There was some stories before my month long trip begins.
I requested a new pair of boots since over two months ago, and Ms. Azreal mentioned to Ms England that Decamouth did not approve it as he thinks we are spending too much on safety boots, when we could just purchase some other brands off the local hardware shops like what he does, in order to save money for the company.
England and myself were pretty mad at this, but MD seemed to agree with Decamouth, so we kept quiet.
When Decamouth wanted me to come to Philippines to commission the products, and I told him my safety boots are worn out, and need a new pair. He asked me to buy it from local hardware shop, I told him I couldn't find my size. I also asked him for the budget, he said there is none, just buy whichever that suits me. I then challenged him why not then let me buy the one that I requested two months ago, since I know for sure that model suits my feet?
He said he didn't know about the request. I was really pissed by his lies, I referred Azreal's words on the request was not approved by management, so if he doesn't know about it, could it mean that he is not a member of the management? I enjoyed seeing his face turning black. He pushed it back to Azreal, since she hasn't been back from maternity leave, and said it would be done when Azreal is back. I just enjoyed the moment and told him it would be too late, as I would be walking around in the China factories and Philippines construction sites risking my safety, would the company take responsibilities if anything occurred? I also told him a couple of near miss incidents I encountered due to the disintegrating boots and other safety equipments.
He asked me to log these incidents so that the company knows it. But our office doesn't have any safety policies or channels for us to log our incidents all these years, we have always been solving things on our own. But I think it is a good start, so when he raised it to the HR, I wrote a detail report. With that, he managed to get himself a pair of new boots, by saying that his technical department members must all obtained updated personal protective equipments (PPE).
Eventually, he got Azreal to arrange for the PPE supplier bringing some shoe samples to the office and purchased them. But I still visited China and Philippines with that disintegrating boots and risking my safety as the PPE supplier couldn't give us the products in short period of time. Especially the female boots sizes are pretty rare and they don't keep the stock.
Sunday, November 25, 2012
Travelling November
Just noticed that I haven't been updating this blog for almost 3 months.
Life have been pretty hectic coming towards the end of the year.
I have been travelling a lot since end of October.
It started with a trip to Bangkok with my high school friend and her family in October, which I planned since early this year. It was more like a revenge to my husband's active night life/social life, because I hardly get to see him earlier this year due to his frequent mamak time with his friends. So I thought I should give myself some time off too. But I guess things somehow turned out quite too much...
After returning from the 4 days shopping trip in Bangkok, I was told by the MD to go to South Korea, and was also asked by the US colleague if I could join him in his visit to China. So, I headed off to South Korea and jumped to China.
This trip to South Korea gave me some chance to look around, as my flight to China was over the weekend. I went to the Changdeokgong palace, and had some peaceful moment on my own inside the king's secret garden.
Seoul is a very vibrant city, and Gangnam is especially high-tech. I was lost in Gangnam, and came to realize that the huge black pillars that served like the street lights, are also multipurpose interactive tourist boards that have maps etc.
In my China trip, I saw some living history in one of the China factories, see below.
This image looks exactly like one of those we seen in our history text books, talking about industrial revolutions. But the picture was taken when these people were working right before my eyes. I guess only engineers could appreciate this? The manual labour involved in this is enormous.
Of course, there were also some real kick-ass state-of-art Aluminium foundry we saw, but I couldn't take any pictures. China reminded me a little of USA -- everything is big.
Right after returning from China, my trip to Philippines has been arranged. The trip was meant for two weeks travelling from North to South of Philippines, but the job site in the South had some demonstrations, so our trip to Philippines was shortened to only a week. (I travelled with Mr. Experience in Philippines.)
I was extremely tired when returning from China, and was secretly feeling glad that this trip to Philippines is only a week instead of two. Although I still have to return again early next year to the South.
This trip to Philippines also coincide with my birthday, it falls on a Saturday. I spent my birthday in the job site climbing 60 ft above the ground, walking on thin structures and frames. Although I like engineering, but kinda feeling sad that I have to work over the weekend and my birthday, while the office politicians have been shooting arrows at my back.
