Togetherness in Melaka

Last Saturday i went to Melaka to attend Prudential Wealth Planner Mid Year Conference. Attendees about 3,800 and occupied the whole conventional hall at Melaka International Trade Centre (MITC)



As a free rider, i was given the chance to get closer to the agents' activity and hence have a greater sense of the business since our sales force is the agency. Bit boring for the presentations, but i was able to sneak out for sightseeing and visit the Jonker Street.

Observed one thing in Melaka, whereby the agents are united and they stick together with their own units. They will have their own attire, they took photos together and this recalled myself in those days where i work as a team with others for certain projects or activities.



I did enjoyed teamwork actually. Especially when all of us are tied together, we chat, we quarrel, we discuss, we share and we enjoy the moments together. That is the fate which brings all of us together. Hence, i treasure the moment. I will feel like a loss when the projects or activities come to the end as i know its the time for apart.

Although i was in the organizing committee of the CFO away day, but i cant feel the same as my school days. Perhaps all of them are too independent and they really can make things happen separately. We did have discussions, but it was more on the updates and progress. We need minimal sharing or brainstorming sessions.

Nonetheless, i was able to took some photos in Melaka, lets go!!!

Singing Number One song though not officially number one..


The famous chicken rice ball. It was below my expectation and it just quite special with the shape of the rice? Other than that, just a normal Hainan Chicken Rice. Another special thing is, when you wanna top up, not by plate, but by how many balls..zzz


Aftermath..


Luckily still able to get one guide who was my trainee. (Partly local)


Famous Cendol with gula melaka


Some other places..

CFO Away Day 2009

We were having CFO Away Day at Pullman Hotel Putrajaya last weekend. We were having this every year and unfortunately when i joined last year, they just had their away day and hence i missed out a chance. Nonetheless, i joined as a trainee that time and i wont able to participate anyway. =(

This year, i participated and i'm one of the committee as well for games. (though it was outsourced to teambuilding company as mentioned in previous thread) Pictures worth thousands of words...

Welcome!!




Morning session..



Active presentation from my team... =)


Are they playing SUMO? Of course not!! haha.. It was one of the station games..


Picking marbles....


I get 1st runner up for this station. Anyone can rank for me for the below? I believed my team should get first one...





We have to do all these by having our legs tied...


Baby Cradle game...


This game looks easy but it is damn hard to score... and my team get 0 score.. haiz..


Though we scored zero at the last station, we still able to secure the grand winner position.. yeah!!


But what happened to the grand loser? LOL



Dinner time..





Grand winner ..


Actuarial performance - Sketch


The 'Judges'


'MC'


First 'contestant'



Second 'contestant'


Third 'contestant' (Actuarial Senior Manager)


Extra entertainment..


Forth 'contestant' - CFO.....Dunno he can rocks!! lol




Fifth 'contestant'


The crew!


After the session...




While chatting, he is suggesting to perform a magic...


Outcome was, we knew how his trick was and....


Actuarial Director playing WII.... lol

Strategic Planning

I am glad that the first job of mine has been chosen correctly. Perhaps due to the first job as well, I have no comparison basis. However, im currently enjoy working here with Prudential. Not because of high pay (and I do not get high pay as well), but there are lots of humanity factors.

First of all, with my current position in the team (Strategic Planning), as a fresh graduate, I am able to learn a lot of tings in many areas. I have to liaise with many departments, talk to the directors or chiefs. I admit that I know most of the departments, but I just fairly know the basic. Important thing is, its somehow fairly related to my study. Even I need to change my job one day, my working experience here is able to add in value into me.

Besides, my team just having two ‘slaves’ (who really technically and conceptually do the work), we are made to get hold of all sort of information as well as high level confidential stuff. I just feel that they placed high trust level on a fresh grad like me and able to provide critical thinking with the ability to drive business decisions. Luckily I am guided by my senior (now promoted as my AM), and she has covered lots of my work.

The thing that I much appreciate is, even though she has covered most of my tasks, but she still patient and willing to teach me and forgive. (though sometimes when pressured she will be in black face) In addition, she will let me send out the emails or talk to respective parties directly (most of them are managerial levels and above) . In other words, she wont grab the honour or take the credit. Even she done a lot on that and making lots of changes, but she wont have the mindset to have it.

