Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Like butter spread over too much bread

I remember i wanted to blog about how stretched i was at work earlier this year. Stretched to the point where stress would accumulate at my neck and it was so stiff that i can't look to the side. Actually we are stretched in terms of staff, 3 colleagues left and no replacement have come in. The boss' favourite tagline, "Nobody is irreplaceable". Sure its easy for him to say, especially now that he is no longer my boss in a way due to a recent restructure. Just 50% of a boss because he is double hatting ie taking care of 2 portfolios.

To make matters worse, we the supposed replacements for the earlier exodus of staff to foreign banks which just established themselves in Malaysia, are totally new to this field of work. Like many people, one will be very motivated to work in what they thought would be interesting. I was actually overjoyed with the initial work. No more programming, no more bugs, no more pulling my hair out thinking what if the fuck is wrong with my codes, etc. After the orientation and honeymoon period, the workload began to pile up because to begin with we were understaffed as a group of 10 (boss included) would support the whole company.

The learning curve was really like the exponential line because i had to be thrown into the thick of the heat because like i mentioned we were understaffed and others have their own work to do. Asking over and over again ticked them off and you can see it on their faces if not in the tone of their replies. Luckily and thankfully, i have other friends who helped me in my work. They guided me away from most pitfalls but one learns better and faster by doing mistakes. So sometimes i was intentionally left in the dark to fall and to learn to watch out for the dangers so that i won't repeat them.

The bad thing about me is that sometimes i am slow to pick up on some things and its quite apparent now that im in quite a big mess now. My colleagues do offer help sometimes to help me catch up to their speed. I was told i was not running fast enough as my colleagues pace in doing work so i need to catch up. Well to be honest, now im really tired of this running. Getting old ei? Huffing and puffing everyday until im exhausted and will need to go to sleep by 10.30pm every night. By the time i get to my bed, my eyelids are no longer able to be open but i still need to make sure that my little one falls asleep before i can sleep in peace.

Taking leave for rest or even the long break during CNY did not do any good because if you are not work, the work will still pile there waiting for your return. If you go any longer, you can be sure that the pile will only get bigger. I so so wished that i could bring my little one somewhere during his school break this week but that is not to be. Sigh, a big project cutover is looming and the top people are focusing on the successful cutover so that their project may finally begin. On second thought, im actually handling 2 big projects which in the project manager's word would be, "It must not fail!".

"Like butter spread over too much bread" is actually quoted from Bilbo Baggins in the movie, The Lord of the Rings - The Fellowship of the Ring.

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

I won a Canon Ixus ^_^

On 3rd of March, i got a peculiar email titled, "Canon - Capture the Moment" as below

Hi Lawsh,

Congratulations!

You probably have seen from SportsCenter Asia program that you have won the SportsCenter – Canon Capture the Moment contest for [month] [year]. Your caption was the best caption of for the month of [month] [year].

We would like to make arrangements for sending the Canon IXUS 200IS to you, kindly provide your full contact details please.
Name in full
Address
Telephone number
Identification number


We look forward to hearing from you soon

Keep the captions coming!

Best regards,

C*** L**

I went to check on the competition website and true enough, my name was listed there! I quickly replied the email with all the required details :D I was overwhelmed with joy that i went and print out result page and boasted to my colleagues :p When i was finally able to sit down again, i went to check on the prize and its worth :D Available in 4 colors and retailed at RM1398. WOOT!!!

I was told that the prize would be sent to me by Canon's advertising company. So, true to their words, the advertising company contacted me with and email titled "Congratualtions! You've won a Canon Ixus 200IS" --> yes, it is a typo error was made by the sender :p


Hi Lawsh

Thank you for participating Canon – Capture The Moment contest on ESPNSTAR.com.

In our record, you are the winner for the month of [month] [year] . On behalf of Canon, the delivery of your prize will now be arranged immediately. Please reply to this email in order to acknowledge your contact details below are absolutely correct before we activate the delivery


Name: Lawsh

Address: Blah Blah Blah

Malaysia

Contact number: 60-1xxxxxxxx

Please also note that prize(s) are not exchangeable for cash and/or kind and all unclaimed prizes will be donated to charity. Should you have any further queries, please kindly contact V***** H** at +65 xxxx xxxx or v*****@d*****.com.sg.

Thank you again for your participation and continued support. We look forward to hearing from you soon.


Yours sincerely,

V***** H**

Regional Account Director

D***** Singspore Pte Ltd (on behalf of Canon Singapore Pte Ltd)

So i acknowledged this email and chose Gold color and was again happily awaiting for my prize ^_^ A few more days later, i got another email update to tell me that my prize will be delivered using DHL from Singapore. Woohoo! Finally its coming! I tracked the shipment from time to time but today its status was delivered :D

Prize picked up from Singapore --> Hong Kong --> Malaysia.

I was kind of dumbfounded that my camera traveled that far in just 2 days. From a neighbouring country sent to Hong Kong to be sorted @_@ before being sent to Malaysia. However, this also shows the efficiency of DHL in delivering their parcel as promised. *2 thumbs up!*

Now for the pictures of the new camera ^_^

The long awaited parcel ^_^

Inside the parcel was an envelope with my name :D

The prize was carefully wrapped with bubble wrap ^_^

Unwrapped the bubble wrap protector ...

A display of all the items in the box

Singling out the most important item in the box :p

Tada! It is finally revealed ^_^

Real color is brown but now it really does look like gold in colour :D

Down side is there is no memory card :( Luckily though i have an extra memory card from my previous camera :D So now i have 2 great cameras. Will need to take some time to explore the full functionalities but so far, its got both features of touch screen and button menus. You can tilt the camera slightly to scroll to the next picture OR slide it with your finger similar to iPhone :p

Related Posts with Thumbnails