This Is Why I Have Two Clerks And Two Temp Staff

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I have fat fingers!

Feels Like Birthday

Today marked one year I have been with my current employment. Shock huh? Don’t be. I’ve had hard time to believe that either.

Time really does flies, they say. Nevertheless, I am quite pleased with this little ‘milestone’. It might be small achievement to many but sure it’s a huge deal to me. Those who know me know why.

It kinda likes a second birthday for me, really. So I woke up this morning thinking, “Maybe a little treat to my fellow officemate would be nice”.



No I didn’t bring this cake to work. For illustration purposes only.

Well, it’s nothing fancy. No cake, no speech, no candles to blow, no people singing ‘Happy Birthday’ or God-forbid, ‘Membangun Bersama’. But I am quite al right with it. In fact I like it this way. No pressure.

I haven’t been able to dream before. I dared not to, but today might be the start of something new. I can feel it.

Another year, another challenge. Bring it on!

I Hate To Brag But......

I must confess. I have only been to Genting Highland once, yes one time in my entire boring life. That’s right you merry-passport-stamping people. I know, it’s unbelievably pathetic but where else would I go if it isn’t paid for? Good point – like never. So I guess you already knew the pattern here – if it isn’t free so it’s probably not worth blogging for. That’s Mus-ism for fantabulous holiday for you.

The last time I did ever set my gorgeous foot here was like 3 years ago, where I got a free single ticket for the theme park and free cable car ride (duh!) for our Family Day from my previous still-owing money employer. But I don’t remember anything great about that place. I guess I don’t remember anything great about that previous employer of mine either.

So I abandoned the City of Entertainment after only 3 hours.

I guess a single ticket to fun ride wasn’t really something you called ‘fun’ if well, you rode it alone. It was just lame and lonely for me. It’s like having sex ‘without touching’. (Don’t ask me, it’s an outrageously peculiar concept introduced by a friend)

Anyway I am much wiser now. I do things differently. I am still not ready to pay (you got that right, mister!), but this time, I got company.

So this isn’t really a complete monster-in-the-dungeon tale. I have fun – that’s what matters the most to me. Yes, it’s still about work, yet I still managed to squeeze some precious time to enjoy what was paid for by my current beloved employers - and live to brag about it to friends. Life isn’t always fair, right?

I simply couldn’t put all these accurately in words. It simply wouldn’t justify. So I litter some of the photos I took here for your monster-green eyes.

The cool whether, the fresh mountain air and the magnificent views of the golf course - simply breathtaking, am I right?

I guess it’s only polite if you nod.

Life Is Good When It's Free

Don’t tell me how great your weekend was cause I know it couldn’t possibly as spectacularly great as mine.

Aha, you heard it right. I had a fantabulous weekend: a free stay in a hillside chalet-like resort just outside KL for good 3 days with pay. Think that this is too much for sharing? Well don’t send me anthrax power yet, cause you see, I was working.

Like I said, it did come with pay. I was supposed to take in charge in overseeing my management trainee progress as they went through their required teambuilding programme modules, which of course designed by yours truly.

Yeah, ‘overseeing’ as in, sleeping in my climate controlled room, watching TV while ordering room service, driving around town till early morning, skinny deep in the spacious and warm pool, and helping myself with all-you-can-eat buffet 6 times a day.

Sigh, life is good when it’s free….and one hella fun

(No prize guessing whose idea this is!)

10 Ways To Make Your Vacation Super Fabulous - Mus' Style

Holiday season is around the corner. Finally it’s time for your much-needed break. You have plan but one question keeps pounding your head. “Why my vacation always left me unsatisfied, penniless and went back with more stress than ever?" In other word, why your vacation sucks? You only have yourself to blame. If only you listened to Mus Before.

Here are some tips on how to make your vacation a super fabulous one – courtesy Mr Fabulous himself.

1. Travel only in First Class Coach



2. Pick people who you think you can boss around – You know, carrying your bags and stuff and address you as Encik or Sir.

