"Job Security"

I am a thermal engineer, that means I am very hot as well as super cool the person who checks if things are going to burn, melt, or go *kaboom*!

I have spent the last few months doing some modelling (the numerical simulation type, not the cat walk or posing type) to assess the thermal solution options we are exploring for a project.

There are a number of options and for each options, there are variables and uncertainties that I enveloped with some realistic limits based on my extensive engineering experience - copyright of Master Yes Man gut feeling.

The total number of cat walks modelling cases I have run is around 80, give or take.

Just as I was going to post-process the last few cases today, I was told there is a change in one of the critical component.

"Just take off an additional 0.5 mm all round."

That may seem like a small change but for the project I am working on, it reduces the heat transfer surface area to less than 60% coverage.

Trust me, it's significant.

And yea, I have to rerun all the cases, even if I cut corners er... "selective enveloping", I still have to do around 50 cases.

Job security? Yay?!?!

Arrrrrrrrgh!

Catching Up on Slack

Been really busy this week, late night everyday. Workload was a tad overwhelming, even posting this didn't help.

Initially just wanted to post a drawing to show I am catching up on my rest and sleep over the long weekend. Somehow ended up drawing a tag on the snail, I guess the mischievous side of me took over.

Oh well...

there is no rest for the wicked!

So I am making this a caption game instead! =)

Tell me, what do you think is written on the note tagged on the snail?

Slacker extraordinaire is going to slack the whole long weekend to maintain my slacker reputation, don't ka-ka-cau-cau!

天蝎座的工程师是这样的

我跟你讲，有这样一位天蝎座的工程师叻，真是 beh tahan 。

要他做一样东西，他总是烦死人的问东问西，问这问那，问细节，问相连的事，甚至问你的出生日子，问你的腰围等等。

而且不是只是问一次，他可以重复问好几次，甚至好几十次。好像问多几次答案就会不一样这样。要命，以为人家的生日会变的嘧？
更死的是，问完后有时还要实地观察，叫你给他看看这机件啦，那仪器啦，叫你解释他们怎么操作啦…真是很够力。

做工又慢到像蜗牛这样，催他也没用，他会慢条斯理的跟你说什么慢工出细货喔。
而且叻，说什么要深入了解，或是想知道那“假如…会怎么样？”，他会做比需要的多好几倍、几十倍。好像‘西北’有空这样。
但是不用紧，必要时，他是会烧油灯，开夜车来赶工的。
要记得的是，在他忙得大便都没空时你去吵他些无关痛痒的事他会很直接，还很大声的叫你滚蛋的！切记，切记。

要他做言简意赅的报告，他就‘座高高’长篇大论写西游记。好像人家喜欢读他的废话这样。
所以叻，我跟你讲，对这样有点完美主义,爱为细节钻牛角尖的天蝎座的工程师叻，最好的办法就是…
…不要给他任何工作！

以下呈上这可恶的天蝎座的工程师的照片。记得，不要给他任何工作！

Happy Birthday Wen Wen!

Even though she wrapped my car, got caught in the action and blatantly denies it;

even though she kicked my butt in foosball so hard that I am now afflicted with foosball-phobia;

even though she never invites me to any of her fun and happening events...

I forgive her since I get to play pranks on her am such a nice person.

=P

As Wendy's birthday approaches, I decided for a change to do something nice for her, as usual.

Wendy blatantly stated that she wants a gardenful of flowers for her birthday, but with the economy crisis and me being generally poor crisis or not, real flowers are out of question.

Nope, no can do, no money ler!

So I used my whip and forced coordinated the colleagues to make a paper flower garden for Wendy instead. The colleagues responded fantastically and Wendy got plenty of flowers, some garden insects, a monkey that she recently said she wants, chicken little, a candy, and even doo-doo (yea, there are always some weird people).

Nothing says cheap sincerity better than hand-crafted gift!

Her actual birthday is today but we gave her the card on Friday. I think she likes it. =)

I pointed a gun at her to make her smile for the camera

It's 30th of November now, so happy birthday Wen Wen! =)

Since I am not Walt Disney, I don't have to end everything with a happy or cheery ending, so here's what I think will happen to Wendy's garden...

Behold my amazing* artistic prowess! Ending number 1:

* kindergarten standard

Wen Wen's garden of poos!