Compare to my ‘neighbour’ (SM for risk), since she is new, and she wants to make a lot of changes which are quite aggressive and hostile. Many risk coordinators are not willing to cooperate wif her in anyway or compromise with her aggressiveness and causes alots of problems. However, her ‘slave’ was asked to send out emails writing those opinions or decisions which are not from her.

The same thing here, both slaves are sending email, but having two different motives. Im glad that im not the latter. What are the other things that make me love the culture here? They are friendly, outspoken, and happening people. They will always have tea breaks or outings at somebody house drinking or chit chatting. Not because I can lazy bit during the tea break, but in fact I learn a lot when my ex boss was here. Not withstanding that, the tea break sessions now are still brainstorming and assisted me in work. Sometimes their topics are revolving about work related matters or some skills set of me.

Erm, lets go for another point now – flexibility. I hv great flexibility here as no set of fixed time for me to work and of course there aint be any fixed time for me to go off. Their perception is that, as long as you can have your works done, you can come in late or leave sharp. (including to have extra tea break sessions). And obviously im not having enough time for me to finish my job recently and that’s the reason I have to work up late at night.

I believe that I wont be changing company in the short term. At least I will need to gain 2 years experience here before moving onwards. With a strategic position and a good team, I will survive here and should be working happily.
Many many thanks to my team and my ex boss. They are my great mentor and superiors.

Station Games

I should have earn thousands during my secondary school time. Why would i say so? Im part of the organizer of many events during my secondary time and especially involved actively in game part. We design games, we facilitate the games from end to end. Then where is the thousands come from?

Currently, im a game committee for my upcoming CFO's away day in June. Initially, i thought i have to come our with some superb games for a disperse age range and skewed gender distribution. (forgive me as im a math student.. lol) However, HR suggested that we will engage with external party for the games. We are looking for a teambuilding company to design games and activities in a given time frame.

First proposal, they proposed 6 station games where im pretty sure that 5 out of 6, i am able to conduct it by my own with some facilitators. I just need some of the active and happening ppl. Anyway, if they can do that, without any hassle to me why not? But wait, let me see their costing...

in 4 hours, we have to pay them RM6k for simple games.

OMG, i was stunned with the price, never realize that how this kind of company make money and now i knew it. They have alots of clients and most of them are big companies. Though this price exceeding our budget, but we are still giving them RM5k to play with.

Imagine, if im not working and im given more time to design, can i set up a team of mine and do the games? You just pay me RM3k for that? haha.. Anyway, the money is not coming from my pocket and i dun even bother that. Im just as the intermediate channel between my company and the teambuilding ppl.

See? I should have earn more then RM10k during my school time. Think the costing of each games around RM100 only. I am stil making a profit with that. =(

Exercise

Never think that i can pick up sports seriously in KL.Since i joined Prudential in May last year, I had not touch on basketball (my main exercise even when my time in Sabah). I have been keep giving excuses like no time, no mates etc.

Recently i had badminton back to my list. I'm glad that i have such determination. Just last weekend, i had 3 badminton sessions and 1 swimming. My colleague had invited me to her condo for the swimming and i found it damn nice. That evening, it rained heavily but the water temp still warm and nice (FYI, that's an outdoor pool). Though it is not deep enough, but still its more than enough for me.

It was a good start anyway. Subsequently, i had two badminton sessions on Saturday itself.I approached one of my another colleague and leaded me to join his gang. This gang was formed through the badminton central forum. Lots of intermediate level players there and i was the worst among there. Anyway i enjoyed a good game.

In between of the second session of mine, i went to my ex boss's house to play Wii. My hand was like not belongs to me. What we played was boxing, tennis and bowling. The time during my second session was totally exhausted. Thinking of having a good rest the next day, but then my friend dragged me out for the third session.

Haiz..anybody can massage for me?

Its HOT!!!!

Every morning im listening to MYFM for their 阳光灿烂， 王宫灿烂，and 茶煲ma宝. Today's topic was about the weather right now. Its damn hot for about few weeks or even months.

The weather is forecasted at this level until month of September. In other words, we have to suffer for another 4months. Why i wanna highlight this in my blog? Coz all the while, i heard lots of adjectives to describe the weather and they are really damn funny.

