mutually beneficial. Decision is made and actions are taken based in the context of mutual benefits and not feeling. You have a business request, and i have the solution, we agreed on the working relationship and the price tagged along with it. Therefore we shake hands and the work begin. When the deal is done, we say all the best and hope to work with you again in future. There is no "lets go out for a drink next time", or "lets continue to be friends although the business is over". 

If the client is asking for sponsorship or a meal, i will comply the request if my boss said yes, its not that i friend-friend with you. But frankly, I hate the business luncheon, business dinners and whatever meals which the intention is not to fill the stomach but to fulfill the business objective. Sometimes when the setting is out of office, suddenly everything is let loose, people will start to bitch about their boss, their company, competitors and they expected you to either nod your head and agree with every words they said or you should offer them equally juicy news. And to make it worse, sometimes you are forced to talk about the topics which you only talk to you friends, just to keep the conversation going. "Oh, where do you live? where do you usually hang out? oh i like that restaurant as well". blah blah blah. Its as though for that 60 minutes, you have to psycho yourself that the person is somewhat you friend.

Unequivocally, that everyone who treat me as the person with title "Product Manager", and not the "Susan" i am, will be "unfriended" when the business/ work is over. Opps, maybe thats not the right words, as there is no friendship to start off with. Maybe 'dissociated" is a better words but i like the word "unfriend" more. Its like you can unfriend a person from your facebook's friend list when you (wish to) no longer in contact with them. 

Today, i have the urge of 'unfriend' a person so much that i wish i can dig out his facebook account, purposely add him then unfriend him just to release my dissatisfaction. He is my company's distributor, and i have constant interaction with him as sometimes we will go to see customer together. I will do technical explanation and he will do whatever necessary to close the sales. We are in good terms but again we never went cross each other's line, so there is no reason for me to dislike him. This morning, my company hosted a discussion for a group of clients, and since he is the appointed distributor for that particular client so he came as well. The sales manager asked me whether i wanted to join the lunch with the client after the discussion. I said go ahead without me, as the distributor can handle (aka entertain) the client (anyway that is why he was being appointed anyway). To be frank, i used the sentence "He pandai-pandai handle them la". But this is not an insult by all means, this is supposedly how Malaysians talk in a non-formal setting. 

Then my sales manager open her eyes widely and mouthed to me: "he-is-sitting-there!!" and i know at that instance i'm dead on the spot as he would have overheard our conversation easily. Well, the conversation ended and i pretend nothing happened and went back to my work. You would have thought that the story ends here, but this is just the beginning of his "annoys-susan-plan". He purposely went and sat beside me, asked another colleague of mine who sits in a cubicle away from me about some product related questions, when he knows exactly that i have the answer for it. I don't know whether he did it purposely to belittle or annoy me, but i remained poised.

Then before he went out for the mentioned luncheon, which i told my sales team to go ahead without me, he delivered the final blow and ridiculed me infront of my colleagues, "But we need you to handle the client ma". I nearly puke blood when he said that, but i just put on a poker face as though i dont know he is being sarcastic. Please tell me, how to have a "friendly" relationship when the distributor do this to the product manager of the principal company? I'm not trying to imply the differences in  positions here, but in business, isn't professionalism is the least of the expectation? 

So the insight if today is "do not initiate friendship when it comes to business as 100% of the time, you will regret it eventually, worse still, immediately".

PD company trip

This is one of my old post which never get to publish if i didn't put enough effort to search through all my draft post. Anyway since its a Friday (TGIF!) and i'm pretty much in my weekend mood already, so I think i can spare some of my working hours to dug those unpublished post out and publish it.

So you will see more old post coming out. mind you its all back-dated.

Here comes the post about my recent company trip to Port Dickson. Frankly i cant remember when it was. But the funny thing is I was enjoyed it pretty much, of course before i was down with massive diarrhea on the second day of the trip. Well, the thing is i'm having this love-hate relationship about my job. I hate the sucky politics and the nature of the business the company is in. But i love the interaction with my colleagues and my boss did acknowledged the work i did. I understood the cons are inevitable as its all part of the package. Well, that kind of summarize what JOB is all about.

So we went to this resort called the Eagle Ranch, its the theme resort whereby everything is in cowboy style. And i even get to stay in this funny chalet called bandwagon.

The Eagle Ranch Resort, and the bandwagon

So here comes the activities. first up was my presentation on IP scheme and program which i have working so hard convincing the management for the past few months.

And yes, i need to wear the blue white company t shirt which my churchmate said looks like a uniform for Street sweeper.

