You no shame! So thick skin...

That's what my dad said about me. I practically told the whole world that it's my bday today. Nah, its the way I talk. Was on dinner table, when somebody called, so since I knew its on the screen who's the caller, I answered the phone by shouting 'Happy Birthday to me!'. Lol.. well, that's exactly what I heard from the other end...

At work, last week, I sorta spill it out to the SG mgr that Monday evening is no good for me for team gathering, where he asked me, so I told why. Next thing I know, the MY mgr emailed to our team for farewell cum bday lunch on Monday. But the sad thing was the restaurant -- we ended up have vegetarian lunch at Nanking. Err.. no I dont really enjoy eating alot of beancurd foodstuff. Due is this to miscommunication, when SG mgr invited guys from the other team that involved a Muslim, who didnt turn up for the lunch do anyway.

Anyway, it was one of the most boring company eating session at a round table. I've never felt so awkward with 'people' before. Even the SG mgr commented 'u guys are really so shy?'. Aiyooo... I really dont want to be sooo quiet, but I cant start talking. On my left side, my ultra quiet & shy old teamlead. On my right, the vain guy who doesn't mix well with English-speaking guys. Further on the right is my new teamlead who's English is not so good either. How 'showy' do I want to portray myself to be? Just went on with the flow, and pretend that there's stone in my mouth.

Later towards 5.30pm, my teamlead said "lets go pantry, they bought a cake for you". That was REALLY unexpected. This is a company with NO birthday celebration culture before! Whoaah... MJ broke the chain :P LOL. The cake is bought by my new teamlead, probably advised by the SG mgr, all trying to 'buy us' to boost our morale. Just give face, went to pantry, with cllg from even the other team, all walked away from their desks to the pantry, to sing me a birthday song.

The sad thing is, they bought me a Mocha cake. I dunno to laugh or to cry. I DO NOT DRINK COFFEE. Seriously, I will puke when I take a sip. So the cake, I TRY to bite it, but I couldn't bring myself to bite it. I hope they didn't see me 'not eating' the cake. I was busy cutting and serving and then packing. So maybe they didn't realise, I succeeded in not eating the cake they purposely buy for me, without anybody knowing.

Another Doh story, the SG mgr asked me infront of everyone, so how old are you this year? What is your animal sign? I replied "goat" and he said "oh you must be a little goat!"

Oh ya! I have NO IDEA what he meant, I said "oh no im a big size goat!".

~*~

Continue from the story above... towards the night, I was somewhat duped into a 'yamcha' session organised by Jo. *how sweet*.. :P and I sorta mistaken its a gathering with DJ schoolmates cos my friend dropped by my house, gave me a Michael Buble latest CD and apologized for not able to make it for the yamcha session. So anyway, there was at the cafe, with the usual bunch of INCOVARians -- who else, who would sacrify Monday late night evening entertaining me :D *awwww shooo flattered*...

At the end of the night, when I thought I wanna speed home, I saw 3 human-monkeys, that was so funny, even funnier, that I didn't know what were the 'signs' of these monkeys -- I waved bye bye to them, instead of stopping the car -- which was what the hand movements actually meant! Yeah, KNS went jumping so high up, I thought 'wah no need to so semangat wave good bye gua..'

So anyway, I got another gift! *shoo sweet* Another CD!

~*~

Incase my bday story didnt end there, the bunch of idc committees, although its the next day already, I must of course be thankful they bothered to STILL celebrate it, and bought me another -- mocha cake!!! :D I really felt blessed that people there for me, meanwhile I gotta list of 'what-i-dont-eat' published / make it known publicly.. haha... Sometimes you wish you're not so smart, didn't realise this time I could 'guess' what they were up to, when ppl are whispering infront of you and not telling you anything ~ Doh.

~*~

And on Wed, had nice pasta dinner with my buddies at Italiannes.

~*~

Enough?? Yeah.. enough. Thank you, thank you all!

