Attitude..

I went to see a researcher in Uniten today, which happened to be my junior in Uniten last time. I remembered him vividly because he was the one who worked hard during MPP campaign and very active first year student in Student Movement. I am glad that he excelled in his work and now tutoring younger students of Uniten. I even met the master's student who robbed my time for almost a week to help him with the data compilation. They stayed in the same room. A big one, like our Board Room. Three young researchers sharing one big room. All well and good, we finished the discussion and moved on. N wants to meet her friend next door so I followed. We were talking about home and family when suddenly work became the centre issues. She' was my senior (one semester senior) during undergraduate school and she happened to be one of the most brilliant student during that time. When it came to working she expressed herself as if she did not like what she do at the moment (teaching and researching) and doing it just because she has nothing else to do. A totally different picture of a person whom I looked high during my undergraduate and now, I do not know what to think of her anymore. I felt at that moment, I am better in terms of motivation to do my work than my two other friends while we were talking and I just shut my mouth and brain not to decipher anymore negative messages. I used to complaints a lot about salary and benefits that I got while doing all dirty jobs that no one else want to do. But it was over in just a few weeks because I regained composure and my obejctives of working. Now I understand why some poeple say 'If you want to be successful in whatever you do, choose your friends wisely'.

Makes sense, isn't it?

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Best Regards,
Noradlina
http://rafdina.blogspot.com/

Blocked

I notice something these past few days. I could not upload big files to the net. Yesterday the ICT ppl remind everyone not to download or upload things from YouTube and also not to use chatting channel during working hours. I am using Webmessenger at Yahoo just to get in touch with colleagues from overseas and also to update my husband on important thing which need urgent decision. What is wrong with that? they may not want the employees to continue chatting during working hours but isn't it a good thing if we can reduce operational costs on telephone bills? I am one of those who did not like to provoke anyone but neither I am a follower. I will do what I think good for me and the company. Life is not always fair.

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Best Regards,
Noradlina
http://rafdina.blogspot.com/

I have just finished one special assignment given by my boss yesterday afternoon. A short one but I spent the whole morning formulating it. Not sure what to put in, like finding missing pieces in a big puzzle. Luckily I won't be presenting, he will. Both my eyes are sore, need to rest and think. I want to share something about cosmetics with you gals out there.

I seldom use cosmetics during working days. That makes me a plain Jane in the office compared to other people. I like moisturiser but not make-up. But this week I make it a point to wear compact powder.. a whitening compact powder to be precise.. because my face is getting older by years. Three years ago, when I went to Wales for training, a lady asked me whether I am below 16 years old. When I say no, I was 26 that time with a baby, she was stunned becaus my skin looked younger than my age. But, if she sees me now, she will think I am 10 years older than I am supposed to be. Anyway, my skin became darker when I went to site last week. So, I bought the L'elan Vital Whitening 2-way foundation to cover up my darker face. After a day, I noticed nothing bad happen to my face .. Hehe.. Lucky me.. I can see some part are getting fairer after 3 days application. I am hoping that it gets back to the original color by Hari Raya.

Well, half past two already.. there will be a talk at the hall but I'm not going to go anyway. Got tons of work to finish up before the day ends. Tomorrow will be another tiring day for me because I have to cook so much to entertain my cousin again.

What a weekend for me.. *sigh*..


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Best Regards,
Noradlina
http://rafdina.blogspot.com/

ESOS

I meant to sell my share last month but they forgot to print out my form. Poor me. Left with only 9.70 top for TNB ESOS. Last time I sold at 12.00 on the dot before the market went down for about 1-2 months. I was hoping to cover my earlier expenses on perfume and diapers; and make some profit out of it. Look like I will get only a few hundreds to save or spend. Emm..

How to know when is the suitable time to sell your share? Check this out.

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Best Regards,
Noradlina
http://rafdina.blogspot.com/

Why mad?