Next is the group creative presentation, and my group came out with this idea of cross dressing (not male-female cross dressing, but cross culture) and cultural show which we have been practicing endlessly. i was dressing like an Indian gal and have to sing Jayho verse in solo and dance together with my team. My tongue got twisted singing "jane-jane-ane-sane-keta-le.." and mind you thats literally how i remember the lyrics

If you want me to become trainer for Jayho dance, come and find me k? :)

And next, Futsal. I kicked some ball k. Dont play play.

Then go cart racing.

The camera must be loving me so much, i have tons of picture showing me speeding like F1 driver on the wheel.

Then beach volleyball. I catch good ball also k.

After that of course the food. We had BBQ beside the pool and there is super big stage for karaoke. The meals are good, we even get to taste a whole grilled lamb.

And then, the price presentation, my team won as best sport group !

By the time when it comes to kareoke and Indian dance (cuz all the people who start dancing are my Indian colleague), my first wave of explosive diarhea started. So miss the rest of the activities. which includes drinking session at the resort pub, night walk, and the next day.....

Rafting!!! So while i'm shitting my pants out in the room, my team are tying their rafts and rowing hard.

Anyway, last picture of diarhea suffered shitty face before i say goodbye to PD!

Back to work

Its 5.25pm. I have to dissociate myself from the mounting office work for a few minutes just to ease the the growing ache in my head. The Chinese new year holiday was a bliss; but having to face the TONS of email and backlogs after being away from the office for a week is hell.

Boss was jumping at me for some documents...

Did one hour presentation to the client on last minute notice...

Head of IT was bombarding his email missile on me (as usual) as if he didnt know i am off for the whole of last week...

And i still have like 20 over emails to reply....

Yeah, holiday is over and welcome back to work.

Love your job?

It has been a shitty day today. I'm feeling sick, agitated, and all i wanna do is to shout "f* off" at everyone's face. I wished i can be mean and maybe more aggressive at times, so that people will get the message that i mean what i say and i say what i mean.

As much as i want to say its my hormone that is talking, its not. The dissatisfaction i had with regards to my job has been slowly mounting inside of me as the days goes by, and now it had reached sky high. And funny thing is when i have a conversation with HR manager this morning, she actually encouraged me to step out when the time is right.

However if i were to dissect out the emotional part of me, i have to admit that behind all the angst, i am actually feared that it will not make a difference even if i were to step out. Wherever i go, whichever companies i'm in, there will be the same issues (politics, corruptions, job dissatisfaction, lousy boss) exist, and then people gonna start to tell me, "you know what Susan, the problem is not about the company, its just the reality of life."

That will be one sad truth. People work their whole life, feeling shitty and grumpy, but they cant do anything about it because that's life.

My friends asked me whats my interest, maybe that's the answer for my ideal career. I like music, reading, but is it lucrative enough to support me financially if i turn that into career? The truth is no, nor i have the talent to become a professional musician or book critics. Some said that doing what you love is a bliss, one true career bliss. But is it really true? Or are we hypnotize ourselves into believing that our job sucks because we dont like what we are doing.

Maybe its fine that i don't have to love my job; maybe work as a means to make ends meet is just as legitimate as working to feed the inner passion; maybe its ok to admit that i'm working for the money (not that money is my goal of life, but i'm doing that because i need money to pay loans, to support expenses, to do the things i really like); maybe i need not to be thrilled with what i'm doing at all.

I felt as though i'm compromising and lower down my own expectation by thinking in this way. Is that another yardstick to define myself getting old and losing innocence?

But having said all these, i think i've got nothing to lose if i want to leave my current job. Will i love and enjoy my new job? well it doesn't matter, it really doesn't.

The pig

Someone said really really rude words to me, and somehow the whole episode made me felt very sick, literally.

Am not a racist or a sexist person, however when it comes to combination of Bangladeshi and male chauvinist pig, you will be surprise how sexist and racist i can be. Anyway, the pig shouted many many F words which nearly blasted my phone to pieces. And because of his incapability, i have to talk to the head of security and head of organizer of the international conference in order to let him in to do his work, 5 mins before conference starts.

If you claim yourself as a CEO, please acts like one! I know am nothing but an insignificant product manager, but if this is my project, i would expect team members to respect the time lines which was agreed upon, and i dont give a heck if you are from another company, if my company is paying you RM150k to get the work done, you better respect me as the representative of your client company, regardless the fact that i am woman, who your culture labeled as second class people.

