Updates

* Another person from the office just resigned 24 hours. Again! What the hell is wrong with everybody, quitting their jobs is like missing school kah? The thing that pisses me off was that person had prior knowledge that the day was coming because that person was interviewed a few months ago. At least gives us a heads up lah....haiyo, mah fan lo!

* Suffered terrible jam last Saturday - I had to attend a cousin's wedding in Melaka. We departed from home at 11.30am and reached Melaka at 4pm! The jam was terribel, it was just lots of cars and everybody rush to enter the Ayer Keroh exit, whcih took us one hour to complete the last 5km to the tol Ayer Keroh. Never again travel on public holiday.

* Job interviews going on for the new office set up - 14 job positions all in all. Hope to have a really good team so that we can start fresh.

* Office renovation finally underway after the Boss signed the approval. Estimation of completion: early June. Estimation to move in: Middle - Late June.

* Currently reading " A Thousand Splendid Suns" by Khaled Hoesseini. Awesome book and love the writing style, so precise and concise. Makes an easy reading but very touching at the same time. But loved his earlier book - The Kite Runner better.

TGI Friday's

Last week I was introduced by my friend Sha to TGI Friday's. We went to Life Centre last Saturday after a heavenly session of spa at Samsara Spa.


The TGIF branch at Life Centre has interesting paraphernalia on the walls - American antiques



I didn't know what to order, and everything on the menu looked good. So to make things simple, I ordered something which have a lot of things on it so that i can sample everything on one plate - Friday's Three for All. It has loaded potato skins with beef bits, Buffalo Wings and Fried Mozarella. The loaded potato skins was ok-lah coz it wasn't crispy enough. The Buffalo wings wasn't so nice as the ranch dressing was only sour and not strong enough. Love the fried mozarella though as it was very crispy and goes very well with the marinara dressing.



Sha ordered the Chicken Caesar's Salad. Loved the romaine lettuce sprinkled with cheese and grilled chicken. Very hearty meal.


On another, visit I tried the fried Mac and Cheese. It was ok, but not creamy enough. Maybe next time I'll try the real mac and cheese, instead of the fried one.


I'm not really a fan of desserts but I find that TGIF have the best dessert ever. My favourite is the Brownie Obsession. The dish is a contrast of warm and cold. The ice cream is brain freezing cold, while the brownies is warm and toasty. I really, really enjoyed it and think that it is better than Chili's brownies.




Another excellent dessert is the Mocha mud pie - its a choc almond mousse and coffee ice cream drenched in choc syrup, toasted almonds on top as well as sprinkled with choc crust. Not a fan of coffee, but the pairing of mocha and choc is palatable for non-coffee lovers. Frankly, it's awesome!

On yet another visit, my friends and I tried the Boneless Wings, Fish & chips and Chicken Fajitas nachos. Love the tartar sauce of the fish & chips, and the chicken fajitas nachos is crispy - better than Kickin' Jack Nachos at Chilis

Verdict:
1. I love the environment as it is less crowded than Chilis and they have great music - try TGIF at Wangsa Walk, as they have a lot of space and still new.
2. Price wise, the ala carte menu is a bit expensive than Chili's.
3. Appeal to the wallet as they have the 2 course menu for RM29.90 every Mon-Fri. Choose one entree and one main course to share it with your friend.

The Etiquette of Quitting Your Job

I have never quit from a job before, possibly because I was fresh out of Uni and got a job at a government department - that's for life security. The only experience I have of a changing workplace, is being transferred to another division. Even so that involves with some kind of procedure/etiquette.

However, being in the middle management now, I have had experiences with people quitting on the job under my watch. Well, two to be exact, eventhough they were on temporary basis. I don't mean to judge their reasons for quitting, but I just want to share how I feel about being in this kind of situation and how the said employee/s could've done better from just leaving their jobs.