Yesterday, my husband decided to go to Pasar Ramadhan at Taman Semarak Nilai to find some 'kuih-muih' for break fasting. I usually don't make any sweet savoury pastry because I already cooked 2-3 dishes in the afternoon. Too tired to stay in the kitchen for another hour. So, we went out. The girsls are happy, we are happy. Then came the maroon Avanza. An old man wearing head cover (like a 'serban') with baju melayu and kain pelikat parked his car right in front of us, which is a street corner near a traffic light. Beside the car is another car waiting for the traffic light to turn green. We wanted to go to the left, so, since the Avanza was blocking us, my husband honked him and gave warning sign that he cannot park at the corner. The old man was not satisfied that he waited until we came near him as we want to go to the Pasar Ramadhan. He stopped my husband and scolded him for honking at him. My husband, said politely that his car was blocking ours and it is not ok to park at the corner. The old man start yelling and 'ikut suka aku-lah' came into picture. My husband, being quite hot tempered with no-manners old man, started to yell but somehow we walked past through him who started to spit out to my husband. Counter attack from my husband got straight onto his face! Hahaha. The old man has no-manners at all. Pakai je serban, tapi perangai macam setan. When he started to yell again, I looked back and said right to his face "Pakcik, kami cuma kata pakcik tak boleh parking kat situ. Kat situ kan corner, mana boleh parking. Susah orang nak lalu lalang. Pakcik ni apesal?" Then, I walked away quickly from him. Silly old man, I wish you can accept your fault and be a better man in your next life.

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Best Regards,
Noradlina
http://rafdina.blogspot.com/

Saturday at home..

We usually go out during weekend. Picking up and sending out diapers, visit my brother at Subang Jaya or just driving around town, but last Saturday, we stayed home. My cousin came for project consultation from my husband. Fair enough, final year student without much knowledge to do her paper work for research. I was only listening and looking but my husband was the one who had big headached. A research paper presentation due in two weeks, and she has no clue how to go about it! She has quite handful of data but no model to start with. Big mistake! No wonder her proposal was rejected few times. Sadly, her lecturer is not competent enough to advise what should be done to make it right. Anyway, my daughters were very happy to see their two-cousins, and they had enjoyable time looking at commuter train when we send her back to the station. She will be coming again next Saturday to finish up the analysis. Another Saturday at home. Fasting month, better stay home. *grin*

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Best Regards,
Noradlina
http://rafdina.blogspot.com/

Appraisal..

This week is appraisal week. Everyone is busy catching up with his or her bosses for appraisal. As for me, I have quite a handful of bosses to catch. Most of us was outstation early of the week. So, when I came back from Kuantan on Wednesday, I received a call from a familiar voice, 'Have you done your appraisal? You have some KPI with me. Please prepare the form". Oh no! I totally forgot that some of important KPI were under him. While waiting for my turn, few colleagues before me was actually in hot spot because this particular boss need all details and evidence to support the appraisal. Well, fair enough but isn't it that we have shown everything continuously? She took like 4 hours to finish her appraisal. I was the last for the evening, almost half past five when everyone was heading home. I went to see him, quickly brief him on changes done and I even said that I think that I don't deserve anything less than average for all my KPIs. I was not sure why but he gave me quite an exepected results and remarks. I hope no one misunderstood his judgement because I deserve all credits given by him. People may think that I am one of those people who favour his leadership action. But no, I did complaint sometimes and I did voiced out my dissappointment against his action. Only most people will see that being his assistant for past three years made me understand his point of view more than other people understand him. He is a good mentor, and I hope he will turn back into technical track for more research work. However, having people like him in the management team is also good as they would understand our constraints and needs, more than people who did not have any experience doing research.

One thing that I hope he understand that he cannot control us like sheep (not that he did that to us.. just an example). We are dedicated to our work and will strive to do the best. Being a researcher before he climbed the management post, he should understand us better. I sincerely hope he will take my view into consideration. I will not heavily complaint on what I was asked to do, but some day I hope I have someone to share the load and eventually someone to back me up when I was not around.

Hope he will understand.

I ate my lunch alone today. There are people tiling the floor outside the cafetaria and I watched them aimlessly. My mind wanders on things that has just happened to me just before lunch. I was busy briefing my customers on the service reports and also, busy listening to the numerous complaints on the system that I was hold responsible into. My brain was tired and what I could do just listen. I listen to them and at the end, I did ask them to write a complaint letter to my bosses so that action can be taken. I was tired hinting that I need more people to work on the system, and please do not just putting the blame on me. I walked out from the room frustrated but still managed to put smile on my face. I don't deserve this actually. People before me never took note on their complaints but somehow I am always the scapegoat. Back to the tiling work, I bet they are happier doing tiling work than me. I am not happy with what's happening with me now. I don't have any choice to choose from. I rather be in their shoes than in my own but what difference will it make? I am still me, not them. People will still looking for me to blame not others who does not pay attention to my complaint. This world in unfair. Being a Libra, I am suffocated!