3. Pick a far away, exotic location, away from papparazzi, i.e The Lost World Tambun



4. Let somebody else pay for the trip. If you already spent a penny, make sure you claim it back once you’re back.



5. Apply no leave, just put it under unrecorded leave.



6. Make sure other people you are with have less fun than you i.e Give them test/class while you go frolicking around the pool



7.Brag about the vacation to friends like putting the best photos on your blog.



8. If blogging failed, keep talking about it in years to come so that you (and people around you) never forget how fun the vacation was.



9. Look tired and worn out on Monday, just to let everyone knows that you had a whale of time. You know you did, but just to make sure everyone else knows that!



10. Finally, in any vacation to be fun and fabulous, make sure you forget about pending works at office and home completely.



And if you think you need an extra buzz for that vacation of yours, then look for friends that can provide you with free meal. But make sure you give the impression you were there for ‘catching up’. And bring your camera.



Take only tasteful pictures…



Oopsie…this NOT!

.....And I Thought My Life Was Boring

Before I even rolled out of bed yesterday, I gave myself a marching order.

“Today, I want to see good, exciting things happen to me – I am tired of feeling empty and bored to death – I need some cheering up and I am gonna make it happen, if I have too”

So, true to the promise I somehow saw a little improvement. Maybe it’s the magic of wishing and praying thing, I don’t know but lord, I was effortlessly, positively happy yesterday.

Good thing delivered very early in the morning. I received a little nice surprise, a little too late maybe, but boy, do I love gift! A birthday card signed personally by my COO and BSN Premium Certificate as a birthday gift from Bank. Aww…how sweet eh! This definitely adds to a long list on why I love working here. Here some pictures for your green eyes.

Look closely and you might see the value.

That's a real ink from COO's pen, OK!

Goodie!

Immediately after I wept my happy tears, just before lunch, I led my Management Trainees team to visit tin coil factory in Pulau Indah for their weekly study trip. It felt like a school trip all over again, only this time I’d be the Cikgu Bedah – minus the batik scarf and the accompany ‘mulut murai’. (Or was it?)

Rear view of some of my trainees...ahem



That 'cap' suits me fine huh?

I kinda like playing Mr. Engineer here.

It was a fun and ‘fulfilling’ trip especially the part where the organizer treated us on seafood fare, by the seashore, at the end of the program. Yummy! This I like!

Comtemplating who's paying for this, I guess

Not me!

Then, late in the evening, I did what a good housemate would do; grocery shopping. I know it’s not easy doing this, you know, being on a diet and whatnots, a trip to grocery store can be torture. So it was with delight that, on my way back from the store, I saw a car whose owner had come to terms with his body. His bumper sticker gloated “Fat People Are Harder to Kidnap.” Cute!

And I thought my life is boring…..not this day!

Looking Up!

Forget about the vampires. Today things are looking up for me.

Finally today is Friday, and that means tomorrow I am going to pack my bags and fly to the moon, figurative speaking. Ain’t that the most fabulous feeling?

Work related things that I was complaining about yesterday weren’t as horrible as I tried to make them out to be. It wasn’t a big deal after all. Suddenly the word of ‘Drama Queen’ doesn’t sound too far away eh? But hey that’s a narcissistic blogging to you.

And O, did I tell you that my employer felt a little generous yesterday?



This could be very well the best organization I ever worked with or maybe the best employer in whole wide world. In a less than a month, we are showered again with free goodies – this time, in a full load of multi-box container.



This stuff could easily worth more than RM200 dude!



Ever felt like, as if you were receiving humanitarian relief from UN and NGO volunteers in major natural disaster site? That’s how it felt like at the office last morning. Chaotic but heart wrenching! At the end, everyone went home happy.

Yes, yesterday was filled with madness and chaos, but today I feel more relax but a little anxious. For whatever that I have been through for the past few days, I just can’t wait to celebrate Raya to the max and come back to work all keyed up. Ehem, maybe not so much about come-back-to-work just yet, Sheesh, I have not even officially on holiday.

