Work Climate Q2 2009

18th March 2009, Wednesday

The young couple went on their Gallic escapade for the next 3 weeks, so at work we are a little short-handed. Not that it is a subject to whine about since it's my responsibility after all which earns me my monthly dough, but you can see the stark difference when we have to run 3 locations at a time with the same amount of output.
Things are aye okay if everything went as planned but since the beginning of the week the robots are giving us problem while there are other small errors which aggravate the situation.

Not that the bosses are in dire needs of results or do they?
Shitty Green after embracing his new presidential homeland since January returns at the end of the week; despite that he is not the most likeable guy in my book, our department is like a ship without the captain at helms, very susceptible to incoming perils.
The Chinese American guy was almost negligent of us which may not be that bad for some as he doesn't clamp the style; but it was too aloof I felt.
He was gone for some conference apparently as well this week.

Since last week I had this slight migraine acting on the back of my cranium and by this week it became persistent and niggling especially during office hours.
I wonder if it is the poorly ventilated workplace or the lack of quality sleep for the past fortnight or just need another break, but if it doesn't go away by tomorrow, I am considering seeing the doctor on Friday.

The usual harbinger of bad news (and sometime good news), Beautiness gave insight of how bad the performance bonus for this year would be as his impressive netwroking skills had once again excelled.
With the ailing economy with the government cutting edges here and there, our sector is still considered rather secure but we cannot expect bonus of the incorrigible magnitude of those AIG management.
"0.5 month or nothing" said Beautiness with the recognisable tone of dejection.
Who wouldn't after 2 good years preceding this wretched year, I'm just glad to have my job seriously as I pray every night to the tooth fairy that my contract would come into fruition by May (a month before the current contract ends and the usual period when HR would prepare the new one)

The earth shattering news today was that the gym across the road will go into the book of history come 1st April (and I hope it's an April Fool joke).
With speculations of the gym wrapping up for months now, the HQ finally wield the axe when they managed to tie down with the alumni house on the slope behind us, we now have to the option of working out at the gym there.
Seemingly that place was much inferior to the incumbent in terms of the space, equipments and amenities which really upset a Chinese post-doc at our side who like myself a regular at the current gym. This is all on top of how inconvenient it is to make our way there but once the HQ made the decision, like all the Singaporean government and associated organisations, the decision would not be overturned.

I have always prepared for such a day to come but it still saddens me that the gym and their instructor which had grown to be an important aspect of my life will be gone... hope I will continue my regular work out still by then 'cos my health really banks on it...

Japanese word of the day: 終えなさい (Axe) They should just axe the shuttle service as well it's awful

Work Appraisal 2008

15th October 2008, Wednesday

Today marks the deadline for the submission of the biannual performance appraisal which was mandatory here.
However being as anti-authoritarian as my pompous American boss is, he didn't even flinch a sign of doing the appraisal with any of us as he went R Kellying into his degenerative pedophilic ways (citation needed)... He was also seen in a rather seclusive "emo" mood of late...

Wonder how would an appraisal session would him be like... *shudders at the thought of it*
It seems like it could end up being a hush hush session since he likes to do it at the eleventh hour and just appraise what you have graded yourself to be...
Or it could be a gruelling face off when you defended your proposal for perhaps a legitimate "Efficient" grade while he started striking off items on the list as if he was packing for yet another Southeast Asian child sex trip.

Though not the most passionate guy at work, I am at least proficient enough for all my working years thus far as verified by the previous 2 female supervisors (no...no under table Lewinsky service for them to win their favour)
I started being very modest to thread the water for my earlier editions of appraisals and were always graded much better than expected.
So I had decided then on to grade myself without an ounce of utter modesty...we are after all trying to sell ourselves only twice a work year to get substantial performance bonus or even a promotion.
In the past, I always managed to get away with it though I was still not thick enough to put the tick for the box beside RM or Role Model unlike a certain Beautiness who was famous to ornate his shamelessly in the past.
On the other end of the spectrum, P or Proficient is the minimum threshold I would grade myself and if more than half the categories, you got yourself a P, it's like you can kiss perhaps even a month's worth of bonus goodbye...it's the onus for the bonus, if you know what I mean.

