Rumour

I heard a rumour today from a VP, asking if Decamouth is leaving.
I wonder...

Old England is back

There was this lady who worked in our office for 15 years before the last retrenchment two years ago. She was hired by our agent after leaving our office, she is now back to our office since the beginning of this month.

I called her Old England, OE.

Despite her strengths are on the product line currently taken care by me, the boss put her in the product line which I would be more suitable. In other words, the MD put OE to do the jobs that are more suitable for me, vice versa.

I have been depressed over my responsibilities for very long, way before OE is back to the office, because it is not challenging enough. Though I am getting very comfortable with what I am doing now, I feel that my intelligence is getting rusty day by day, my EQ is plunging new low everyday...

I was given only one choice, which I might just take it eventually.

Tried on wedding gown

Went to choose my gowns for photo shooting yesterday. The photo session will be two weeks from now, but I need to choose the gown in order for them to alter it prior to the photo session.

I went with my partner, the entire process was rather pleasant, as I didn't need to fight with other brides for gowns, like what I saw in other bridal shops.

I had the entire floor by myself, choosing everything that is available there. The tailor was helping me to fit in the dresses, and gave some comments on some of the dresses I chose.

Some of my friends volunteered to help me on the gown fitting day, but I rejected all of them, as I already know what fits my body the best. And I am not keen to have a bunch of girls who are overly keen to get into the marriage process again, giving lots of comments which they might not have done on their wedding and wanted to realise it through my wedding without their own cost.

The bridal shop had the entire day booked for me, but I took less than 3 hours to choose 3 dresses.

It was tiring enough, eventhough all I needed to do was to pull out the dress from the shelves and wear it, with the help of the tailor.

I am happy with two of the three gowns. The third one was chosen by my partner, which I thought it looked like a huge blue meringue. But I guess I should try on something that's outside my normal self.

I saw some of the jewelleries available in the shop, I guess I might need to make some myself. Because most of them were too elaborative.

I am foreseeing some problems to coordinate the photo album after the photo session. Because outside the 3 dresses, which two were ivory/white and a royal blue, I also have a Chinese traditional two-piece-dress which is chilli red with lots of complicated embroideries. I wonder if the album would turned out to be like an American flag?

Exciting week

It has been a rather exciting week so far. I spent 3 days outside office, meeting client and did inspection work at a job site with Mr. Porche.

Mr. Porche is a great manager, I enjoyed learning from him and working with him.

I also got my engineering chartership yesterday. Yay~! But when I looked at Mr. Porche, I feel that there is still a long way for me to become a professional engineer like him. He got his CEng around my age too, would I become like him in 10 years time?

Labuan a year later

I was in this plant a year ago doing operation and maintenance training to the client's operation team. I visited the plant with our project management consultant and wrote something about social etiquette. It was just before I left to Kansas.

I went back again earlier this week to do a performance test on the product, after it has been operated for a year. I am happy for carrying out the test with the help of Mr. Experience.

The test went well, and we had one extra day before coming back. It was meant for contingency, we took that day and visited Labuan a little. Of course, I received phone calls from Mr. Porche, and had to cut the lazy day short to return to hotel checking some emails from him.

Mr. Experience spent longer time in Labuan while the product was being constructed, he knew the place pretty well. He brought me to this restaurant and we enjoyed some pretty good seafood by the sea. Don't imagine great settings, as it is also next to the wet market. It is not a place for ambiance.

There was a black cat with yellow stripes, that meow at our table from the beginning to the end of our meal. It even raised its paw to pad my thigh and my chair, to show that "hey, I am calling you to give me some food."

It didn't go away despite having a few rather large treats from us. It came back the next day when we returned as well. Darn cat.

Labuan is pretty small, most of the people work for the few plants there. You can see people walking around the city center with colourful coveralls, including myself.

Anyway, I am back home now.

Exit, escape

My career with this company, in its local office has come to a bottleneck.
I am more interested in product development, but there isn't an option here. I even offered to be in the project management role, but there just don't have any other choices. There isn't anything going on here, unless I were transferred to other offices outside of this country. But I can't leave this country for a long period of time anymore.

I was given an easy exit, but I guess it doesn't matter where I go, the result would be similar.

The South East Asia market houses mainly sales offices from various multinational corporations. Most of them don't have a proper (if ever) technical team here. It is always good to have a technical person in the local team, but it would only bore the technical person to death, as the technical supports are pretty trivial -- mainly generated from the sales person who refuses to understand the product and to take the responsibilities for owning up their promises to the clients. More importantly, it is because the technical teams here couldn't make the decisions for the product specials requested by the clients.

Some advised me to start my own business, but growing up in a business household, I am very reluctant to get into a business.

I don't know what am I doing here... I need to escape from this life.

What a day

Had my first car accident today.
I accidentally crushed into the car in front of me, during a traffic jam.
The damages on that car was barely noticeable, the damages on my car include dented front bumper and crooked bonnet cover.

Was nervous, and did some stupid things by complying to the command of that lady -- supplied too much personal details.

I insisted to lodge a police report, instead of settling on the spot. Just came back from police station. I am worried that she might come and harass me, because she had my personal details.

The lady was pretty fierce.