It still amazed me that in today's society of this age, there are still some people out there who really think that girls are innately inferior than the guys. They are putting the woman down with disrespectful and foul language, at their whims and fancies just to show that they are superior. I do understand that we are all product of the culture and religion of yesterday's. However, if education cannot teach a person about simple lesson of basic respect for each other, regardless of gender, then i have to say that knowledge is nothing but a waste for the person.

So Mr. pig, take this as a friendly advice, this is how a Malaysian woman think and work, if you are thinking of running a business long term in this country, you gotta start to learn to treat woman as a person, who is equally worthy as you are. So, think twice before the words of insults leave the filthy mouth of yours next time.

Drowned in tear of sadness

Utterly speechless, that was my first reaction when i saw the email from company CEO the moment i opened up my M. outlook this morning.

Dear Friends,

Greetings! I am hosting a lunch for our Ex-VP for Business Development, Dr. XX to show our appreciation to him! The lunch is as follows:

Time: 1pm.
Place: Fatty Crab Restaurant
Tissue Paper: Facial Grade, Bring Yourself (this applies specifically to Susan who has served loyally under Dr. XX, so you can wipe your tears of sadness! Susan may also need the tissue paper in future, as she will serve under me! Tears of sadness!)

From CEO

Sigh, i'm already missing my dear sir.

Thank you my dear sir

Dear Sir,

It has been only 3 years, but i felt like i know you for ages.

I was a young naive girl back then, i dont know much about the corporate life and the reality of this business world. I was fresh out from university, believing that this first job is the platform where i will shine and excel, i will translate my many years of textbook churning into practical use.

Boy, how wrong was i. Never in my life i felt like i'm so stupid, i dont know how to deal with the shrewd businessman, i dont even know how to take part in the conversation during client meeting. Sometimes i felt as though i've merge into the background while the crowds are happily talking to each other, i was the observer who happen to sat on the same table, but doesnt belong to the cliche. i kept waiting for the chance for someone to notice me, and ask me, "So, Susan what do you think?". But there arent any.

It was a wakening call to me that i'm just acedemically smart, but other than the A's in the transcripts, i has no place outside the University green house. And when i started to question myself have i made a wrong decision by taking up the job, you make me aware that Sir, there you are. You are my superior, you are my teacher, but moreover you are my friend.

You taught me how to be worldly smart, how to protect myself at the same time let my presence be felt by others, but you taught me much more than just the lesson of this world. You taught me how to treasure family and friends, how to value and enjoy life, how to harnesh the potentials in me which i've never realized.

I remember the hours and hours of long journey on the road when we travel up north and down south. How we both teared when we talked about our families and whats important in life; how we laughed at the donkey things which we did in our university days; how we gained so much of weight because of all the dim sum and nasi kandar we ate. You make the work so much fun and easy all the time.

Dear Sir, I will miss you so much when you're gone. Its my sincere wish that you'll do great in your future endeavors, and i hope that one day i'll be able to co-work with you again.

Yours truly,
Susan

happy working, 2010

It has been a crazy week. Words cannot comprehend the amount and the extent of the craziness which i had to deal with in the office.

exhausted,
drained,
emptied,

but still surviving.

No bonus this year. Not really surprised, cuz it was never a contractual obligation. There was only once in the history of the company that the employees received bonus, it was during the first year i joined, 1 month salary i think. This year, the cheapskate management gave an ipod shuffle to all employees. RM200++ versus 1 month salary, you do the math. Nevertheless, its still better than nothing.

Its in silver white color

With the new designation, i was hoping for a good change in my job role, but so far nothing changes, still the same tons of workload, still rushing for documentation, i'm my oldself, only with a new title.

What a start for 2010, happy working.

E2 Why my Job is insanely.... NUTS

Episode 2 of Season 1 Why my Job is insanely (driving me) NUTS.

I was watching "The proposal" a few nights ago. I cant contained my laughter when it reached the scene in the wood where Margaret (Sandra Bullock) turned a Native American thanksgiving dance into some hilarious rapper bogey dance with Gammy.

And somewhere between the laughter and my junk food, a thought sprang up.

With all the headaches of the delays in project deliverables which my team members are giving me now, can this project manager do some kind of rain dance during the weekly team meeting so that the team can deliver on time?

"To the project! To the Bangalore!
Till my team re-turn my calls!
all my cli-ents crawl!"

.....

I'm officially walking down the road of insanity.

Why my job is insanely.... RETARDED

This will be a series of entries of "why my job is insanely... "

CRM (Customer Relationship Management) is really a retarded work which i have to do everyday. What happen when you meet up with a customer who hates your boss to the core but still have a project in collaboration with your company?