The people who called in today:

1) 晒到脱皮。。。。 （under the sun till my skin peel off)
2) 晒到阿妈都不认得。。。。 (im tanned untill my mom cant recorgnise me)
3) 热到发瘟。。。。 (its a bit rude here in cantonese and im wondering that guy really dare to have this kind of words on air, and the funny part is the DJ repeating his words somemore)

And after these, i heard another version from my housemate which is funnier:

'the weather really hot until my underwear is wet every morning coz of sweating at midnight'

I really let him 'zha dou'. I repeated his 'adjective' to my team and my AM told me that boys' underwear is wet in the morning not exactly because of sweat, it can be lots more other reason. Haha, Im firm and tell her that, we know whats going on and what causes the wetness. Definitely not coz of the dirty one!!! LOL

Few months ago, im longing to have one water heater since it was so cold in the morning to take a bath and eventually turned up that i din bath. However, for now, im longing for one air conditioner. I continued my bathing habits and the temperature is really damn nice. Warm enough and i need not to 'dance' while bathing.haha.

The world is urging to save our environment, our ozone layer by reducing the usage of materials which cause harm to it. Lets look around the city, how many buildings we have? How many hotels we have? How many supermarkets we have? Just the air conditioner in these locations are enough to damage our ozone layer. How can we save?

No idea!!!

Mahjong with Technology

I cant believe that we had incorporated technology into our common game - MAHJONG!!

Yesterday, my ex-boss organised a small party at his new house inviting some of his close colleagues. His new house located just nearby my house - Sunway SPK, 3 storeys house. A pretty nice house.

They bought KFCs as dinner, wines, etc. We chat, drink, play Wii, and of course Mahjong as mentioned earlier. 'Gambler' like me sure opted for the mahjong. LOL. (and im the big loser)

Lets focus to the mahjong part. The mahjong set is not complete and the chips are not enough. Rather than playing with cash, my boss suggested to jot it down on a piece of paper to keep track of all the transactions.

After few round of games, the paper seems not enough for the record. Hence, we planned to use technology - Laptop. By using a simple excel spreadsheet, we can easily keep track of our cash flow.

Advantage of using excel(as an alternative of chips) :

- to avoid police detection
- to save paper
- to easily track net cash flow position
- to check the transactions to have zero sum
- to see the trend of our cash flow (pending template building - a chart)

The objective of the game:

TO fill in all the entries of an Excel spreadsheet (we are using microsoft 2007), which means the total entries available will be 1m. For simplicity, assuming no 'gong', no 'draw' game, each game will have 3 transactions, (A-B, A-C, B-C), hence we have to play at least 300,000 games to complete the spreadsheet. =)

Outcome:

One of the player complained that it is troublesome as she was the one who do data entry. When we are keep playing, she has to enter the data. LOL. We able to finish about 100rows of the spreadsheet. LOL

My coursemate

Yesterday night I received a call from my coursemate when I was with my friends having my dinner at market hawker stall. I was so shocked to hear the news that one of my coursemates had passed away suddenly.

I felt so sorry to hear that. Reason being I just saw her last 2 weeks in KL, when I was having coursemates gathering at KLCC. I was told that she came to KLCC to watch movie herself and she do this quite frequently. I was wondering why she do things alone without any companion from her friends?

Some background story telling, her body shape is quite fat and round (forgive me for being so direct as I dunno what other words can replace). Because of this, behind her, I was calling her 波波 (BoBo) as she looks like a ball. To be frank, I was not so close with her during my time at Sabah, and when ppl referring to her, I have no idea when they were using her name. Hence, I named her that way to ease me for reference.

My source told me that she had a disease (unknown to us), which she knew that when her time in Sabah. Again, because of this disease, it caused her to be in that shape. Besides, during the time, she was admitted to hospital few times during her study period. I totally have no idea bout that. I felt so sorry for not concerning my coursemate, plus calling her with that nickname. If I knew this earlier, I wont called her such way. In fact, I will convey my wishes and concern to her.

Concluding from this, I finally understood why she was watching movie alone. My guess was, she knew she have to fully utilize her time and not wasting it. Though watching movie is not any beneficial thing but still, as long as she gain her satisfaction over that and happy with it.

She just worked nearby my office and past two weeks I had promised to date her for lunch when I was free. But now, I would not have the chance to meet her in future not even to say have a lunch with her. I was impressed by her strong will to stay alive and continues her live happily. Knowing herself troubled by the disease, she still determined to finish her degree, to seek for employment etc.

