First weekend

Finally after a week of slogging at work, I've reached my first weekend! Yuppie!!! Although I'm sitting in office the entire, but it is pretty tiring facing excel sheets the entire day, so today I went out for a kopi session with my guys! Oh ya, before I begin, I'd like to send my condolences to Alvin and his family, his grandma just passed on, so I'd like to wish them all the best and to look forward. Went for the wake earlier, JC and some of the court guys were also there. Was listen to them, and now we have progressed to talk about buying of houses. Obviously Alvin is already Q-ing for flat. Probably intends to get married in about 3 years time. JC is also Q-ing for a flat already.... and me, still swinging around single and super available... haa

Yup, anyway after I went to the wake, I met the guys at Thomson prata for kopi and chit chat. But once I got there they decided to change place... so we went to this kopi tiam next to Nee Soon Camp. Had a nice chit chat session with them. Of course the session included a lot of talk about our work now. But half way through the talk, I was already feeling pretty tired. Think its because of my work. Was a little sleepy... Even now, I'm feeling pretty sleepy, but waiting for my hair to dry up. Well looking forward to enjoying my weekend. Tomorrow (or should I say today), I'll be going to my aunt's place for moon cake gathering. Yup, they're having this get together to feast on moon cakes and drink tea, and also not to forget the bitching session where you talk about everything under the sun. But I'm expecting a lot of questions on my work. I can just hear it already, "so how's work?", "Getting used to the job?", "Can pick up the pace?".... The usual first week of work questions. Not really my favourite conversation to engage. Of course, I know its all out of concern, a little of these questions are ok with me... I just hope it doesn't get too repeatitive, and on and on and on... And then someone (like xiao gu) to cover me with the cold blanket (as he's prone to doing). Hmmm...

Overseas in Singapore

Don't be mistaken, I'm not going oveseas. Morgan Stanley is definately not sending a temp staff overseas for any meetings what so ever. But working in Morgan is really very much like working oversea. Why? Because the group of colleagues sitting just behind me are the japanese correspondents. This means that they speak Jap all the time, in fact most of them are Jap to begin with. So throughout the day, I keep hearing them converse in Jap to their clients (probably from Japan). Then in another corner is little Hong Kong. The people there speak in cantonese over the phone to their clients.So there is this mix of languages going on in office, and this makes it seem a little like I'm overseas. It does bring back some memories of Shanghai, when I'm in office and the colleagues are speaking in Shanghaiese, and I can hardly understand a thing (it did get a little better towards the end, but still I'll give myself a 2/10 for my level of shanghaiese, haha). Erm, about my office, the job is pretty mundane (as Terrance had promised when I went for the interview), but there is a lot to do. A lot of checking and checking and checking. For the first 2 days, I really worked till I wanted to cry. Its not because the work is tough, or the stress level is super high, but its because I cannot understand how their system works. For a big company like Morgan, they have a pretty backward system. They are handling a lot of clients and there isn't a standard for tracking the client's information (I'm trying to be very vague here, I can't say too much about the exact details of what I'm doing). Every client/market has a very different way of data entry. So this makes it very difficult to retrive the data that you want. The job is actually very simple and can be done very fast. But its the searching that is taking up so much time. A lot of time I just can't find the data that I want, and this makes it very frustrating. I was so disappointed with myself. I kept thinking whether it was me that is plain stupid for not being able to grasp the system fast enough. But I really tried my best, I did as I was thought to find each of the information that I needed, but a lot of times, it just returns with a null result. Well at least today was a little better, managed to locate most of my information (guess I'm slowly getting it, I hope) with minimum help. There is still a lot to learn in Morgan, and I hope I can grasp each challenge fast enough and move on. I must admit that I do not want to be checking information all my life in Morgan, I have to move on to other things. Well I hope this is the beginning of greater things... hmmm, to infinity and beyond!

First day

Today marks the start of my career... Started my day in Morgan early this morning, its been a while since I woke up this early and lasted the entire day, woot.... All in all, everything was fine. The job isn't as easy as it seems, there are loads of things to learn and to pick up. But really the thing that makes the jbo difficult is the huge number of uncertainty in what you do. Alot of it is so ambigious. I gotta check figures and numbers, but most of the time the numbers don't match, then every client that request for payment have a different style of billing, so I'll have to learn each of their styles. Then there are loads of codes for each client, and different codes for each market... and thats what makes the job confusing. I must say that if the pay remains as it is, I probably would not stay for long. Mainly because its not really the kind of job that I want. Number 1, I really do not fancy a desk bound job. Being desk bound makes me feel very confined, but of course if the pay is good, I can still perform well in the desk bound job. So I'm now bidding my time, looking if there are any changes to my employment status. But moving around is really my style, being at a desk and looking at the computer the entire day is really quite tiring. But I will definitely stay to complete the 3 months. Whatever happens after that, we'll see...

