How to torture like an Ancient Torture Device

Have any of you gone to any of those exhibitions of ancient torture devices? I have. TWICE. One of the items on display was a metal chair that one was supposed to be strapped buck naked onto then had the fire lit up underneath it.Since the chair's material is highly heat-conductive, you would be essentially grilled alive. Worse thing is, that chair was supposed to only torture you not kill you. In that situation though, you would be as good as dead.

That was how I felt yesterday as I was put on a hot seat. Really really hot. The highly competent people doing the Lab assessment ISO/IEC 17025 came to evaluate us. What I went through was the mental equivalent of the medieval hot seat.

As I did the recent `internal audit' on Quality Management area, I had to go through an `evaluation' by this lady who was the Lead Auditor. I will not reveal her name as she is a highly respected figure in this field in our country and overseas. It was impossible not to have admiration for this woman for her intelligence and spot-on method of getting to the roots of our problems. Man, did she put me on a grill! Yes, she grilled me. Really really grilled me!


I can't describe how humiliated I was when she asked me to explain some of the things I wrote down in my Audit notes when I couldn't answer a lot of her questions.

"What do you understand an improvement is?"
"How did you as an Auditor draw a conclusion based on this?"
"Did you check the implementation or just simply acknowledge such and such documents exist?"
"Did you get what I mean?"
"Can you see the overall picture?"
"This wasn't that long time ago. So, you should be able to remember"
"Look at this document, can you see the problem? The fundamental problem?"
"See, there is a change in the procedure. So, the policy has changed. Have you, in fact, created more ways for things to go looser?"
"By doing this, you are making things ambiguous...."
"Overall, I'm not going to sugar-coat anything, the system is very weak"
.........etc.....etc.....etc.....

Nothing was a blurry vision to me. It was just blank. Blank space. Our Quality Manager said to me not to panic. No, this was not a panicky situation. My mind just went blank. That was it. I never filled in anything into it since last year as a matter of fact. This is beyond humiliation.


These are some of the things that can be summed up on my competency (or lack thereof):

1.  I was immatured enough to write the very childish statement "Not yet" instead of "Not applicable" in my Audit notes.

2.  Apparently, I couldn't tell the difference between an "adequacy Audit" and a "compliance Audit". She said all I did was skimming on the surface without looking at the overall picture of the system.

3.  I didn't check the implementation at all. Just agreeing to everything based on paperwork. She said I was influenced by the Auditee.

4.  I relied too much on a "Yes/No" type Checksheet.

5.  What on EARTH is "anti-clockwise measurement of a Torque Wrench"? Worse is, I wrote that down in my Audit notes and didn't even bother to understand what it is.

6.  I have "inadequate understanding of the Accreditation Bodies' Policies" because my "Audit findings on the Policy series were inadequately documented".

7.  I have the "Parrot Syndrome". You can teach a parrot to recite what you say but it doesn't necessarily understand what you say. So, I was, most of the time copying what the auditees said without really understanding what their work was all about.

8.  Since everyone is unclear about identifying which areas to improve, she said improving the Internal Auditor is one area we can all work on. Why do I have this feeling that she was talking about me? I'm a weak spot in the system that needs to be strengthened, people :-(


So, below is my response:

1.  Yes, Ma'am. You are right.
2.  With everything that went on at work for the past several months, I was not at all in the mood of learning or giving my all to my job. My friends leaving, my useless management, my paltry salary increase, my family health problems. I was and still am more keen to forget everything instead.
3.  Yes, I believed everything the Auditees said to me because they are the better-trained ones.
4.  Yes, I just recorded everything simply to finish the assignment instead of delving into the core functions of the Lab.
5.  I wish I were heartless or at least separate professionalism from feeling sorry towards my friends in the Lab team.

Being a professional that she is, the lady did point out that our Group really did have selected the right persons as Internal Auditors as we are actually able to pick up problems that we see. All we need (what I need) is to polish up our (my)skill and further understand the requirements and the importance of looking at things as one overall picture.