So for this mid year one (which constitute maybe 0.3% to the actual grading come end of the work year in March which will determine whether May will be a fantastic or faded month), this is how I grade myself:

1) Teamwork: Excellent.... Hey I am a big fan of soccer and teamwork is one of the most important trait of a successful team, so I am all on for teamwork...doesn't really take into account how other think of me though.

2) Excellence in Work: Excellent... Since jumping ship to the more routine platform, I was fighting for limelight woth the other 3 which usually was hogged by His Beautiness anyway. With the unfortunate sequence of delays due to the equipments, we still try to produce the results as fast as we could (though never fast enough). Even to the point of sacrificing our weekends... Still I doubt it look like I am that efficient enough

3) Creativity: Proficient...We are not in advertising like the guys in "Mad Men" (of course less hooking around with buxomy women at work as well) So when comes to creatvity, especially with our routine work, it really boils to how you can increase your throughput with half the time given. Which at this point is almost impossible.

4) Commitment: Excellent.. I am willing to stay with the group through weals and woes...ok that's loyalty but can't fault my commitment though I don't lose sleep over bad results usually.

5) Interpersonal Skills: Excellent... I am great to interact with people and have a wholesome personality to mingle with everyone...just that I choose not to.

6) Expanding your Knowledge: Excellent... Shoot me for not downloading scientific papers and printing them to hard copy so as to fall into slumber just reading the first letter of the title. I am as interested in the world of molecular science as I am with multi-layer marketing. I do try to get myself interested with the know-how of my trade but to me my profession is just the avenue for cash and benefits and nothing more..sadly

I do have some other secondary roles to back me up but as aloof as he is, Shitty Green is not oblivious to how we had performed over the course of time.
Time and again people had mentioned how he was intimidated by my stern expression at work; perhaps that I could use to my advantage to get a decent appraisal.
Anyway I just got promoted this year,so zero chance for a 2nd year straight...
I am just glad to get an average level of bonus come next May which is likely to be a mere month under such economic climate...

Today also marked my 2nd wedding aniversary.
The missus and myself tend to align ourselves more to the day we were a couple (alas 25th November) and intend to celebrate by then.
Therefore she was kind of embarrassed when it was a colleague of hers who reminded her of the anniversary...As of myself, I just hope it will be end of the week soon

Japanese word of the day: 性能(Performance) I might be an average/proficient worker as well as husband at best...that's the sad truth

Work Cliimate 2008 Q3

2nd July 2008, Wednesday

Two days back, our French supervisor dropped the bomb that she had tendered her resignation to the company...
As the rumors (actually got the first hand information from BY before she left) were true as she was pursuing her PhD with the ruling recently relaxed for PRs to take up local scholarship.
Her departure will certainly cause ripples in the department and seemingly the bosses had no back up plan at the moment of who and how they are going to replace her.
Another hot rumor in the pipeline was that our resident gay boy might take over the baton since he is here for the longest time....well watch this space if that happens...
In the pragmatic aspect, I wonder who will do our half term appraisal come September...sends shudders down my spine to think of either His Beautiness or Mr Shitty Green...
Wonder the new supervisor would be less of the meticulous error seeker or more of a slave driver than the incumbent...

Speaking of slave-driving, with the purchase of a more advanced equipment which could do the work at a fraction of the time needed now, Shitty Green who had been at our necks for years now how we could up our throughput wants to maximise the new tool and with the way the experiments are run, it seems like either we stayed late or come back during the weekends to produce more results.
With myself joining the slave crew for a good 2 months now, they had the extra manpower to make the entire shift issue feasible.
So we spent a good amount of time calculating whether we could really squeeze another set of experiments in a usual weekday...but it doesn't seems appealing or at least managable...
It all boils down to whether we are willing to come back on the weekend then...
Not your half day on Saturday kind which I had done in the past but two full fledged working hours on both Saturday and Sunday.
Of course we would be compensated with days off (seemingly 3 weekdays for 2 weekends) as monetary rewards are definitely out of the question here.
I think among us we were torn into 3 camps... HB, who used to come back often when he was on another platform and now a legitimate owner of a car thought it was okay for him to come back... while His Beautiness felt taking away his precious weekends might hampered his usual Monday morning routine of asking people in his usual sheepish voice "How's the weekend?"
Seriously his sisterhood and hubby really need him as everyone would be not be working on weekend...
XY and myself are still in dilemma whether doing weekend is good... on the short term perhaps but if as they predicted that we might convert into a full force Asian hub for our trade, it will means factory style for sure...wonder was that the ideology Shitty Green and the bosses are cooking up...

