Tired

Dead tired. That's basically how I'm feeling now. Think I have exhausted my energy through the week, beginning with Sun night, when I experienced an adrenalin pump due to the revived gadget I mentioned about. Mon and Tue nights were alright, although I rushed around a lot. Went home at decent timings 7+/8 pm. Caught the movie War of the Worlds last night, and popped by Paragon to see a friend's architectural model for his final year project. Quite a number of archi models made by final yr archi students are on display there. Impressive, I must say.

Today has been another busy day of activities, because we had to generate some migration files today. We were just rushing to complete as much data cleansing as possible. And in such critical periods, little things tend to go wrong. e,g, my colleague accidentally clicked on a button, and this sent the files into generation a second time, thereby taking up an additional precious hour. Finally, we did produce the files, albeit, a few hours late.

If I could describe this day, I would liken it to the "last minute scrambling, putting up the final touches before staging a big performance". The difference is, this "big performance" is just a beginning, and not an end. I am exhausted, very exhausted. The thought of having be on standby tmr night, and work on Sat and Sun is just too depressing. Where's my rest?

No more White Elephant

Am a very happy person this night!! Coz my "die-d" MP3 player, or rather the MP3 ripping software has been revived! Am so grateful to RF for coming by my place to help me with it just now. Prognosis? I think it was a rather simple problem, although that problem has frustrated me for weeks. It takes an "IT-inclined" person to meddle with all the different settings to identify the problem area. Speaks volume about my IT knowledge, or lack of eh? Anyhows, With the new found functions, I managed to rip a few more CDs into my MP3 player before calling it a day. Immensely satisfied.

RF also helped me download some software which allowed me to burn songs from a certain format. Needed it desperately to recover some songs in that format. Another item off the checklist =)

Thanks RF, and thank You Lord for answering my prayers.

Driving

Was in office today from 9am till 3pm for a data loading job... but I'm not going to complain about work today...

My bro generously allowed me to use his car today. Thank God that the driving/parking experience was a pleasant one, no trying situation. But alas, after I got home, I realised that the car's back bumper has been slightly displaced, and there's a rather obvious gap at the side, next to the rear tyre. I obviously panicked, and quickly mentally replayed my entire journey with the car. No, I had not encountered any incident and there was no way that anyone could have hit the car whilst it was parked at my office car park. No entry was allowed for non-staff, and the car park was virtually empty when I went.

Well, after alerting my bro and tracing back, we suspect that someone could have scraped the side bumper of my bro's car in the process of parking yesterday. Quite irresponsible of that person! But I think not many drivers, in Singapore at least, would own up to causing such accidents unless they are caught in the act. My bro has his first encounter with such irresponsible act.

But 1 lesson learnt is that before taking over or borrowing any car, I should do a quick check of the car's exterior, to know the condition of the car.

Work Wise

Came to know of a friend's sentiments toward her work and recognition at work. Can't say that I totally understand her predicament, but frankly, I have been plagued with such negative thoughts as well, more so lately...

This sets me thinking, am I really doing such a lousy job, that the bosses don't think about rewarding me or recognising my efforts? I know that I have put in 110% of hard work, but its not enough. Although every organisation's appraisal system is bound to have loopholes, I can't help wondering if I have been shortchanged. I have learnt that hard work does not necessarily get reciprocated. I know that this is a sweeping statement, but it holds some truth nevertheless.

This begets the question: Is there a need to market my work to the bosses? If I spend the effort to package my work to the bosses, I will have less time to clear the ever piling mountain of work! What if what I do is really the nitty gritty details? The bosses certainly do not wish to be bogged with details. Yet, high level updates will certainly do injustice to the effort put in! This is such a dilemma!

Lest this becomes all negative, I know that all these experiences will help me wise up to the world, and treasure life outside work. The demands have also driven me to practise the art of delegation, and respond to pp/situation with less care on how they may react, i.e. to be less concerned about offending pp. This driving force is good for me, as it makes me more efficient. But I must say, one cannot thrive in such environment for too long.

Divine Intervention

Had promised a friend that I'll blog about a recent incident at work. Well, here it goes. The big project that I am involved in is at its final stage of completion, and horror of horror, we just discovered that some other organisations are unwilling to go along with certain functions that we have developed. So, the workaround solution warrants a Big Change Request, costing tens of thousands. As this relates to my dept business operations, we, or rather, I become answerable for such major change. We need to present our case, the background, why we had not realised this earlier, or done more to convince the organisations... blah blah blah to the Steering Comm which comprises the big bosses lah.

Of course, this would make us look real bad in terms of our ground work. But in real honesty, I do not think that it's an oversight on my part... whatever lah. What has been pretty obvious through the series of events is that my boss is clearly avoiding the responsibility!! I was disappointed, no, furious at him for the lack of support. Thank God, I managed to put the emotions away, and just do my part to prepare for the "firing squad". My boss sent his deputy to attend the meeting with me instead.

Hee, I was a bit nervous the morning of meeting, so I asked 2 of my faithful prayer warriors to pray for me. I totally committed it to God, and experienced His peace. Besides, how bad could it get? Maybe some verbal lashing, poor impression created, poor appraisal?? Well, these do not bother me, since I'm not bound to this job, I reasoned.

As it turned out, at the meeting, the 3 big bosses were so busy disagreeing among themselves regarding some IT aspects of the project, they spent the whole time talking about them. Hahaha, my item was not even brought up for discussion. The deputy and I just sat in the meeting and watched the display of power struggle ... I found out later, to my joy, that the "no-objection" signals a green light for the expensive workaround solution! Hallelujah!!! Praise God!

Indeed God works in mysterious ways, beyond human expectation or plans! This is just another example of His marvellous answer to my prayers.

Being Positive

Met up with 2 of my JC friends for dinner just now. It was a nice gathering, just catching up and enjoying one another's company. I guess these are the nicer things in life. Well, complained a little to them regarding my work, but I did made a conscious effort not to be sucked into the complaining spirit. Instead, I devoted my attention to finding out how each person is doing and I was able to enjoy the evening. =) Am quite surprised that I could distant myself from the frustrations at work and be my normal self. Answered prayers.

From a positive perspective, this whole episode of trials at work is somewhat molding my character to be stronger and more mature. So that's a good thing. I am also being more vocal at work, speaking up my mind to bosses, pushing them a little regarding their involvement (or lack of) in the project, learning to delegate tasks (can't handle everything!). In all these, I am becoming less concerned about how others perceive me, what the bosses think of me etc.. I think that this is good, as long as I remain objective, and complete my tasks, and remain guided by God's values.

I am also thankful for the emotional support from my parents. They have witnessed the hard work and long hours, heard my complaints, seen my frustrations. And they are supportive of my decision, whether to change job or not. Dad also gave me some pep talk just now regarding the do's and don'ts in making job switch. Timely reminder and I really appreciate his advice. He noticed that I've been looking out for jobs for quite a while, but have not actually taken any concrete action. He said that such laid back attitude should be cast out. Instead, there needs to be a determination, desire and excitement regarding the job that I'm looking to do. I was reminded of my zeal when I first stepped into this organisation 3+ years ago. Yes, I want to have that sense of anticipation when I do move on.

My colleague N has also mentioned several times to me about taking active steps toward our goals. Ok, I shall "repent" of this and devote my Sat to craft something out and take further action steps. :) Cool.