千層糕

My supervisor told me to go to this training course.

Manager has already approved. But still I need to fill out this company approval form which nobody had told me about for a long time. Finally during a group meeting, the team leader Mr. R asked me how come I haven’t filled out the form yet. I felt like an idiot. 為了不落我掃把的面子，我冇當場話俾 Mr. R 知因為掃把無話我知，就無聲無色地硬食咗．

After the meeting, I already very 積極地 search for the approval form in the company intranet. Turned out that it wasn’t that easy to find that stupid form. Had to ask my colleague to help me and finally we found the form. 嗱嗱聲 filled out the form and hope to get the approval asap la. Cos the course costs $9xx. I am not going to register until I get the approval in the case that I won’t get the approval, 咁我就要自己嘔九百幾蚊出黎仲要請兩日假去上課，真係會血本無歸．

Anyway, filled out the form, got Mr. R to sign. And then Mr. R said that it actually requires the regional business line leader Mr. D, to agree also. Luckily, Mr. D is in our office that day. 又嗱嗱聲叫佢 sign, sign 完 Mr. R 又話其實張 form 上面要既簽名都唔係佢哋，其實係 Mr. I. (At this point, Mr. I’s position is so high up there that I don’t even know what his position is anymore) Found Mr. I but he was at a teleconference at the time. So Mr. R told me that he’d leave the form and a note on Mr. I’s desk and had him sign it and will let me know to pick it up later that day.

Of course, that day passed by and I heard nothing. Emailed Mr. R to follow up the next day. Heard nothing in the morning. Phoned him that afternoon and left a phone msg. Heard nothing that whole day.

The then after all, I kinda forgot about the whole thing cos I was busy with work. And then one day I suddenly remember (maybe two days later), and again, emailed and called Mr. R and he wasn’t even in the office! Had to talk to Mr. R2 and figures out a way to get in touch of Mr. R. I was in a hurry at that point cos the course was starting in 2 weeks.

Finally got in touch with Mr. R. Turned out that Mr. I already had the form but needed to talk to my manager to make sure that he did approve of it. My goodness!  The form get to you in the first place bcos my manager has already approved la. Idiot.

Anyway, my manager left him a phone message and then I haven’t heard anything again. Followed up with an email the same afternoon. Two days later, I got an email from Mr. I that he has already forwarded it to his secretary who coordinates all his signatures and stuff. Then I had to follow up with Ms. G. Ms. G let me know after another two days that the form needs the approval of Mr. P, the big big head of the Markham office (or some position like that). And then the next day or two, got an email from Mr. P that he needed a business case in writing from my manager to justify me taking time off work to take the course and to make sure that my manager approved. Holy crap man. How much more complicated can this be? The reason to take the course (use the software on a daily basis, essential to execute my work duty blah blah blah has already been filled out in the form and now another written statement is required??? Didn’t the fact the the form has passed thru so many levels of approval kinda tells you that it’s a legit request???

And that’s not the end of the story. To claim my money back, I need to fill out the expense form, submitted together with the approval form. After my manager submitted the written ‘business  case’, which is really just a few lines over email in reality (that’s y I don’t see the official-ness and necessity of such a thing), I got a call from the finance department from another office asking me how come I submit the approval form without an expense form. I was so fed up with the whole process already. First I got blamed by not filling out a form which I had no idea of its existence. And now, I got blamed by some moron submitting the approval directly to the finance department instead of giving it back to me???? What the hell man… Of course, I can’t 發顛 over the phone but to simply say that I had no idea who sent her the paper.

In the end, I got the approval and successfully registered for the course. But really, all the seemingly nice thing that the company policy says about encouraging continuing education and all that. Just full of shxt.

I had to get a total of six levels of approval (including my direct super and manager). And for each level, me or my manager had to explain all over again why it is important for me to go to the course. They kept telling us that the company doesn’t have the budget for stuff like this so that we have to make a case for it in order to get approval. If a little two day courses that costed less than a thousand dollar needed _that_ complicated a process to get approval, I can’t even imagine what you need to do if you want to do a master degree or whatever. Probably better off paying from my own pocket, especially they have this clause in the employee manual that if we voluntarily decided to leave the company within two years of company paid-training, then u have to 嘔番d$出黎.

I don’t understand how they can on the one hand keep saying that they encourage employee’s to 增值 by providing funding but then turn around to tell me that they don’t have the budget. An international company with I don’t even know how many offices around the world (they always always boost about how big our company is, that we are the world’s #1 engineering company and the best and blah blah blah) doesn’t not even have $9xx spare for something that they claim they can provide funding for, they’ve got to be shxtting me. Every once in a while, we’ll receive all these garbage of ‘wallet card’ to remind us about our company’s core value and all kinds of random promotion flyers about how the company now has a magazine that you can access thru iPad and unless things like that. (who the hell in their right mind will actually keep the wallet card in their wallet??? seriously… as if we don’t have enough cards in our wallets already…) Only if they will spend less labour and printing money on making those garbage that I’m pretty sure 99.8% indeed went into garbage, they will have many more $9xx to spare for their employees.

All those continue education support is just BS. They are just saying it and make it so hard to get that you will just give up. Luckily, my manager really do think that I should go to the course so he helped to press the issue.

Also, we always receive memos about how we should maintain our ‘utility’ (our chargable time ratio) and that the company cannot afford to lose productivity and shxt. You know how much time I’ve spent tracking down various ppl for the approval form in the process??? Especially, when Mr. R didn’t reply my email AND phone call, I have to actually stop working and went upstairs multiple times to see if I can catch him in his office. By making this whole approval process such a hell, the company itself is losing money cos I could have worked more. They try to be cheap but at the end, they are probably the one who lost. It’s just so dumb. They always stress about productivity but it’s in fact its own procedures that lowers the productivity. But then of course, the persons who made up those procedures won’t blame themselves, they will just blame the workers for their low productivity… 草根永遠都遭殃...

I hate bureaucracy and all these stupid paper work but I guess it’s a tradeoff when I work in a big company… sigh… stupid stupid stupid!