Well everything is still up in the air as we await the final discussion from the bosses and see what they had on offer on the platter...

Personally I felt I might obliged for a weekend of the month and nothing more... but if money was thrown in, well you never know...
Working on weekends actually can be aye okay as you can dance around barenaked if you want to since no one is around...
However I wouldn't do so if I am pairred with His Beautiness..He might pull an "Anwar Ibrahim" on me, if you know what I mean...

Japanese word of the day: 週末(Weekend) If the above-mentioned really enforced, I can't sing the famous X song anymore.... ~Weekend Weekend Weekend I love my Weekend~~

Finding "L" against Beautiness

15th November 2006, Wednesday

The air is sweet and fresh at work, without the presence of certain omnimous, androgynous and nauseating presence around...he/she into his/her 2nd day of leave which will be repeated for the rest of the year...once again..good riddance!!

Anyway I am on the verge of finish reading the "Death Note" manga series as no matter how Light/Kira had a brain superceded by the few true blue geniuses from history, he met his faithful end when Near, a prodigy of his old nemesis L, brought his error-proof plan to light in front of everyone that had been vindicated to bring Kira to justice...

Our royal Beautiness much like Kira had been playing politics to what it seems to be his seamless ploy to impress the superiors at the expense of his fellow co-workers...
Time and again, I had stated in front of everyone that his sexual orientation is none of my business and I will actually respect his preference of homosexuality but he has gotta work his ass off for the amount of money he is drawing each month...

His imminent promotion to what we called "quality-assurance manager" definitely doesn't goes well with the rest of us in the department as his non-activity at work had now became his biggest downfall for respect in the entire workplace...
Well even JxMMy D is only pulling gimmicks back at my old workplace and would fight for the scrappy amount of work there....while Beautiness even got the cheek to pull a casual conversation on Monday about this gay burger joint he is going for his birthday celebration with his gay brood when I was slogging with stock taking; and helping me out is perhaps remotely within that mind of his that is filled with ideas like peeing on his supposedly male partner....

We need a smart guy to come out with a intricately brilliant plan to oust this irritating parasite that had been sucking on our hard work for his own advantages...
A plan which will not in front of the bosses, seems to be subjectively against our most senior and most adorned member of the lab...
A plan in which he will be voluntary fall into and had no qualms till the day he leave the organisation...

There is no such characters like Light or L in the department, as most of us are merely simpleminded workers who would not be spending useful time playing politics like he did...
Personally I would hope someone actually lured him with higher wages (he actually had the cheek to demand a 5K job with his inadequate job ability), then make him slog like hell for every penny he earns...
But of course that would never happen and even if it did, he would be back to his "promised land" here in no time and our bosses would welcome him back with open arms...

In my simple devious mind, I had ployed on enlisting the help of the IT guys to "confiscate" his PC for he has merely used for blogging and casual surfing of gay webpages rather than actually work...
But of course that would not happen as well and he should be close to getting an even more powerful computer if he is to do "quality assurances" as penned to be...
He would most probably cajoled our supervisor to recruit a couple of temporary helpers to do the tedious jobs and when come to issues with the various platforms the likes of myself would be the one in charge to settle for him before he takes all the credits with the wonderfully scripted e-mails for the various collaboraters for all the efforst he never produced yet earning more accolades from the superiors...
It sent many of us to fits and created an unanimous furore among us but that's all we could do and perhaps make fun of his homosexual adventures found of his blog as well as his constant preying of male colleagues/vendors/engineers within the vicinity day in day out....

Meanwhile with the PM adamant of increasing the Goods & Service Tax (GST) in the near future to compound more misery to our financial landscapes, he would most probably aiming to earn 6K by then....while MMSing his/her soul mate his urinary excretion or whatever disgusting and disturbing fetishes he indulges in....

Japanese word of the day: 死のノート (Death Note) Perhaps it is good to just write his name in it and ends all misery for everyone...