I Didn't Win Those!! XD

Happy Easter guys!! We in Australia are enjoying out 4 days long weekend. I need that! Work has been busy with our developer team smaller than ever during my whole employment there and the complexity of work and difficulty level is higher than when we had the lowest number of employees before. However, in terms of amount of work, I'm not really complaining. It makes work goes quickly, and luckily, either I'm becoming more used to deal with dealing with the not so smart or asshole consultants, or they just have been avoiding me. From all my posts all this time, I guess you might already know my character, so you shouldn't be surprised lol. If I have to sum up my characteristic, I'd say when I love/like someone, I love him/her to the bone, if I hate someone, I also would hate him/her to the bone. I'm pretty fair on this matter :P

Not sure if I've mentioned this before, but I sometimes win competitions. People might say I very often win something. Let me say it this way. The other day, one of my friends commented on my instagram post, "How lucky you are! How can you win this??". The truth is, that post was to enter the comp. Not announcing that I won something. Later on that week, I received a bunch of stuffs that I ordered online, so I posted it up. My bestie straight away liked it. I messaged her saying, "I bought those stuffs btw. Just incase you thought I won them!". She replied, "Lol! I did!". She also said that her sister said to her the other day, "Purple lady won a bunch of stickers! How could she win all the time?". My bestie said, "Purple Lady won movie tickets too the other day". Her sister then said, "See?? Just making people soooo jealous!! It's not about the prize, but how can she win all the time??" And just reminding, I didn't win those stickers!!

Okay let me clarify this here. I don't win all the time. I entered more competitions than winning them. Just like gamblers, you'd say they win all the time, but you don't really know how much they have lost right? Plus, I have to admit, I have entered more competitions than anyone else I know. You can say I'm more diligent in the matter. Let me tell you an example, when I enter a comp, I sometimes send the link to my relatives so they can enter too. But very very rarely they actually entered. Got the idea? I do have the luck, but I do put in more effort :) though I only have won very few 25 words or less type of competition :l I'm still grateful though :)

I've reached my station. Talk to you later and enjoy your weekend! :D

Changes to Notice of Resignation

I've been having headache since yesterday because of superexcited. We received an email from Lao Er, asking us to sign the new contract as it's been changed a bit.

That bit is on notice of resignation. It says, upon leaving the company, if you've worked for 1 year, you need to give 1 month notice. If you've worked for 2 years, you need to give 2 months notice. And if you've worked for 3 or more years, you need to give 3 months notice.

Tell me, which company will hire you if you say you can only start 3 months later? I don't know if this is even legal. However I did check fairwork australia website and it says 1 week for 1 year employment, 2 weeks for 2 years, 3 for 3 years and 4 weeks max after.

I've spoken to the other ex-colleagues too and they all say not to sign. Eventhough it's not legally binding, knowing how superexcited is, he'll surely throw a tantrum and use the point of "you signed it!" to make us stay 3 months.

They wrote in the contract, it applies for both parties. So when the company wants to end your employment, they will have to give that much too. However, from past history, they will have closed door conversation and then tell us that they have reached a mutual agreement and Mr X has decided to leave and the company gives him 1 month salary. They never gave more than a month. Plus they do say, when there is need for less notice period, it will be case per case bases. I guess, that is the case.

I don't see how that contract will benefit us as employees. They say it's a win win solution that gives company enough time to hire and train new person and for us to find future employment. I can't see the benefit for us though. It only benefits them to find replacement but if we can't find a job, we will still have to go right? In the past they say it can be extended, but one ex-colleague left without new job on hand because he couldn't stand being asked every single day if he's got any offer yet.

I asked people around and most if not all of them said not to sign it. The rest say to sign it but then when it's time to go, just give 1 month and then leave. Basically to sign and not honor it. Some actually wonder why the boss insists to keep someone who already plans to leave to stay for that long. Imagine how unproductive that person would be. That's true though. I got my uni offer before I graduated and final months of my high school scores? Average of 30s lol.

I will just wait and see. I wonder if they will come and ask us personally for that signed contract. Coz as far as I can see, no one signed it yet.

Little Miss Nice Says Goodbye

Yesterday was Little Miss Nice's last day. She resigned a month ago because she couldn't stand to be here anymore. Honestly, everyone in my company would understand her. Except you know who.

She worked very long hours and she lives 2 hours away be it public transport or driving. Driving even can take more than 2 hours. Last week she left home at 6:40 am (i usually still in the process of pushing myself to get out of bed at that time) and arrived at work at 8:50, late. On her lucky day, she would leave work at 6. But usually, 6.30-7.