...People...

How cool/uncool is it to talk about ...people...

- There's a guy on msn, who came for 1 camp, and before you knew it, he kept bugging me about the date of the next camp. Although have already said the tentative was 7th to 10th Dec, he was trying to persuade me to change the date so that he wont miss the camp due to his bro's wedding. Alas, the camp date is set, and he cudn't make it. Now we're talking abt the camp next year! Oh boy, like hello?! He's only in his 2nd yr of uni and he's afraid of missing one IDC?!?!!

- Myself. I'm so weird. I just know I am. At work, with friends, on msn whatever. I dont mean this the bad way, but I'm just trying to keep it 'normal', my attitude / feelings towards anybody. I know I get agitated aka feel-its-so-Doh when I encounter with...people.

Eg. teamlead ask "what do you want for your bday? SG-boss is asking the your new-teamlead to buy a present for you." Well, instead of saying thank you, you know what really goes thru my brain -- yeah.. DDDDOOOHHHH!!!!!

Eg. SG-boss who saw me still sitting in the office at nearly 6pm (but not really doing work, but I dont know he knew) and said "MJ, why are you still here, its Friday evening, you should be out there!" All I can do is just fakely smile and start calling for my dad to quickly come pick me up to go home.

- My wonderful happy cranky folks. (see I'd call them parents, but the Aus guy call them folks). I've really swallowed in alot of happenings that wanders through my mind without sharing it with my folks, and finally its Fri night and I really want to let it all out to them... when I started yakking nonstop at the restaurant about the people at work & what's my strategy at my present company, they were really listening... until the part where I said it in one breath "You know both my SG & MY managers really like me!" -- the dinner table burst into one big laughter! My dad almost spill his mouthful of rice & rubbed his head & body, shaking his head. My mom really laughed like she's never laughed for a long time.

What's so funny?! Well for my folks, it is a hilarious joke. My parents cannot take in self-praise. Oh yeah, that reminds me, I grew up with parents who probably never praise / compliment me anything, until it is a big joke for me to praise myself. Doh. Luckily my EQ, IQ, SQ also high, I think. (see the self-praise again?! *cough cough*). Maybe, if my parents were to raise me & my bro the way modern parents do, then I wouldn't be what I am today. I'm not sure...

- My teammate that I work together with. He's a jerk. But I do not behave like I think he's a jerk. My parents may think - oh so what that he dare to sleep during office hour, means he really knew how to do his work or he's finished his work. For me, I dont care. But when other boss / cllg start talking about him behind his back, and asking me what I think... to hell with him, why do you care?! I dont care! The MY mgr who works well with me, but not with him has a problem with talking to him & vice versa. So the MY mgr goes thru me. Any 'warning' the the MY mgr wants to give to him, I'm being cc too, cos we're a team & all rules apply to me. Yet, I can safely say, I dont need these rules. I never took MC and I was never late unnotified. This teammate (remember the vain guy, who thinks he's the coolest), I dont know if I should laugh or cry. He think he's so cool & honest, where he speaks his mind unconditionally, he told the big big big boss (during a rare meetup opportunity) that he will resign since he's unhappy.

Ok, no problem with me still. But he also added on, that 'infact the whole team is planning to leave'. I almost crossed my heart & hope to die. The team is left with just me & him. It's either 1 of us get to be teamlead or we get a new teamlead. He killed my chance. It could be good or a bad move by him, the mgt is now scared of losing us, they're putting a carrot infront of the horse now. This whole drama of I-give-you-$-but-only-next-year-u-receive-it crap will probably help pacify my teammate, not to leave so soon.

- I'm sooo nice. I'm too nice. I can get everybody to like me but I dont like anybody! I think I can take on the game of Survivor with my prawn-behind-stone mindset :P haha. But of course, most people will say I'm so innocent & naive and too kind-hearted. True or not, lifes goes on.

