2 weeks on...

I am late at blogging again.
This time, it's 2 weeks in a row.
Well, things have continued to be busy despite my BIG deadline being over.
There are still little things to take care of, as they come trickling in like water.
And there are also other things that have cropped up unexpectedly.

Anyway, the 2 weeks have been interesting to a certain extent.
I have met up with both work associates now, and they are both nice people.
Although I have since heard some negative things about them (especially one of them), this aspect of work does not have anything to do with me, so I still regard them as nice.
I try to be fair in that way, although I am aware that our judgements may - at times - be clouded by pre-conceived ideas or knowledge.

I had to take half a day's leave on Wednesday, due to an urgent physiotherapy treatment I had to go for.
I hurt my left shoulder last Sunday, when my domestic helper decided to protect herself and not lift the heavy, glass sliding-door that came off the rails in the bathroom - at the same time - with me.
In short, she left me to do all the lifting.
It was too heavy for my already weak back, so naturally I was injured.
I didn't think much of it but it got increasingly painful as the week went by.
Hence the urgent treatment.
I was so annoyed with my domestic helper that I told her I have a good mind to charge her for my treatment.

My domestic helper is the most non-caring helper in the history of my family's hire.
And that is in spite of the fact that we decided to renew her contract for another year, although she is hopeless!
We took pity on her for the fact that if she were to re-enter this country to work again if she got sent home, she would never clear her domestic tests in a million years.
Anyway, her hopeless level extends to not knowing that my skirts come with either side or back-centred zips.
She merely assumes that all zips on skirts means back-centred positioning.
So she ironed them all in that way, and hung them up in that way too, when I first returned home permanently from the UK.
Worse still, those are my work clothes that I had been washing myself (still do), and had put out to dry myself (still do) - without her help whatsoever.
She didn't even bother to look at how I dried my clothes (especially how the skirts were hung to dry, which would give her a clue as to how the skirts should be ironed and hung).
And that is from her claims that she has had domestic work experience prior to working for us.
And not to mention that she has worked for us for 2+ years before I had returned home permanently.
I digress...

Moving on, I got to meet some important overseas visitors on Thursday.
The meeting was part of a 2-day visit for our guests, and they were here to see if they could learn some things from my workplace, and to see if there could be any possible collaboration between theirs and my organisation.
A couple of them were of the ministerial kind, and I discovered that one of them had worked with an academic supervisor I once had!
What a small world, considering that the 3 of us are from different countries!

Anyway, the meeting started off pretty normal.
It was only towards the end of the session that everyone got more involved.
And it was also then that the CEO of the visiting organisation said he was reluctant to end the conversation and he felt that things were just starting to get "cosy"!

From that meeting, we have been invited to visit them at some point.
Wow - what an invite!
If we did take up the offer (and if I were asked to go), we will be treated like royalty for sure.
I shall be keeping my fingers crossed...

What a day (or two)

I think it is only right that a work-week only consists of 4 days.
Like this last extended weekend, I really had the luxury of spreading my time out to rest, go for my physiotherapy for my lower back problem, shop for stuff and get my laundry done!
AND still get to sleep in till late for 3 mornings in a row...way cool.

I went back to work today revitalised.
Not only did I manage to meet my ultimate deadline for today (for my months of hard work), I have also realised amidst all this hectic work, I also managed a 3-hour, weekly seminar of the seminar kind.
This was an in-house training offered by one of my colleagues.
Being a person who loves number-crunching and data interpretation, I couldn't pass up such a golden learning opportunity.
This was in spite of having to cough up the 3 hours for the last 5 weeks.
And I am glad I did.
This will become another skill that I can develop professionally and on the side, since this colleague - an expert in this stats-based area - said that this little island is very much lacking in consultants specialising in this field.
And it could start with our organisation offering such a service!
I am determined to participate on a project for this, so that this project could be written up as a book chapter.
This was offered by the colleague, who wants to build up our organisation's profile.
Isn't that WONDERFUL???

Another work-related thing (kind of), has surfaced in the last week or so.
I have made 2 new acquaintences from my job.
This was at liaising with these 2 people for separate projects that they were hired part-time for.
Since they could conduct their project independently, I had only been able to correspond with them via emails for their submissions of deliverables to me.
I will be meeting up with them separately - one for this Thursday for coffee at work, and another away from my work-place, at a more social setting!
I am excited at the prospect of making new friends, while trying to keep the old.
Come to think of it, there are some friends whom I have been keeping in touch with since 10 years ago.
Considering that I had been away in the UK for a considerable length of time, this is amazing.
But I am glad to be still having these friends, of course!

I also got a call earlier today; this was from a friend whom I didn't think I should bother keeping in touch with.
But he sounded so sincere that I just might give him another shot at our friendship.
Especially when he said he had been away on a boring business trip to Japan in the last few weeks, being right smack in the middle of an industrial area with hardly any sights other than of the grey kind to speak of.
We shall see...

There were 2 other friends who decided to text me on the mobile phone; both either texted me or called me on the mobilephone.
I responded to neither.
Reason is simple: the first one borrowed some money off me several times, took her own sweet time to return me the money using repeated excuses, and then when I tried several times to reassure her that we are still friends despite all this money-borrowing business via texting her, she hadn't responded.
No excuse for being rude, so this time, I am doing the same.
Besides, goodness knows if she is trying to borrow money from me again!

