Mr. Twoheadsnake left the company yesterday with immediate notice from the MD. Apparently he has left the company to join our competitor to become the Engineering Manager.
According to Mr. Experience, who has friends and ex-colleagues from this company (that went to that competitor), that competitor are recruiting a large group of people this year, and every new recruit will be sent to US for training.
I guess in a way, Twoheadsnake has gotten what he wanted from that competitor. He was jealous of me for going to US, and he had eyed for Mr. Porche's Technical Manager position for long.
Also, ever since he was appointed to sales department and working with Decamouth, he was not assigned a good territory. Those "return guaranteed" territories were all taken by Decamouth, Twoheadsnake was left with those rather immature territories. With both of them relying on the commission to boost their income, it is unfair that Twoheadsnake put much more effort than Decamouth, but didn't get as good return as Decamouth.
The office is now stumble again, we are left with only Decamouth -- the full time sales person, and two other part time sales -- Mr. Porche and Ms. Bolly. Bolly is in our Singapore satelite office, working alone. She gave birth to a twin, and is still recovering from the complication of the child bearing.
Everyone is looking at me now (some even spoken to me), hoping that I would take initiative to volunteer myself to take over Twoheadsnake's stuff. But I am not going to say anything, until the MD is asking me for help. In fact, I am already helping to clean up Twoheadsnake's mess, by answering the questions from the rep that were directed to him.
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Saturday, March 19, 2011
Some thoughts
There have been various disasters happened in the past 1 year, the few that pops right out when I was typing are: oil spill in US Gulf Coast, Japan Fukushima nuclear plant damaged, Hungary Alumina plant accident, Chilean miners spending months in a hole.
Some were luckier than others, but most of these has caused serious damages to the environment.
Although when we zoom out to the past century, there were more than 1 major oil spill, more than 1 nuclear power plant issue, lots of industrial accidents and coal mine mishaps.
These incidents reminded me of a movie I watched recently, called Gasland. It made me think that sometimes, we actually engineered the disaster.
When we claimed that nuclear power is a clean power, natural gas is clean energy, do we really know the contaminations we made when producing these energies?
When we claim that the drilling and mining are done with state of art technologies, do we also have a state of art counter-checking system?
I believe engineering helps man kind to develop, and with measures, develop responsibly. But in the world when anyone can be called engineers and researchers, I wonder if we actually understand what we are doing.
Life is about taking risks, and it is a chain of coincidences, or perhaps accidents, that created sparks that made us unique. Do we want to have the sparks so bright and huge that it consumes the entire earth? I sometimes feel that we are actually planning a mankind funeral to come.
I can't help wondering: do we really need to be so developed? Where are we heading, what are we aiming anyway?
Some were luckier than others, but most of these has caused serious damages to the environment.
Although when we zoom out to the past century, there were more than 1 major oil spill, more than 1 nuclear power plant issue, lots of industrial accidents and coal mine mishaps.
These incidents reminded me of a movie I watched recently, called Gasland. It made me think that sometimes, we actually engineered the disaster.
When we claimed that nuclear power is a clean power, natural gas is clean energy, do we really know the contaminations we made when producing these energies?
When we claim that the drilling and mining are done with state of art technologies, do we also have a state of art counter-checking system?
I believe engineering helps man kind to develop, and with measures, develop responsibly. But in the world when anyone can be called engineers and researchers, I wonder if we actually understand what we are doing.
Life is about taking risks, and it is a chain of coincidences, or perhaps accidents, that created sparks that made us unique. Do we want to have the sparks so bright and huge that it consumes the entire earth? I sometimes feel that we are actually planning a mankind funeral to come.
I can't help wondering: do we really need to be so developed? Where are we heading, what are we aiming anyway?
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
Lousy day
While I am totally swamped with work today, which mostly has nothing to do with me, I also met a few nonsense people, and had a few nonsensical conversations:
Scenario 1
Twoheadsnake is having his honeymoon in Hong Kong Disneyland, and he forwarded me an quotation request from the rep., asking me to help him prepare the price and send it to the Singapore rep.
I called the rep, but his office phone was having some problem -- he couldn't hear the receiving end. So I called his other office phone, the rep's father picked up the phone. I introduced myself, told him why I looked for his son, and asked if there were any other ways I could get to his son.