Now I can tell you an additional reason why I went blank yesterday. I have to admit that during the Q&A session, I was there as my body only. My mind was totally somewhere else.....with a bunch of old geezers.....namely......Deep Purple!

Before going into the meeting room, I printed out some info on the upcoming Deep Purple concert at Arena of Stars, Genting Highlands on 16th May 2010. I was checking about any possibility of me going such as the available ticket and hotel room. The ticket I can afford is for seats furthest from the stage near the doors. Every hotel on that land was not available. It's useless to go to a night event there with no accommodation. This is not like the Capital City where you can simply get a cab and check into any of the many hotels available. Hotels on the highlands are limited. The only one available is the MYR1000+ per night. There is one affordable hotel available but it's at the foot of the mountains which requires you to take the Cable car. I don't know when the last Cable car leaves the centre of the highlands. Besides, this hotel costs more than the affordable ones on the highlands. It's just not worth it. It's even more not worth it now that Ritchie Blackmore, my "first love", is not in the band anymore.

So, with my mind meandering over the Purple geezers and the highlands plus my obvious "rock star obsession", I think you have a pretty clear idea of where I was. This Soldier of Fortune was speeding on the Highway Star. Before she realized, she was already grilled and was blowing it all up like Smoke on the Water.

My Package from Germany arrived finally.......yeah!

Endlich.........the package I'd been waiting for from Germany since 1st March 2010 arrived. Yeah....yeah....yeah!

Adding more to my rock and metal paraphernalia. I love collecting old magazines from my old days. It's a hobby of mine since I was a kid. This particular package is a bunch of Helloween old stories in their native German language. My German vocabulary is so limited but it's always fun trying to understand reading it one word at a time. Spoken German on the other hand is so out of my comprehension.

I was so sad when the package didn't arrive after two weeks. The seller was very nice though and offered to refund. I opted to hold on. Holding on to my faith that life was not cruel. The seller seemed to be a genuine person and I certainly was keen to give a fellow metalhead good scores.

There it is. Ooh...just look at those colourful pretty German postage stamps :-)
Yes, people. I'm an old-fashioned nerd. I love good old stamps. Even in this digital age.
For privacy reason, my full name and address are hidden.

Looks like He loves me when I think that my life was coming to a crashing end.

Who will be with me when everyone else is gone?

Another elder in the family passed away. One of my maternal grandfather's younger sisters.

From what I heard, my grandfather refused to leave her side the night she was brought home from the hospital. In her lifetime, I never really saw her getting too affectionate with her grandkids but somehow she would always shower me with hugs and kisses every time we met. I don't know how or why they found it difficult. To me she was hilarious. I could always joke with her and tease her. I liked giving her hugs and she would always return the affection.

I went to the burial ceremony with guilt. That's because my mother asked me to take her to visit this ailing elderly woman but I was not too keen. I said that she was placed in the CCU and it would be a waste of time to go since they allow only two people at a time. To me, it was better if we gave way to her children and grandchildren. Besides, my mother was not feeling very well anyway. Just a few hours later, we received a call from a relative that she was gone. I don't know how to describe it other than oops......on my part.

Later in the day, I asked my mother, since all my younger brothers would be working in the capital city and my elder brother is scheduled to move out with his family, who would be the one to take care of her and my father. She said "You". I was taken aback. Look. That's a horrifying thought. The thing I certainly do not want in my life is to grow into an old maid who has to live with her parents because she can't afford to live on her own and has to take care of them in return till the rest of their lives......or hers.

Another horrifying thought came to my head. What if my sister moves out? Then, all will be up to me? I have never been keen on the idea of my elder brother moving out. In my mind even back then, since he was the one who definitely isn't leaving the village and being the eldest, he should be the one inheriting the family house. I don't want to be stuck here. I have always been the one who wants to go out and see the world. I want to be out there seeking adventures. Yet, everything that's happening just chains me here.

If only I had the salary befitting my job title, I would definitely be living in my own condo unit somewhere near the city and spend my money on trips to overseas to catch my favourite bands in concerts.