So for friends who still have to wake up early next Monday, I have two words for you: Good-luck-to-ya! O wait that’s four.

Everything comes back into perspective and goes back the way it should be – my way! And I can now looking forward to being a big fat grizzly bear or vampires....or maybe both.

Things are really looking up me. Happy holiday!

O Goodies!

I am only human. And being flawed and kiasu human that I am. I loooove goodies. Free goodies…



I have been away from office from a while and apparently somebody was missing me. Yesterday’s morning I got a nice little surprise on my desk....

Cheap Chocolate....hmmmm....sexy!

Cheap Kurma?....errr...seeexy!

More kurma?....Oookay...now it's getting lame.

Another box of kurma?!!...ok now can somebody tell me what's goin' on?!

Sarong?...for me?!!....O you shouldn't have...

I mean you shouldn't REALLY have!!



Waaaaiiiitttt a minute!!!!...Corporate song CD?!!!!!....WHAT THE...!!!!

That does it!…this is definitely not an act of secret admirer or psycho stalker…My illicit fantasy was short lived. Suddenly the image of Stephen Baldwin watching me from somewhere afar, using his army binocular vanished into thin air.

As it turned out to be, the goodies bag was from HR as a Ramadhan sedekah. A mere goodwill gesture from bank to all staff that they have been doing for years!

Sigh!

I looked out the window wishing that someone were watching me now!

O goodie!

Yesterday And Tomorrow

Mr No talent is back.

As some of you probably knew I was on course since Monday. The particular subject in question?



Neat. Now I can turn my blog into business circular update…..NOT!

-------------------------------------------------------

Tomorrow we’re gonna bid our YBhg Datuk a goodbye – a farewell-do for the outgoing the CEO. Guess who’s gonna be busy tomorrow? I have my heart right up on my sleeves right now, so to speak. But I am just gonna take it easy. After all I am staying.



Coir – check
Multimedia – check
Usherers – check
Songs – check

Songs?

Coir: 1.Jangan Kau Pergi – Indigo 2.Dimana kan Ku Cari Ganti – Tan Sri P.Ramlee
Multimedia: 1. Ku Pergi Jua - Dayang NurFaizah 2. Sukiyaki - A taste of honey

Don’t understand why it took two entire weeks to decide on the songs. And don’t understand either why suicidal-inducing songs were chosen. Personally I am all for more upbeat songs. (Since you’ve been gone – Kelly Clakson will add magic to my initial vision)

Why goodbyes must end in tears, it’s not like anyone’s dying anyway. He’s resigning and still is richer than most of us here.

By all means he should be respected for all his doings for the Bank, but what’s with the somber mood?

The more I think about it, the more I convince that this ‘sadness’ (read: anxious) comes more from us, little people than it is from him. We are afraid of uncertainties of our future. ‘Is the new boss gonna better?’ ’Will the changes affect me?’ We are afraid of change. So instead of embracing the new change, we mourn the past.

He should leave the Bank with a broad smile on his face knowing that he had done good here that people come to celebrate the best times we had with him.

Gotta run: gonna make this happen tomorrow.

The Sign

Today is August 14, 2007. So what does it means? It means that today is precisely the sixth month I have been with this Bank. Ain’t that wonderful?

Not quite.

Today I am supposed to get my confirmation letter, but nooo. My boss is away in Australia right now and she couldn’t possibly finish up my confirmation appraisal by today. She called and I sulked. She promised she’d do the appraisal first thing once she comes back from overseas, which means sometime next week. Apparently she forgot about the whole confirmation thing before she departed.

OMG. This can be good. Is she going to extend my probation period? What did I do wrong? Why am I being punished this way? O No. Is this some kind of a sign from God that I never good enough for bigger and better things? Why? WHY?! (People please calm down, it’s just an over-dramatic-but-totally-harmless rant from my usual self).