He refused to give me the phone, so I asked him to pass my message to his son. I left him with my name and number. He hesitated when he found out that I was calling from Malaysia, he gave me his son's mobile number, and asked me not to talk too long with his son on that number.
I knew what he had in mind -- asking his son to call overseas = too expensive. But in Singapore, receiving call on mobile phone also incurred charges to the receiving end. Nonetheless, the cost for receiving the phone is less than calling overseas.
I was like, WTF?!?!?!?!! We are all out in the society to do business, and you are reluctant to communicate?! Go back to become a caveman, don't come out and bother us.
Scenario 2
As I do not know the procedures to prepare the quotation on the above mentioned project, I asked for help. The MD walked by, and pulled Decamouth into the conversation.
Decamouth started to talk cock, by saying that the system and software is very complicated, every quotation takes about 20 mins of work. All his time were wasted on working on these quotations.
He then said to me, in Mandarin "It would be good if you can learn how to do the quotation, then it would be a big help to me."
I was bothered by 4-5 other technical requests at that moment, and didn't find a way to counter him, so I said, "Attending to the sales requests inbox is already taking me a lot of time."
I regret that I have missed a huge chance to shoot him with "Give me your commission, and I will work the quotations for you."
Man, if a sales manager do not spend his time working on quotations, what else can he do? They don't even go out of the office to grab sales, they all rely on the rep! Such a bastard.
Scenario 3
While trying to communicate with the Singapore rep, he rejected my call, by saying that he didn't know anything about the project.
I was furious with all the work load that dumped onto me, which has nothing to do with me. So I forwarded the email by Twoheadsnake to the rep and asked him to return my call when he read that email.
Unfortunately, I made a huge mistake. Twoheadsnake mentioned a certain margin that I have to follow while preparing the proposal. But I didn't delete that information when forwarding that email.
So the rep now knows our margin. This is what pushed my furious to the climax. Because I can't believe myself making such a stupid mistake. I hate it when I am making a mistake that shouldn't be made.
I learned that when things have nothing to do with me, I just need to let it sit. Work on my priority first, and let others wait.
I also learned that sales always wants things yesterday, as a technical personnel, I have to ask them to go fuck themselves, so that I could work on their other more "worthy" requests. Because when the sales person is as fucked up as Decamouth and Twoheadsnake, they will never have the initiative to learn, but to rely on me. I can afford to do that.
Next time... I just hope I could learn my short fall fast enough to punch them right at their face.
Scenario 1
Twoheadsnake is having his honeymoon in Hong Kong Disneyland, and he forwarded me an quotation request from the rep., asking me to help him prepare the price and send it to the Singapore rep.
I called the rep, but his office phone was having some problem -- he couldn't hear the receiving end. So I called his other office phone, the rep's father picked up the phone. I introduced myself, told him why I looked for his son, and asked if there were any other ways I could get to his son.
He refused to give me the phone, so I asked him to pass my message to his son. I left him with my name and number. He hesitated when he found out that I was calling from Malaysia, he gave me his son's mobile number, and asked me not to talk too long with his son on that number.
I knew what he had in mind -- asking his son to call overseas = too expensive. But in Singapore, receiving call on mobile phone also incurred charges to the receiving end. Nonetheless, the cost for receiving the phone is less than calling overseas.
I was like, WTF?!?!?!?!! We are all out in the society to do business, and you are reluctant to communicate?! Go back to become a caveman, don't come out and bother us.
Scenario 2
As I do not know the procedures to prepare the quotation on the above mentioned project, I asked for help. The MD walked by, and pulled Decamouth into the conversation.
Decamouth started to talk cock, by saying that the system and software is very complicated, every quotation takes about 20 mins of work. All his time were wasted on working on these quotations.
He then said to me, in Mandarin "It would be good if you can learn how to do the quotation, then it would be a big help to me."
I was bothered by 4-5 other technical requests at that moment, and didn't find a way to counter him, so I said, "Attending to the sales requests inbox is already taking me a lot of time."
I regret that I have missed a huge chance to shoot him with "Give me your commission, and I will work the quotations for you."