She's lost so much weight over the past few months, didn't have enough sleep during the weekdays, really nowhere near enough and had to depend on coffee to keep her alert. She still performed well at her work, but having too much things on her palate, she started to forget things too. The bad thing is, she's the only reliable and dependable one in her team.

She has 2 subordinates. 1 has been working here for more than a year and just before Little Miss Nice was announced leaving, that Da Sha Bi was promoted to the same level as Little Miss Nice (Shoot me -_-). He is nowhere near Little Miss Nice in terms of skills, attitudes and knowledge of his campaign. It's that bad so that I never confirm with him in regards to requirements, because I can't trust that it's what the client wants and covered in the document and not just another one of his ideas. It's really that bad so when I inducted a new IT guy, I told him to ALWAYS confirm with the other guys before doing Da Sha Bi's requests. Do not just do it. Same with the other guys in my department. They also don't trust him and labels him stupid.

Another one, Foxy, has been working less than a year. If you want to know about her ability, let me tell you this. It was Da Sha Bi who gave her induction and training, so what can you expect?

The only difference between the two shows when they make mistakes. Da Sha Bi gets anxious and panic, he feels guilty and realises he should have known better. Then he pesters IT to fix the issues ASAP ughh..
(if IT can fix it). Foxy on the other hand, when she makes mistakes, she doesn't feel like she should have known not to do it. She feels nothing wrong with not knowing. Eventhough really she should have known. She comes to IT calmly as normal and even laughs when telling us she's made a mistake and needs us to fix it. Got the idea? Bottom line is, both are 11-12. I.e. pretty much the same -_-

The website they work on is a big and complex website. It used to have like 5 people managing it - 1 senior, 2 mid levels and 2 juniors, and now it's only 1 senior with 2 juniors (1 of them thinks he's at least a mid level though, another ugh...). So yeah, imagine the workload. Even the smallest thing, the juniors couldn't handle it properly. To put it simply, previously their department chased IT to do work. Now, IT has to chase them to do their work, whether it's testing, getting further info from client or going live.

So yeah last month, Little Miss Nice resigned. Superexcited didn't accept her resignation. He kept telling her to sleep on it, think about it again. He even went as far as avoiding her everytime she tried to talk to him. Same with Poker Face. He kinda avoided her. On the other hand, Lao Er accepted her resignation immediately. He understood when she said it's been affecting her health, how she's losing a lot of weight etc. He said, at the end of the day Superexcited will have to accept it. But he told her to keep trying talking to him.

She gave her resignation on Tuesday, but it was only finally accepted on Friday COB. You might say, it's a resignation. Nobody can force you to stay, why do you need it accepted?? Well, I don't know why, but our company has this talent to hire mostly decent people who always want to do the right thing.

So there goes the first week of her 4 weeks notice. Then another week flew by before finally we received an email from Superexcited announcing her leave. However, in that email it said, "Little Miss Nice is going on 'sabbatical leave' and will be joining us again in the new financial year". I called her right away and said, "so apparently you're going on sabbatical and gonna come back next financial year eh?" LOL

I read her resignation letter. There's nowhere in that letter indicating her intention to return. She told me, youknowwho told her, "i'm going to write this, is this alright?". Well.. what can she say? Even Lao Er told her to just go along with it just so he can let her go :l

Third week comes and she still couldn't teach someone to take over her responsibility. She previously couldn't do so as it was not announced yet. But now it's because they haven't decided who'll take over her work. Third week man! Forth week went almost the same. She might only explained half or even less of what she knew.

Usually when someone has been working more than 3 years, then collection will go around and directors chip in too to buy something as farewell gift. Little Miss Nice has been working for almost 4 years, so she is eligible (I honestly think more than a year is already eligible. But I'm not the boss). So on that final week, one of us went to youknowwho to ask about the collection. To which he replied, "What for? She's coming back! Do you know something that I don't know?". Man, everybody knows it, only you like to believe otherwise...

Because of that, we had to go around his back to arrange card and gifts for Little Miss Nice. Little Miss Nice is very dedicated, nice, polite, and pleasant, everybody likes her. So everyone naturally wanted to get her something. The other department collected money to get her her favourite bottle. And I collected money from IT and accounting department and went and bought her a pearl bracelet and a pair of pearl earrings (the bracelet is so pretty I even want it for myself T__T). And I asked our graphic designer to design and make a farewell card for her. Even we had to mention to him not to make it too big to make it easier to discreetly distribute it for everyone to sign.

