Appreciations

前兩個星期是公司大廈的 tenant appreciation day and this week is the company’s employee appreciation week.

先說說上年的 appreciation 吧.

2013

Tenant Appreciation
上年在大廈的 main floor 擺 continental 早餐，有 muffin 呀，cookies 呀，水果呀，果汁呀，croissants呀，coffee呀等等等等.

Employee Appreciation
上年有早餐，almost a full breakfast, 有蛋啦，french toast 啦，bacon 啦，薯仔啦，果汁咖啡啦。我差唔多到個早餐時段就黎完先去食，都仲有好多選擇。
There was also a pizza lunch last year, I think. Nothing too memorable but at least there was nothing to complain about.

2014

Tenant Appreciation
安排了幾個 vendor 喺度賣 discount 嘢，eg. crossfit gym membership, some sort of skin care products, jewelleries, some discount entrance to places like paintball, legoland, wild water kingdom etc., some health booth that show case their massage and other services.
It’s nice to have discount, but the thing is, why do they want me to spend more money on tenant appreciation day?!

Employee Appreciation

1. Got donut and coffee one morning. Definitely a downgrade from last year. I didn’t get there late or anything but when I got there, there’s no trace of coffee and there were only three little Tim boxes of donuts. I was actually expecting some muffin as well but it really was just donuts ONLY.  And the choices were pathetic.
2. There was also a pizza lunch. There’s a station set up on each floor. But the problem was that someone was serving out the pizza. They were those square pizzas cut into little squares. They gave us only two pieces each and no more.  There were only choices of either pepperoni or veggie. I didn’t bring lunch that day cos I thought there’s pizza lunch.  Me and my colleague were seriously thinking about having to go buy some food after those two little cheap ass squares.  Luckily, after a while, they announced that we could go for second because there was then some leftover. We went over for another two slices but they gave us one normal size _small_ piece and then one other piece that was half the size of the normal small piece. I could eat that tiny piece in two bites. I’m not kidding. It was so small. And half of that tiny piece was the crust!!! My colleague, who is a guy, said that he needed to eat 20 pieces that size in order to get full.
   And the way they set up the station in the hallway is that we went to get our pizza and then we went back to our cubicles to eat. There was no standing room, didn’t create any opportunity for socializing. It’s ok for me cos I don’t socialize anyway. But before we merged office, we used to have BBQ (hamburger, hotdogs, salads, chips, cookies etc.) and we sit at the picnic tables to enjoy the summer heat.
3. Ice cream day – got an ice cream sandwich. Not too bad. At least it was what was expected, which wasn’t much, given the disappointment in the last two events.
4. There was also lucky draw throughout the week but being me, having no luck in any sort of draw, won nothing. So it was as if it never happened.

Seriously not impressed this year. I don’t feel appreciated and I definitely don’t appreciate their appreciations. I mean, 咁 cheap 不如唔好做啦，要做就唔好 cheap 得咁緊要好唔好？你唔做我冇 expectations 就唔會唔高興啦。

唔駛做架?

The way I watch FIFA is to time my gym time at work to roughly the match I want to see. I can only see part of a match this way because I can’t take that much time working out during office hour but it’s better than nothing.

Guess I’m not the only one who does it. The gym is usually empty at those hours in the afternoon (I don’t go at regular time. Just whenever work is slow so I can sneak away) but when there’s a game, ppl will show up.

The thing is, some of these ppl I have never seen in the gym before. And most of these ppl don’t even pretend that they are there for the workout. There are a few types of ppl who show up:

1. Ppl who come down in their dress pants and dress shoes, simply standing right in front of the TV to watch the game.
2. Ppl who pretend to be working out or stretching. Some hold on to a dumbbell or some other equipment but they really are just taking up the equipment and not really moving. Some of them really just treat the exercise bench as a chair for them to sit to watch TV.  最頂癮的是那些 chinese dudes, who just do the 轉腰 (like those 晨運客 in the park). They probably think that they are stretching, 但佢哋真係可以扭腰扭足四十五分鐘，好腰力！
3. Some uses the stationary bike or the elliptical.  Almost look like they are working out but the ‘workout’ intensity, I suspect, is no more than, say, walk to the washroom for a pee.
4. Most of the above are men. There are also a couple ignorance ladies who came but know nothing about soccer. I am not talking about the technicality of 越位 but one of them still thinks that Beckham is still in the UK national team… And they do not know how long is the game or anything. They really just came down to comment on the 靚仔 and to chat up the other ppl in the gym. Altho, to give them some credits, these ladies do actually do some exercise while watching and they work a little harder than Group 3 above.
5. Ppl who are regulars and simply switched their time of workout to game time.