Exhale. Anyway, if she does has anything to say about that. I may have to admit that I’ve made my share of mistakes alright. But that’s all part of being a new staff under probation right?

I am getting nervous now. You think I should wait her up at the airport?

People might not understand this, but I have my own reasons to be this jittery. To get my probation period extended is simply not an option for me. I need to see THE SIGN that this is finally the place that I am destined to build my career on. I am tired of my job hopping days, and I mean it. Looking back of what I have done with my life – career wise, I have no regret, but I am not proud of them a single bit. How could I possibly be proud if none of them lasted more than 2 years?. Looky here:

MBF Finance - 2 years
Alliance Bank - 1 year and 6 months
Pembangunan Sumber Manusia Berhad - 1 year 4 months
CitiBank - 8 months
McDonald’s - 8 months
HSBC Bank - 6 months

And a couple more organizations that I fail to mention here; either 1) because of a very short span of me working there or 2 ) because of a very short span of my memory.

I promised myself when I signed the offer letter six month ago that I am gonna be here longer than anyone would expect me to be (God’s willing) and I am gonna prove my skeptics wrong.

Now, take that for a measure, you know why to pass 6 months period such a big hoopla to me.

Dream Can Wait

Yesterday, remember when I bragged about how I managed to save RM1000 for the Bank?

Of course you do. You just don’t care. Am I right?

Anyway my boss was ecstatic about it and the committees were thrilled. I was simply over the moon. It’s good to know you can help your organization the best you know how and I was basking with joy for a while. However my joy was short lived. Honestly, though I didn’t expect them to erect a life sized statue of myself in front of our office porch, neither that I expected to receive this memo late in the afternoon.

Tuan,

Sukacita dimaklumkan bahawa tuan telah dilantik sebagai Ahli Jawatankuasa Majlis Persaraan Y.Bhg Datuk Abdul Rahim Mohd Zin . Majlis ini akan diadakan di Menara Bank Pembangunan pada 30hb Ogos 2007.

Sehubungan itu mesyuarat pertama seluruh Ahli Jawatankuasa Majlis Persaraan ini akan diadakan seperti butiran di bawah:

Tarikh : 3 Ogos 2007 (Jumaat)
Masa : 9:00 pagi
Tempat : Bilik Latihan Aras 7 (Bilik 2)
Menara Bank Pembangunan

Kerjasama tuan untuk menghadiri mesyuarat ini adalah diharapkan bagi menjayakan Majlis di atas.
Sekian, terima kasih.

Guys, I am not complaining here. I know I am kinda good with this sorta thing. It just that after months of robbed weekends and relentless rehearsals I just feel that I deserve a break and opportunity to do other things that I am passionate about. You know like joining ‘Greenpeace’ in their anti-flush toilet campaign to save water or helping WFP (United Nations World Food Programme) to promote ‘anti-aging sardine sandwich’ to the third world countries to fight wrinkles.

Looks like those ‘dreams’ have to wait for a while now.

Sigh.

It's a Universal Thing!

A handsome male employee works in an office in this undated photo.

What on earth do you think you’re doing now?

Don’t you feel the slightest guilt of using office time and resources to check on this blog? and to gawk at the good looking fella shown in the picture while at it?

If you answer NO to the above question, chances are (given that you are probably an American) you could well be the top 60 % of no-good employee your organization has mistakenly hired.

Now, do I get your attention?

Yesterday I ran across an article over the Internet that caught my attention. It’s about an interesting-but-hardly-shocking finding from an online survey conducted on American employees. The findings reported that about six in every ten workers admit to wasting time at work, with average employee wasting 1.7 hours of a typical 8.5 hour working day.

Sounds not too distance away huh? Wait until you hear this. ‘Personal Internet use’ topped the list as the leading time-wasting activity (34%) followed closely by ‘socializing with co-workers’ (mengular in our local term) by 20.3 percent.