- SG mgr. He's gonna be my appraiser. In my first time f2f with him for a small talk, when he suddenly called to meet at a temp cubile, he asked "how's work?". OK, so he's the boss I cant give a DOH answer, I said "normal". In which he replied "that's positive, I like how you say it". ***god knows how many Doh, went thru my head*** Looking at him talk, with his naturally stern big square face, its not scary, it's DOH. How could anybody be born with that face?!?! I knew he's only 30+, he commented abt his age "I feel like a fossil!".

- My new teamlead. How could ANYBODY from other team (not really technical at that) in this company, be willing to VOLUNTEER to replace my old teamlead? The next thing before anybody could take a guess, SG mgr announces in email for old teamlead to handover to new teamlead. New teamlead was unaware (maybe pretending) that she didn't know by just raising her hand, she would get the job. My old teamlead was very surprised how it all happened so quickly.

- Another Doh thing to do for me: To teach my new teamlead & help her to understand our team. Maybe I can see more good things that could possibly happen to me, than bad things. So with that positive attitude, I will continue to strive on and work hard. One exMgr parting words with us "what is your objective? what do you want to acheive for yourself in this company?" ... and that's how he survived 10 yrs before moving on for greener pasture.

Well, actually I'm already smiling inside. Its bitter sweet goodbye for my old teamlead. It will also be a new bitter sweet rollercoaster ride from now on. Now, I have the opportunity to atleast set the expectation with mgt & mgt with me. I like this setting of expectation. Dont like to be a fool.

Can't sing 'I Lay My Love On You' during Puja...

Can you believe that? Well.. actually its understandable since the comment came from senior teacher who haven't really listened to the lyrics but everybody know the title of the song and that its a POP song. With that I'm being told to 'next time sing more Buddhistic songs during Puja'...

*pllleeerrtttt* all smile again. I am still as neutral as I'll ever be with all that environment want me to be. Alright, next song to teach my class would be the difficult cool song 'My Beautiful Friend', ok you know its really hard to sing this sone in tune lah, esp following the male voice.

Did you know, my class is totally blown off by the song 'Brahma of my Heart'. So the effort to take on a Sunsch class is made easier, by having a CD player + CD.. hehe. Young kinds enjoy singing!

Well, maybe on the other hand, my inability to teach proper Buddhism in the class is due to my lack of research / knowledge! Errr... imagining if I was a young kid again, very naive and inferior, I didnt enjoy Dhamma class at all! I enjoyed the hymn singing competition most, and still remember how I played win-lose-or-draw. I remember the people: the odd one, the glamourous, the boring & lame, the NKOTB-freaks etc.

Where was I... Puja.. songs... *yawn* imagine if I could revolutionize a Sunday Dhamma School.

Wishful Thinking

Try search on the word 'corporate + management strategy + opportunity' and I found some online books and guess what this company:
Accenture (NYSE: ACN)
Global management consulting and technology services organization.
Category: Management Consulting

In my mind, I'm really interested in this whole yau yeng (ok if only I could be more professional with my speech!!) corporate management strategy idea, and that's the higher aim that I have in mind that is still keeping me sane with my work life. Ultimately, I want to know how on earth or where do I find the opportunity to switch to consulting group of my current co. Right now I'm 100% in outsourcing / servicing, probably the most I could reach is to manage an outsourcing contract or project.

I guess by writing a blog here will not help me to get to what I want, if I didn't try to go out there and stretch my arm to reach for it. Well, I cant turn back clock and tell myself to study harder in uni to score better cgpa so that they'd consider me for a consulting role in THAT company! Regret now? No... I never see myself first class anyway.

What about my career? I really do see myself there, being able to be with the management but I gotta start from somewhere. There's so many ways, tried or untried, direct or indirect, being flirty or serious, be tactful or too loud, have tien1chai2 or kou3chai2? I'm longing to find my niche in this market. I wish to seek out for a mentor / advisor in my current co, regardless of whether I stay or I go, atleast I could have a new referee. It's unfortunate that in my last company, I couldn't meet eye-to-eye with any senior.