I met our representative in the birthday evening, we celebrated in the hotel restaurant with half a coconut cake and a bouquet of lilies. I doubt I could bring the flowers back to Malaysia -- It wouldn't worth quarantine it in the airport.
The plants are in some remote places in Philippines. On our way to the plants, I saw a river was entirely filled by the volcano sludge and turned into very unique grey/black stripes of land, stretching miles and miles.
I saw large sugarcane fields and padi fields along the highway that has no ends, the large stretch of light purple sugarcane flowers under the huge dead volcano was giving a oddly peaceful aura.
I also saw mountainful of coconut trees with huge underground geothermal steam pipes snake around it and around the villages to get into the plant. Coconut trees were sweeping as the wind blows, and the geothermal steam merged with the moving white clouds, everything is so dreamy and serene. If it weren't the hot sun, the sweat, the machine and construction sounds we made, it would be a heaven.
Back to reality, one thing I find common in all these 3 countries, is the horrible traffic jam.
Life have been pretty hectic coming towards the end of the year.
I have been travelling a lot since end of October.
It started with a trip to Bangkok with my high school friend and her family in October, which I planned since early this year. It was more like a revenge to my husband's active night life/social life, because I hardly get to see him earlier this year due to his frequent mamak time with his friends. So I thought I should give myself some time off too. But I guess things somehow turned out quite too much...
After returning from the 4 days shopping trip in Bangkok, I was told by the MD to go to South Korea, and was also asked by the US colleague if I could join him in his visit to China. So, I headed off to South Korea and jumped to China.
This trip to South Korea gave me some chance to look around, as my flight to China was over the weekend. I went to the Changdeokgong palace, and had some peaceful moment on my own inside the king's secret garden.
Seoul is a very vibrant city, and Gangnam is especially high-tech. I was lost in Gangnam, and came to realize that the huge black pillars that served like the street lights, are also multipurpose interactive tourist boards that have maps etc.
In my China trip, I saw some living history in one of the China factories, see below.
This image looks exactly like one of those we seen in our history text books, talking about industrial revolutions. But the picture was taken when these people were working right before my eyes. I guess only engineers could appreciate this? The manual labour involved in this is enormous.
Of course, there were also some real kick-ass state-of-art Aluminium foundry we saw, but I couldn't take any pictures. China reminded me a little of USA -- everything is big.
Right after returning from China, my trip to Philippines has been arranged. The trip was meant for two weeks travelling from North to South of Philippines, but the job site in the South had some demonstrations, so our trip to Philippines was shortened to only a week. (I travelled with Mr. Experience in Philippines.)
I was extremely tired when returning from China, and was secretly feeling glad that this trip to Philippines is only a week instead of two. Although I still have to return again early next year to the South.
This trip to Philippines also coincide with my birthday, it falls on a Saturday. I spent my birthday in the job site climbing 60 ft above the ground, walking on thin structures and frames. Although I like engineering, but kinda feeling sad that I have to work over the weekend and my birthday, while the office politicians have been shooting arrows at my back.
I met our representative in the birthday evening, we celebrated in the hotel restaurant with half a coconut cake and a bouquet of lilies. I doubt I could bring the flowers back to Malaysia -- It wouldn't worth quarantine it in the airport.
I saw large sugarcane fields and padi fields along the highway that has no ends, the large stretch of light purple sugarcane flowers under the huge dead volcano was giving a oddly peaceful aura.
I also saw mountainful of coconut trees with huge underground geothermal steam pipes snake around it and around the villages to get into the plant. Coconut trees were sweeping as the wind blows, and the geothermal steam merged with the moving white clouds, everything is so dreamy and serene. If it weren't the hot sun, the sweat, the machine and construction sounds we made, it would be a heaven.
Back to reality, one thing I find common in all these 3 countries, is the horrible traffic jam.
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