"Your boss is MEGALOmaniac" said the customer, who also happened to be a well respected and renowned professor.

* Dont know what is MEGALOmaniac means, the nearest thing which i can relate to is MEGALOcephalus, the extinct Tetrapod species with BIG skull as signature *

MegaloCephalus

* My facial expression looks distorted cuz dunno to laugh or to agree *

"By the way, you can tell that exact sentence which i've told you to your boss." said the emo customer.

... back in office ... told the same to the boss when he asked hows the meeting.

"Told you she hates me, you go and tell her that she is MEGALOdramatic as well" said the boss, who also happened to be a well carried and business savy C.E.O.

* Eyes Rolling *

On being a Business Development Executive

I'd always been told by my friends that the my job seems to be some what more sophisticated compare to other white collars. Well, here comes the truth straight from the horse mouth, believe me, my job is as boring as yours, well, maybe 10X more demanding and exhaustive. My job scope is not only involves the business development activities, but also multitasking as a receptionist, Shauffer, postmen, even F1 driver (you'll know what i mean).

Just to give you a peek at a typical Wednesday in my life.

630am
Alarm rings, am still tossing and turning around. The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.

635am
Suddenly jump out of bed, getting paranoid, rushed to bathroom

650am
Putting up my minimalistic makeup (bodyshop mineral face powder and black eye liner) and boring working attire (black long pants, spaghetti strap tee and jacket). Checking all my accessories in the bag- house and car keys, pendrive, purse, handphone, socks (yes, i only wear socks when i reach the office because all my high heels lives underneath my office table) and another millions of small insignificant accessories.

715am
Cruising on the road, listening to hitz.fm; occasionally sing like a mad fella to the radio; occassionally bites my lips to stop myself from cursing whenever someone cutting the queque or cornering me.

And occasionally ponders about insignificant things from what life is all about to why the traffic lights only have 3 colors.

755am
Reaching the office, thank God that there is still 5 mins before i'm late to check into the timetrax system.

"Mary, milo KAO please....."

Sipping my milo while checking my cooperate emails, 10 emails to reply, great...

830am
Internal meeting with management, projects progress review and blah blah blah...
* eyes rolling *

10am
Finalizing the tender documents for submission, boss was not happy with the final figure and asking for further mark up. Refuse to compromise and argued with him on why that will kill the whole proposition.

(whenever he was not looking at my direction of course)

1015am
Argument continues.... looking at my watch, 1 hour and 30 minutes to go before tender closes. Ok, i gave up! whatever you say boss, whatever you say.

Boss smiled happily.



1030am
Boss finally signs and stamps the documents, the whole admin team went havoc with the last minute printing and binding. They must be cursing me silently inside...

1115am
Finally the documents is ready. Rushed to the carpark. Took a deep breath and here we go my dear (Myvi), the rest is fast and furious.

1130am
Traffic Jam at Federal Highway. Great....

X10

1150am
Reach Jabatan Kimia Malaysia, PJ 10 mins before tender closes. Run to their Financial Department in my high heels and drop the application documents into the tender box.

Phew...

1200pm
Back to the office. Team members ping me, vendor mis called, boss asked where are you?

for the 100th times of the day.

3pm
Talk to team members, vendor, client, boss and 101 other person on the list. Finally all smile and walk away in satisfaction, my list of work for the day increases to 1o1.

By the way, whats the time? i need my lunch!!

5pm
Forget about lunch, i've only reach the item 10 in my 101 list. Colleagues start to pack their things and bid goodbyes to me. Yeah yeah... Selamat buka puasa...

505pm
The entire office is empty and silent. i can hear the sound of my finger hitting the laptop's keyboard.

This is suck.

530pm
Thats it! i'm going back home. Nothing can stop me, not even the remaining unfinished 81 tasks on my list.

6pm
Traffic jam.. eavesdropping to kill my time, well, not intentionally cuz the neighbor car driver is talking so loud on his phone... Hallo Mr, stop blaming your girlfriend for dumping you, who on earth can stand you nagging nonstop over petty things like an old nanny.

615pm,630pm, 645pm, 7pm... still stuck in jam... Of course its your fault Mr, you are not just naggy, but also a control freak and dictator....

710pm
Reach Wangsa Maju, driving rounds and rounds before i found an empty parking space. Peter still on his way. Munching my bak gua buns and finally stomach stop protesting.

745pm
Peter finally reached. He looked as exhaustive as me, squeezed his hand and give him "i understand" look. Silence speaks a thousand words.