人多都唔緊要，我至唔鐘意既就係呢Ｄ唔係做 gym 既人不停咁 comment，超煩囉。你以為自己係講波佬牙？？一係就係嗰Ｄ女既問埋Ｄ白痴嘢，然後個男既就好似 expert 咁解釋一番，煩到爆。

有Ｄ人又開到個電視鬼死咁大聲，痴架咩！聾gar？！

I kinda understand the regulars cos they have budgeted the time for workouts anyway. But what about those that I don’t know even know if they have the gym membership? 佢哋真係喺度睇足半埸架喎，唔駛 do 架？

Conference

做咗好幾年，第一次有得出 conference. 上一次類似既經驗係剛轉黎呢間公司無耐，俾我去咗一次 software training course.

不過真係唔係講笑，要去 conference 真係要通過重重難關先可以去，第一，要經理批。不過呢個唔難，經理係好人，加上個 conference 真係同做既嘢有關，經理看了看就批了。

難的一關是要 business line leader 批，除了真正的動機（去學嘢）之外，要堆砌一Ｄ對公司有經濟效益的原因，雖然唔係全然老作，嗰Ｄ嘢例如 networking with potential client 諸如類此的厄鬼原因，雖然真係會有機會發生，但以我咁自我封閉既性格，係唔會發生囉。

好慘架，要 fill 埋張不知所謂既 form to calculate how much the company loses in monetary terms due to the fact that I’m losing two days of work + the cost of the conference. Since the amount is over $1000 (which really doesn’t take much to exceed, 個 conference ＋tax 都超過$500），張 approval form 寫明如果我一年之內自願離職，咁我要賠番哂Ｄ錢俾公司囉。超 cheap, 佢計我每日既人工唔係用我真正既薪水去計，係用佢哋 charge client 個 rate 去計。我明白點解，因為咁先係計到公司既 '損失', 但咁計就死啦，點可能唔超過 $1000. 所以除非我想賠＄＄，otherwise, 我呢一年內都唔會轉工。(actually I’m no longer looking recently, getting tired of it… mainly waiting for them to lay me off)公司真是超 cheap, mult-billion, international 個屁，區區千多元都要同我少少員工計。好彩個 cost  唔過千五咋（因為好好經理俾我 charge 其中一日落佢個 project 度），otherwise, 仲要一個再大粒的簽 approval.

Anyway, after a few other conditions, with the help of my current manager’s (which is going to expire in two weeks since my proper, but interim manager is coming back from sick leave soon) help, I got the approval.

Nice to get out there. 聽聽書，學下少少嘢。話學到好多嘢又唔係，d seminar 講嗰Ｄ嘢都係好 high level 既 concept, 唔到肉，不過如果講得太深我又唔明既啫。

有Ｄseminar 很不錯，有Ｄ就很 disappointing. 有幾個我勁恰眼訓，尤其是 lunch 後的一個，真係釣哂魚。

不過去 conference 好攰，雖然全日只係坐喺度，但返到屋企都超攰。可能因為我平時返工唔會成日都咁集中精神，反而 conference 嗰時會。

最不幸的時在 lunch time 時俾一個舊同事發現咗我，一齊坐，我基本上只想做隠形人，minding my own business, eat in silence, eat in peace. 但 end up 要同佢 small talk, 佢去 conference 既目的就真係 networking, 於是又自我 introduce 俾全枱其他既 strangers, 咁我又迫住要 introduce myself and talked to these strangers. 我好攰，根本就無出過我既綿力去製造話題，佢哋有人直接問我嘢我咪答吓囉，otherwise, 自然會有其他人講嘢。I really don’t care. 所以話呢，我唔係 manager 既人才，我唔鐘意 social, 我亦都唔恨做 manager, 因為做 manager 要出去搵生意，我唔鐘意。I am happy where I am. (This kinda related to a frd who seems to b having a bit of career crisis right now but that will wait till another post.)

出 conference 仲有一個好處，就係我今個星期公司無乜嘢做，我出咗兩日，今日返黎，半日已經做好哂手頭上有既嘢，聽日都唔知點算，如果冇出到去，今個星期真的會死得很慘。

前路茫茫

So my team has been slowly disintegrating over the last year. About 3 senior management left in the first half of the year, one of which is the team leader. There has been no replacement since. And then another intermediate colleague left.

Altho they were in my team but I actually have minimum dealings with them cos I actually belong to a different small group. So the team lead position was temporarily filled by the former team lead in the meantime while they continue to look for replacements. I wouldn’t be happy if I was that interim person because it was almost like a demotion to him.

And guess what, just near the end of the year, this guy resigned. Everyone on the team was like “Hxly SHXT” cos now we are really without a team lead. There was also the worries that the remaining one or two manager in the team is going to go with him.

