...continue from Back in 2011

The same person, at different timing of our life, plays a different role in making us a better person.

This colleague of mine...

From the very first project in my engineering career, to the second and then third, we never failed to be on the same project office and same team - that's 3.5 years of Patience Training for me. The more I complain to people about him, the more he tends to follow me around.

Exactly 4 years after I wrote about him, it's 2015 and we are still colleagues. Time flies!
We haven't been on a same project for the last 18 months and haven't been in the same office for the last 12.

He is:
One ego-man,
who boasts about past experience,
exaggerates his olden days stories,
always mentions his wife whenever he's got a chance (if there's no chance, he'll create one),
tends to fall sick quite often during the cricket season; when he comes in after a day of sick leave, we'll ask him 'How was the game yesterday?' and he'll always smile back because we knew him too well,
and is the King of 答非所问 (his answer doesn't relate to your question); after going on for 10 mins, he still hasn't got to the point of answering your question.

Without his presence, it's more peaceful in the office. Less talking and no boasting. That also means that, it's all work and no fun because we are missing a joker character in the team. Hahaha.
Me and my other colleague would joke about how much we miss having him around. We love and hate him at the same time.

He recently returned from a project office and started showing off to me the 3D bridge model he created for one of the bridges. I was like, 'Oh Wow!....Oh Wow!....Oh Wow!'. It's no big deal really, hehehe. Reminds me of how I encourage my little nephew whenever he shows me something he achieved.

He also told me that the project urgently requires someone to carry out some design works and he has 'sold' my CV to the team leader. He said, 'I told them you're very good, and fast, and experienced.'

=_=""

He could be merely wanting to boast about how strong our team is or he really thinks I'm good, fast, and experienced. Either way, thanks for 'selling' me away and all the nice things you said of me.

The reason I brought up the previous post is to remind myself of how annoying he used to be once upon a time and how much has changed between us.

I used to dislike him so much so that when I attended a talk on 'How to Deal with Difficult People', he was the main subject in my head. When I attended a Metta Meditation Workshop, the speaker told us to send Metta to the people we dislike, he was the subject which appeared second (because at the time of the workshop there was a more annoying colleague before him).

He is still the same old him - Joker as ever, but the way I see him has changed.
I am still the same old me - maybe a little more patient towards him, and he has learned to appreciate me as a colleague.

The same person, at different timing of our life, plays a different role in making us a better person. People may not change, it's our view and perception that change which makes us able to accept/deal with them now but not then and vice versa. It is the difficult people in our life who will train us to walk the tough.

I'm grateful to have this joker as my colleague. He has certainly trained me well. :)

Back in 2011...

Be nice whenever possible. Live with no guilt.

Below is what I wrote of my 'once-annoying' colleague.

I use 'once-annoying' because I no longer find him as annoying as before.
People may not change, but our view on them could.

MONDAY, JANUARY 31, 2011

annoying brat

Last week,

He came to me with an opened stapler in his hand.

Stretched out his hand so that the stapler could catch my attention.

Obviously, the stapler was bullet-less.

We both said nothing.

I looked straight into his eyes, as expressionless as I could.

He looked at the stapler, waved the stapler at me.

I shook my head indicating 'I don't bloody have bullets for you'.

He continued waving, indicating 'I need bullet now'.

Unwillingly, I gave my one and only bar of bullets to him.

From when he came to my desk with an empty stapler till he left with a loaded one, there was no spoken word between us.

In a discussion,
He wanted to flip the set of drawings but his hands were too short to reach the flipping edge.
He stretched his arm out, 5cm short.
He said nothing.
He asked for no help.
He rested his outstretched hand on the drawing until I lifted my hand to help him flip.

How ego can an egoist be?

How hard is it to walk to the stationery room?
How hard is it to stand up and reach for the edge of the drawings?

How much effort is needed to say 'Please'?

As I sat in the discussion room today, I told myself to smile and BE NICE despite the many conflicts we had throughout the duration of the project.

I found that it's easy to be nice. Difficult to smile.

This person lets me realise how 'disgusting' it is to be someone of his character.

I simply believe, a person like him happens for a reason.
He triggers me to think about whether this is the kind of job I wanted.

He allows others to learn from his mistakes.

We learned without having to commit the mistakes ourselves.
We really have to thank him, but silently - to prevent feeding him with more ego.