Man, if a sales manager do not spend his time working on quotations, what else can he do? They don't even go out of the office to grab sales, they all rely on the rep! Such a bastard.
Scenario 3
While trying to communicate with the Singapore rep, he rejected my call, by saying that he didn't know anything about the project.
I was furious with all the work load that dumped onto me, which has nothing to do with me. So I forwarded the email by Twoheadsnake to the rep and asked him to return my call when he read that email.
Unfortunately, I made a huge mistake. Twoheadsnake mentioned a certain margin that I have to follow while preparing the proposal. But I didn't delete that information when forwarding that email.
So the rep now knows our margin. This is what pushed my furious to the climax. Because I can't believe myself making such a stupid mistake. I hate it when I am making a mistake that shouldn't be made.
I learned that when things have nothing to do with me, I just need to let it sit. Work on my priority first, and let others wait.
I also learned that sales always wants things yesterday, as a technical personnel, I have to ask them to go fuck themselves, so that I could work on their other more "worthy" requests. Because when the sales person is as fucked up as Decamouth and Twoheadsnake, they will never have the initiative to learn, but to rely on me. I can afford to do that.
Next time... I just hope I could learn my short fall fast enough to punch them right at their face.
Friday, March 4, 2011
Cast Overview
A month has passed since my first day of work. I was told to give 2 weeks time observing the office, before devising my career plan for 2011.
Lots of things happened within this month, I foresee some very exciting office politics this year. Before dragging further, let me introduce you the cast with overview:
HR:
Our HR is now conversing more like a human.
She is also in charge of IT stuff now.
She no longer has the priviledge to force us to book flight through her, with her personal credit card which has points earned when book through AirAsia. The travelling stuff is now taken care by our travel agent entirely, and we are all allowed to contact the travel agent ourselves. People whose job requires them to travel are given a company credit card now. Mine is still pending, and the HR is taking her own sweet time.
I am happy to see the changes in HR, but I am still wary of her.
Finance:
Ms. AB, I never introduced her before in my blog. We do not have much interaction at work, but we both arrive at the office the earliest. She is still good at her job, but she is having a lot more overtime now. She is upset of Ms. Azreal's lack of competency and lack of support from the corporate finance team, which is located million miles away from us.
Sales:
Mr. Twoheadsnake is now in Sales. He is no longer hanging out with Azreal and HR. He is now trained personally by the new MD in Sales role. He is still bitter about my chance to go to USA. He still thinks pretty highly of himself.
Personally, I think sales suits him, because he is has the salesmen's calculative mind, good in manipulating people and has the engineer's cautious mind.
Mr. Decamouth still thinks that he is the MD's favourite. I also found that Decamouth has serious problem managing stuff. He has high ego, limited knowledge, but didn't want to admit that fact. He also doesn't know what he doesn't know. He is good in drawing smoke screens with what he knows, good in taking credits and good in playing the "I am the oh-so-pity-victim here." role.
Sales support:
Mr. Cockroach is now taking care of the order processing stuff. He has Azreal and Ms. Sulky report to him. He is still a Tai-Chi master, but getting more cautious now, by wanting double, triple back up for himself before taking any action. He is still devious as always. His delegation emails these days are harsher, especially when it has some technical/engineering work required. It almost sounded as if I did not want to support him at all, he is playing the "You all have to support me, or I will copy your boss in the loop. Or I will make you look bad." role.
Ms. Azreal is as busy body as usual. She is one of the order processing administrator. She is still making a lot of mistakes, learning very slowly, showing very little initiatives to take up tasks.
Ms. Sulky, I never introduced her before in my blog either. She works for the company for a long time, she is very responsible and very serious. She used to be our marketing personnel. She is as grumpy as always. She is now in sales order processing, and is extremely busy due to Azreal's lack of competency at her job, and Cockroach's lack of support.
Technical Support:
Mr. Porche, he is in charge of technical support and doing some sales too. Mr. Experience and myself report to him. He has changed to someone that I do not know anymore, he doesn't hold his stance as strong, and is changing his side rather often these days.
He is still professional at his technical role and still long-winded at his explanations. He is becoming more cynical, but he is forcing me to learn observing the office interactions and think of strategies to counter it.
