At the gas station, I saw a man in his late 40s to early 50s dressed in his underwear, putting gas in his car!

Pagoda singlet and boxers, and not the nice plaid type of boxers.

Yucks! Do men have any modesty/dignity at all or they just do not care?

Tired but can’t sleep.

It’s one of those nights. So many things going on in the mind.

Trying to plan out my tasks for tomorrow. Wondering where I’m heading. Thinking about decisions made, making decisions, decisions to be made.

Ugh. Sleep, mind, sleep!

I detest rudeness.

Some may confuse bluntness with rudeness. My two cents is if you can’t decide which is which, just don’t say anything at all till you can figure it out. And don’t expect everyone to put up with it if you decide to go ahead and open your mouth.

How many of us stop to check on animals who get hit by vehicles?

Here’s a lesson that we can all learn from Daryl.

Yesterday, I bought a copy of TIME magazine to accompany me during lunch because I was alone.

After lunch, while waiting for the elevator to head back up to my work area, I bumped into EKT and gang coming back from lunch as well.

EKT grabbed my mag and flipped through.

EKT : You know, you should work for CNN or something.
Me : Huh? Why?
EKT : Coz you feel so strongly about what is right and wrong.
Me : Eh? You mean normal people don’t feel that way?
EKT : No.

Disregarding the part about working for CNN (I have no idea how it correlates), I was quite surprised about his remark because I thought everyone has their own view of what’s right and wrong. We may not all have the same set of rights and wrongs. But at least, we all feel strongly about our own rights and wrongs. Right?

Or is it the case there the majority of people have the “whatever” attitude?

The other interesting thing was that for someone who only knows me for a short period of time (i.e. a few months), EKT is quite good at analyzing/picking up one of my core values. Either that, or I display it ‘very well’ at work.

I get very irritated when people don’t know how to keep public restrooms clean.

You’d think corporate people would be more civic-minded but no, they are not.

I am especially annoyed when they don’t clean up their mess after they use the toilet because I have to clean it up so that the next person who uses it after me (when there’s a queue) doesn’t think that I am the one who made the mess.

Maybe some people need a crash course on how to use public toilets.

1. Pee in the correct hole.
2. Flush the toilet when you are done.
3. Clean/wipe the toilet seat if you had any mis-aims or accidents.
4. Throw tissues into the dustbin provided or flush them down the toilet.
5. Use the bidet properly i.e. don’t wet the entire stall.
6. Throw sanity napkins into the disposal provided and make sure it’s gone down completely. Don’t just leave it on TOP of the lid.
7. When the restroom is crowded, don’t flick your hands to shake of water after you’re done washing your hands. People do not appreciate being sprayed with water on their legs and/or pants.

Seriously, how difficult is it to clean up after yourself after using the washroom and apply the fundamentals??

Sometimes I feel that I can be quite mean

For example, when I don’t feel like spending time with some people.

See, I can be quite ok pals with some people (but not really close) so they may feel that we’re good buddies. But sometimes, there comes a point where, due to their personalities/characteristics, I just don’t feel like hanging out with them more than I should (e.g. something about them annoys me). And because of this, it alters the way I speak with them or behave around them. I get more curt and/or impatient. Or I just don’t initiate conversation with them.

But I can’t tell them that straight to their faces because the problem is with me, not with them so it would not be a very nice thing to do. So I would resort to making excuses to minimize the time spent with them.

But thankfully, it doesn’t happen often. But I am currently facing 2 such situations. And I am feeling really guilty for all the excuses that I’m making

I guess there’s a reason why almost every zodiac description or personality test that I have done (for fun, mostly) always described me as having few friends but they will be close ones o_O I haven’t had such feelings towards my longtime friends. Only towards people whom I have met recently in my life.

Sigh. I feel so mean.

Project A : 4000+ mandays
Team size : 50 at peak
Duration : 1 year

Project B : 80,000+ mandays
Team size : An army
Duration : Across several years

Scope : Similar for both.

If this is not a recipe for failure for Project A, I don’t know what is.

~~~~~

On the other hand, it feels good to be recognized and appreciated by my peers.

I did a series of .ppt decks in preparation for a project which never took off. When it did finally take off, I was unfortunately assigned to this current hellhole of a project. But my colleague who was in the same team at that time managed to get back to that project and on two occasions, she MSN-ed me :

“Your decks are really useful!”
“AI LING!!! I miss you!! Please come back!!!!!!!”

Even my peers can show some appreciation. But I guess the big bosses think it’s too generous to give a word of praise now and again.

Had a short powwow over cake and coffee, with the app manager after our gruelling full-day session with the client.

He is from the London office and he shared the differences between his office and the KL office.

The stark differences between how the London office values their staff vs. the KL office is quite appalling.

It seems that the London office sincerely cares about things like their employees career path, interests, work/life balance and they actually take the time to listen to their employees. They structure the teams based on the people, not the work. Whether they do this just to keep people happy or they sincerely do care about their staffs’ interests and welfare, I don’t know. But the end result is, people are happy with their work, people are happy to work for the firm, which ultimately leads to people being loyal to the company –> lower attrition rate.

Here, out of all the crappy things happening, the most insulting and demotivating thing I have heard coming from someone up there is that they (the bosses) will not hesitate to remove anyone who doesn’t perform, from the project. And I have also heard of one of them (the bosses), coming to check on my team at 10pm because he doesn’t think we are working hard enough.

What a way to motivate your staff! Already we are given an impossible timeline to meet and an equally ridiculous scope to deliver, and we are already working our butts off to deliver the work (I have colleagues who work till the wee hours and also weekends to get the work done, every single day and weekend), now they threaten to remove us from the project if we don’t deliver?!

You know, I am not surprised at all when people decide to resign. Not at all surprised.

You would think a large multinational firm like this who claims to have every benefit in the working world, would have proper policies and procedures to ensure their staffs’ welfare but in the end, they are just like any other chinapek company out there. Well, the KL arm, that is.

People tell me to detach myself from work and just do what I can but I find it difficult to do so because I must do my best because that is my nature. I cannot deliver something substandard. And because of this, I will get affected by all this nonsense because crap, my contribution is not being appreciated! How can one not be angry and demotivated?!

Being very emo at the moment because I am feeling very shitty. And I don’t need anyone to tell me to (1) quit my job and find another one, or (2) deal with it coz this is how every organization works, because that is not the point.

Seriously. I will bite.

The Home Minister said, in defence of the cow-head incident :

“I have it in my records to show there were cases where a pig-head was used by irresponsible parties including leaving the head in front of an Umno building covered by an Umno flag,” he said in a press conference after coming out of a dialogue session with leaders of the committee who organised the protest but offered no further details of such an act.

I don’t even understand what is the purpose of the pig-head remark. So just because of the pig-head incident (I don’t remember reading about it in the news), it’s ok for those hooligans to pull the cow-head stunt, is it?

What is wrong with people? Who ever said that 2 wrongs make a right? Let’s not even talk about something that is blatantly wrong. Just because someone does something that is not right in your eyes/opinion, doesn’t mean that it is ok for you to pull a ‘tit for tat’. That just shows your immaturity in handling these situations. Exactly like how those knuckleheads behaved in the recent dialogue on the temple issue in Shah Alam.

Grow up, will you!