It's hard to force a smile, I'll try to be nice though.

the road taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, 

And sorry I could not travel both...

~ Robert Frost

Selecting The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost as one of the pieces in the higher education Literature Studies is probably one of the very limited sane decisions the Board of Education of Malaysia has ever made.

Many times in life we are left with too many choices but only allowed for one. Though it's not a life or death decision - life still goes on regardless - the consequence of the decision stays with us for life.

And as mentioned in the poem, it's doubtful that we can go back to where we were and try it all over again with a different route.

"Yet knowing how way leads on to way"

It's the 'way leads on to way' that keeps us busy each passing day. Busy clearing paths just to be able to keep walking (sometimes even knowing that there are better options out there) and never had a chance or time to look around for a more beautiful, more rewarding, more interesting or simply, a smoother path.

Somewhere ages and ages hence, we'd look back at the path we've traveled and wonder 'Oh my, wth was I doing?'

  

Staring at this textbook, it makes me wonder if I should continue to clear paths down this route? 

The engineering design industry has reached a state where the design of a structure lies not on the engineer's hand calculations but on what the authority justifies as 'pass', the architect justifies as beautiful, and the contractor justifies as cheap. Design knowledge is not as useful as what the mouth can do. It's at an ailing state.

Nevertheless, I'm thankful to have kept this supposedly 'high-pay' job (not high-pay anymore at the moment), survived 3 rounds of redundancies (not sure if it's fortunate or unfortunate) and still going. If given a chance for take-two, I'd still choose the road taken. 

If I were to look back now, I'd say, 'Wow, what a journey.'

If I were to continue on and look back in 5 years time, I'd say, 'WTH was I doing?'

Hahahaih. Clearly aware of the problem but no Plan B at the moment.

The blur manager said, 'Nothing's worst than a demoralised engineer,'

Smart enough to point this out, but not quite smart for not knowing there are a few of these in his team. 

I'll be happy to see all the hands leave over time.
Mouth alone can't do all the paddling. :)

How to peel a banana

break it!

Aussie bananas are most of the time thick, hard, and huge.

Not like the typical Asian bananas which are tiny with soft, thin skin.

It's BANANA I'm talking about. 

Don't think of something else! Hahaha.

I once complained to a colleague about how difficult it is to peel it from the top, especially if the banana is still 5% green.

It's like playing Tug-of-war with the banana.

And he said, Don't you know it's easier to peel from the bottom?

From then on, I started peeling from the bottom. 

There's nothing to 'grip' and pull at the bottom, so it has to be done like how we peel oranges. 

But the gum from the banana skin always leaves stain in my nails. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

After 2 years...

I realised, we have been treating it with too much care and wasting too much time.

There must be a better way to do it.

If top and bottom don't work, middle it is.

So I tried breaking it like breaking a sugar cane but with less force of course.

Voila!

It only takes less than 2 seconds, without staining the nails, and you can eat it in parts (convenient when multitasking).

I thought I should share this banana-breaking strategy, for people out there who also tend to struggle with thick banana skin.

    

P.S: Slow application of force would mash/bruise the banana, make it out-of-shape and looks disgusting. Apply all your force instantaneously.

Whitsundays - Part 1

Sometimes we need some random impromptu decisions to land us somewhere we barely thought of visiting. 

HAPPY BELATED OZ-DAY!

So, I went on a 4D3N getaway to the Whitsundays over the Australia Day long weekend.

Exploring Australia is always EXPENSIVE; from getting there, to the accommodation, the entrance fees, activities, and food. On a tight budget, it would still add up to at least $700 for a 4D3N trip. It's only gonna get more expensive if it coincides with a long weekend. Due to all the flying and transits, 3D2N won't be sufficient for an interstate holiday. And 4D3N would mean 2 x Annual leaves (AL) + Sat Sun with cheaper flights, hotel, etc. OR 1 x AL + Public hols + Sat Sun with more expensive costs. Either way makes no difference - something has to be compromised.

I opted for the '1 x AL' as leaves are more scarce.

When Tiger Airways was having its sales last May 2014, I thought I might check out some flights and go somewhere I've never heard of or never planned on visiting in Australia.