This departure has a significant impact to me cos technically, this guy belongs to my team. And within my little group, my direct supervisor is the only senior left in the group (well… there’s also one other lady but she’s in 密氏 office so even tho she’s supposed to be my team, I hardly have anything to do with her). There was the worry that there are not enough senior persons around to bring in projects to feed us small potatoes. I was worried but too excessively worried cos I still had my supervisor.

Just as I think everything’s settling down, my supervisor announced his departure right after the xmas break. WHAT THE HECK. He was telling me that there was nothing to worried about before the break. It turned out (according to him) that he was going to announce it before the break but the other guy beat him to it so he felt bad to announce it at the same time so he waited. Holy molly. And now I.AM.WORRIED.

In view of the lack of managers, the upper management divided our team into three small groups, reporting to different managers from other teams. The lady in 密氏 became my manager so technically, she’s going to feed me. However, experience from the past year told me that she doesn’t have enough going on to feed more than one person. She has her own 馬仔 in 密氏. She always told my supervisor that she has something for me to do but it rarely ever happened. Even if there was something, it’s really tiny tasks, basically just to give her own 馬仔 a hand. Anything that she gave me so far could only last 1 week at best and were usually about 1 day worth of work and less (even tho I already kinda drag it out from time to time).

As far as I know, the policy of this mega global company is that they have no problem axing anyone when business is slow. So I’m in a bad situation here. In the remainder of the group, one girl has another project that has another year to run and another boy who has work fed to him from other group so he’s not totally dependant on our group. The 馬仔 in 密氏 still her super to 照住. I am the extra person now.  I am also the most expensive one among the four (I think). If I’m the corporate guy from up there, I would axe myself as well.

When my colleague asked me if I am thinking about leaving when we first got the news, I told her not. I mean, I don’t particularly care about the company but I don’t feel like changing yet. I would like to hang in here for a little longer. May another 2-3 year before I will even think about it.

But two weeks after that conversation, my attitude has changed. I can see more clearly that unless they manage to hire some more senior staff or someone that lady in 密氏 magically conjures up some more work that her own 馬仔食唔哂, I’m quite doomed otherwise. So I’ve started to look, keeping my eyes out. 先下手為強. 無奶油白白坐喺度等死.

I am not too desperate yet so I’m only look at the places that I am really interested in at the moment. Needless to say, there weren’t too much there but I just have to keep going back and check in case something pops up. 騎牛搵馬咁啦. Just hope that I can land on something before I turn into a floating buoy.

My super has indicated that he might bring me over with him once he has settled in nicely with the new place. Already asked me for my CV and such. I know he does like working with me. He’s the one who dragged me into this company in the first place. But then, who knows how true that is. Verbal promises doesn’t count much in modern days. And even if he has the intention, if he is unable to settle ‘nicely’, he will not be able to bring me over. Even if he can, who know how long it’s gonna take. And maybe there's already some capable ppl over there that they don’t need no more. I don’t mind working with him again. He’s a good dude. I understand that he has to do what’s best for him and his family but I can’t help but feeling a bit betrayed. In any case, until something’s actually set into motion, I can’t count on this promise. Well.. it’s not even a promise, it’s more like a merely suggestion that it might possibly, potentially happen.

There are also a few back up plans for desperate times. When I say “desperate”, I really mean it. I don’t want to even attempt those back ups unless I’m pretty much 走頭無路. But it’s kinda comforting to at least think that I have backup.

For now, I’m still hanging in here, hoping for some good tidings.

Last Day

Last official working day for me for the year!

I’m sure I need to do some work at home over the break tho. And I don’t actually want to take time off. Want to save up the vacation days but 無奈 daycare is closed for two week. Someone’s gotta be home for the little guy so I’m doing the first half and 詹占's taking the 2nd half, with some overlapping family time in the middle.

Have been super busy at work lately. There’s always crunch time from time to time. That’s the way it is and I don’t complain. Kinda like having work lining up for me to do. Better busy than playing with my fingers over the week and then don’t know how to charge my time at the end of the week.

Also a bit of an earthquake at work. Ever since a few of the managers of our team have left, there has been no replacement and another junior/intermediate also left and there’s also no replacement. And now, our team leader is leaving as well!! When we got the news last week, everyone 'O’ 哂咀. It feels like watching the team slowly withers away.

There’s also the worry that my direct supervisor will leave somehow cos he’s quite close to the team lead. If he goes, then 我就無得 do cos no one’s going to get projects for me no more. But luckily, he kinda reassured me that he’s not leaving (not yet anyway), altho I’m not so sure how true that is.

I honestly have no plan to leave any time soon. Not that I have any loyalty to this mega, impersonal company but I just don’t think my time here is up yet. So I hope that my super is not leaving any time soon and if he does, I hope that he’ll take me with him (cos I really enjoy working with him. It was he who brought me in this company in the first place.).