We hate that you quit in the middle of a task before finishing it. Know how hard it is to pick up the pieces and continue from there?
For the employees who are about to quit their job, please give ample notice to the company based on contract be it 1 or 2 months notice, or whatever period it may be. This is because you may have some task that were not completed and the company needs to find a replacement to continue the job or you may need to train the next person who will come in to take your place.

We hate that you have didn't leave a progress report or finish your task
The company may want to have the updates on the progress of your work at that point so it is better to tie the loose ends by finishing the said task or do a proper handing over job by prepraing notes and notifying it to whomever you are reporting to.

We hate people who beg back for their job because when they quit they don't give a f**k what happens to their colleagues and the company
Never ever quit before having a secured job in place. Think long and hard before quitting, or if you can't think properly, take a few days off just to sort things out. It is one thing to quit the current job, but it's another thing to beg for it back, especially when you realised that you have made a mistake and because the other thing didn't work out.

My advice is never ever leave the company high and dry by just quitting without turning up to the office without any reason. It will be long lasting impression that you are a bad employee, and maybe this will stick in your records. The company may not be so generous to give you a second chance.

The Birthday Celebration

We had a birthday celebration at Chili's for Ms Fantaghiro's birthday after work on Wednesday.


Ms Fantaghiro in her many vain poses

Ms Fantaghiro doing her best Amanda pose


Ms Fantaghiro with her birthday card


Ms Fantaghiro with her Southwestern lamb grill. Yummy!


Ou regular menu at Chili's - the Triple Play's awesome!

Ms Fantaghiro happy and full

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MS FANTAGHIRO!

Critically acclaimed vain pot, Ms Fantaghiro

Its her birthday today!!

Ms Fantaghiro has many passions in life

10 things that she loves:

1. She loves food of all kind, but mostly she loves Chilis

2. In love with Bradley James - from Merlin

3. In love with Jang Hyuk - from Slave Hunter

4. Love all the pretty boys - Used to love Ben Barnes

5. Loves stripper shoes

6. Loves Kopitiam

7. Loves to be a couch potato

8. Loves magic-related series - Charmed, Merlin

9. Loves books

10. Loves Hindustani movies & songs - though at one moment in her life she boycotted them

10 things that Ms Fantaghiro hates:

1. The heat - it gives her migraine

2. Migraines

3. Other vain pots - nobody can topple her crown of vainness

4. Skanky b*****s

5. Rude drivers

6. Rude people in general

7. Cruelty to animals

8. Being called fat

9. BlueHyppo

10. Undisciplined parents & children

So, Happy Birthday Ms Fantaghiro

Many Happy returns of the day

May Allah bless you always

May we remain good friends no matter how...

How to Not Give Advise

I have a dear friend who is on the brink of a life changing situation. The problem was that she wants things to change but was afraid to take the next step. She wants to take the next step now, but I cautioned her to be careful and not let her emotions to get the better of her. Its not as if I didn't want her to move forward and be happy, because I can see how miserable she is. Its beginning to affect her at work. I just felt that it was unfair that she didn't receive her dues. I want her to be happy.

How to not give advise? I mean I did not want to be imposing my opinions on her. There is a very, very fine line when your advise can be poisonous to your friend. Just keep your opinions to yourself, lest you influence your friend to take actions that doesn't come from her heart. They might regret making the decision that wasn't theirs to begin with. They might even blame you for that decision in the future, especially if it backfires. But if it doesn't backfire, they would always wonder if they make it because they want to or because you push it to them.

As a friend, you must always be objective about your friend's problems. Approach it from a different angle than what they present to you. See it outside the box, because you are the observer. The point is for you to be objective about it, because you friend will be emotional. Try to suggest a structured approach, see the pros or cons of the situation, give some recommendations but never impose it on them, try to help your friend find a solution, then closure. Be there for your friend when she needs you. Even if you don't give any advise, just be her listener.

Thank you for the Vote of Confidence

When you're down and out nobody wants to help you.

But when you're up and about, everybody wants to be with you.

It just shows how success can attract people. But it also makes me annoyed cause when we're down and needed help the most, some people just scoff you off.

