Updates

After informing a few close friends on the change of my blog address, I received a message from my long-lost frog prince. We’ve sort of lost contact for a period of time… guess he was busy with studies & work overseas. I was very surprised & happy to hear from him.

Dear Prince, if you are reading this, I want to let u know that I really miss you very much.

Wishing you were somehow here again ...
wishing you were somehow near ...
Sometimes it seemed ... if I just dreamed...
somehow you would be here . . .

Hope we have a chance to meet up in the near future… in S’pore, Japan, US or ???

The work schedule issue is on hold now, waiting for our manager to approve the suggested schedule. The 2 teams’ relationship is back to normal I guess… It’s been quite peaceful at work the past few days, no disputes or major problems. We had a short meeting with the Director of the Spore Pavilion 2 days ago. Apparently Spore Pavilion is ranked No. 1 among the other countries, and No. 6 after Japan’s corporate pavilions. Hmm… I really wonder what visitors see in our pavilion. Did they really enjoy being drenched by fake rain?

The director kept asking us for feedback but our team refused to comment anything coz we’ve agreed to discuss as a team first before voicing out to the management. Sometimes I wonder why we should bother to give feedback & suggestions when they don’t really act on them… but I still did a brief meeting with my team yesterday. Now I’m considering whether to brief my manager first about our feedback before the meeting, or inform both the director & my manager at the same time at the next meeting…

Work aside, I’ve an exciting plan coming up…A trip to Kagoshima!! Kagoshima is at the southern part of Kyushu. It’s very far from where I am now. I’d probably end up very broke after the trip but I’m still going coz I’ve a friend staying there. He’s my internet friend’s friend. We met at the Expo last month. Though we didn’t talk much to each other, I feel we’d get along pretty well, therefore I accepted his invitation to go to Kagoshima. Another friend of mine also highly recommended me to go to Kagoshima coz it's a beautiful place. I just bought a travel guidebook on Kyushu… need to plan the places to go to during my 4 days there. I’m so excited!!

My recent off-day was spent on grocery shopping & at the Expo. Yes, I finally went to explore the Expo after working there for almost 2 months! I went to Global Common 1 which consists of the Middle East countries, China, India, Korea… Most of the pavilions are impressive from outside but boring inside. I just popped in & out of pavilions, spending less than 15 mins in each pavilion coz it’s so boring, the exception being the Korea pavilion. Most pavilions are like mini trade fairs, selling jewelry & souvenirs. The Korea pavilion is different ~very impressive artistic design inside the pavilion. I liked their 3-D animation movie most ~ nice soundtrack, and the ending was so touching that I nearly cried.

After I was done with Global Common 1 pavilions, I went to watch the “Evening at the Koi Pond”show which is supposedly similar to the musical fountain at Sentosa. What a disappointment it was! I gave up on it after 10mins into it… I wonder how many would watch thru the full 30mins show. My last stop was at the Earth Tower which features the world’s largest kaleidoscope. Queued for 15 mins, looked at the kaleidoscope for 5 mins & I’m done. Beautiful but can’t keep my interest for long. Moreover I had to return to the S’pore pavilion to go home with the team who’s on duty. I didn’t take any photos at all coz nothing’s that nice, or maybe I’m so sick of the whole site… Hope it’d be more interesting at the other pavilions that I’ve yet to visit…

For this coming off-day I’ve originally planned a trip to an amusement park at Mie prefecture, but because some of us can’t make it, it’s postponed. Quite disappointed coz I’ve been looking forward to it. But it’s a blessing in disguise as well coz I need to save up for the Kagoshima trip. Hmm….for this coming off-day I’d probably just go cut my hair & sing karaoke alone… I miss singing my Glay songs!!


1 comment:
Karaoke??!!!!!....I WAN TO GO!!...Miss those days in Okazaki where we were singing and screaming away like crazy, together with yr Kakis! And not forgetting the freezing COLD weather and the Bicycle experience! ahahaha

It's the work schedule issue again - Part 2

The work schedule issue is driving me NUTZ!!

This morning, I was informed by my team member that the schedule has been changed again. The moment I reached the pavilion in the afternoon, Team B’s members also informed me about it. And one of Team B’s members kept asking me about my opinion on the schedule ~ what our team wants so that she could do a proper proposal on a schedule that would be fair to both teams.

I’m already fuming mad from the sudden changes in schedule & she kept talking to me about it, explaining herself about the issue as she’s apparently the one who suggested the initial change of schedule. And it’s meant to be just her “personal suggestion”… Well, our dumb manager assumed it represented the views of the whole team & came up with that 2nd schedule which pissed Team B off, so they clarified themselves & he came up with the 3rd schedule which pissed us off.