Monkey and alien poo flower fling doo-doo at each other and the garden was full of shits in no time.

Ending number 2:

pest control anyone?

The snail had a feast and the garden was ruined.

Hehehehee. =P

It's interesting to note that I got some ribbings and fun poked at me for coordinating this paper flower thingy. Apparently there must be something fishy going on between Wendy and I for me to be doing this, since you know, a guy and a lady can't be just friends if they were being nice to each other.

*roll eyes*

As for the fear of me "spoiling the market", all I can say is that if my friends were truely treating me nicely, they deserved to be treated nicely in return.

I treat people the way I want to be treated, I am nice to those who are nice to me. Stephen Covey has a fancy term called the emotional bank account (EBA), those who have deposited in my EBA deserved me spending the time and effort to make their day.

Friendship, similar to any lasting relationship, is a two way traffic.

Day In Day Out

12 November: tainted white sheet

When the phone rang twice while I was showering early this morning, I knew something was wrong...

I ended up having to take an emergency leave, spent the whole morning in the police station, being fined RM300, and in the company of three displeased vehicle owners all wanting me to sort out their respective damage.

My poor MyVi was so damaged it had to be towed to the workshop, and my spotless driving record is forever tainted.

Okay lar I got a parking ticket once lar. But that was because of a certain Ipoh police desperate to meet his monthly quota of tickets issued, who stood by the coin operated parking meter and issued me a saman as soon as the credit finished.

I swear I was at most 3 minutes late!

Bollocks.

Anyway, my clean driving record is now marred. =(

And you know what?

It's not my fault at all, I just took all the blames and hits nia.

Mommi, I still love you all the same. Next time hor, do consider my offer of driving you around, can ah?

Pretty pretty please with sugar on top?

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13 November: kena shit

While I was busy settling stuff yesterday, an urgent task silently slipped in.

Need to get a model done by next week.

If it wasn't requested by a colleague that I like to keep a good working relationship with, I would have answered with my usual: "please go through my boss".

Put all other tasks on hold and focused on this urgent but not important (to me) job. I am not practising my 7 habits. =\

Well, at least I am depositing in the EBA.

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14 November: boh eng lar

Kena shit liao mar si have to do extra work lor.

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15 November: "yes milord"

Slaving to fulfill His Royal Highness King Baby Hsiang's whims.

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16 November: work/life not balance

Had to work on a Sunday to get the urgent task completed.

sian.

=(

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17 November: hello penguin, nice to meet you

Company sent me to attend a technical symposium to listen to presentations and to eat free food.

Gain knowledge and weight. Also got to see Nelson walking like a penguin after his half marathon.

After that had to go back to office to finish the urgent task, once decided to do something I simply have to put in my best. Couldn't get passed the perfectionist within, boh bian.

So mar worked late lor.

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18 November: chain reaction

So difficult to just hand in a job and be done with it. Often there would be some follow up requests.

No exception this time.

Good thing it's a relatively straight forward follow up and I skillfully handed over to another colleague since it's out of my area of expertise.

My "tai chi" is strong! =P

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19 November: e-dee-ert

Refreshed my laptop today, finally got myself a new laptop instead of some waterfalled third-hand laptop full of grime and dubious stains.

Thing is, stupid HP thinks it's smart to set 1900x1200 as the native resolution on a laptop screen, forcing you to either set lower resolution with blurred texts or high resolution with tiny texts.

e-dee-ert.

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20 November: let the slack begins!

After working late for the past few days, I could finally breathe easier at the conclusion of my agenda in the 07:00 hours meeting.

Time to catch up on keeping my slacker extraordinaire reputation! =)

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21 November: I failed

I want to record this to remind myself to always put the important things in life first.

I forgot it's my wedding anniversary today until I heard the voice message left by my wife.

I failed as a husband I want myself to be.

Guilty and ashamed.

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There will only be four entries this month, and this is the third.

Random Thoughts

Collection of random thoughts...

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Passing of a Legend

Michael Crichton, author extraordinaire, passed away on 4th of November 2008.

The literature world lost a brilliant star. It's an extremely sad news.

Crichton gave us masterpieces like The Andromeda Strain, Congo, Jurassic Park, Timeline, State of Fear. He was also the creator of the television series ER.