Take for instance, the new company I'm working in now. It is essentially a sister company to my old company. A few colleagues and myself are only seconded there for two years. But everybody treats the seconders like we're lepers, eventhough we are doing our job to help the sister company for the benefit of all. Why this type of mentality? Because they think we are a corporate company, hence we have more money. Because they think our salary is much more than theirs that they think its fair to dump a truckload worth of jobs & projects on us. Without taking into account that we are newly established and there's only 10 of us for a work worth for 35 people.

So we struggled and preservered. We took 4 new temporary workers. Work seemed to be moving along, we were slowly and surely establishing the new company. Baby steps. Now some of the sceptics began to say to us, "wow you guys now ok lah now oh, you got additional staff" and "when is your office hiring". Now you want to know eh....cause we've done all the hard, groundwork. You think you just wanna come in and reap the benefits, be glamourous in this new shiny company.

Me thinks not.

Snow White & Poison Apples

Snow White died by poison apples, organizations died because of poison letters.

In this case, the organization that I'd worked for for the last 8 years.

I don't know about other government departments, but it has always been the trend in my organization to have a few of this poison letters flying around. Whenever a group of people are not satisfied with the some issues, they write poison letters. The most popular issue for poison letters : overseas posting.

There would always be people who would not be satisfied the other person can get overseas posting. All the slanderous remarks like: "she's sombeody's oxigen, that's why she can go for posting" or "what's so special about this person that he can be cross posted" or "he/she did not perform, there were many complaints about his/her work".

The funny thing about these remarks was that, those people who've wrote the poison letters were probably in that exact kind of position before. Oh ,we do know who wrote the letters, because there are also rumours flying about the writer/s of the posion letter/s! How ironic, right? But when you are in the same organization long, you tend to know who's who and what they're capable of, or so they're rumoured to be! Sometimes they'd brag about it and talk about the issues, and you wonder how they get this kind of info. Sometimes its a mole within the organization who leaks this kind of stories.

Another popular issue is leadership. My organization is quite notorious for having aDG faced with bribery accusation but was acquitted later on. That time there were so many of his supporters, they all were behind him. Now when's he's back in work, some people started to question about his actions such as doing reorg or to send certain people for posting. They say he had ulterior motives. Where are all those people who put him in a pedestal before? Answer: they all been posted overseas for being vocal and disobedient in the eyes of the management. What a cool punishment eh? So now left all those people who were not satisfied with his leadership, and even more dissatisfied cause they can't go for overseas posting for being obedient. They are now free to criticize him, buy they dare not say this to him or bring this on the proper platform. Solution: poison letters.

My take on poison letters: you can't satisfy everyone cause there will always people who won't be happy with how certain things are handled. Its like politics, either you're PR or BN, you play the dirty game. It doesn't matter who's side you are on, dirt would always get stuck to you. Its only a matter of time when the wheels will turn and you'd be up or down, depending on where you were before. Me? I stay away from office politics, and do my work and try not to step on other people's toes. If you do work, rather than waste time thinking and stabbing other people trying to climb the corporate ladder, then I think you'd have more personal satisfaction. Plus we must have a balance with personal life. Leave work at workplace, enjoy your life to the fullest at home. I know that's what I do.

Home remedy: Castor Oil

A few weeks ago, I sprained my right waist because of some exercise. I was in pain for a week, I couldn't bend down or sit down in one place for a long time and I had to pray sitting down in a chair.

My mum introduced to Cik a remedy for knee ache when we went back to Rompin. It's drinking a teaspoon of castor oil mixed with half a glass of warm water before going to sleep. It helps to "grease" the joints. They both drank it and felt generally better the next day.

Then we saw the Yoga for you programme on Astro. It says that the Ayurvedic treatment for osteoperosis is by drinking 1 tsp castor oil mixed with 1 tsp ginger powder and half glass of warm water, because the Ayurveda believed that osteoperosis is caused by wind in your body. It helps to expel the wind in body and strengthen bone density.