And last nite someone from my team complained about it to the manager (w/o anyone knowing) and he changed it again this morning, pissing everyone off now! I’m of course mad at the member for complaining to the manager, thus causing this sudden change in schedule. I’ve since told her off about it. She’s quite apologetic about it. Haiz… guess whoever suggested anything related to the schedule didn’t expect their casual remark/suggestion to cause so much trouble. I don’t blame them cause I know they meant well when they suggested the changes, but sometimes I can’t help but be mad with them due to the trouble created as a result of it.

Damn that stupid manager for not using his brains when planning schedule or implementing suggestions. Looking at the way the manager works now, I think we’d better think twice before making any suggestions in front of him. Hmm…maybe we should agree on the procedure of discussing with everyone before voicing any suggestions to that dumb manager. No doubt it means it’d take a longer time to get things done, but at least everyone is aware of & agreeable to the suggestions.

Sighz… this has become a team vs team issue as well. One member of my team didn’t want to change shift coz she didn’t want to work with the other team. And that pissed one of the members off and she wanted to trash things out. She felt it’s related to the shift schedule issue as well. I really have no idea why my member refused to join the other team… probably she’s too used to our style of working & didn’t want to change. But this came at the wrong timing ~ when we are still in process of solving the work schedule issue. Now everything’s lumped up together… sighz…

I’m not that angry over the schedule thingy anymore but guess I need time to revert back to the same old me when facing Team B. Since the schedule saga started, I find it difficult to joke with them like I always do. Seems like other members of my team feels the same way too… we don’t know how to face them as if nothing happened. Sighz…I really hope things would be back to normal soon….we mustn’t let this matter spoil our friendship & team spirit… what can be done now? Will someone pls teach me??

We are not full-time drivers!

Just in case you aren't aware of this... i'm one of the 2 drivers for the guides. I was stupid enough to apply for an international driving license when my manager requested me to do so. There're only 2 persons with this license among the guides, so we were arrowed to be the team leader cum driver. Damn the manager! We aren't paid extra yet we hold additional portfolio! Extra responsibilities = extra stress.

Today one of my team members requested that I fetch her home at night in case she can’t catch the last bus tomorrow coz she's going out. I turned her down immediately. Felt bad to be doing that, coz that means she would have to walk at least 40mins home from the train station. I’m actually ok with fetching her home, but if I agree to that, this would make me & Team B’s leader their personal drivers. Before long everyone would be expecting us to fetch them home late at night. So I had to ensure this doesn’t happen.

Some members are already taking us for granted, fetching them around. We often feel obliged to agree to their requests coz where we stay is quite inaccessible, but I guess there should be a limit to everything. We didn’t come here as full-time drivers. As if our own guiding job isn’t tiring enough, we now have an additional burden of driving. We’ve been pressing our manager to settle this driver issue but nothing’s been done yet. Probably one day we’d both go on strike then he’d do something…

It's the work schedule issue again - Part 1

Remember my complaint about the work schedule?

Someone from Team B came to ask me about the schedule yesterday, whether my team’s ok with it, and she wanted to discuss it further. However I was in a rush so didn’t get to discuss it with her. Soon after Team B’s leader approached me to discuss about the schedule as well. Seems like they either realized the schedule’s unfair towards us or they know we are pissed off with them over this, coz I don’t remember them being so enthusiastic about discussing the schedule when they first suggested it to the manager without informing us. Anyway, that’s the past. Let’s hope this schedule issue can be settled soon.

I realized I’ve misunderstood Team B’s leader when we trashed things out yesterday. Apparently he didn’t have much say over this matter. Hmm…seems like he has problems with his team members who don’t seem to be respecting his authority. It’s tough on both parties (leader & members) coz we are peers on the same hierarchy, what right do we have to enforce our authority on them even though we are appointed team leaders? Guess I’m lucky that my team members still give me a bit of “face”. But i'm still not too pleased that after the 2nd schedule was out, he didn't discuss it in detail with my team before approaching the manager to change it. On one hand i give him the benefit of doubt on not knowing what his members has suggested to the manager regarding the schedule. On the other hand, knowing that he did approach the manager about it, i can't help but feel that he does know what's going on & is in a way involved in it.

End of Golden Week holidays

Finally had my 12 hours of sleep, but still feel tired… Been sleeping late & waking up early these days, and 2 consecutive days of hangover made me so tired that I went to dreamland almost immediately after I went to bed and didn’t wake up till 11am this morning. There’s another fireworks outing last night. Didn’t join them coz it’s too cold outside & I’m quite tired. Sighz… missed 2 fireworks outing already… When will be the next one?

The Golden Week holidays are finally over, meaning working hours are back to normal. However it also signals the start of our “yellow cap zombies” nightmare. “Yellow cap zombies” = Japanese elementary school kids. They are a nightmare coz they come in big groups of 20 – 80 (record was 160 of them!!), snatch umbrellas, duno how to open/close umbrellas, scream when it rains, point (read: poke) the umbrella at us… *headache*

I'm on afternoon shift today. Think it won't be crowded... would prob just be like the usual crowd before the GW holidays. But this "good period" will end once i'm back on morning shift... *it's the yellow caps!!*