Jun 222010

Money is not the only answer, but it makes a difference. [Barack Obama]

Today the evil that we are fond of has distracted my concentration – it’s all about the money, and nothing more evil than the ability to do a lot of things with just such simple tool.

Money

Money is not the only answer...

Praise to the Lord that I have received a good percentage of increment. It was worth the effort I put for the works I’ve done for the past one year and a half. I sincerely believe that I earned it, but I know I could have done a lot better in work. I do hope that it will be my motivation to work harder in the future.

This morning there were talks – communications via online actually – on the salary adjustments topic. There were buzz that the information has been uploaded on staff personal report page on MyHRM portal. It speaks for itself when it took us here in Bintulu few attempts to access the page – much were greeted with “system busy, please try again” error.

I’ve checked mine. They have made the necessary adjustments as what we have been informed earlier. I had mistaken in assuming that they will be giving the bonus as well – that had to wait, but as for now I should be thankful with what I have gotten.

Work went very slow today. After a chit-chat session and reviewing of documents, it was pretty much nothing on work. It didn’t help much that I was a bit tired by travelling around as well yesterday.

We do hope that it was not a bad omen – our dinner outing after we fetched the manager’s family from the airport ended up with a parking summon after we parked the company car at the side of the road. It looks like they’re pretty strict in enforcing the rules here, or maybe it was just not our day.

On a personal health note, I have been lacking in exercise of quite late, and I can feel that my stamina and metabolism rate is going down the hill, and my weight is going up. It didn’t help much that there’s much of food exploring that has been and will be done in Bintulu, but I should stop eating heavy dinner as a start – but one cannot simple refuse all the delicious seafood. Such a burden in balancing the body and mind.

I should try to pick myself up and work on the given assignment to ensure that it is done as and beyond the expectation of the management. Let’s hope that I can pull it out.

All things are difficult before they are easy. [Thomas Fuller]

Today was the official start of my new audit assignment – doing the same audit scope as what I’ve done back in KLCCP. I believed that the expectation for this audit should be manageable by the team, since all of us have done this thing in one way or another.

Smashed Computer

Smashed Computer

Bintulu is a small town, but nevertheless an interesting and laid-back, booming place. There’s a lot of big houses, and you can see constructions everywhere. It reminds me of Kuantan, but the fact that Bintulu is fuelled by LNG and other oil-related industries makes it unique on it’s own.

The hotel room is superb, couldn’t ask for much better. Shame on Awana Kijal, they could learn a lot from NewWorld Suites (dubbed by a certain MLNG staff as Hilton wannabe). The price is reasonable for the quality that they have.

We also went out for dinner at a ‘medan selera’ of some sort. I tried out ‘umai’, a local dish that is passionately labelled as Bintulu’s sushi. It is a dish made of raw fish. The taste is a bit bitter but I enjoy it. We had a very delicious butter prawn as well that really made my day.

I never assume that this audit will be an easy assignment just because I had done a similar assignment before. I look forward to the challenges ahead, and I will see if I can improve myself further.

“We also often add to our pain and suffering by being overly sensitive, over-reacting to minor things, and sometimes taking things too personally.” – Tenzin Gyatso, The 14th Dalai Lama quotes (Dalai Lama, b.1935)

Time flies when one is worked out on work. The tasks were daunting and complicated; the understanding of the business were deep and specialised; the expectations were high and unforgiving. Such was the assignment given to me for the recent audit assignment 1 completed two weeks ago.

Forgiveness must first be sought for the long period of time that this blog is without a post. Updates were consistently made in the health section, but otherwise the front page was barren of any recent updates and many parts of this personal site requires a dedication of work to fill it up with something worth of sharing.

Work of audit has never been easy. It was never really about the reading, analysing, and report writing that bugs me out. It was about the people’s communication. Communication to audit clients. Communication with audit team members. Communication by audit manager and top management.

Despair

Despair

I have whined and complained to many that cared to hear about my predicament – the gift or the curse of being a sensitive person. Too much a time that I have burnt the bridges of friendship over my fragile state of emotion. Eventually many of the bridges were repaired, but some remained damaged beyond repair, and some others are still with visible scars.

If there’s one way for a person to grow, is for him to be thrown into something that’s he’s unfamiliar with. I guess that’s what I’ve been given the chance to cover the area of Technical Services and Marketing. I believed that I’ve done a decent job in ploughing my minds into the understanding of such nature, and it could not possible happen without the sheer dedication of my excellent manager.

Another point that was disclosed to me by a close confidant was my nature of getting things done my way – with the lack of persuasion, or “tact”, as what I’m told. It was never a concern to me since the dark ages of my life in Ayer Keroh, Malacca to care of what others think, but it made me deeply think of my current situation now that it was somewhat become a talk along the corridors in my department.

Pressure seems to be following me wherever I go. And somehow, pressure works on me in one way or another, be it a deadline, continuous assault of my ideas and opinions, high expectations, and other methods of management-controlled pressures. The given assignment was riddled with pressures both internal and external, and somehow I have weathered all that has come in my way. I know not how effective I was, but I know for a certain that I did it my way.

I admit, time after time, that I was never a perfect person. I know from the bottom of my heart that communication and human relationship has never been my strong forte. I want to try to improve myself but sometimes I just fell into the feeling of helplessness and despair. Nothing torture me much like trying to be who I am not.

I have likened my heart as a lump of ice – cold and unforgiving. There was a time that the ice got thawed and I opened up to others, but my peculiar traits has never been accepted without bias interpretation by some. My name is not probably will ever be in the good book of many of my office peers. I know that for a fact.

I try to take the wisdom of the words of the Dalai Lama as stated in the opening of my callous rambling, even when it hurt me emotionally to resign with who I am now.

If hard work were such a wonderful thing, surely the rich would have kept it all to themselves. [Lane Kirkland]

Work Never Ends

Work Never Ends

Today, a good tiding swept me while I was drowning in the amount of tasks and assignments that was given to me – that I have been offered a permanent position in the division at I am working at. It is of an Executive position in the area of Marketing & Trading (*gasp!*), under the purview of Oil Business Audit department. It will be effective 1 April 2010, and I sincerely believe that it’s not a joke of any sort. *snort*

I did not expect to be given the honour of a permanent position. Currently I am in the so-called ‘seeding’ box, a position within the division that was said to be of less value and stature, and unaccounted for within the realm of the company when it comes to the calculation of work experience.

But whatever. I do not think this will change the fact that I will still be involved in the arena of Information Technology when it comes to work, initiatives and contributions to the division. I may be required to broaden my horizon by start talking in marketing and trading jargons and rub shoulders with the traders and marketeers, but it’s a challenge that I will answer.

This is another development in my work life of which I look forward to. :D

Mar 232010

Frisbeetarianism is the belief that when you die, your soul goes up on the roof and gets stuck. [George Carlin]

Frisbeetarianism

Frisbeetarianism