And again, there’s no replacement, at least not yet. They have divided our group into three little group, each reporting to some other manager for now. The problem of this _publicly traded_ company (as they always stressed) is that they are not willing to pay big bucks. They want someone senior. They want someone good. They want someone who can fit into this company. But if they are not willing to pay, why on earth would these wonderfully qualified persons want to come over? Pay a little bit less freaking dividend to the shareholder and take a tiny dip of in share value and use those $$ to hire someone good man. Isn’t that better for the long run???

Office Move

In a bid to save more money to make the stock price looks better (hate stock market ), the two Markham offices has merged together last week.

There has been talks about the move for a long time, that it was going to happen but it kept getting delayed.

Finally happened. Our cubicles are now much smaller but I’m not complaining about that cos most of the manager don’t even have an office anymore.

I miss my window tho. Altho the good thing abt it is that the sun won’t shine right into my eyes in the afternoon anymore (more on this later).

Since they needed to move our old cubicles to the new place, everyone got moved into the vacant offices during the transition, which lasted for about a month. It was nice to have our own rooms but I hated the temperature in my room. It’s freezing cold in the morning and if it’s a sunny day, then boiling hot in the afternoon (西斜呀...). So hot that sometimes I need to change into my cycling shorts. And the sun shine right into my eyes starting at around 3pm and it starts earlier and earlier as fall and winter approach.

But as I said, our new cubicles are much smaller than our old ones so the fact that they put us all in spacious office rooms in the transition period is like giving us heaven and then slamming us back to hell.

The new place is all open concept like a cubicle farm. Some of my colleagues refer to them as the chicken coop. It’s actually not that bad, except the fact the all the managers are seated at the back of each row and hence can see everyone’s computer with one quick peek and that makes my life a lot harder. I rely on office hours to do quite a bit of my church work and taking this away I’m afraid that my sleep time will further diminish.

And storage space is highly limited but luckily, I hardly store any hard copies. I store most of my stuff digitally cos I lose paper all the time. But for some other ppl, they had to throw a lot of their ‘precious’  away.

Lots of bad things about the new office. For instance, there’s no more social events cos there’s no space to hold everybody. Printing is also a pain in the butt cos we have to submit or request (for large plots) online now and to have someone print them and bring them back to our desk. We used to be able to just send the document to print and go get them ourselves. We are still able to print regular size stuff but only B&W printer on my floor. Color printer is on the other floor; Going to washroom has to leave the ‘secured’ area so that we have to carry our passes with us just to go to washroom; Hot water is dispensed at one certain volume only so if you cup/mug is not a multiple of the volume, then you can’t get your cup/mug filled without overflowing; no more flavoured tea and hot chocolate available; no more underground parking – have to walk through the cold in the winter to get into the building; can hear all the phone calls that different managers were on all the time – very loud and distracting sometimes; sitting right in front of my supervisor so he’ll know if I arrive work late or leave  early; longer commute by transit etc etc.

But I also start to appreciate some of the stuff that the new office building has to offer: the close proximity with my supervisor (right behind me) means that if I need to talk to him, I know exactly when he’s at his desk and all I need to do is just to turn my head around; the shower facility is part of a gym operated by the building management(certain ppl get access to the shower and I’m one of them) is much nicer then the old place. Even provides towel service and as far as I can tell, there’s really nothing that stops me from using the gym itself since I have access to the shower and the shower connects to the gym. I guess the only thing that will stop me is my business and my laziness; Two microwaves on my floor – no need to go to the other floor like I used to and there’s hardly ever a lineup; lots of choices for food if I need to eat out; slightly closer to daycare and hence less stress on getting there on time.

Well… there’s nothing I can do. Upper management decided to move office, me small potato can only go with the flow and try to make the best of things.

Junk Emails

Receive a lot of those every week to my work email account. I mean, not A LOT, not enough to be annoying.

And the main source of these junk mail is my very company itself. What the heck, talking about utility and efficiency all the time while sending all these junk mails to everyone every week.

You may ask, what kind of junk mail could a company possibly send to its employees?

• XXX World Weekly
• Corporate Communications
• America News
• Environment News (of the environmental business line that I am part of)
• Regional News
• The One (which thank goodness, seems to have stopped recently)
• Technical Practice Network upcoming webinars
• Any announcement from the various upper management whom I don’t even know they exist both before and after the email
• New hire announcement (of the whole GTA area, including at least 3-4 other offices that I have absolutely no contact/relation to)

XXX stands for the name of the company.

Another ridiculous one recently is something called Chatter. The company automatically signed us up on this stupid thing, which is basically some sort of chatting system across the company to ‘encourage’ collaborating and communication and information sharing across the company. Stupid! Don’t we already have an online forum on the company’s intranet to do just that??? The even stupider thing is that the auto-signup also signed us up for a daily and weekly digest so all of a sudden, there’s yet another junk email to my mailbox everyday. Luckily, there’s an unsubscribe option to which once I realized that it existed, I opted-out with lightning speed.

