Left my atm card at work 2 weekends ago and realised how dependent i am on the little card. First I do not keep a lot of cash in my wallet, preferring to withdraw cash weekly. Secondly I have 2 atm cards, of which one is kept in my safe as that bank account is supposed to be a saving account. Therefore I have only 1 atm card in use. Lastly I do not keep spare cash at home for use in 'emergencies'. So I was very cash-strapped that weekend without my atm card.
Shopping had to be limited small shops and push-cart stores only accept cash/NETs. School fees payment had to be deferred by a week coz they don't accept credit cards. Food & drinks had to be limited when my bf wasn't with me. Luckily there weren't many activities over that weekend and I survived on that bit of cash in my wallet. Guess I'm too dependent on atm. With the card I tend to overspend on weekends, so I think when I seriously need to save up, I'll just leave my card at work ;p
Friday, July 31, 2009
Friday, July 17, 2009
Overslept!
First time in my 5 months at work I overslept. Supposed to wake up by 6.30am and leave the house by 7.10am. I slept till 7am today. Jumped out of bed and rushed to my bathroom when my dad called me. All done within 15mins. Luckily wasn't late for work but I was a zombie in dreamland till lunchbreak. Tired.... I want to sleep in for the wkend but tomorrow have to work... sianz :(
Thursday, July 09, 2009
Eerie workplace
The 1st month I joined the company, I had an eerie experience at work and I blamed the "dirty stuff" for causing my high fever during my 1st week of work and subsequent poor health over the next 2 months.
My office is a small room for 3 and arrangement was such that I can see 1 colleague (A) who's seated beside me. The other colleague (B) is beside (A) but blocked by a partition, so i have to stand up to talk to (B). One afternoon, (A) wasn't not in the office. I heard the sound of chair moving and keyboard typing , so I assumed (B) was around and asked her some stuff. However there were no replies though the sound of typing went on. So I stood up to talk as I thought she couldn't hear me. No one was there. Sound stopped too. Strange.....
I sat down and continued doing my work and the sounds started again. I kept psychoing myself it's the air-con blowing her seat until my colleagues came back. This happened often when I'm alone until I placed a japanese charm taken from a shrine in Japan and always play my mp3 loudly in the office.
When I asked (A) about it, she told me she had experienced it as well and heard of many other eerie tales too. One was the sound of franking machine in use at 8pm+ at night and when the colleague went to check on who's using it, the sound stopped. There're a few sighting reports as well. The latest was a new staff started feeling giddy the moment she stepped into the department's office and vomitted a few times after she got home. There was another account about someone hearing papers and things being moved and many voices talking at night and it all stopped when the security switched on the lights. There were a few more tales that freaked me out.
After my 2 colleagues left and 2 new ones came onboard, there are fewer eerie incidents in our room though today i still heard a little of things moving. We have a small cross at 1 workstation, 1 drop of holy water at another workstation, 1 japanese charm and 1 chinese charm at my workstation. Maybe these are taking effect and blessing us, I don't know. Or maybe it's my loud music drowning out the sounds. And my health improved too.
Today during lunch, one colleague casually remarked that probably bones will be dug out during the construction next to our workplace. "Bones?" "Ya, bones. This whole area used to be an old Chinese cemetery wat!" "ah...no wonder... that explains all the eerie tales!"
And so just now I googled about the area of my workplace and confirmed it. It was a cemetery until the 1960s when it was exhumed to make place for development.
7th month is coming in mid-August. I better pray more and arm myself with more blessed items!
My office is a small room for 3 and arrangement was such that I can see 1 colleague (A) who's seated beside me. The other colleague (B) is beside (A) but blocked by a partition, so i have to stand up to talk to (B). One afternoon, (A) wasn't not in the office. I heard the sound of chair moving and keyboard typing , so I assumed (B) was around and asked her some stuff. However there were no replies though the sound of typing went on. So I stood up to talk as I thought she couldn't hear me. No one was there. Sound stopped too. Strange.....
I sat down and continued doing my work and the sounds started again. I kept psychoing myself it's the air-con blowing her seat until my colleagues came back. This happened often when I'm alone until I placed a japanese charm taken from a shrine in Japan and always play my mp3 loudly in the office.
When I asked (A) about it, she told me she had experienced it as well and heard of many other eerie tales too. One was the sound of franking machine in use at 8pm+ at night and when the colleague went to check on who's using it, the sound stopped. There're a few sighting reports as well. The latest was a new staff started feeling giddy the moment she stepped into the department's office and vomitted a few times after she got home. There was another account about someone hearing papers and things being moved and many voices talking at night and it all stopped when the security switched on the lights. There were a few more tales that freaked me out.
After my 2 colleagues left and 2 new ones came onboard, there are fewer eerie incidents in our room though today i still heard a little of things moving. We have a small cross at 1 workstation, 1 drop of holy water at another workstation, 1 japanese charm and 1 chinese charm at my workstation. Maybe these are taking effect and blessing us, I don't know. Or maybe it's my loud music drowning out the sounds. And my health improved too.
Today during lunch, one colleague casually remarked that probably bones will be dug out during the construction next to our workplace. "Bones?" "Ya, bones. This whole area used to be an old Chinese cemetery wat!" "ah...no wonder... that explains all the eerie tales!"