There is only one thing that's actually scaring me. What if I'm confined to life in the village, unable to move out? What would happen to me once my parents are not with me anymore? My siblings would have their own lives to live. Would I be left alone in that big family house with old memories of what things used to be? It scares me to the core. Just thinking about it upsets me. Dying is a sure thing but it's more tragic that I haven't really lived.

I'm not even worth MYR50 to my company

Got our new salary today. Very very disappointing. As I'm typing this, I'm trying to hold back the sadness that feels like a heavy stone in my chest. I am very very sad that I am not even worth MYR50 to this company that I've been working like a slave for in the past 10 years.

The last time I felt this way was when they "upgraded" me to the non-overtime-entitlement salary bracket. It was so minuscule that I spent that whole year suffering from paycheck to paycheck scratching my head and scraping to the very bottom of my bank account to pay my car, petrol and bills.

I'm not even worth MYR50. What do I have to prove to the management for monetary appreciation? It seems like nothing I can do would get them to notice my contribution. They only pick me to do things that everybody else is not capable to do. That's all.

This "increment" is not even enough to cover my weekly petrol expenses. It's so comical that before handing over the payslips to my subordinates, I gave a short speech congratulating them and asking them to be grateful for whatever they would get. What a hypocrite I am.

No! I deserve what I wish for. Please Almighty, please open up a whole new world for me and take me through a new road where the path is obstacle-free.

20th April is here and it's Ratt's Infestation album launch day....yeah!

I survived 20th April. Yeah!

I dreaded today as the it should have been the day that I had to join the Management 5S 'factory tour'. I did. Good news is our Managing Director is in Japan at the moment and he wasn't available for us. Alright! He did, however, ask another Japanese to join us. I wasn't sure what his name is as he's fairly new in our branch. He previously was in the China branch. He mainly speaks Japanese and Mandarin and very little English which somehow worked out to our advantage later.

My legs ached as I trailed behind everyone. The men were much faster. Even the fat men were faster than me. This isn't right! After it was all over, we all gave only short comments about the overall condition of the factory as the guy was not proficient enough at intermediate level English.

Ok. Enough about work as I have a reason to celebrate. Checked my mail to see a message from Amazon that my Ratt's Infestation CD is now on the way. Oh, I'm so frigging happy. Let's pray that it arrives in my mailbox safely. I even resisted listening to the `streaming' offered by Roadrunner Records online. I want to be surprised, you see. I have this feeling that it will be a nice surprise too :-)

My week didn't start well as I let out my anger during Monday morning Division briefing about unco-operative people who were not being nice to my subordinates regarding Engineering documents control. My Manager gave me a short lecture instead in front of the WHOLE division about me being emotional in giving instructions. What the heck was he talking about?! I wasn't giving instructions, mister. I really was letting out my anger.

Ok. Back to my celebration of Ratt's new CD. Now that my April 'gift' is out there, I can personally celebrate this special occasion. It's sad that I'm thousands of miles away from all the action. So, last night, I happened to stumble upon an old video of Warrant performing in the Gazzari Club in 1987 on YouTube. Hey, that's the place that Ratt is launching the new CD according to Warren DeMartini except the place is called the Key Club now. Oh, I'm wishing him well :-) In a way, it is his birthday gift too ;-)

I cranked up Eat Me Up Alive this morning in the car on my way to work. Thanks Roadrunner for that free download :-)

Suddenly I'm reminded of a question from a friend at work who asked when I told him that I'm feeling like 15 when I have actually stated here on my blog about feeling 18 in my opening lines.

In response to that, the answer solely lies in this Ratt's new CD.

Frankly, I wasn't that big of a fan back then when I was a teenager. Dokken was and still is my favourite LA band. Their only album that I was able to buy Dancing Undercover didn't stay with me that long. It got stolen. I'm not a fan of Stephen Pearcy's vocals but I really liked Warren's guitar playing which unfortunately didn't sound like it was mixed loud enough in the studio back then. The Infestation album on the other hand put a lot of emphasis on the guitar sound from the two songs I've heard so far.