Mr. Experience, he too, I never introduced him before in my blog. He works for the company for decades, he is now resuming his previous role, which is the site supervisor. He is still professional as usual, but I also realised that he is getting tired.
The boss:
He likes to make a lot of expressive noise to woo the sales guys (Decamouth and Twoheadsnake) who apparently likes it. He is also pretty cautious of me, but he doesn't like me to be formal with him. But I don't know how to be informal towards someone who are cautious of me.
He is like a slimy eel, one cannot pin him down to discuss a topic for more than 2 mins. He slips away and comes back to the topic as he likes, and slips away again. It is frustrating to communicate with him. But I feel that at least when he does not slip away, he listens.
Lots of things happened within this month, I foresee some very exciting office politics this year. Before dragging further, let me introduce you the cast with overview:
HR:
Our HR is now conversing more like a human.
She is also in charge of IT stuff now.
She no longer has the priviledge to force us to book flight through her, with her personal credit card which has points earned when book through AirAsia. The travelling stuff is now taken care by our travel agent entirely, and we are all allowed to contact the travel agent ourselves. People whose job requires them to travel are given a company credit card now. Mine is still pending, and the HR is taking her own sweet time.
I am happy to see the changes in HR, but I am still wary of her.
Finance:
Ms. AB, I never introduced her before in my blog. We do not have much interaction at work, but we both arrive at the office the earliest. She is still good at her job, but she is having a lot more overtime now. She is upset of Ms. Azreal's lack of competency and lack of support from the corporate finance team, which is located million miles away from us.
Sales:
Mr. Twoheadsnake is now in Sales. He is no longer hanging out with Azreal and HR. He is now trained personally by the new MD in Sales role. He is still bitter about my chance to go to USA. He still thinks pretty highly of himself.
Personally, I think sales suits him, because he is has the salesmen's calculative mind, good in manipulating people and has the engineer's cautious mind.
Mr. Decamouth still thinks that he is the MD's favourite. I also found that Decamouth has serious problem managing stuff. He has high ego, limited knowledge, but didn't want to admit that fact. He also doesn't know what he doesn't know. He is good in drawing smoke screens with what he knows, good in taking credits and good in playing the "I am the oh-so-pity-victim here." role.
Sales support:
Mr. Cockroach is now taking care of the order processing stuff. He has Azreal and Ms. Sulky report to him. He is still a Tai-Chi master, but getting more cautious now, by wanting double, triple back up for himself before taking any action. He is still devious as always. His delegation emails these days are harsher, especially when it has some technical/engineering work required. It almost sounded as if I did not want to support him at all, he is playing the "You all have to support me, or I will copy your boss in the loop. Or I will make you look bad." role.
Ms. Azreal is as busy body as usual. She is one of the order processing administrator. She is still making a lot of mistakes, learning very slowly, showing very little initiatives to take up tasks.
Ms. Sulky, I never introduced her before in my blog either. She works for the company for a long time, she is very responsible and very serious. She used to be our marketing personnel. She is as grumpy as always. She is now in sales order processing, and is extremely busy due to Azreal's lack of competency at her job, and Cockroach's lack of support.
Technical Support:
Mr. Porche, he is in charge of technical support and doing some sales too. Mr. Experience and myself report to him. He has changed to someone that I do not know anymore, he doesn't hold his stance as strong, and is changing his side rather often these days.
He is still professional at his technical role and still long-winded at his explanations. He is becoming more cynical, but he is forcing me to learn observing the office interactions and think of strategies to counter it.
Mr. Experience, he too, I never introduced him before in my blog. He works for the company for decades, he is now resuming his previous role, which is the site supervisor. He is still professional as usual, but I also realised that he is getting tired.
The boss:
He likes to make a lot of expressive noise to woo the sales guys (Decamouth and Twoheadsnake) who apparently likes it. He is also pretty cautious of me, but he doesn't like me to be formal with him. But I don't know how to be informal towards someone who are cautious of me.
He is like a slimy eel, one cannot pin him down to discuss a topic for more than 2 mins. He slips away and comes back to the topic as he likes, and slips away again. It is frustrating to communicate with him. But I feel that at least when he does not slip away, he listens.
Trip to China
Went to Jiangsu on Sunday, came back home last night. It was my first trip to China.