Feel like crying but no tears though.. *sigh*..

Last night, I watched Desperate Housewives rerun on the episode where Bree married Olson, her second husband. There was one part that worth mentioning here where Lynette complained about his husband and the friend (I forgot her name) said ' You can do this, there are marriages which are meant to stay forever and yours is one of them'. How true is that statement. Even though many of us, including me sometime frustrated on our spouses but the ultimate point is whether both of you truly love each other or not. If one of you is not in the same boat, then maybe the marriage was not meant to be forever and you or your spouse should move on. But why did you stay? Think deeply and maybe, love is the reason.

Am I getting enough?

Now I set a limit to open my email inbox: 0900, 1100, 1400 and 1700 hours. Four times a day is enough. I always spend too much time reading and replying emails because most of them are related and most of them are interesting to read or reply. But things must change for me to work efficiently. So, I decided 4 times are more than enough.

So, at 1100 hours I opened my email and found interesting email from my boss. He has sent me a file which consist of everyone salaries in the office. I was supposed to only look at the budget section which I am most interested at in the first place. But I cannot stop myself from scrolling the list of names with their current salaries (yes, their CURRENT salaries!) in front of my eyes. Well, what can I say, for some of them, I think they are well deserve high pay and remuneration provided by the company. But, for some others, I felt so much anger because they are overly paid compared to what they bring to this company. Well, they have been working for so long and maybe that is why they have higher salaries. However, I strongly believe that your work must be comparable to what you contribute to the company, the people inside it and the organization as a whole. Some earned as high as seven thousand ringgit just to hear them complaining their workload (which I think it is too light!), backstabbing other people and handing over his or her job to others who earned lower than him or her. Very unfair!

I recalled a year ago when I left for the States to change air. I tried as much as I can to provide every detail for my successor so that she can carry on without many problems. She attended training while I'm gone (which I did not get when I was working because no fund for my training). All well and good. Then, when I went back to work, things are still in the old condition only the room changes (more beautiful that is!) a bit but the level of proficiency is still the same. My technician still on the old level when I left them. Many things I left was not done. The reason being, no one can take the work up to a standard that I would bring it too. I took all the responsibility which I left for someone else to do while I was away, again and persevered. Something went terribly wrong just because I was at the wrong place at the wrong time but I took the responsibility to answer and make 2-inch face in front of the customer. While the others silently moving away. And most of all, I believed I was not paid equally to what I contribute. This week is assessment week, but I do not know whether I will get benefits from the assessment or the upper level people will evaluate and simply put it as 'bell curve' thing.

 The sad thing is, I won't be able to run away or resign from the company because of many things that tied me to it forever like loans and contracts, unless I got millions of dollars in one blink. Then, bye-bye forever. Life is unfair when it comes to money and benefits for employees like me.

Merdeka weekend..

I had a great time relaxing and eating good food at my in-laws in Kemaman. We endured a massive traffic jam on the way out to East Coast on Thursday night after work. Our Avanza was like a snail crawling from Jln Kuching to Plaza Tol Gombak but suprisingly the journey only took us 3 1/2 hours from Gombak to Kemaman (despite of the usual 5 hours drive) thanks to the new East Coast Highway which ends at Jabor (at the moment). The kids were fast asleep the whole journey which added to our excitement of chatting and sharing office gossip during the drive (just to make sure that my husband is wide awake the whole journey.. hehehe). We arrived around midnight and saw people were busy celebrating Merdeka in town. The whole weekend was spent reading newspaper, playing with the kids, eating various Terengganu style delicacies (my mom-in-law made Nasi Dagang) and also shopping. I had to buy a new Baju Kurung Riau.. yes, Riau indeed.. to attend a family event i.e. my husband's cousin's daughter 'bertunang' ceremony. Three days with no work to attend to and problems to think about. It was really Merdeka celebration to me.

 

The journey back was not that smooth since it was raining heavily from Karak to KL. We started at half past two in the afternoon and only arrived at our house around 8 pm. I watched two episodes of Ghost Whisperer, which was a bit unusual because the drama was scarry to me, before went to sleep. After 3 days rests, today will be a new week for me.

 

Happy Merdeka everyone!