8pm
Sent Peter back home, played around with miko and Quiqui (doggies) for a while, rushing to the church for the sketch pratice

11pm
Finally reach home.... after yawned a hundreds times. Hair messy and smell like a stinky old lady.

1115pm
zzz.....

* The end *

My Transboundary driving experience

Yesterday, i had achieved another feat which marked an important milestone in my life-I drove back and forth across the country from KL to Singapore, for a total of 767 km, all in one day!

The night before yesterday i was having this pre-event stress which caused me a terrible sleepless night. I was reading the final episode of '20th century boys' manga (the manga is fabulous! will definitely write about it next time) before i went to the bed. And the instance i hit the pillow and closed my eyes, my mind started to roll like a movie film, replaying all the scene in the manga which i have read.

Like any of the insomniac will do, (not popping sleeping pill, you goons!) I started to psychoing myself with anything i can think off to empty my mind, which including counting the sheeps, alphebets, in ascending and descending, getting up and clear my bladder etc. but it was all useless! By the time the alarm went off showing its 530am, i was so tired yet still perfectly awake, and i have no choice but to go for an icy cold bath to stimulate my neuros.

By 630am, i am waiting for my colleague at my office's empty carpark under the dark open sky, and that started off my transboundary experience.

Frankly, it wasnt really an interesting trip, its nothing close to the so called cross country drive cum soul searching trip, with mustang or RV, accompanied by the blasting of Steppenwolf's "Born to be wild". In contrast, It was a hectic one day business trip to Singapore, cruising the Northsouth Highways with petty scenery of endless palm oil plantation fields at both side, while the one who suffered the most is my poor Myvi.

We stopped for a car-check at Yong Peng town, Johor, as the steering wheel was vibrating like an old man with parkinson whenever it hits 100km/hour. It turned out that the balancing was off and the front tyres had worn off and you can literally see the wires sticking out. The workshop owners told me that the tyre will surely busted if we continue our long distance journey. I have no choice but to pay for RM320 to change the front tyres.

While waiting for the car to be fixed, we went for a bowl of the famous Yong Peng's HockChew FishBall, which was claimed to be one of the bounciest fishballs. While slurping the noodle soup and biting the fishballs, i cant helped but noticing that the town was so old and under developed, there was no sign of economic vibrancy except a few old man sitting in the chinese restaurant watching the tele. My colleague told me that the town used to be blooming with tourist as those days the express busses used to stop at Yong peng for a break, however when the North South Highway was built, the town lost its crowd and was soon forgotten in time .

Well, at least the meatball soup was still quite good.

We reached Singapore, Orchard at around 1230. the shopping streets was full with crowds as it was noon time. We have our usual business lunch with the counterparts and time flies, by the time we finished our discussion, it was the time to hit the road again.

The rest of the 5 hours drive was dreadful, both of us had reached the limit of our sanity and we were cracking stupid jokes and talking non stop all the way back to make sure that we are both physically alert.

By 10pm, i have officially broke my personal records for driving 767 km in a day, and thank God my dear Myvi is still in one piece.

And the rest is just me and my pillow.

Science and Buffet at Garden Hotel

Attended a Bio-automation workshop yesterday at Gardens, whereby the principal for a particular bio-equipment company fly all the way from Germany to hold the half day seminar. Being Malaysian, we always try to show our best hospitality to the foreigners, which means serving luxurious dinner at 5 star hotel. At the same time, its also Malaysian custom to have good food after heavy scientific talk to replenish the participant's exhausted grey matter. Furthermore, great scenery and ambiance to help the digestion of the food, which means open platform at sky high beside the swimming pool.

Food beside swimming pool


The waiters grilling and barbequeing the meat on the spot, great view from 5th floor of the Garden Residence Hotel

When i said good food, i truly mean it

Malaysia Signature dish, satay


Hotdogs, grilled chicken, otak-otak


Corn comb, Jacket potatoes, Grilled Lam, onions rings

Mixed Vege, fruit Jelly, cakes

All sort of desert, yummiessssss

Its quite funny to see all the 'guai lou' changed into their 'holiday attire' (shorts pants, hawaiian skirt and sun glasses) straight away after their presentation to attend the dinner. Apparently they are putting up a stay in Garden hotel as well, so i guess this will be something like a 'lawatan sambil belajar" for them. The only odd part was that all the Malaysian participants were dressing smart in their suit (including me), looking highly civilised but sweating like a pig inside, while the fellow foreigners were chit chating beside the pool, totally relaxed and enjoyed.

Well, at least i have free food to eat.