I cant imagine how her parents feel. Were they prepared for this long time ago? I have no idea. 3 of my coursemates are heading towards to attend her funeral. Hope her parents can recover soon from her death. As I need to work tomorrow, I really cannot attend her funeral.

Basically, there were few reasons which I feel so sorry:
1. I have no concern over her during our Sabah time. (even her absence time?)
2. I din understand her family background at all. (I only knew that she is from Kedah when I intended to attend her funeral but its really to far)
3. From above, I cant attend to her funeral.
4. I have no chance to fulfill my promise to her which is date her and have a lunch at least?
5. I din really have a photo with her alone.

Im listening to Lim Fung’s song when im writing this post which is “爱在记忆中找你” And there is one lyric part which brings out all my sadness, which is we will only can find you in our memories. I dun wish this. I hope I can see you face to face. I wish we still can chat on our life in Sabah, chat about our Prof Zai, chat about how we survive during our FYP period?

Everything in memories for now…

(right side)

My FM

这一次我又写华语的部落格， 但是别担心，这次绝不是因为气愤或伤心。

很难得今天我能够在还未天黑前就离开公司。想到应该能够7点之前就回到我的安乐窝。很可惜就因为一个错误的决定，我用了1小时40分才会到家。 就觉得好像浪费了我的时间。 为什么我要选择走mrr2呢？除了在jalan ampang 塞了一段路，mrr2也在同一天发生车祸，导致大塞车。 我一个人呆在车里无聊得很。

就在将要到达的时候，我听到了myfm猜歌名的环节。无聊的我，就只好发送sms去myfm参加环节。那一首歌，我很清楚我是懂得的。为什么只是区区的一小段音乐， 我都能那么肯定的是我心中的那一首歌？就因为我唱k时，它是我必唱的一首歌。

很可惜，我却忘了歌名。印象中它仿佛是张智霖的祝君好。犹豫了一会儿，我终于发送出去了。paiseh 的是，我竟然忘记了chilam的华语名，我还特地拨电话给我的朋友确认他的名字。满心欢喜的，等待答案，还有等他说出我的名字猜对了。因为就要到达，恐怕等不及答案就要下车了，还准备了耳机，打算用手机聆听myfm.

很快的，myfm要公布答案，当中我知道我的答案错了，一直担心着我的名字将会宣读出来。但是我知道大家都在指同一首歌，因为大家的答案都蛮接近的。幸亏我的名字没有读出来，要不然我就paiseh了。 哈哈。

到底答案是哪一首歌呢？

它就是：” chilam 的 相爱无梦“

以后一定要记住歌名了。。。。=（

Stress Out!!!!!

As it is a quarter end now, lots of reporting stuff are coming in and everything flows into my team's job scope. A small team comprising of 2 slaves, have to handle all the reporting and ad-hoc analyzes.

A newbie like me, be with the company for half a year, is currently dealing directly with chiefs and regional office. However, me,myself has no enough confidence in meeting their requirements or answer their questions.

The most detail and full pack will be the quarterly reporting. This is my second time involved in this kind of reporting. Even my first submission for last quarter needs alot of amendments and changes plus additional slides from my AM, but now i have to handle myself. Why?

1. My AM (previously senior) is taking study leave for two weeks. She is the one who knows the business damn well and guided me throughout the time.


2. Another AM also taking study leave, though she is not engaged with my current work but at least i can ask for her advices when nobody around.

3. My boss have to go for a business trip and before he goes, i have to settle this report two weeks earlier before the deadline which means i have few days left for it. (Nothing started as at now.)

Some of my friends know that, recently i am so busy and working overtime everyday and weekends. Without so, i cant even finish some other ad-hoc stuffs. Coupled with weekly reporting and monthly reporting, i am so suffocating!!!

When things and results turn out to be not matching, i was frustrated and my mind jammed. No one helps. No one listens. Rarely have enough sleep nowadays, even i slept, i still dreamed of my working tasks, all the numbers, initiatives, projection, analysis bla bla bla...

I love the feel of speeding now. When im driving alone without anyone talking to me, my mind will automatically connecting my 'office's server'. I just need a feel of release by speeding and opening loud music inside the car. Hope by doing so, i can just concentrate in my driving without other distractions.

Hope that i can complete the things before deadline. Im half-prepared to be scolded for this round. Haiz!!!