Went there for product inspection, and also to get to know the team there, as there would be more chance for us to work together from now on.
It was very cold. Living close to the factory means that there isn't anything else to do after work. Stayed mostly in the hotel and factory. There are some small shops near the hotel for one to get some basic necessities, not much of food to choose.
I went to Shanghai the day before flying out, because the trip from the factory to Shanghai PuDong airport is rather far. Spent some time in Shanghai that afternoon, went to Yuyuan Garden. I was walking alone, allowing myself to lost in the narrow and crooked streets in Shanghai. I love walking around and blend into the crowd to feel the heart beat of the city.
The views in those narrow streets were very different from those huge and majestic building you see around Yuyuan tourist area, or those corporate areas. I saw houses entrance that was right against the street, no curb. It was like a corridor filled with doors, except this corridor is also shared by motorcycles, pedestrians, small cars etc. I saw people hanging clothes onto the overhead electrical wire etc., pupils running outside the street after school, surrounding the mobile food stalls to get some fish balls etc.
The food outside Yuyuan is also much cheaper than those in the tourist area. One meat bao in Yuyuan was sold around 10 RMB; few streets behind Yuyuan, it was 1 RMB. I didn't buy them to check on the content though, but I don't think one would pack with a whole pig.
I didn't get to see the inside of Yuyuan, nor the temple there due to the timing -- it was about the closing time.
Shanghai reminded me of the lady's old Cheongsam, the dusty aged silk, with laborious embroidery. Shanghai is packed, the narrow streets and the distances between the buildings reminded me of the tight-fitting, figure-showing Cheongsam. Shanghai is no doubt a very charming city, the architectures left over by the Westerners gave the city some "depth", much like the embroidery on the Cheongsam. The new high rise buildings were like the jewels stitched on the embroidery.
Like the jewels on the Cheongsam, I think it should never outshine the beauty of the embroidery. Otherwise, it would only make the dress looks trashy, despite covered with jewels.
One day, I guess Shanghai would turn into a working lady suit, and I hope those old buildings would remain as the highlights, just like the brooch you see on the lady suit.
Went there for product inspection, and also to get to know the team there, as there would be more chance for us to work together from now on.
It was very cold. Living close to the factory means that there isn't anything else to do after work. Stayed mostly in the hotel and factory. There are some small shops near the hotel for one to get some basic necessities, not much of food to choose.
I went to Shanghai the day before flying out, because the trip from the factory to Shanghai PuDong airport is rather far. Spent some time in Shanghai that afternoon, went to Yuyuan Garden. I was walking alone, allowing myself to lost in the narrow and crooked streets in Shanghai. I love walking around and blend into the crowd to feel the heart beat of the city.
The views in those narrow streets were very different from those huge and majestic building you see around Yuyuan tourist area, or those corporate areas. I saw houses entrance that was right against the street, no curb. It was like a corridor filled with doors, except this corridor is also shared by motorcycles, pedestrians, small cars etc. I saw people hanging clothes onto the overhead electrical wire etc., pupils running outside the street after school, surrounding the mobile food stalls to get some fish balls etc.
The food outside Yuyuan is also much cheaper than those in the tourist area. One meat bao in Yuyuan was sold around 10 RMB; few streets behind Yuyuan, it was 1 RMB. I didn't buy them to check on the content though, but I don't think one would pack with a whole pig.
I didn't get to see the inside of Yuyuan, nor the temple there due to the timing -- it was about the closing time.
Shanghai reminded me of the lady's old Cheongsam, the dusty aged silk, with laborious embroidery. Shanghai is packed, the narrow streets and the distances between the buildings reminded me of the tight-fitting, figure-showing Cheongsam. Shanghai is no doubt a very charming city, the architectures left over by the Westerners gave the city some "depth", much like the embroidery on the Cheongsam. The new high rise buildings were like the jewels stitched on the embroidery.
Like the jewels on the Cheongsam, I think it should never outshine the beauty of the embroidery. Otherwise, it would only make the dress looks trashy, despite covered with jewels.
One day, I guess Shanghai would turn into a working lady suit, and I hope those old buildings would remain as the highlights, just like the brooch you see on the lady suit.
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