Tokyo finally!

before the start of every new job, always take a break

After my trip to Tibet last October, my bro-in-law asked where would my next holiday destination be.
I replied India, Nepal.....
His response was, 'WHY?? You don't like Japan? You never want to visit Japan?'
Hahaha.
It's not because I don't like Japan, I simply prefer to experience the undeveloped side of the world.

Because of his very spontaneous response (as if I dislike his country) which left me a little embarrassed and guilty...Japan became one of the 'next' destinations.

I'm not a city-traveler but...

For such a last minute and unplanned holiday, where else to go other than to visit a place where accommodation's readily available, cities are well-connected, there's no way you could get lost, there's no way you would starve as long as you have coins and know how to press a button...

MOST importantly, getting to see your loved ones in a supposedly unfamiliar city...and knowing that they will be anticipating your arrival...

This time, it has to be TOKYO!

A huge Thank-You to my bro-in-law, mum-of-bro-in-law, sister, and baby nephews for the hospitality.

After Singapore and Australia, this is the 3rd developed country I visited.

It's different from my usual holidays.

Here,
I was allowed to make random plans, because the trains go anywhere, anytime.
I didn't need a guide.
I was spoiled with too many choices for food and drinks.
I witnessed a higher level of civilisation.
I encountered vending machines at every corner of the street.
I woke up one morning to learn that I slept through an earthquake.
Coke for as cheap as a dollar.
And so much more...

I was completely wrong with the preconception that big cities are never gonna impress me.

when it's time to leave

the door is open unless you close it

After 5 years 8 months and 12 days…

The usual reaction I received when people heard that I’m leaving for a new job was ‘Wow, 6 years is a long time, what makes you wanna leave?’

Honestly, it’s not something which could be summed into one or two sentences. If I were to reply seriously, it may take a couple of hours.

The level of happiness of a typical employee in a corporate environment is dependent on various factors. Most of the time, it is impossible to have everything our way – there are always gonna be things which appear to put us to test.

Below is a list of common factors contributing to an employee’s happiness level.

- Encouragement from superior
- Room for self-improvement/development
- Training for new skills or career growth
- Advice/feedback from superior
- Guidance to perform tasks or to advance in career
- Equal opportunity
- Type of work/project
- Deadline
- Work environment
- Colleague
- Treatment (whether to you or your colleague)
- How your daily tasks fit your job scope
- Involvement
- Salary
- Staff appreciation

I wouldn’t want to elaborate on each of the points above as it’s now in the past. All I could say is, I scored negative for all of them except one.

If most of your responses to this list are negative, perhaps it’s time to move on. Don’t waste time feeling miserable every working day – that’s min 8 hours x 5 days a week of your life.

After all, people who don’t work for passion, they generally work for money – to pay for basic life necessities like food, shelter, health, security, and entertainment. If in order to achieve this, we have to spend at least 1/3 of our life in a miserable state at work, is there any point of doing so?

There ought to be ‘happier’ choices out there. You don't owe it to your boss to stay loyal and faithful to him. Would he be pitiful if your annual salary hasn't gone up by $5k over 5 years? Would he feel sorry if you haven't added new skills to your resume over 5 years? No one is responsible for your happiness (at work) and career path except yourself.

And hopefully, the next will be better than the last.

one's joke is another person's sorrow

practise what you preach

I went to a meditation cum Dhamma talk session last Sunday at a friend's place. It was conducted by a visiting monk (shifu) from Malaysia.

As Buddhism is about the 'way of life', I always reserve a 'why not?' attitude towards it.

And so happen this friend of mine is always full of enthusiasm and energy when it comes to attracting or bringing people to the session/talk she organises.

When someone is all hyped about something and sincerely invites you to share the fun or experience, to me, it requires more effort to reject than to comply. Most of the time, it's a yes for me if there's no reason to reject.

If a simple YES can really make her day, why not?

During the talk, the shifu mentioned how we could send metta to those we love - for example, our mum. And since it was also the Mother's Day, he asked if we've called to wish our mums.

The room was filled with silence. No response from everyone.