So, what does being 15 have anything to do with it? It's because this excitement that I'm feeling right now is exactly what I would have had back when I was 15 when a band released a new great album. I would feel like the world is my oyster. I would feel high up in the air. My beautiful world from the great 80s is back :-)

Tonight I'm feeling 15 again ;-)

*Update*

I just have to link to this video. It makes me feel like I was part of the celebration every time I watch it.

Warren DeMartini looks so good here ;-) during an interview at the Key Club with XtremeTV (check them out!).
It's always great to see someone from that era still looking good when many of them are trashy wasted. I have never ever heard or read a single sleazy story about Warren.
Here he is with Carlos Cavazo, the man he chose to be part of the band.

Rock on everyone!

Beware......you may be stuck with that wallpaper for the rest of your life

The computer people have blocked the users' accessibility to another level!

Ok. Nowadays, with the advance in digital technology, it is unfortunately a necessary evil to implement such control especially for a manufacturing plant like ours. Yet still, my feeling about it is ....it sucks!

It's bad enough that I am no longer able to access this blog and the entire MySpace pages as the Internet usage is strictly firewalled. Now, we can't plug in any of our personal flash drives. Well, it means I can't access the pictures taken by my digital camera as the images are stored in a memory card. Cameras with internal memory is OK though. I can live with that.

They also auto-lock our PC if we leave it unattended long enough which really isn't long at all. I went to the ladies' room and came back having to re-enter my password for not only the "mother" PC but also the remote connection login. Good for security but can get haywire at the same time when my keyboard keep saying I have the "caps lock" on even though it is not.

However, the worst thing is we can't change our wallpapers. Oh, come on. What is this? How is that a threat to company computer system and intellectual property security? Which reminds me of that dreadful Windows 7 Starter.

Thankfully, on the day before the implementation of the "locking" system, I happened to set my wallpapers to these.

This is what I chose as the wallpaper for the PC. That's Mr. Cool Chris DeGarmo performing circa Operation Mindcrime.

This what I chose for my "remote desktop" connection wallpaper. That's the beautiful Warren DeMartini from what I believe 1987.
*On a side note, I found this image online and I may have to purchase this photo now that I'm stuck with it. Maybe later when I have extra $$ ;-)

This is what happened when I leave the PC. I have to re-login.

Then re-login for this one too. So, double logging in through these two fine men.

OK. Now, all the images and wallpapers I have in my collection have been rendered useless. How sad my life has become, huh?

But then what is there to complain when I'm stuck with Chris DeGarmo and Warren DeMartini?

(*Unless they forced everyone to the blue Windows background in the future. Now, that would really suck!)

Just a Girl Living in Captivity.....that's me

Remember more than a decade ago when No Doubt released the song Just A Girl? I bought both versions of the CD single in the UK as I found playing the song "charged up my batteries when they were running low".

There is a line in that song which I really like that goes.....

"Oh, I'm loaded up to here..."

....which perfectly expresses a girl's frustration to the max and that's exactly what I'm going through right now.

It's about the messy politics at my workplace, of course. So, yes, my dear friend is confirmed to be leaving next week. The management hastily got a fairly new guy to fill in his place taking over some of the tasks. The problem is our management are so clueless about what it takes to get someone to fill another person's shoes.

As expected, right after the Manager had a face-to-face talk with my friend, I was approached to give support in 'training' the new member especially in Supplier Audit matters. As soon as he opened his mouth, I said "NO!" Within seconds I went into a near-teary outburst about how "loaded up to the max" I am. I basically told him that I can't afford the time to take any other extra task as I've been jeopardizing my own responsibility in the Engineering section quite a bit lately. I'm just lucky to have a right-hand guy who is there supporting me and picking up my slack all the way without complaining.

I said that all these years, each time a key member resigned, I would be the person that their workload got dumped upon. Let me list them out:

1. An XRF activity in-charge colleague resigned back in 2004, I had to step in. Continuing with the daily inspection monitoring, revising and perfecting the procedures he left behind.