We had to think about the people who we could tell to. Directors were definitely excluded. Then I was tossing if I should tell Creamer, but he worked with her the most and he asked her out too as mentioned in previous story, so I told him about the collection with strict instructions NOT to tell superexcited. I said, "I know you're close to him. So do not tell him". Mr Prick is excluded too coz we can't trust him to shut his mouth.

Even we were worried about when to give the presents. On her last day, we had arranged for lunch, drinks after work and dinner with Little Miss Nice. Giving it during the drinks is a straight no no, directors would be there. Dinner... Crown Prince would be there hmmm.... He would definitely tell superexcited for sure. So lunch time... But then prick might be there :l see? Even just giving it to her we needed to consider so many things! Luckily, Mr prick didn't come that day woohooo ^^ if not, we'd resort to giving the gifts in the name of one of the colleague who's going to leave soon, and she would tell her the truth later on.

So yeah, even on her last day Superexcited still said things like about her coming back in financial year, that he'd call her next week to discuss etc etc. Little Miss Nice talked to Lao Er saying she didn't mention anything about coming back at all! Lao Er replied saying that superexcited started the lie and seemed like now believing it as the truth :l that is really crazy.

Which reminds me, some time ago Lao Er mentioned the story of how they got together and built this company. He said they left the old company because the director was crazy. He said white lies and things to board members that they've done this and that, but they actually haven't! But then later on, he started believing his own lies! Talk about history repeating?

Gong Xi Fa Cai! Xin Nian Kuai Le! ^^

Happy Chinese New Year everyone!! Xin Nian Kuai Le! Gong Xi Fa Cai, Wan Shi Ru Yi, Nian Nian You Yu :)

This year my parents are here with us in Sydney, sooo we had our family dinner with our cousins at our place, and I got red pocket!!! ^^ well I know you might say, "You're already working anyway, you shouldn't get red pockets anymore!!". But still, getting red pockets take me back to my childhood when eventhough we weren't allowed to publicly display the celebration, had to have a letter written by my mum to get us out of school for the day, but we actually celebrated it quite festive.

Compared to kids nowadays, I think we had it better when we were kids. We always got new pyjamas and clothes for Chinese New Year (get cut growing up, but usually at least we got new t-shirt for pyjamas), had cookies, cakes, cashews and lollies ready at home for the guests, and on the day we went to relatives houses to say happy new year. Mind you, we didn't get red pockets from all of the relatives. Growing up, my uncles and aunties from my dad's side never ever ever EVER gave us red pockets. They all had mutual agreement of not giving them away to their kids. So what I was looking for was really the cakes and cookies and cordials lol XD I guess I was glutton even since I was small :P orrrrr I've always been able to find the good thing in everything ;)

We also always had Chinese New Year's Eve dinner with my dad's siblings family. I personally did not enjoy those dinners. 1. It was 10 dish Chinese dinner. Every food came 1 by 1 and took 2-3 hours just to get all the food out. 2. Apart from me and my sisters, we only had 2 similar age cousins. 1 of them is a boy, so he didn't count back then lol. The rest of the cousins were at least 6 years older, so sitting with them - who I honestly think had no interests whatsoever to 4 of us - was very boring. We weren't close either. The only occasions where we meet during a year were Chinese New Year and weddings. But at least we had those dinners as a tradition.

The one we always looked forward to was either going to my mum's family home on the Chinese New Year. That's the time we got our red pockets and meet the cousins from my mum's side. Compared to from dad's side, this cousin relationship is way way way wayyyy closer. We're all pretty much 1 year apart to one another, so it's really easy for us to get close to each other. Eventhough in total we had 6 years gap between me who was the eldest and the youngest one, each of us had few kids to play with, and 5 of them actually lived in the same house, so we were all close.

The food was more enjoyable too considering we didn't have to sit on the dining table and eat nicely. There wasn't enough chairs on the table, so we got to sit on the couch or sitting on the floor eating. It was so much fun :)

It's good that we were all growing up together. Looking at my 2 little cousins now, I'm pretty sure receiving my red pockets were more fun than them receiving theirs. Now it's only 2 of them getting the red pockets while on my time, there would probably be 5-6 cousins with me excitedly shouting Kiong Hee to an uncle or auntie who just arrived at the door and not even in yet XD It was fun times. I'm glad I have those memories :)

This year we tried to make our house look festive too. We had the cookies and cashews prepared, hung the Chinese ornaments and also stick some paper cutting and of course the monkey king decoration on the wall :) the only bad thing was just we still had to go to work :(

Well... at least I've got my colleagues wishing Happy Chinese New Year to me :)

Happy Chinese New Year everyone!! ^^