So I though maybe I should try the remedy for my waist ache. The oil & warm water concoction tasted like burnt peanut oil. Its palatable unlike the bitter taste of some herbal remedies like jamu, for instance. When I woke up the next morning, lo and behold, my ache was totally gone. It was like a miracle cure. Cik said it was probably due to wind in my body too.

Last night I tried the ginger + castor oil + warm water. My body felt great today and some of the aches I experienced were also gone. Cator oil is known to be a laxative and helps with bowel movement. It is easily found in Indian stores where you can buy the ginger powder as well. Its also known as minyak jarak.

Nasi Dagang

Nasi Dagang made fresh this morning!

Last two weeks I went back to Rompin with my mum. Hubby asked me to buy nasi dagang to tapau back, but it was already noon and nasi dagang is always sold in the morning for breakfast in the East coast area.

So hubby must've been craving for nasi dagang, coz last friday's pasar malam he went out to buy one. Then he was harping on me to cook nasi dagang. I am not good with Malay cooking but fortunately, I copied down the recipe from Cik when I was in Rompin. So yesterday we went out to Carrefour to buy the ingredients including ikan tongkol.

Misplaced the original recipe, called Cik on the phone for the ingredients and made a scaled down version of it and it turned out ok!

So here goes the recipe for Nasi Dagang for two persons, from scratch:

Nasi
1.5 cup of ordinary rice
0.5 cup of pulut rice
(soak both rice in water for at least four hours)
5 tbsp of coconut milk - add sugar and salt till its very, very sweet & salty
1 tbsp halba (fenugreek seeds)
Red onion, ginger - sliced thinly

Fish
1 whole ikan tongkol
(cut it to 5 pieces, cook with water + salt + asam keping)
* can substitue with other types of fish such as tenggiri, kembung, etc or prawns, chicken.

Kuah
Wet ingredients:
500 ml Coconut milk - or as much as you want the kuah to be
10 pcs of dried chillies - deseeded and soak in hot water
2 inches lengkuas (galangal)
1 inch ginger (halia)
1 inch kunyit hidup (live turmeric)
(blend chillies, lengkuas, halia, kunyit hidup)

Dry ingredients:
1 tbsp of fish curry powder
1 tbsp of serbuk ketumbar (coriander powder)
1 tbsp of serbuk jintan manis
1 buah keras (candle nut)
2 buah pelaga (cardamon)
3 bunga cengkih (clove)
1 bunga lawang (star anise)
1 inch kulit kayu manis (cinnamon)
(dry roast without oil then blend all ingredients)
2 inch gula melaka

Steps:
Rice
1. soak for 4 hours
2. steam the rice, about 15 minutes into cooking or when its half cook, p0ur cold water on top of the rice
3. close lid, wait till throughly cook

4. once rice is cooked, wade thru rice with coconut milk + sliced onion & ginger + halba till it has a glowy sheen. Easy on the coconut milk + halba, or you rice will have a very strong, overbearing taste.

Kuah
1. Simmer all the wet ingredients till it boils
2. Add fish + 2 pcs asam keping till it boils again

3. Add dry ingredients, and simmer till the kuah becomes thicker (about 30-45 mins) and oil breaks on the surface & season to taste

*Serve Nasi Dagang with cucumber salad (vinegar+onions+cucumber+pineapple - optional)

Cooking nasi dagang seems like a daunting task, especially somebody like me who rarely cooks Malay dishes (not sure if I can do a mean curry). But cooking nasi dagang is simple enough, its just that the ingredients looks like a lot be prepared. Once you have everything ready, its just a matter of throwing eveything into the pot!

P/s: hubby had a second helping!

Middle Management

With great power comes responsibility, or so says Superman. How did I end up to be middle management?

Being a government servant for the past 8 years, I was always the middle person. I was the go between the bosses and the rest of the staff under my care. If the boss assigned me to do something, I'd call my team and we discuss how best to do it and then we do it. It was mostly one way traffic.