2. A colleague who was a member of the environmental & Green procurement committee resigned, her position in the Committee went to me. They said I had the knowledge, duh!

3. A clerk resigned, her education & training co-ordination work went to me as I am the main Trainer in our division. I must be the highest-paying "clerk" here.

4. A close colleague resigned last year, I had to take over one of her jobs going to suppliers for Sony models process verification as I am the person who normally has to do the presentation with Sony people.

5. Now, another close colleague is leaving, do I have to take over his job too? Heck, no way!

Here are some other reasons why (among many more reasons):

1. I'm already a permanent TS16949 system internal Auditor as almost half of the trained auditors were granted VSS. I'm one of the unlucky few who didn't get it.

2. They just made me an Auditor for ISO/IEC 17025 system on top of that. Apparently, I was selected for "being enthusiastically serious" during a Training session with an independent consultant. Now, they're already talking about sending me to a one-week training again in the capital city in May "to further deepen my knowledge". Heaven, help me .....aaaargghh!!!

3. I'm doing many of our Division's instruction manuals besides being the main active Trainer as nobody else seems to be making them now.

4. I've been forced to be in this year's Annual Dinner committee again as the Alien has taken a liking to me being the Secretary. I have instead made no secret that I dislike him.

5. My slackening with my own section caused a major demerit when Sony people came to audit their blu-ray model recently when my members put in the delivery quantity of one component incorrectly. It caused confusion to everyone as we never ordered that high of quantities ever. We had to correct everything there and then. I still feel bad about it and I admitted to having mis-looked that particular detail as at the time, I basically had to handle the project on my own. My section was left with only three people in those desperate times.

6. I'm very angry with the management for not listening to my plea not to interfere with my friends' Section. Now both of them have chosen to leave the company. Can't our management see that people are unhappy? So, why should I be supportive when our management don't care about us?

7. Why should I be the scapegoat working my brains coming up with improvement plans proposal for our Suppliers when there is someone here actually making money out of those defect parts? Yes, that's an open secret that nearly everyone knows here. Unethical if you ask me.

So, everyone, I have declared to my management that I will not be giving extra support anymore. Yesterday, me and my soon-to-resign buddy might have scared the new guy when we told him to be ready to :

1. "stand on your own two feet",
2. "face the battle as a Pawn parading around as the Knight because everyone knows the King is useless",
3. "be creative to cook up an answer in a meeting when your Superior never shows up"....ha....ha....ha!

We laughed hysterically when he said something about "a real soldier will not turn away from a battle". Oh, youth naivety xD I have only one thing to say here. Soon you will find out who are the ones "running away from the battle". I said to my buddy, "I have battled with every weapon and shields there can be from Samurai sword to auto-machine gun and have no more to battle with other than detonating a nuclear bomb and end it all". Ha! Ha! So, this tired soldier has decided to retire :-)

The new guy must be so scared that he called in sick today. Hey, me and my buddy were just opening him up to reality ;-)

Yes. Right now, I am "just a girl living in captivity" and that "I'm loaded up to here". Gwen Stefani really knew how to work that to her advantage, huh?

Am I the Queen of the 'comfort zone' now?

My father was back home yesterday. I kissed his hand. He was smiling. Knowing him, I think it's his way of keeping himself positive. As usual, he said he's fine. He'd only say he's sick when he wants attention and pampering. If he says he's fine, it means he doesn't want people to worry.

I don't know why but the house felt half empty for the past several days. It is the same way if my nephews are not around. One thing for sure, a full house with all the family members is the best. I may live in my own little cocoon but I love the sounds of 'family' around.

My grandmother was over at our place last night saying that I should get a new car when she saw me arriving home with my uncle's borrowed 'antique' Toyota from I don't know what year. It is strange that I grew up wanting nice things in life yet I'm living my life surviving on very little in my own strangely comfort zone. I've read it a lot that successful people are those who don't like to stay in comfort zones. What does that say about me, huh? Lately, I'm feeling scared of myself when I think of it like that.

I certainly don't want to dampen my April but today, I've been receiving about 3 pieces of news that make me unhappy.