Honestly, it’s so retarded. It is as if the IT department does not communicate with each other and independently developed all these duplicated programs and policies and 梗硬 imposed them on us.

Most of those corporate news honestly has nothing to do with me and even my team. It usually talks abt all these projected that the company won in the various office which is so far away from my location that it doesn’t remotely affect me, especially because I don’t buy my company’s stock.

And all of the above doesn’t even include the various fundraising events that’s going on in my office. There’s this United Way fundraising every year and we got bombarded by the organizer of this fundraising event and related personnel on all kinds of things they are doing to fundraise – pizza sale, chocolate sale, candy guess contest, 50-50 draw etc etc etc. Almost every freaking day.

Together with all those internal publication, which you should see, they are seriously 圖文並茂，I wonder how many people are involved in all these and how much time they’ve spent doing all these in total.

TALK TO ME ABOUT UTILITY. Go away and stop bothering me!

“I can’t afford to lose you”

有人對我說這句話，是我在行 trail 的時候有少許失足，差點點跌落小斜坡的情況下說的。

如果係某人講，會很甜心囉，尤其是近期在 '看' Hunger Games, （if you haven’t seen the movie and don’t know what it’s abt, it’s basically a game of killing every competitor and be the last one standing to survive. And the lead male and female characters are in love, well… not so much the girl but the guy was. Anyway, they were trying to keep each other alive），滿腦子都是 "我不能失去你"，"我沒有你活不下去" 的法。所以一聽到一句這樣的說話，我心裡想的就是情人在生死關頭既苦又甜的對話，可是...

對我說這句話的人，是我

老細

我哋星期二很罕有地一起出 site visit, I didn’t expect that we had to walk around the site and along the creek and such, 由於我仲係暈吓暈吓，行行吓少少踏空，失少少平衡, my boss, walking right behind, 就說說笑的說了這句窩心的說話，but he’s the wrong person to say that to me la. Imagine if it’s 子華，呵呵呵，真係會開心到三日三夜都瞓唔著！

雖然係老細講出，但都是一件好事，at least I know that I am not in any immediate danger of getting fired。See? So many ppl love me!! 呵呵呵呵！真的是人見人愛，車見車載！ wahahahahaha…

我的快樂

建築喺我老細既痛苦身上。

I didn’t do it on purpose. 近兩個星期喺公司都比較清閒，因為老細個老細放咗大假，咁不幸地，我老細個老豆中風，佢成日出入醫院，無時間返公司，咁就無人理我，我要做既嘢而經做哂，又無其他嘢做，正一無皇管，打大招牌偷懶。

所以呢兩個星期喺公司都好努力咁做教會嘢，catch up 返唔少。

老細個老豆上星五仲香埋，老細呢兩日話明唔返，要去打點後事，於是我今日就借Ｄ而咁話就話 work from home, 但d work 就大部分係 housework, 唔係 work work 囉。

但快樂埋今日就無架喇，老細今日 funeral, 明天一切打回原形不突止，肯定仲要出多幾錢肉緊去 catch up 返Ｄ嘢，聽日我就知死。

不過見到老細都好辛苦，頻頻撲撲，but at least now it’s over now. My boss is a good man. Hope he and family can recover soon.

半天吊

Work has picked up its pace recently. Keeping me quite busy.

A few little projects were started and then put on hold half way thru for various reasons. And then my supervisor ended up scrambling around to get me work on some other projects in order to keep me occupied.

I am worried and I know that all these little things that are hanging around right now will come back at the SAME time. And they will come back when I’m super busy with other projects. And to make it worse, I’m sure that by the time they come back to me, I will have forgotten every little details about them already and I will have to scratch my brain out trying to remember what has been done and what was left undone.

When things where put on hold, I was required to stop immediately, no matter what the state of the project/analysis was. This makes it difficult to pick it up again cos I could be in the middle of a multi-steps analysis and all the intermediate files may not be very well named and such. Unfortunately, I was not allowed to tidy them up before leaving them alone cos all the time and labour has to be ‘chargeable’ (i.e. charge to a project). When things are put on hold, you are not allow to charge any more time to it in order to save the budget for later when things starts up again. Altho this logic doesn’t make sense to me (cos if I stop right the way, yes, no more time is charged _right now_. But if I don’t spend that little extra time to clean things up, it’s going to end up costing more in the future when we start things up again cos all the files are a mess and it will end up taking longer to pick them back up, not to mention more prone to errors if the wrong intermediate file is used.), that’s just the way the company (or the industry) operates. All I can do is to try my best not to have alzheimer.

Frustrating, yes, but not much I can do but to cross my fingers that they are not going to come back to me all at once.