I think it started when I was in Research Division when they entrusted me to take care of 20 research officers (ROs) that was situated all over Malaysia. Their job was to do surveys that the division ask them to do. My job was to monitor them through their work. This includes their quality of work, discipline, salary etc. I barely knew them as my stint in Research was only one year. I've only met 8 out of 20 ROs but I had to do their appraisal as I was their supervisor. How the hell was I suppose to do their appraisal when I don't even know them well enough, some I've never even met?! To be honest, I had to wing it. I had to source info from various parts such as the previous officers who've handled their affairs, state office directors, other officers who've used them on other surveys and on paper - reports, attendance, etc. I had to form an opinion on each individual based on those things, and to best of my knowledge, did their appraisal. That was my part as the first valuer for the appraisal.

I think Top management have it easy. They only amend on the things that you have done. Same thing with the appraisal. The second valuer just put in their score based on my original score and write shorter comments. Middle management do all the work whilst top management just checks my grammar? Hardly seems fair as top management is required to do the thinking and planning. Not just planning to go overseas, but actual planning on how to be more effective at work and achieve our targets. Not just become the boss in name and dumping everything to middle management to settle it.

Middle management is tough. You are the middleman who has to take care of their own backside too. On one hand, you have to please the boss, on the other hand you have to appease your co-workers with their issues - working with inadequate resources, no proper SOP, no backup/support from other div. You have to become the trouble shooter and lend your hands to help them and lend your ears to listen to their problems.

Send me to Management school!

With the new bureau, I became the middle management person. It was conveniently thrust upon me by my so called CEO, as there was no other officer higher ranking than me. Not that I was that high ranking, but I was at the right place at the right time. That said, we are terribly understaffed, overworked and in dire need of a buffer between me and the boss. I can't possibly do all the thinking, planning, executing, monitoring.

Send in the reinforcements!

How to Network

Being in this line work, we really have to network a lot. Networking with people we already know is easy-peasy. You just reinforce the connection that you already have with that person or the company that they worked for, and add on to that with industry news or other people that we knew in the cricle. And bam! You get the conversation flowing.

But how to network with people you don't know? It is quite painful, especially when you have to make the first move. What do you say to that person standing next to you, looking as akward as you are? Or if you don't make the first move, just nursing the drink in your hand, hoping someone would speak to you cause you don't know anybody there. It can be quite uncomfortable.

They way I see it when I go to this kind of functions, is to bring your associates or friends. Then you'd feel less embarrased to talk to people. Or you friend can introduce you to her acquaintance, or you can introduce your acquaintance to your friend. There's pros and cons to it. You might end up huddling in your small cosy group and not do much networking.

But if you set a purpose coming to functions to establish contacts and network, that you have set a goal to reach a certain quota or meet a few pertinent people, then you'd use the hours wisely. I see people like this all the time;

1. Always look confident when approching people, there's brazen confidence and there's quiet confidence - it's all in the personality;
2. Never sit in a corner or stuck to a location - mingling around means you have to work the crowd, or the least go to all the corners of the room;
3. Always ask about the other person, don't only talk about yourself - get to know what they are about, and maybe you can connect that with your line of work;
4. Stick to topics relating to work, or the industry or if you have no common ground, talk about current issues, but never talk about politics. Networking time is when everbody is neutral and relaxed, don't mar that with politics;
5. Always bring your business card - important! to establish contact and follow up later on;
6. Never leave the function without thanking the host - must be polite.

The steps may or may not work for you. You just have to find yourself and be comfortable with it.

Happy New Year

Happy New Year...I am still in the zone to wish everyone Happy New Year :)

I know that I had been neglecting to update this blog.

New Year started out with a bang for me. It's as if I never left 2009, that I didn't take the well-deserved 10 days break at the end of the year. But I did took the break, and felt refreshed and ready for work.

My first task was to organise a half day seminar for the industry for 100 pax. I did it within the span of two weeks. Sending out the invitations via email and getting responses overnight. Made arrangements of the speakers and venue through emails and calls. It was easy for me. The response was good and overwhelming too. Last RSVP was 105 pax from 44 organizations. But 92 pax turned up from 41 organizations. The no-show rate wasn't so bad. We'd prepared for 100 pax anyway.