The other is a little weird.
She would call me very late on a weeknight, or send me text messages at ghostly hours of the morning!
I used to meet up with her from time to time, offering my 2 cents'-worth about relationship stuff since she asked for my advice (being the older one).
She also seemed intrigued, but kept telling me she's determined to find a man to marry as soon as possible (and being only 25 this year, the first time she said this was when she turned 23!).
Her objective isn't to find a life-long partner to love, but someone who could pamper her with material-wealth and help her bear children.
And in that kind of order!
She went through a phase of dating olive-skinned men, and then Indian men (she's Chinese).
She is also a party-animal, and always wanted me to join her wild get-togethers.
On one occasion when I invited her to hang out with my friends at a club, she complained that the music was boring!
I wasn't impressed; for a more mature person, it would be the company you keep more than the place that one would appreciate.
She didn't seem to get that idea.
So I'm trying to see her as 'history'.

Oh, I must be rambling, as it's almost 12 midnight.
I have 2 full-day courses away from my work place tomorrow and Wednesday.
I will make sure I learn something out of these 2 courses, as they are expensive for my boss to send me for!
And it's a good break from my BIG deadline earlier today.

Nitey nite...

HOLIDAY!

We have been through 2 extended weekend holidays here in the last 3 weeks, and yet I have not had the time to blog till today.
That is because I had been busy, as the first extended weekend was spent working - the first time I had brought work home in the 4 months I have been on this job!
Things have indeed been busy at work, which saw me staying till as late as almost 12 midnight on one occasion.
And especially in the past week, I had been keeping all the receipts for cab fares - from working overtime.
Last night before I left the office, I sent out an email to my boss (he is currently in the States on business), letting him know that the work that I have been rushing out to meet the deadline for is now ready to be submitted come this Monday.
I also cheekily added that I hope he would be signing off my claims - ha.

In his own short (and sweet) style, he thanked me for my "very reassuring" email.
I am happy.
Happy that my boss and I have managed to establish that I do take my job responsibilities seriously.
I say this, simply because I didn't receive a "reminder-email" to ensure prompt submission of my work from my boss yesterday morning, unlike my fellow colleague.
(I'm guessing that my colleague's past mistake had something to do with it.)

Anyway, my colleague mentioned this as I got into the office yesterday morning.
He started out by saying whether I got the same email as he did.
And when I said no, and that I have already spoken to our boss before he left for the States, my colleague's mood changed.
Knowing him a bit better now, I can sense that he probably didn't like the fact that my boss only issued out the email-reminder to him, and not to me.
If interpreted the wrong way, it means that he is "less-able" than I am - which I am sure that was how my colleague had taken it.
It's all about the "ego" thing which my colleague seems to have.

Being a positive person myself, I would've been happy that our boss had emailed me.
At least it shows that our boss cared enough to drop me a personal note since it is rare that he does that (i.e. dropping personal notes)!
That goes to show how the same action could render 2 totally different responses...oh well.

2 new members of staff have now joined my department.
One reports to my colleague (which means he has 3 pairs of hands to help him now; this includes a temping staff hired exclusively to help him out with his stuff).
The other reports to me.
Within the first week of his new staff joining, I am sorry to say that my colleague has already thrown his weight around.
He talks about his new staff's work matters to the other staff who reports to him as well, as if that first guy isn't in the room.

I chose to tell my reporting staff that I would like to view him as a peer-colleague.
While his work performance is appraised by me, I told him that my working style is pretty easygoing.
I said that I am not the kind to get angry easily, and neither would I show it even if I were.
I explained that keeping a cool head most of the time works best for me.
This is more productive than spending unnecessary time fretting and fussing about things, when the same time could be spent more constructively at trying to make things better!

I couldn't say the same about a contracted work associate whom my organisation has hired to work part-time.
She actually spent time to compose a complaint (via email) about me earlier today, instead of attending to a work-related matter that urgently requires her attention (which I had highlighted in my email to her).
Basically, she said I could have "communicated better" with her, saying that I was blaming her for not doing a good job that was required of her.
Come to think of it, she was right that she didn't do a good job (ha).
But to be fair, I didn't blame her for it.
I merely said that it was standard procedure which she hadn't adhered to, so the problem wasn't anticipated and that unfortunately, this translated to a possible delay in the submission of this project from my end (which still requires my input upon her submission of work to me).

From that email, you could tell that she was defensive, since she decided to copy everyone else on the team for this project, and asking my fellow colleague who initially contracted her and her team-leader to address this "problem".
Needless to say, I was amused.
I know my fellow colleague and the team-leader would be too.
This is because I have worked very closely with both of them, and they know my working style so well that they have said on several occasions how much they have enjoyed working with me!
And I have full knowledge that what I mentioned on that email to that work associate was totally justifiable.

Besides, it was wrong (and silly too) of her to copy everyone else on the team about her problem.
To which I apologised in my email-response (addressed to her but leaving the rest of the team's email-addresses in), saying it was rather embarrassing that the rest of the team is included in this matter.
She probably thought I was going to be the one who would come out badly.
After I sent out that response to her earlier this afternoon, I can foresee that she will be the one who will end up being embarrassed.
For one thing, I said she should not have read too much into my words, when miscommunication could potentially arise through an impersonal mode such as via email.
But, I did make an apology to her since she seems to be asking for it, bearing in mind that it is for something I hadn't done.

As far as I am aware, this work associate is known to be a difficult person anyway, so as long as I get my stuff from her, the case will be closed from my end.
If she wants to continue fretting and fussing about it, I shall let her.
I don't have time for such immaturity and unprofessional behaviour.
And I shall leave it as that...