認真工作

這幾天真的是蠻認真的耶，雖然都還是有做自己野的時候，但相對是少了很多喇。

上星期尾更是天天開足了 turbo 的，是沒有白人工的（老闆：那現在的時間是算怎麼樣？答：現在是等 model run 的空擋時間。）

有很多篇都是開了個頭但又完不了的在 draft box 等了又等。希望有一天我會完成他們，等佢哋可以重見天日。

無公德

公司有D好無公德既人。
我自己帶咗個碗同鐵匙羹返工，用黎食 lunch, 有一日，我用完，洗完，就放喺個 dish rack 度滴乾，我個零兩個鐘返去，支匙俾人偷咗。我搵過哂Ｄ櫃桶，到而家都仲係唔知去咗邊，一完係有人＂收＂咗去佢自己將枱...
跟住又有另一日，我個碗俾人用黎放Ｄ一舊舊唔知係乜既嘢，但就係放咗喺pantry 張枱，無人認領，但又無人洗返個碗。
又有Ｄ人好得意，好唔環保咁用 wooden stirring stick 去 stir 佢哋Ｄ咖啡，但支 stick 佢又唔係用完即棄架噃，放係洗手盤邊唔知用黎做乜架喎，佢係咪以為其他人會用佢呢支用過既 stick 呢？
跟住今日又黎料，我支羹同碗又喺度滴乾，當我去攞返既時候，發現有人用過支羹嚟 stir 過咖啡，無洗過又放返去個 dish rack 度，個羹面向天，仲有成滴 coffee 既罪證喺度，洗一洗支羹啫，咁都唔做，你話Ｄ人離唔離譜？
呢Ｄ都係我返番工唔夠一個月之內發生既事，and I don't think that all these are the doings of one person. 總之，無公德既人通街都係。

餓鬼投胎

The building management of my office building nicely organized a BBQ lunch as appreciation for all the tenants in the whole complex.

It was just hamburgers and hot dogs and soft drinks. Nothing special. But it’s nice enough of them to hold this free BBQ lunch.

The whole thing ends at 1:30pm so I wasn’t rushing down when it opens at 11:30am. Colleague CMan said at around 12:30 that we probably should head down in case there’s no more food and I was like,

"唔會卦，building management 請得我哋食，唔預多都應該會預夠"
"你以為啦，我哋公司有ｄ人一有 free lunch 就搏哂命咁食，有ｄ仲又食又拎．"
"唔會卦（其實我上次又真係見到個又食又拎既人，不過I was hoping that it was just a special case.），應該唔會咁誇張卦．不過如果你想落去，我哋而家落都無所謂．"

So then, we headed down. There were already some ppl eating and there was a tiny little line up for the burger/hotdog to be cooked. So me and CMan got in line. And then there’s this Chinese dude, apparently just finished eating something cos he had a plate with him already, got to the front of the line and asked the lady if he could have a hot dog.

CMan and I looked at each other and I could feel her telling me. “See? I told you.”

Personally, I think that 條友都白痴架，見唔見到有人排緊隊架，你就算要添食都要排隊啦，真係想搏打．

And then apparently the hotdogs got cooked faster than the burgers but some of the ppl who were in line (including me and CMan) wanted burger so some of the ppl behind us got the hotdogs first, including this Chinese dude. 跟住我哋又見到呢條友又去番條隊尾度，喺度食佢既 hotdog.

跟住我哋都無留意佢，因為無耐之後我哋既 burger 就到手，so we went to the condiment station. While we were still putting condiments on, that Chinese dude arrived at the station with a burger! This meant that he has finished his hotdog and got a burger!

痴孖筋囉，唔駛錢啫，但駛唔駛喪食呀？仲要呢，我哋落黎之前佢都唔知已經食咗幾多轉．CMan 話佢都唔知係咪之前一晚無食飯，今日搏命食番夠本，仲食埋今晚嗰餐．駛唔駛 cheap 成咁呀？Burger 同 hotdog 啫，唔係乜嘢 high class 嘢囉，屋企買唔起咩？

嗰位呀生之後仲有冇繼續食我同 CMan 就唔知嘞，因為我哋攞完我哋嗰個包就返咗樓上食．同埋嗰位人兄究竟係何方神聖我都唔知道，因為個 BBQ 係我哋呢個 complex 幾橦 office buildings, 每橦入面又可能有幾間公司，所以呢嗰人係屬於邊度真係唔知，可能係我哋自己公司既都未定．

詹占有次都講過，話有次佢公司請食 dinner, 有幾個瘦猛猛，一睇就知平時食得唔多嘢既 chinese, 人哋都 warn 咗佢，個餐佢哋會食唔哂，但都係要 order 至貴既 lobster + steak dinner, 驚死蝕底咁，最後就咪係食唔哂，洒哂ｄ嘢囉．詹占 was so not impressed that time.