I feel I have so much that I want and I can contribute to this company, not because I like it alot, but because its a big company with a huge gap in business-process improvement! I'm not sure if the global counterpart is of six-sigma standard, but the local standard is as bad as my mom's ex-cinapek company that she couldn't tolerate.

In my mind, I'm thinking would be good if the MD could engage Cj's company to come re-train the local/regional management staff. Now I could see the value that it would bring, but I wonder what's stopping them from opening the door to new phase of life, potentially with less problem leading to more profit. Maybe it's the part where Cj says "people dont know what they dont know".

Atleast I think I'm talking as if I'm at the level of "I know what I dont know". Hopefully in years to come, I'll reach the "I know what I know" stage, like those managers.

I wanted to share with my teamlead the mindset of selling / viewing things, in jyon's blog its called P=O, think it means Problems = Opportunity. My UT trainers would say Objections = Opportunities. Her life motto -- "you dont cheat people and dont let people cheat you" -- is not inspiring enough. After having gained deeper understanding of the nature of the world, just like how I've been rooted with Buddhism, I just have to acknowledge the fact that the world is afterall rooted with greed, hatred & delusion.

Feels like a wishful thinking to lead a meaningful IT-corporate lifestyle with strong Buddhist philosophy influence. I still have this wishful thinking of having the opportunity to meet an inspiring manager amongst all the fakers that could lead me the way, to sustain a better career alongside a purposeful life ahead.

*keep dreaming* maybe someday my prince will come.. *cough cough*... cut the crap, go to sleep.

She resigns today..

It did not come at all unexpected, I wasn't too surprised, its just the timing that is too quick.

Somehow before I go further, I realised something, that my schoolmate-now-lunchmate is reading my blog! :P Here I am praying that work-related people will not discover my worklife thrashing, there I directed her to read my blog for update. Aiya... promise u're not going to share it with ur hubby ya!

Actually, I do wonder what's wrong with letting people know how shitty an organisation is, but its not the first time I'm advised to pretend / not reveal the truth. All because 'the IT world is very small' she said. She's resigned without even having a new offer but she's being advised not to reveal how disappointed she is with the co. This really goes a long way from my learning of the 5 Precepts in Sunday school.

So when ppl ask why, I have to tell 'oh she got a new offer in a small company'. Basically I guess not many will care to ask, this place is kinda cold. There's no bday, no farewell, no trust. When ppl leave, they just leave quietly and disappear.

It's really.... remember at Ac, my teamlead & me (the only 2 gals) kept a bday track and we celebrated bdays for teammembers & even for the clients. And I was also given a surprise by my fellow multiracial workmates with a lovely cake! Sep 2003 yeah!

This Sep 2006, I'm thinking of applying leave! Gosh... how boring is that!

Oh ya.. my point of my teamlead finally calling it quit... I asked "do you feel relief and happy now?" she replied "no, im worried that within this 1 month they'll make my life even more miserable!".

Next week, the AU mgr together with the SG ppl will come down. I'm already immune to all the jokers, my current wish is for my teamlead to be strong. To forgive and forget about this hard-to-tolerate corporation. Her philosophy of life is "dont lie to people, and dont let ppl lie to you". To which I replied "I've been lied to so many times without even know it, so it doesn't matter!".

Maybe if my mind is more earth-based, not so holistic, then I can differentiate better what's a lie. But I dont wish to be contaminated that way just to learn the sad truth of earth-life.

Look beyond this work, look beyond this career, look beyond this lifespan, look at a supramundane life ;) ok ok.. crapping now... i know... how idealic if I could just be at the temple now as a volunteer, just providing services and reaching out to people!

I should seriously consider not be a slave to $$$? Oh you mean, I should work harder in my unit trust sales so that I could close millions of deals so that I could have a fat cheque to retire now?! Yeah fat hope.