He looked around and said, 'Why isn't there a response? Don't you people have mother???!'

And the room laughed.

I almost wanted to say NO to him.
And I didn't think it was funny.

This might have a little to do with my background but for most of it I felt that as a teacher, as much as you preach on life's impermanence, shouldn't you have the slightest sensitivity and awareness that no family member would stay alive forever - hence at some point, someone, somewhere, somehow, actually does NOT have a mother; or father.

Little do you know that the someone (or two) is/are right there in that very room where the joke was cracked.

Missing a parent is not a big deal if you've fully-accepted the fact that he/she is/would be gone one day. Until someone comes and crack a joke about it because he thinks not having a mum or a dad could be funny...

I started to reflect on the times when we (siblings or cousins) call out to each other and when there is no response from the other party, we tend to say 'Are you deaf?' or 'Are you mute?'.

Or when people ask if we could help to pick up something from the next room and pass it to them, we sometimes say 'Can't you do it yourself? Don't you have legs?'.

We do have an aunt and uncle (cousin's parents) who are deaf and mute. And our late grandma was also suffering from hearing loss for as long as I knew her.

Was my cousin offended? Was grandma sad?

I feel them now.

Thanks for this valuable lesson - if not because of your insensitivity, I wouldn't have learned it.

The closest you could get in understanding someone - seeing what he sees and feeling what he feels, is not just by putting your feet in his shoes - you have to walk in them.

This Mother's Day, I've walked in two persons' shoes.

Never base a joke on one's mishap. Lesson learnt.

resignation - part 3 - end

sincerity is best when it comes in full

Third round 5.30pm...

Me: Hi D, can we speak now or I'll come back tomorrow morning?
D: No no. Let's do it now.

He was the one who mentioned 2pm and yet I had to chase him at 5.30pm just because he couldn't care more to get all this sorted ASAP.

To cut the long story short, he promised that they can certainly give me the type of work I prefer doing. On the money side, $10k is all he could offer. Upon seeing my disinterested face, he went on saying that he could TRY harder to push it to $20k.

In my opinion, if you could, why didn't you TRY HARDER on your first attempt?
Trying to catch a fish with half the bait-size.
When you finally offer a full-size bait, the fish may have figured out your dirty tricks.

It just shows how cheapo the company is and how 'sincere' they are in showing their appreciation towards their staff.

The fact that I have been underpaid for who-knows-how-many-years, any extra money would just be a 'back-pay' than a pay rise.

Nevertheless, the conversation ended well, harmonious, and peaceful. I said I'll have a think about his offer (it's the company's offer to be exact, not quite to do with him) and get back to him tomorrow.

As I walked out of the room, a sense of liberation crawled over me. Decision was made.
I was thankful that he didn't offer a big deal which would render it hard for me to reject.
Thanks for indirectly guiding me to the exit.

It was a great 6 years.

resignation - part 2

how much you know/remember of a person, shows how much you actually care

Second round...

D: What prompted the move?
Me: Opportunities. Career growth. Anything but number-crunching. I wanna be more involved in the process of delivering a package than to just sit behind the machine and crunch numbers.
D: Ok. What have you worked on before Foxground (my current project)?
Me: Northwest rail link (NWRL).
D: What was your role in that?

Despite us being on NWRL together, he has no clue on what my role was for the last 12 months. He is either too forgetful and ignorant or I was insignificant.

Me: Substructures and the approach viaduct design.
D: Before NWRL?
Me: blablablabla
D: Ok. It has been number-crunching the whole time.
Me: Yeah. Exactly.

D: How much more are they offering you?
Me: xx%
D: That's a lot! *with eyes popping out*
Me: ...(in my head: the percentage's huge only because you're paying peanuts)
D: How much are you getting now?
Me: xxx
D: How many years of experience have you got?
Me: zzzz. (Before I could say six, he was about to say three)
D: Thr...
Me: SIX
D: Six???
Me: YES. SIX.
D: Ohhhh. You're obviously underpaid.
Me: I am (OBVIOUSLY and SERIOUSLY).