1. Following my rant about the month of March especially at work in my post here, a friend informed me that the tough-talking lady from procurement group was not too pleased with the email I fired at her for constantly following up with me on matters that are not within my responsibility scope. It's not fair that everything has to be burdened on my shoulders when I have already clearly defined what my job scope is. Is it so hard to go to the correct person for whatever the concerned matter is? Also, why wouldn't she cc her emails correspondence to my upper management? I'm not happy with that at all.

2. The HR people sent me an email saying the Alien wants me back this year as the Annual Dinner Committee's Secretary. That Alien saw me this morning and from 20 feet away, he shouted about making me the host again. I rambled on as I walked on the sidewalk of the old factory building about the job not worthy of the paltry pay.

3. My dear friend really did get the new job. Not that I'm unhappy for him but I'm unhappy that I'm losing a `little brother'. For the many years that I have worked here, he has always been a constant source of laughter and some spats (of course xD) but it's mostly laughter. He was my emceeing partner last year. Our first emceeing job. I wouldn't want to do it with anyone else. What people saw that night was two friends joking and goofing around, having a good time being crazy. I wouldn't do anything if what heart is not in it.

So, in actual truth, all 3 of the above is interlinked with each other. When my dear friend leaves, there will be no one to take over his job and my upper management people don't seem to care which may put me in deep water. My friend has always been the star of the company's Annual Dinner and without him, I don't have the heart to be any part of it. As much as I wish joy and luck to my friends but it breaks me each time one leaves. They are moving on to something new and trying to turn their lives around for the better.

All these lead back to me and the comfort zone issue. Now, if everything that's happening isn't a slap on my face, then I probably had gone through a labotomy in a missing timeline of my life and not knowing it. Wake up girl! You have been semi-hibernating too long.

I'm going on tour on 20th April ('factory tour' that is, duh!) and the Alien strikes again (help!)

Oh, pants!

Something I dread just arrived :-(

Just checked my email and saw a message from the Admin people that I have been selected for the next 'factory tour with the Managing Director(MD)' which they officially refer to as '5S Rounding'. That's the thing about working for a Japanese company. They have all these concept and principles that we have to follow.

It used to be so simple. Only the MD and 2 or 3 people from the Admin would be involved. One of them would be a translator to the MD. That was it. All we had to do was wait for them to come over to our respective Division and then wait for the report maybe a week later.

Now, it's almost like a battalion of management people selected from different divisions/departments to accompany the MD on his 'tour'. The walking part is fine as we all need a bit of exercise every now and then. However, the thing I hate the most about it is going to other divisions/departments and picking out bad things you see about them. Then, at the end of the 'tour', you are required to highlight those bad points to the MD one by one.

Look, walking around all day with the MD just isn't my idea of a good time.

Another thing. When will somebody deport the Alien back to his planet? To those not in the know, the Alien is the name I gave to our HR Manager as he is so inhuman to me, he must be an alien.

Last week, the Alien said loudly to me from across another table at the factory canteen that he had been nominated again to head this year's Annual Dinner. Oh, pants, pants, pants! Why oh why?

On Monday morning, my Manager informed us all in the morning briefing that the Alien indeed has been chosen as the Chairman and that he wants ALL the people from last year's Committee to join this year. From the way he said it, I think my Manager already agreed to it. Oh, come one. So, if this Alien is chosen again next year, I'll be stuck to that Committee again? Yikes. Help!!!

I wasn't happy with the outcome last year. I didn't have much time to eat. My "professionally applied" makeup was a "fail". My "payment" as the emcee was paltry. Then, the worst thing is, they didn't even have it all on VCDs. The only time I was the "star" of the show, they didn't make a VCD. All the crappy events in previous years had double VCDs even. It's just so unfair.

There are only TWO things I can be grateful of with all these Management things:

1. Being in that Committee means I get to participate in food-tasting. Now, that is what makes life worth living.

2. As much as I hate the 'tour of duty' on 20th April, that date will also be the date..........



.........that RATT's new album Infestation will be officially released. Yeah!