我真係唔明，點解ｄChinese 成日都咁 cheap? 映衰哂其他正常既 Chinese. 添食唔係唔得，添一次都夠皮啦吓話，駛唔駛好似飢民咁？

詹占因為我既關係，多咗去ｄChinese 地方，見得多咗中國人既優良傳統，令佢對中國人有所改觀，佢一直都以為 scottish 係 stereotypically cheap 民族，但佢而家已經覺得 Chinese 係有過之而無不及．

I heard that 印印同屍你難加既人都可以好 cheap，I sort of 有少少經歷，就係 garage sale 既時候，件貨已經係賣一蚊，佢哋都仲可以同你講價，叫你５毫賣俾佢，我心諗，唔係吓話，一蚊你都仲想講價，你不如真係唔好買啦．

Mayb there’re always cheap ppl in each ethnic group. It’s just more noticeable in Chinese since I have more contact with them. I don’t mean to stereotype but they drives me nuts sometimes and is such an embarrassment.

頭號怨男

公司有個怨男，really getting to my nerve. 日日就在投訴這投訴那，spending prolonged period of time complaining about either the client or the agency or the company with the lady whose office is right behind my cubicle. And he’s loud. And they don’t close the door. And the lady is also loud. Sometimes, he’s not even complaining about work-related stuff but his neighbour.

超爆煩，每日如是．咁多投訴，做得咁唔開心，不如唔好做啦！

Honestly,  好多時真係想叫佢 shut up.

有一日佢喺佢自己間office 度傾電話（佢個office 隔我三個位，但佢太大聲，又唔閂門，所以我聽得好清楚），話佢架車條軚死咗，但前一晚明明ｏｋ，因為佢去咗 pump軚，但第二日條軚就已經死哂．跟住佢講完之後又同我後面既大聲婆講一次，基本上我聽咗佢既 story 兩次，跟住佢哋又懷疑係佢個 neighbour 整佢條軚．

我心諗，你咁死煩，又咁乞人憎，梗係得罪人多，俾人放軚氣都唔奇啦，同埋我覺得佢有少少抵死囉．

雖然我知我咁諗好黑心，but I couldn’t help it. 佢真係勁揪煩．我有衝動想毒啞佢．

Not Much Too Do

Haven’t got too much to do at work recently. Worrisome. Not that they can lay me off for at least another year tho cos I have some sort of protection now. But I’m just worried that I may get laid off afterwards if the situation continues.

基本上，我覺得我呢排都係處於準備開始放假的鬆弛狀態，唔係我唔想做嘢（講你都唔信，其實我好想多ｄ嘢做），但每次 I asked my super what I can do, he kept saying that there were lots to be done, that I don’t have to worry about not getting any work. But he doesn’t actually give me anything to do. 唉，我問又問咗佢，但仍然係無嘢做，咁我可以點？

間唔中，佢會俾ｄ執頭執尾嘢我做，但嗰ｄ嘢，通常唔駛半日就做好哂，就算我點拖都拖唔到多過一日，唔知係咪佢諗住我都就黎放假，於是費事開ｄ新嘢俾我做．

而且成日都要扮做嘢，扮得好辛苦囉．自己都覺得得閒到唔好意思白逗佢人工．

執垃圾

公司有個 volunteer event on Monday，為公司附近既一條 river valley 執垃圾，本來話可以 charge office time，但後來變咗真正 volunteer event，要自己嘔時間出黎．

不過就算俾我 charge office time 都死，因為唔係 project time，it still hurts utility (for those who doesn’t understand what it means, good for you cos it means that you are not working under such a shxtty system). 所以 charge office time 定係自己第日補返ｄ鐘都冇乜分別．

The biggest disappointment was the promised of getting a company ‘stylish’ t-shirt, which turned out to be of shxtty quality and one size fits all (XXL). 真係當睡衣著都嫌佢大件．The so-called ‘stylish’ was pure BS. It’s basically a white t-shirt of such quality that I probably won’t wear it outside without having something to 打底 cos it’s half translucent (maybe that’s the ‘stylish’ part…), with my company’s number nice and big in black boring font in front. How’s that stylish? Compare to the 2 pretty nice golf shirts that I got from my old company simply by joining the company, this one is basically a piece of shxt that I would only wear when I paint my house cos I don’t care if it gets wrecked.

Anyway, I didn’t join the event for the t-shirt, but wanted to meet other ppl in the company. But to my disappointment (similar to other events that I’ve joined in this company so far), it’s just 各自為政，你執你既，我執我既，完全無交流．

The company has arranged local newspaper and tv station and the town’s representative to take picture, video and stuff. So it’s basically a company image promotion event with free 咖哩啡 (the employees). I felt like being used.

Got a few slices of free pizza out of it during the prep meeting though. But honestly, after a few tries of these company events, none of which was particularly enjoyable at all, I’m undoubtly getting 心淡. Really have to think it before I would join another one.

