Weekend Update ~ Singapore

Other that I had a flight delay back to Singapore on the cheapo Jetstar plane last Wednesday night, I actually had a nice weekend long weekend back at home catching up with my friends and family. :)

On Thursday, we had lunch with hubby's mum and uncle at my favorite prawn noodle shop on Upper East Coast Road. Then we visited hubby's birth place and childhood home on Onan Road which was to be torn down to make way for some private apartments. It was really rundown and I could feel that hubby didn't like living in it at all. The stairs leading up to the apartment was to him the scariest part of the place when he was young.

We went to some dog farms at Pasir Ris with D in the afternoon. Saw some pretty cute puppies but somehow, none of them were comparable to my Coffee and Cookie. I loved the Golden Retriever puppies that I saw but we do not have the kind of house for them...too bad. I would really love to see how Coffee and Cookie will interact with a Golden Retriever. It will be such a funny sight to see a big Golden Retriever being chased by the tiny Toy Poodles. Imagining the scene is making me smile... :) We didn't buy any puppies but the best part of the trip to the dog farms was a chance-meeting with a Malaysian van with the best durians on sale. It was really tasty eating durian out in the open, the unique Singapore experience.

We had supper with some old colleagues on Thursday night at East Coast Lagoon. Had some very tasty local treats such as satay, tulang, fried oyster omelet, cockles, BBQ stingray, etc. It was such a feast!

On Friday, hubby had to fly back alone because of his classes on Saturday but we managed to squeeze in a lunch with his whole family. His elder brother whom we have not met for a long time came too and I could feel that hubby was more than happy. MIL was really happy too, almost forgetting that her younger son was leaving that afternoon...I thought she didn't even say goodbye to him...

After hubby left for Hong Kong, I met some of my good frineds from school on both Friday and Saturday over some very good food again. Laksa, durian desserts, frog porridge...Yummy! I also managed to window shop at Ion, the latest shopping mall in town. The building structure was kind of special, but I thought that it was not very shoppers friendly inside. It was easy to loose your way inside the mall.

Sunday morning was spent quietly at home with mum and son before the flight. D is so fascinated with the yo-yo at the moment, he can do so many tricks with his yo-yo that I felt a little impressed. Now, if only he can put as much dedication in his studies and piano practices... N was out on a study group with some of her classmates and probably showing off the handphone that I had bought for her the day before. She's in puppy love now and I hope she enjoys her youth as much as possible.

Stinky as a rotten egg

Just came home last night from Singapore and I am still trying to snap myself back to the cruel reality of having to finish up my team assignments and having to concentrate on my work. I have not been productive at the whole morning since sitting here at my desk. I am just trying to figure out what I should do first...prioritise, prioritise...I have already put off writing my weekly report; since it was just 3 days of work last week, I single-mindedly decided that I can don't write anything this week and leave it to next week.

It was kind of a tough week for me. My boss in HK announced to me last Thursday that he has decided to take the VMI Support function out from my department and the woman who is handling it will be retrenched. It was 2pm when he announced it to me and I am suppose to disclose to this woman at 4pm the very same day. It was difficult, especially when this woman is sort of a friend whom I used to meet outside the office. I should have expected this to happen, she was one of those many "old" colleagues that the new management has targetted to cut. They are expensive and unproductive, if I am the boss, I will also choose them to cut.

In order to prevent any bad feelings, I decided to disclose the news to her before the offical time. She took it quite hard, asking to be released immediately from her position even though the company requested her to do a handover of jobs in a week or two. And since I also do not want her to create anymore trouble for me, I released her. She left before the day was over without clearing her things. She came back to the office the next day, but not until almost everyone has left the office. The HR personnel did not agree to do handover with her as she was officially off-duty and told her to come back during office hours. She refused and called me on my mobile to complain to me and requesting me to help her if the HR personnel call me. I was on my way to the airport to catch a flight home and I was totally upset by her. She is really such a bad egg! Why can't she just do as per the company's rules? Why must she give so much trouble to us? In the end, she insisted to pack her stuff and asked a junior staff in the department to help her handover her pass and handphone card to the HR department instead. That's the most annoying part, this junior staff is already helping her with her work and standing in for her to do the transfer of jobs to the Accounting department.

I am very angry with her and I am more angry with myself for choosing her to join my department 1 year ago. I should have just let her be retrenched there and then, why should I bother? I understand that she has pride, but this is not the way to handle things. She is being compensated fully and she has the responsibility to make the transfer go smoothly. In this way, she will only be known for her rotten egg ways and not for any good she has done over these 16 years she had worked in the company. It's such a pity.