Everybody raved about the seminar. The contents were concise and very informative. This type of seminar they couldn't get anywhere in Malaysia, plus it's FOC. Usually they'd have to attend overseas course/seminar for the meeting industry like ICCA or CMP, somewhere in Europe where'd it cost a bomb. It feels good that we are doing somthing that mattered to the industry.

Our consultant suggested to have this seminar every two months, just to educate the industry. Somebody suggested to do it on the road, maybe move to another venue, apart from Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre. Hey, if you guys wanna pick up the cost of venue & F&B, by all means. It'd be fun to change venue and see how other venue works.

Next on the agenda is Ministerial briefing in February. That is briefing to all the relevant departments in the ministries. A daunting task because you can't just email to them. Must send letters of invitation, all government style. Plus you have to be patient and follow up with calls. Once sending invitation, must give them at least a week to respond. Cause there's chain of command. You send it to the KSU, it will go down to the DG, DDG then Directors, then the staff. It will take longer than response by private sector. Plus we gotta do it at PICC because that's where all the government departments are.

Plus, I got a gozillion things to to do. Appointment of contractor for office renovation, hiring of temporary staff, still doing servicing & bidding, plus undertaker for everyone else who's got a gripe with the boss comes to me and expecting me to do miracles.

Thta's why I love weekends and look forward to it. Dang, it's only Tuesday.

Hanoi

Street paddlers hustling a gwailo

I was in Hanoi sometime in September. This was a personal trip. I did know much about the city, and this was my first time to Vietnam. Hanoi was almost like every other ASEAN cities, with dusty roads and crowded building filled with shops and the roadstalls, where the Hanois eat their daily meals, perched on low stools.

Midday meal by the roadside

I've also discovered that Hanoi retained some of the French influences in its everyday life. From the casual manner in which baguettes are sold by the roadside, to the small French cafes dotted around the city and the exquisite embroideries on linens.

Halong Bay

On our third day, me and mum visited Halong Bay. The journey takes about 2+ hours out of town. The roads were bumpy once we get closer to the countryside. Then we took a junk out to Halong Bay, which was maybe about 45 minutes out from the jetty.

The junk

Our junk inching closer to the entrance of Halong Bay

Voila! Halong Bay.

Oddly this is a scenery that I've set my eyes on before. If you've been to Langkawi at Sg Kilim, this is the exact scenery that you can see.

Fruit paddler catching up on us via bot, then my mum bought some bananas

Fruits paddler at the makeshift jetty, using a traditional boat.

Fresh seafood for our lunch onboard the junk

Bevy of activities as tourists were ushered to the smaller boats for cave exploration

Same like in Langkawi!

Island of Man

The famous fighting cocks island

Halong Bay

Too bad I didn't have the chance to visit the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum. Next time, I would like to visit Ho Chi Minh city, I hear the embroideries are much cheaper than Hanoi.

New Moon

I've read the book, and I've seen the movie. I hated both of it. The movie was too long and to many mushy moments that made me rolled my eyes. But being a fan of the original Twilight movie, I forced myself to finish both the book and the movie.

Twilight defies all the typical traits of a vampire such as sleeping during the day and hunting at night, they become creatures that never sleep and that if they were exposed to the sun, their skin twinkle like diamonds. New Moon just takes the absurdity up a notch. Jacob turns into a werewolf, joining a pack of werewolves, who were to protect the area from vampires. Bella is so clumsy, you could not believe how a pretty girl like her is so dumb and weak. She is the typical damsel in distress, waiting to be rescued. She got both a vampire and a werewolf vying for her love, but she loves the undead even more. Bella's father, Charlie the Sheriff, is so clueless about Bella and what's happening with her life. On his defense, how was he suppose to know that vampires exists? Heh.

I am still a sucker for vampire stories/movies.

By the way, Taylor Lautner/Jacob Black is hot.

Go Team Jacob:)