Do I look that young and youthful that he mistaken me for a 3-years graduate?
Are my knowledge and diverse capability too ordinary to be noticed?
Can a 3-years graduate do the things I'm capable of doing?

Well, hahaha, I agree I do look younger than my age (sometimes).
And no. My knowledge and capability have surpassed that of a 3-year graduate.
I  choose to believe that he is too indulged in his own busy schedule that he failed to realise that time flies and he has to top up the sugar-coating on the cupcake from time to time.

D: Let me work something out for you. I'll speak to J to see if he has the kind of work you wanna do. In terms of the money, I'll try to sort something but I can't guarantee at this point how much it's gonna be.
Me: Okay.
D; What about we discuss again this afternoon? Say 2pm?
Me: Okay.

As I left the room, I wondered why he even tries so hard to retain me.
Why didn't he do it all these while?
It's a simple example of how human take people/things for granted.
Why wait for the hole in your stomach to realise that you haven't been eating well?
Or worst case, you kinda forgotten you have a stomach.

resignation - part 1

not knowing what you've got until you're about to lose it

Me: Hi D...(speaking to his back)
D: Wassup?
Me: Can we talk for a minute?
D: Oh sure. (turning to me while standing up)
Me: *kinda wave the envelope at him*

We then entered a discussion room...

D: Oh Nooo. Godddd...please don't tell me it is what I think it is.
Me: *with a smile* Yaya, it is what you think it is if you know what it is.
D: NO. I don't wanna open it. Please don't do this to me.
Me: *give him the envelope* Yeah. This is my resignation letter.
D: I don't wanna know what's inside. Not opening it.
Me: *smile*
D: Why? Why now? What's your plan next?

He went on to ask about the new place, new job, new opportunity.
Followed by...

D: Have you signed any offer?
Me: In the process...
D: Could you do me a favour?
Me: ??
D: I beg you to put that offer on hold. Give me a day or two to sort things out. I'll work out something. Do you think you could do that for me?
Me;....Ok~
D: Why don't you have a think about what you wanna do. what you wanna achieve, and how we could make it happen here. I'll keep this for now. I'm not opening it. We'll speak again tomorrow morning. Ok?
Me: Ok

It would be so much easier if he didn't try to retain me.
At least then I'll be so so so sure that I'm making the right move now.
Who knows what is he coming back with tomorrow.
At the back of my head I hoped the counter offer would be a lousy one so as to not feel as guilty as I am right now.
Love-hate relationship is just complicated.

I know it stinks

why is it you can endure your own fart or stinky poo but not others'?
is yours any less smelly?

What's your worst toilet nightmare?

- the cubicle you're in runs out of toilet roll
- the flush system doesn't work and you have a pool of poo resting in the bowl
- there's no water to wash your hands
- the toilet stinks badly
- you bring your phone with you to poo - in the office toilet - and suddenly, your phone rings

I guess I've created quite a nightmare for my fellow female colleagues - especially to ONE of them.

As there's no proper ventilation in the toilet, smell lingers for awhile before it dissipates.
And so one day, I was doing some 'business' in one of the toilet cubes when someone came in.
Though I've been flushing as I go, it wouldn't get rid of the smell completely.
This poor woman came in and went straight to a cube.
Soon, she started breathing heavily as if she was suffocating. LOL!
She quickly got out of the cube, washed her hands, and in revenge, sprayed a whole lot of fragrance before she left.
Those fragrance left me dizzy in my cube as it was just too much.

Few days later, the same sequence of events happened. Hahaha!
I knew it was the same woman from her coughing sound.
She must be so pissed that she sprayed more and more.
When she walked pass my cube, I could only see her red shirt.
Couldn't figure out who it was.

The way she sprays the fragrance is as if she wanted to kill me with it and she could be screaming "YOUR POO STINKS" in her lungs.

I know it stinks but it's not within my control, right?

Since then, to prevent her from killing me with the spray, I take the spray with me into the cubicle before I do my business.

So far the situation where she comes into the toilet and couldn't find the spray hasn't occurred yet. I wonder when it happens, would she come and tear my door down or she'd suffocate and collapse in the toilet?

Hehehehe.