I've come across people who last visited Melbourne 10 years ago, who have never been to the Gold Coast, or only visited NSW for business purposes, etc. This is how rarely people in Australia travel around Australia. I thought I should start visiting the beautiful places on this massive piece of desert, bit by bit before it backlogs and eventually never gets fulfilled.

Getting there
Direct Sydney - Whitsunday (Proserpine) route is only serviced by Tiger Airways (Tue, Thu, Sat). Approximately 190 aud return on Light Fare (no checked baggage). 10 kg (max 2 pieces of hand-carry baggage) is allowed on board the 2 hours flight.

Alternatively, you can also fly with other airlines to Proserpine or Hamilton Island Airport with stopover at Brisbane, Melbourne, or Adelaide - not quite time efficient nor economical.

Where exactly are the Whitsunday Islands? 
It's located at the central coast of Queensland, some 900 km to the North of Brisbane. I have absolutely no idea about Whitsunday until 7 months after buying the tickets, when I had to plan for the trip that I started checking out this place on the internet. Lol. As impromptu as it was.

There are the Whitehaven Beach, Great Barrier Reef (GBR) adventures, and sailing trips.

Seasickness
The thing that started freaking me out was the seasickness. On the internet, most people talked about having seasick during the trip and whatsoever. I thought well, it's too late to back out, come what may! I went to the chemist and got myself a pack of Kwells and those motion sickness wristbands. It says on the pack that Kwells may cause drowsiness but I didn't get that effect at all.

However, the sea was surprisingly calm - just a little choppy at times but that's more like bumpy than sway-ey so it was okay. No biggy. Maybe the wristbands worked really hard to keep me straight? I guess if you're doing the island hopping (Whitsunday Island, Long Island, Hamilton Island, Daydream Island), the islands are pretty much 'hidden' from big waves anyway. I can't be sure with the GBR though, as it's way out in the deep sea.

Weather
I honestly don't think January is the best season to visit Whitsundays. I just found out that the highest rainfall occurs in January, with temperature easily shoots above 30 degrees, humidity level above 70%, and thunderstorms almost everyday. Everyone knows Queensland is prone to flooding and you don't want that to happen because the roads will be closed and you can't access the airport. Don't expect to get lucky all the time so please do a thorough research on the crazy weather before booking.

Overall, it was extremely HOT - I felt like my Havaianas were reaching its melting point as it started burning my feet and causing blister, sunblock is mandatory and adding to the high humidity, my body was as sticky as glue. I couldn't cross my legs as skin-to-skin contact makes everything sweaty and wet. The rain and thunderstorms have been very very kind as they only visited during the evenings and cleared before sunrise. Too lucky!

Enough of talking...

Sydney

Nearing Whitsundays - blue sky, blue sea, blue air

Green undeveloped land as we descend

to be continued...

flaker

flaker is a new found word

Have you come across someone who is:
     - always if not often late for an appointment
     - turns up late by the same amount of time (say 30 mins), all the time. 
       (Being 'punctually' late by 30 mins every time is a kind of discipline, just missing some ethics and time management skill.)
     - often not punctual that it becomes one of his trademarks;
     - agrees to attend an event/gathering and eventually not turn up because it's perfectly ok to do so
     - cancels at the very last minute, though the gathering was planned weeks ahead

Msians (in Msia) have this mentality that 45mins late is not late YET. 45 is default.
Nobody arrives before time.
Few may be on time (only because the traffic lights decided to turn green throughout), DAMN!
Most would be at least 45mins late.

I used to ALWAYS miss my school bus and had to walk home and knock on my Dad's door to get a lift to school.
And then, he would ALWAYS (deliberately) drive at 10 km/h on local roads, while I panic in the car.

Me: Dad, it's 7.10 am (school starts at 7.30)
Dad: Slowly la...
Me: Are you doing this on purpose?
Dad: It's only being late. No big deal.

I eventually grew up thinking that it's ok to be late. When it's already late, don't rush, take it easy and remain calm. That's the whole point.
Even if it means missing a flight, that's ok, book the next flight out.
We want to get into classes, exams, office, gathering, dinner, etc, in a relaxed manner and the right mood. Not panicking, worrying, sweating, and afraid of getting blamed.
If people are late, that's ok too. At least they turn up.

Then, came a day in 2013, we were supposed to have dinner with a friend who came from inter state. Most of them arrived before the proposed meeting time and got seated immediately. 3 others (including me) were going to be less than 10 mins late.

