Bitch at work!

After a long stretch of working hard, I rewarded myself with a midweek break. However instead of taking 1 day off, I took 2. On advice from Terence, decided to take Thu off as well. Thu - NPI day so that I need not chair that @#$ meeting anymore and force Pam into taking up her new role.

The last few weeks has been quite busy - and that's an understatement. We've had crisis, Sales and Marketing meeting on Monday, a million things to do for Summer launch...

While I was initially relieved to have Pam join us from Mar 1, she's been quite an office player. Turns out she complained to boss abt me not helping her when all I've been doing is helping, even til now.

Since she wants the glam part of her job, I'll let her have her own job back. The good, the ugly and the dirty bits of it. Her excuse that she's not good with Excel is too lame.

I will always do my job - cos I owe it to God. And I will help out if needed, but, I am also not stoopid and will not be made use of.

So Pam, since you complain I'm not helpful, I will really STOP being helpful. You're on your own kiddo!

Cable Ski wknd

Cable skiing ain't as easy as I thought it would be...

Instead of climbing on a Saturday, someone suggested cable skiing. Since we all nursed climbing related strains/aches/overusage of fingers/wrists/shoulders, it sounded like a great idea to take 1 Saturday off to try a new sport.

Other than the early start & needing to take ferry to Batam.. Translated, I had to wake up early on a Saturday (sacreligious!)

The cable ski park in Batam costs $80 all day inclusive of the ferry/transfer & a packed lunch. Much cheaper than if we'd gone to East Coast.

All of us managed the kneel-boards easily.. So natural progression, onto wakeboards. And that's where the falling began. Considering I have tried both water-skiing (2 skis) & wakeboarding (single-ski) in the past, off a boat, cable skiing is awfully hard.

I pretty much spent the whole afternoon, adopting launch posture, to fall either forwards/backwards into water, swim back to platform, board drifts back, repeat step 1, fall, repeat...

The place is pretty nice. Nice hunks to chat with, pretty scenic place, hang around with friends..

Another biz trip...

I've been in HP for 7 years now and never traveled as much as I did last year. Initially it was great and I guess I do enjoy seeing new places and experiencing different cultures, but when the trips are too often and too close together, it does get physically tiring and places tremendous stress on the body.

My colleague Steph schedules her trips inclusive of recreational trips back to back to the point she was sick for weeks. The gal's just got too much 'get up and go' attitude, very admirable for a lazy procrasinator like me.

This year, I visited Korea for my first time for an AP PR launch. Other than it being f#$ing cold in Jan, I had a great time.

Work wise - it was the worse trip of my life (2 demo PCs died after being manhandled by the hotel staff ; cables went missing ; we had to switch to static instead of live displays for our Product Showcase)...

But personally, I enjoyed the rest of it - had extended an extra day to see a little of Seoul with Steph. We visited temples, went shopping, took the Seoul subway, ate Korean BBQ and ginseng chicken, found ourselves insulted by insensitive Korean salespeople who estimated me to be a size L... Steph incidentally makes a great traveling companion. She's amiable, game for anything, and has a great sense of humour.

The highlight was visiting the DMZ, Steph wanted to see the "meeting room" where N & S Korea signed the ceasefire treaty. The correct name is the Joint Security Area. While the half day tour was very educational. I also found out that Steph had absolutely no concept of war.

Just booked another biz trip - Taiwan in mid Apr for the quarterly monitor review.

Light at end of tunnel

February was a blur. I was asked to stand-in for the NPI lead role whilst Andy moved onto being SEAT RM, for the month of February. Pamela - Andy's replacement would only join the team Mar 1.

I found myself working late, working from home, working over weekends. It was horrible all over again.

Thankfully, it is now Mar. Pamela's on her 2nd day of work, Andy's taken over completely all SEAT related activities. Although the workload's still bad, but I can see light at the end of the tunnel.