So Cheap

Internal office move two weeks ago.

Got an email memo to all employees that we are supposed to pack during lunch time or outside of working hours. So cheap. It says that the company “cannot afford to allow this move to affect our project work or utility”.

Bullshit.

The truth is, the company is too cheap to want to pay for us to do packing and unpacking, even though the move is an office decision, not us employees’ decision. The whole point of moving is to organize the office a little better so that ppl from the same team sit in closer proximity instead of all over the place. It’s your own fault that you didn’t organize the office the right way in the first place. Why do I have to pay to rectify your problem??

And it is precisely this kind of attitude that makes me doesn’t want to 為公司賣命，你同我斤斤計較，我咪同返你計．你唔蝕俾我，我都唔會蝕俾你．

Especially bcos the company is a publicly traded one, they always want to keep their shareholders happy and keep the stock price high. This means that any profit they got they are going to give out to the shareholders as dividend instead of giving out bonuses and/or give out freebies (like free lunch and stuff) to employees.

I am actually quite spoiled at the old place. We have free lunch every month, plus the occasional lunch n’ learn which usually provide free lunch also. And all kinds of little 小便宜 for me to 貪! haha… In this _big_ company, my salary isn’t that much better than what I used to have and taking into account that I can’t claim overtime anymore (like the freaking inter-office meeting yesterday that lasted till 6:15), I’m actually earning less on a yearly basis. Together with the fact that I do not get any bonuses anymore and no more 小便宜, this place is really not that ideal to work in. I do feel like I got 坤 into this company.

I was also told that they hardly ever give you a big raise in salary in this place. Orz… in terms of $$, I really should have stayed in the old place. But I do kinda like what I’m doing here a little more so I shouldn’t be complaining too much. But this office move where we had to 自己嘔時間出黎 for no gd reason, I found it totally unreasonable law. 喺你國際大企業唔 provide 我哋員工著數之餘，你仲要黎攞我哋小員工既著數？我真係覺得好離譜，亦都好唔合理．

仲要呢，將死人 memo 出咗唔只一次，驚死我哋浪費辦公時間咁．其實，好多人最後都無理佢囉，咪又係用辦公時間執，I as a relatively new employee, 唔敢咁大膽，一半係用 lunch time 執，一半係辦公時間．

I’ve heard that the company’s retention rate is pretty low and now I know y. With that kind of attitude and the lack of recognition, I’m not surprised that employees don’t feel belonged. But at the same time, I don’t think that the company care too much about retaining ppl. Being a big company, it has no problem attract/坤 ppl 入局. Sigh… 可憐那些被騙的人，入咗黎先知上咗賊船 (I’m one of them)．

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!

討厭的 Password System

The work IT system forces user to change their password every 3 months. Very annoying. Cos it’s so hard to remember all these passwords. Has to have both letter and number and have a certain length. And it also imposes a further restriction of not allowing users to reuse their password that were being used into last 3 times! That means, I can’t have just two passwords and rotate between the two.

On top of that, there’re all these little modules of online ‘tools’ at work that require password. Eg. Time tracking, personal health, training, performance management etc. Although these tools are all on the intranet, they were probably developed by different software teams on different systems so they have different login and password. Sometimes the login is the email address, some times it’s your user name and sometimes, it’s just whatever you picked yourself. How am I supposed to remember all these? Also, in the beginning, to simplified matter, I use the same password for all of them. However, since they are on different system, change my password on the workstation login doesn’t change the password on the others. Some of them doesn’t even have password expiration. Therefore, the passwords for the various tools became out-of-sync eventually. Some of these tools are only used once a year or very rarely so I can’t even remember their existence until I need to use them and by then I’ve forgotten their password.

Argh… This is driving me crazy!

很爽的 Work Week

今個星期很爽耶！

波波佬今個星期去咗賭城，農夫受傷返唔到公，即係兩個上頭都唔喺度，太自由喇～～

雖然我都唔係咁黑心想農夫受傷既，但佢既傷真係好 timing, 咁啱波波佬唔喺度．

今個星期仲要只係返四日，我星期五咁啱又 book 咗睇醫生驗行檢查，會早退，所以呢，今個星期真係好爽呀！

但係爽還爽，點都要做ｄ嘢交功課先得既，而且，我仲未完全病好，ｄ時間其實都幾難挨，尤其是食完 lunch 既時候特別特別既眼瞓，尋日扒咗喺枱上，一個唔覺意瞓咗，不過只係幾分鐘啫，起身之後仍然超眼瞓，sneak 咗入 sick room 小睡咗１５分鐘，只係１５分鐘咋，多我都唔敢啦．不過都好過無．

呢個星期都好難集中精神，唔通真係好似詹占所講咁蠢咗？