Then we got a phone call saying that they are seated and there is not enough seat at the table so 3 persons have to sit elsewhere in the restaurant. Freaking Serious??? Wasn't it meant to be dinner with an interstate friend? What's the logic of sitting elsewhere in the restaurant? And by the way, they decided to also place order without the 3 latecomers. Eventually, the latecomers found no reason to turn up any more so we backed out.

It was really a BIG lesson for me. An eye-opening one. It teaches more about being patient, tolerant, flexible, and understanding than teaching about being punctual to the dot. Do you really have to 'punish' people for being late? Like 10 mins? What's the big deal? Socially, you haven't seen worse. If one gets mad with people being late, in the end of the day the mad person is uglier than the late person. This shows how important it is to keep cool at all time.
Because of this lesson, I made it an aim to be 'more' punctual starting 2014 and also more tolerant with people's crazy habits - so there will be one less 'mad ass' on Earth.

Being so attached to punctuality defeats the purpose of the event. It's the process that matters, not how punctual or how early people arrive for the event. I'm not supporting the idea of being late nor am I having no remorse for being late, but the world would be a better place if people can just be less hard on others.

There's also a type of person who always turns up late no matter what, when, where, and how. You could get seated at a restaurant, give he/she a call, and he/she is still home typing an email. This is ethically bad, in my opinion. He/she could have informed me about it so I won't be looking like an idiot.

I know of a person who belongs to this group. (I'll refer to this person as a 'he' because all things beautiful are female and all things bad are male.) Worse thing is when people joke about him being late, he got pissed and quit the chatgroup because he thinks people keep repeating the same old joke when he's not the same late-him anymore. The next thing you know, he is late again and again. Oh well, Hello? Who should be pissed?

And another type who flakes his/her (will just use 'his' from here) way through; failing to commit to his own words and actions. This is ethically VERY BAD. Not something I condone. If you don't mean it, don't agree to it in the first place. As simple as that. Don't take people's trust/kindness/forgiveness/time for granted.

For example, you agreed to attend an event though at the back of your head you really aren't sure about it. You also don't know how to get to the event so you've asked some kind souls to call you and guide you there. And when the kind souls call your mobile, there was no answer. The event ended, you did not show up. Later, you proudly admitted that you're too old for the event. This is just a made-up example, situations along this line happen all the time because there are just too many dickheads around - messing with people around them - deprived of ethics, responsibility, and discipline. 

There's a term for these dickies - they are called flakers. (<<click to understand more from the Urban Dictionary) 

If you are one of them, from today, please do yourself and everyone else a favour - be less flakey and more punctual.

Jaywalk

Not all policeman is scary. 

I was walking with a mate from George St to Elizabeth St on Martin Place.
Before arriving at Pitt St, my mate saw a policeman standing across the street. "Ohh look at that, a police, they really bumped up the security around here, huh?"

When we arrived at Pitt St, the pedestrian light was red.
We waited for a second before the thought of jaywalking pops up.
It is quite usual for people to jaywalk on Pitt and Castlereagh at Martin Place reason being the streets are not vehicle-busy after all.
I looked to the left. No vehicle. To the right, no traffic. To the front. Policeman.

Me: Hmm.
Mate: ...
Me: Should we jaywalk right in front of a police?
Mate: I don't know man. Should we? There's no car, really.

Before long, more pedestrians arrived and were also waiting for the lights. Some of them tourists.
So the tourists started crossing - obviously not knowing that they could get a good 90dollars fine for that.
Then a few locals did. But they did it with watchful eyes on the policeman. He was at ease, leaning against the traffic post.

We decided to follow the crowd, also with watchful eyes on the poor police. If anything were to happen, we would be the first to get caught as we were nearest to the police.

All of a sudden, the police realised the number of eyes who were 'watching' him.
He started smiling to himself.

Police (looking at all the fearful pedestrians): Why???? I'm not here to give out tickets. I'm just here waiting to get a lift. 

We LOL-ed.

Perhaps the authority should turn the green man on by default and only change it to red when there's vehicle approaching. Most of the time, the people who programme traffic light timers are not the frequent pedestrians there themselves.

15 secs spent waiting for the green man, while there's no vehicle passing through is like a great 15 mins wasted. They should start reviewing how the lights work to increase efficiency across the city.

Time waits for no man.