I hate it when the doctors think we're all dumb!

My father is in the capital city at the moment for his first treatment of cancer.

My mother and sister are with him. Basically, my mother will be caring after my father and my sister will be caring after my mother. Yes, my lil sis is the one gutsy enough to stick a needle into my mother for her insulin shot. I was offered to do it once by the nurses at the hospital but I backed out. I'm not afraid of needles on myself but sticking them into other people is a different thing. I'm not keen on inflicting pain onto others.

Anyway, my brothers who were there are now at home. My elder brother isn't too happy that there is no info at all from the doctors about the stage our father's cancer is at. It certainly isn't Stage 1. Our old man has been going to the hospital since 2007. It means he had been feeling unwell for a few years already. My mother was suffering for FOUR excruciating years before being diagnosed with Stage 4 colon cancer.

My brother expressed his concerns about the kind of treatment the doctors plan to give. It's still unclear at present. He talked about the new treatment where patients swallow the chemo instead of being pumped with it. Having lost our cousin to cancer last December and another close relative before that, we are not keen on our family members being the experiment objects of doctors for treatment effectiveness study.

I remember my father lecturing the doctors at the our state's General hospital for a 'botched experiment' on my mother when the operation supposedly to reattach her colon was not successful once. He boldly told them that 'my wife is not a lab object and you can't subject human lives on 'trial and error' like that'.

Also, I hate it when doctors wouldn't let us go through the records they make for patients which they normally leave lying on the patients' side tables. I was reading through my mother's record once and the doctor quickly came and took it from my hand. He said something about 'family members not supposed to know'. Hello, spare us some respect, please. At the end of the day, we, the family members, are the ones who have to look after our sick ones. For me, it's easier for us to know everything as much as possible so that we can tailor ourselves to suit the patients' daily life requirement.

At the moment, yes, I do feel that the doctors think we're so dumb that we can't handle such matters. As for any kind of sickness, we have to take charge of ourselves or our loved ones when they're too weak. Isn't the best way to start taking charge is getting well-informed first?

Why April is so cool!

April is here. Yeah!

Enough with my rant about March. I was just blowing off steam. Don't get me wrong. I love my friends but you can't put a bunch of people together and not have clashes with each other occasionally. Right now, I need to think about myself and what would I do next.

Something about April brings smiles to my face. Of course, I'm biased. I was born in April. This year's April is already promising some good things for me to smile about.

1. One of my friends on MySpace has an April birthday :-) Got to wish her today no matter what

2. PC Fair is coming to town again from 9~11th April. Sadly, they will not be doing it at the shopping mall Mahkota Parade anymore. They will be holding it at the Trade Centre Hall just like last year where only people with their own transport can go and parking is severely limited. I really want an additional internal hard disk for my PC as I am so running out of space with only 80Gb.

3. My birthday. I was thinking of giving myself a Netbook or a new cellphone. However, with the recent problem with my car, I have to rethink. I was dead set on a Dell Mini but on realizing that the screen was the glossy type, I changed my mind drastically. Now, the only choice I would go for is a Samsung. Sure, Dell may have the better specs but at the end of the day, I don't think my eyes can enjoy

4. It's Warren DeMartini's birthday this month! He was the only reason I listened to Ratt back then. To hear his playing. It's no secret that I prefer more melodic metal like the European one. The kind of music the band was playing somehow limited him as a guitarist as I believe he was able to do more. Giving Yourself Away was very commercial sounding and way different from anything they'd done before but I was glad that the song enables Warren to show his versatility. I won't get tired of listening to his solo there. Oh, yes of course, Warren was and still is just drop dead gorgeous ;-)

Warren DeMartini(middle) will be turning 47 on 10th April. This is from 1987.
April babies are beautiful. He's the proof ;-)

*Btw, DJ Johnnie Walker kept mentioning my country Malaysia to Warren in this interview at Blabbermouth. Thanks Johnnie :-)

5. Ratt is releasing their first album in 10 years. Had a sneak peek with the first single Best of Me and I must say that I felt transported back to my old school days. Not having a lot of pocket money, I was only able to buy just one album Dancing Undercover. To these days, the guitar intro to the song Dance still gets me excited and makes me feel like jumping over to the dance floor. Sadly the album was stolen from our house. I believe it was one of my brother's friends who did it.