And so just now I googled about the area of my workplace and confirmed it. It was a cemetery until the 1960s when it was exhumed to make place for development.
7th month is coming in mid-August. I better pray more and arm myself with more blessed items!
Wednesday, July 01, 2009
Disappointed with Ebisboshi Shotengai
Ebisboshi Shotengai is a japanese food street located at Iluma @ Bugis. It's a collection of 7 japanese restaurants under one roof with a common menu and sitting area. Similar to Marche. The deco of the place is interesting and very jap like. And they have an innovative way of ordering food --> pointing a sensor at the menu. But it'll be a nightmare for people with technology phobia. With H1N1 fear, I don't really fancy the idea of holding on to a sensor used by many hands!
The menu looked great but the food was a disappointment. We ordered a mini ramen + mini fried rice set set costing $14.80. The fried rice served was cold. Not refrigerator type of cold but as if it's been left out in the open for some time. I told the waitress about it and she brought it back to the kitchen. A while later they served the same bowl of rice (we recognized coz we sprinkled chili powder on it) piping hot, even the whole plate was hot! Must have used a microwave, how else to explain a hot plate? The rice tasted ordinary. Despite it being a kani chahan (crab fried rice), we could hardly find any crab meat. The crab stick was cut into such tiny pieces, one wouldn't have known it's a crab fried rice.
The mini ramen wasn't that good. Tasted like instant ramen. Next we ordered 2 taiyaki (pancake in form of fish with red bean fillings). It was served cold too. I rejected it and requested for warmer ones. Tasted good but not worth for money. The jap ice dessert was good though.
The bill for the mini set, 2 pancakes & 1 ice dessert added up to $26.80. Definitely not worth the money! It's such a disappointing experience, my bf & I decided we'll not be back again.
The menu looked great but the food was a disappointment. We ordered a mini ramen + mini fried rice set set costing $14.80. The fried rice served was cold. Not refrigerator type of cold but as if it's been left out in the open for some time. I told the waitress about it and she brought it back to the kitchen. A while later they served the same bowl of rice (we recognized coz we sprinkled chili powder on it) piping hot, even the whole plate was hot! Must have used a microwave, how else to explain a hot plate? The rice tasted ordinary. Despite it being a kani chahan (crab fried rice), we could hardly find any crab meat. The crab stick was cut into such tiny pieces, one wouldn't have known it's a crab fried rice.
The mini ramen wasn't that good. Tasted like instant ramen. Next we ordered 2 taiyaki (pancake in form of fish with red bean fillings). It was served cold too. I rejected it and requested for warmer ones. Tasted good but not worth for money. The jap ice dessert was good though.
The bill for the mini set, 2 pancakes & 1 ice dessert added up to $26.80. Definitely not worth the money! It's such a disappointing experience, my bf & I decided we'll not be back again.
Ways to stay positive
A week after I felt extremely unhappy at work & negative about my company, I found a way to stay positive at work. No, I'm still negative about the company's policies and culture, but I've figured out the way to help me survive here for the next 6 - 8 months. All thanks to my job of screening through resumes.
We always screen out job-hoppers and are usually impressed if the person has worked in a company for 2 - 3 yrs and get promoted during their service. I thought to myself, "how does my resume look to potential employers?" The answer's quite obvious. With a sudden career switch and many contract jobs in between, it's actually quite difficult for me to get past the 1st round of screening. Hence I found the motivation to stay on --> a good resume!
Of course just that thought alone doesn't help. With 8 months left, time will pass very quickly. That itself is quite an encouraging thought. Plus my current team believes in work-life balance over career, so we always aim to leave the office on time, if not before 6.15pm. This is unlike my initial few months where I slogged till 7+ every other day.
Nowadays I still complain a lot to friends and talk about about finding a better job next year but somehow my mood is lighter, I'm less frustrated and angry. Maybe I'm resigned to fate. Or maybe I've really learnt to be more positive in thinking. Whatever nonsense there is in the company, I can't deny the fact that it's a good training/learning ground for me even if the practices are unprofessional.
Hope for better days ahead.....
We always screen out job-hoppers and are usually impressed if the person has worked in a company for 2 - 3 yrs and get promoted during their service. I thought to myself, "how does my resume look to potential employers?" The answer's quite obvious. With a sudden career switch and many contract jobs in between, it's actually quite difficult for me to get past the 1st round of screening. Hence I found the motivation to stay on --> a good resume!
Of course just that thought alone doesn't help. With 8 months left, time will pass very quickly. That itself is quite an encouraging thought. Plus my current team believes in work-life balance over career, so we always aim to leave the office on time, if not before 6.15pm. This is unlike my initial few months where I slogged till 7+ every other day.
Nowadays I still complain a lot to friends and talk about about finding a better job next year but somehow my mood is lighter, I'm less frustrated and angry. Maybe I'm resigned to fate. Or maybe I've really learnt to be more positive in thinking. Whatever nonsense there is in the company, I can't deny the fact that it's a good training/learning ground for me even if the practices are unprofessional.
Hope for better days ahead.....
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