After work I went over to City Hall to try to use my G2000 voucher (which has expired by 2 days). I totally forgot about the expiry date, I had thought that the voucher expires at the end of Sept. So I picked up a shirt and went to pay for it using the voucher, and the sales auntie told me that I cannot use it. I already explained to her that I'm not out to cheat her or something, the voucher was only 2 days old, come on baby... Certainly you can still accept it, but nooooo, she just wouldn't take it. damn, so I just gave up the shirt and left the store. It really makes me wonder, why in the world does a cash voucher has an expiry date. I mean the vouchers were bought using cash so that the user can use the vouchers to buy from the store. Which means that in actual fact, the vouchers were also cash. So how can money have an expiry date. It doesn't make sense. If the voucher was given out by the store for free, I can still understand, because it would have been given out of good will, and that it would only allow people to use it within a certain period of time, but for a voucher that was bought by cash?!? HUH??? WTF.... I'm thinking whether I should write in to the press to express my thoughts, but I don't know, see how lah. You know my english isn't very good, but through the press is the easiest way to get an answer. Once it gets published, I'll get a reply almost instantly. Hmmm.... thats one option... I'll think about it. Okok, gotta get my bathe now... Haiz, still have to wake up early tomorrow....

Up the ladder

Tomorrow I'll be starting my climb up the corporate ladder. Yup, I'm starting work tomorrow morning at 9am. I have no idea how I'm gonna wake up in time for it, but I will. I just hope that everything will turn out well tomorrow and that I have made the right choice (erm, even if its wrong also bo bian). 8 Sept... marks the beginning of my becoming. Me taking that first step into the next phase of my life. Where bills and money issues officially come into my life. Where I have to exchange hard labour for cash. Hmmm.... Well I think it shouldn't be that bad, can it? I'm sure I'll be able to perform just well. But I do hope that I would not be stranded there like a lost dog, with nothing to do. I'm pretty sure that I'll be handling some pretty mundane job for this contract period, but I still hold that glimsp of hope that they will see something in me, and slowly pass and teach me some of the slightly more important stuff. I do want to learn the rope, and really what I need is some people to teach me. Okie, I resolve to be more proactive in my job, and ask as much as I can, and pick up the rope as quickly as possible.

Right now I'm dying my hair, gotta get it to a single colour before the start of my working life. As you know my hair was highlighted after my exams, and really I think I should do something about it before work begins. Initially I wanted to get it back to all black, but I'm too lazy to go out and buy the dye, so I'm using the one I bought in Hong Kong way back a year and a half ago. The colour is Auburn. Its slightly reddish, and I thought it should be good enough, anyway asians are supposed to have darker hair, so from experience, whichever colour I put on my hair, it should turn out to look pretty black (well then again I'm colour blind remember, haha). Good luck for tomorrow!

Random pics

I find I have quite a lot of photos, some of which I said that I will share on this blog but was too lazy to upload them... so now (while I'm still free) I've decided to upload, randomly, some of my photos onto this blog... there are qutie a lot... so maybe I'll release them bit by bit.... I'm starting with family and interesting stuff first, so here's the first batch.

Me and MJ all dressed up for our photo shoot... lets see he's in Korean wear while I'm in some Jap clothing... forever so grumpy looking, its so difficult get him to pose a nice smily face for the camera. In the corner, you can find my cool Ah Ma, also dressed in Korean wear, cool right! yoyo check it out!

Here's MJ before the photo shoot... Snapped a pic of him in the toys room while waiting for our turn

Okie remember previously I blogged about going to Mandai for a durian picking trip... well these are the only 2 durians that we managed to pick after close to 3 hours of searching in the jungle... and the best part is one of them is spoilt. The durians may look pretty big in the pic, but in actual fact, its only slight larger than your fist. Sad right....

This is from my cousin (the one in red, the face a bit blur) Birthday! The party was in Kbox at Kallang leisure park. We had the while room to ourselves, which was very big (very uncommon for Kbox). Dinner buffet was also included.

This was taken in the NTU auditrium, just before the start of convocation. I was sitting just in front of Alvin, so we took the opportunity to snap a pic first. Cheeze!

疼憨人

I'm now addicted to this song that is featured in Royston Tan's lastest movie 12 Lotus 十二莲花 (ok ok the movie's already been out for a month already), its called 疼憨人, sung by 杨佳盈 Carrie Yeo of Project Superstar. I think the melody is really nice, and Carrie really did well to deliver the song, kudos to Carrie and 12 Lotus for bringing such a nice song... Anyway I can't find any copies of the song online, so if you wanna listen to the song you can go buy the CD or listen to it from this website

博客 92088

The start of my career

It has been decided... As of this morning, I have officially sold my soul to Morgan Stanley. Erm, actually it should be to Adecco to be exact. Because in actual fact I'm not contracted to Adecco, seconded to Morgan Stanley. So by right, Morgan Stanley is not my employer. Well I just hope that I made the right choice, anyway there's no turning back now, so I guess I'll just have to make the best of it.

I've also thought it out, my contract will hold till the 7th of December, so I've made plans for the worst scenario to happen.
(A) If after 3 months, Morgan Stanley decides that they don't want me, I'll just use the money that I've earned in the 3 months to go on a holiday. Then come back and start looking for another job.

(B) If after 3 months, Morgan Stanley still only want me as a contract staff, I'll continue to keep the job. But I'll give myself a deadline of next year's Chinese New Year. If by that time I still do not get an offer to become perm, then I'll start looking for another job.

This should work out fine right? I mean I do not want to remain on contract for 1 entire year. When on contract I do not get any of the benefits that Morgan's staff gets, I do not have any leave, I am not entitled to any pay rise, and I am not entitled to any bonus at all. Already I have forgo about $4k to accept this job, naturally I do hope to see some form of returns in the future, if this job works out, then all is well... But if it doesn't, then I'll have to seek greener pastures elsewhere, even though this is one of the biggest company in the financial world. I'm keeping my fingers crossed now, as I climb the coperate ladder, just hoping that everything will turn out fine for me. Amen.