So, there you go. It's early April and I'm feeling positive. Some areas of my life really suck but I won't let them bring me down.

April...shower me with love and life xoxo

The 'March-ing' Order! U call this helping a friend?

March 2010 sucked!

I didn't post that much in March noticeably. Spent most the time last month feeling very very pissed off at people from work. Lots of things in my life didn't go well last month.

1. One subordinate of mine ran away after spinning some tales to us to the last day

2. Forced into doing the highly technical Audit of the Lab system at our workplace. Come on, my brain is old. Do I have to work it this hard again? Besides, there are other people who went into that training but are freed from the job. I didn't even finish my training due to work commitment at the time and yet I am the one who is having to study this set of Lab policies on my own so that I could carry out the Audit work. How unfair!

3. My car clutch plate broke really bad and my car stalled right in the middle of a busy junction. Thanks Heaven that a nice brother from another Division who was there at the time helped me push the car to the roadside. Thanks bro. The car had to be towed away. That already cost me MYR70. Now, I'm anticipating a HUGE bill to pay for the rest.

4. My father found out that his brother actually has the Soursop fruit tree which is known as a natural cancer killer. Sadly, at the moment, the tree is not bearing any fruit.

5. One item I already paid for on 1st March on eBay still hasn't arrived as I'm writing this. The seller never informed me whether he has posted it or not.

6. I was suddenly dragged into a project at work I didn't want to be a big part of. Unfortunately, I have been made a 'key person' by 'default', I would say.

7. As a result of No.6, I am now feeling very pissed off at a friend as he was the one who put me into that situation.

Now, let's talk of No.6 and No.7. This is how it started.

I certainly am no jerk but I am no angel. So, when a friend of mine who was having difficulties coping with his work came to me for support, naturally I helped out. In the past few years, I kind of have a reputation as an 'unofficial mediator' between my colleagues, subordinates and the division management. I really don't know how it developed but I assume it must be down to my work principle of keeping the communication with the upper management, being in the middle management myself.

Being that 'accidental mediator', I tended to speak out for those who can't communicate well with the Management. However, I am not the type who support people blindly (which is why I'm not associated with any political parties here). I speak within reasons and I give advice to friends accordingly when they ask for it. I don't like it when people ask for my support and then 'hide' behind me. To me, when you ask for support from your friends, you still should be the one to stand up on your own and have your friends as the additional voice along with yours. You should stand side by side with your friend and NOT push your friend to the front to cover up for you.

I was not happy when my friend drag my name into a supplier environment control activity which came to a stall after another collague resigned last year. As the person who is in charge of the Division environmental procedure, I have made it clear of who should do what. Supplier control is certainly not the job I had defined as mine. I did support my colleague last time here and there a bit BUT as a supporter only, NOT the main person-in-charge.

I was very very angry when my friend didn't even attend the meeting he initiated with the procurement person. There I was at the meeting table with a reluctant member from my upper management facing a tough-talking lady from the procurement group. I ended up having to highlight other people's problems on their behalf. Needless to say, I told my friend off that day, "Don't you ever do that to me again!". Things got worse when in the subsequent pre-meeting, I was still 'the voice'. Then, all the emails and management requests started to be directed to me instead. Now, this is what I hate about the working culture in this company or in this country for that matter. Those who speak out will end up being made the person-in-charge.

So, now I have another burden being slumped on my shoulders. This Supplier control project is still under discussion whereby I shall have to revise some clauses in the procedure. I certainly don't want people to come to me for Supplier rank summary or to follow up with Memos and such.

Now this is where I am SO frigging pissed off at my friend. Guess what? After all these, he announced to me that he just got another job offer from another company! Worse is, I was the last among his close friends that he informed. I could have strangled him!