And the real reasons for that? Hardly earth shattering revelation. 18 per cent of the respondents listed ‘boredom and not having enough to do’ as the main reason for this horrible misfortune and blamed ‘too long hours’ (13.9 percent) as next main factor for these helpless workers to go bad.

Now that we’re talking business, I must say I found this article quite enlightening.

Wasting time at work is no longer an Asian thing like I thought it was. Suddenly I feel like I am not alone anymore in this world. I am no longer feel like an inept employee of my organization. I can now stand tall and feel guided. I have my reasons now.

And so what I did was, immediately after I read it, I printed the article using the ever-dependent office printer and clipped it nicely in my personal file. Someday someone will question my integrity and I will smugly shove her this and say ‘see boss, it’s a universal thing you can’t blame me on something that already in our human DNA. I never did anything wrong. I just got bored and decided to get my own entertainment’.

Of course, that ‘someday’ won’t come anytime soon – or never, but my conscience is clear: I will only turn into the ‘dark side’ if my boss is not around.

And she is on leave today.

Soliloquy

OMG! Yesterday, my boss did the unbelievable. She allowed me to access to her blog!

How many people can claim that they know their bosses are blogging, let alone giving access to them?

None you say?

‘Jangan lupa baca tau!’

‘O. I wouldn’t miss it for the world, boss’ I said with an evil-grinned face.

Imagine getting access to your boss’ inner thought and deepest desire (wish me luck!). I am thinking a thousand and one devilish things I could do with this little trust, but being a good boy that I am, I won’t. The best part is, I can now play around with her menopausal mood every month: I can pick the best day to ask for extended lunch hour, tricking favorable appraisal review or when not to crack my stupid dirty jokes, and then some other endless possibilities.

Hey, maybe I can check on how she feels about me (or my work performance) since my probation period nearing to end soon. Now that is nerve wracking!

I don’t know what made her to act this crazy but boy, am I complaining?

Anyway, for what it worth now, I think she’s a terrific writer (not that I didn’t notice before). She picks her words well but don’t bother to mince them. Having read most of her latest posting, I felt inspired.

I want to express myself, in words, better, just like her. I want to be simple but effective thinker, just like her. I want to be a fair observant, just like her. I admire the delivery of her thoughts, something that I need to pay more attention to.

Her subjects are mostly her family, friends and work just like mine. And she keeps everything simple and not too specific just like mine. She keeps things in perspective and goes easy on things but at the same times not afraid to state the obvious.

I feel honored to be among those people she trusts. Come on, how come you don’t feel a bit flatter if someone you respect to open up this close. We are talking cyber ‘diary’ here people.

Now time to return the favor.

‘I takder blog lah Kak. Takder masa”

She gave me this do-you-think-I’m-stupid look.

‘Yeke?. OK. If you ever decided to blog, let me know. I’ll be your biggest fan’.

You bet.

Floral Orange Monday

After months of meticulous and painstaking preparation, finally the moment that we’ve been waiting for arrived in spectacular fashion.

I’ll let these photos speak for themselves.

Saturday. I checked in at Traders Hotel KLCC.



a small but cosy room



Sky Bar, hotel swimming pool/bar probably is the best hotel pool in KL with a spectacular view of KLCC. Sadly, this picture simply couldn’t do justice to what I’ve seen.

Sunday. Rehearsals



I pay a lot of money, people, so better make it right!



Aren’t you supposed to be in school on Monday?



Ayati Tasrip Keroncong Group practising very hard not to disappoint me.

Monday Morning. Moment of truth.



What it looks like before the arrival of guests. So orange my eyes hurt.



Orange people



Choir people in their cool get up while ‘butchering’ the song.



Happy ending deserves a happy goodbye right?

Considering that this is my first time doing this, I’d give myself a cool 3 stars, out of 5



Copious amount of sweat, blood and tears have been splattered to make this event a successful one but I don’t regret wasted a single drop. I thank you all people who helped/guided me throughout the preparation, rehearsals up until the Big Monday (especially my team) and you know I could never thank you enough.

Would I do it again?

Definitely.