I enjoyed all the novels from Crichton that I have read so far, he had never failed to enthralled, entertained, and even enlightened me.

Great lost.

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Blogging, sharing

It's my hope that more of my friends and colleagues will start blogging.

I truely believe in sharing. I don't mean the deep private personal stuff but there are plenty of things to share.

We can always learn from each others, even a simple entry about our day to day life may well spark an inspiration. A sharing of an observation may well be an enlightenment to a certain reader.

Knowledge is for sharing.

And what I truely like about blogging, is that we get to know the blogger more through the writings. Human beings are multi-dimensional, we may be projecting an image at work, another image at home, and yet another during social occasions.

Through writing style and written words we can learn more about a person, perhaps a side that we never knew like how nice CK really is. Of course, writing is a habit of renewal that highly effective people practises. =)

So come on my friends and colleagues, start blogging, start sharing!

Oh, please inform me and I will link you! =)

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Knots

Love is in the air!

Two lady colleagues will have their wedding ceremony this weekend.

It's always nice to know loving couples tying the knot and start the next chapter of their lives together.

Marriage is a sacred thing.

I wish them the best of luck and... "you go gal! It's YOUR day!"

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Ideal world

The company will be a lot better if we had a Win-Win system, and the employees possessed the maturity, integrity and selflessness to think and see the bigger picture instead of the tunnel vision that only benefit a certain individual, group, project, or department.

Too bad selfishness prevails and many just want to avoid additional tasks, put up a close-minded defensive wall to stop any constructive discussion, push the ball of responsibility around. All at the expense of the success of the project as a whole.

Who cares? As long as I don't get the extra work and don't get the blame that will impact my annual review. Right?

=\

Empathic listening is so seriously lacking, so is the willingness to find a common alternative that benefits all parties.

Sad, but true.

At least I can always dream of an ideal world.

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There will only be four entries this month, and this is the second.

Happy Birthday!

Happy birthday to Scribble Pad!

It has been a year since I started this blog so I can skip all the html coding needed to post on my Sharing Corner.

And I am liking it. Anything that gives me more time to slack is good. =P

Some statistical data of this blog after a year, as of the entry before this one:

• total number of entries: 132 (12 months x 11 entries per month. Yes I am consistent ^_^ )
• total number of visits: 4746 (with at least 90% contributed by myself =P )
• total number of comments: 152 (with at least 50% contributed by myself =\ )

Basically, this is a blog with low number of readers and lower number of readers who leave comments. Pretty much what I expect from a craptastic blog, so all is good! =)

On another note, it's also my birthday today.

I am not one who is ashamed of my age, I turned 21 31 today. =P

Colleagues and friends had treated me to two lunches so far, all in the same day since I eat like a pig and would have gone for a third lunch if only the lunch break was longer.

No lar! One yesterday and one today lar. I eat relatively little, it's not easy keeping my stick slim figure you know? =P

There was a celebration in the cafe yesterday, with a yummy blackforest cake and birthday song sang twice. First time in funeral tune and second time in an upbeat tune! =)

The cake was a tad small for the number of people and all fault was mine. I was the one who selected the cake (my colleague insisted on buying one) since I honestly didn't think many would turn up.

I should clarify that it's not because I am popular that more turned up than expected, it's simply because there were colleagues playing foosball in the cafe at that time. =P

My sincere thanks to all who has been in anyway involved, be it lunch, the celebration in the cafe, the birthday greetings through instant messages, e-mails or messages on Facebook, Friendster, et cetera.

Thank you very much.

I am truely touched all over my body.

Special thanks and appreciation to...

• YT for organising the lunch and celebration yesterday
• Wen Wen for organising the lunch today
• Lily the model extraordinaire for the rose, the first flower I received in my life if my memory has not failed me
• Lay Ling the bowling queen for the virtual birthday song, virtual cake, virtual candle blowing and virtual birthday wish =P
• My dear brother for the card from Australia
• My loving wife for the whole blackforest cake and all the love
• His Royal Highness King baby Hsiang for smearing me with his food-filled hands, I know you love me and just wanted to give me a hug =)

Oh, and I have another lunch with friends tomorrow! =D

Edit: and thank you for not wrapping my car!

There will only be four entries this month, and this is the first