Sudden Brainwave

Was clearing my work e-mails on this Saturday night when the thought hit me...

Forget work.

Play. Sleep. Live life.

Hell yea.

Leave the Edible Happiness Alone

Heard from news today that Cadbury is the target of a (hostile?) takeover by Kraft.

I am praying that no matter what's the outcome of this whole thing, they don't go and change my favourite Cadbury Dairy Milk.

Like add cheese in it or something equally disgusting. =\

*vomit*

Cadbury Dairy Milk is like edible happiness. Really it is.

image source

Yummy! I am going to take a big bite out of the one I bought as soon as I am done posting this.

Chocolate = happiness. =D

Disclaimer: Cadbury did not pay me to write this, I wish they did though. I will settle with a lifetime supply of Dairy Milk. =P

Gender Equality

Heard from MyFM a few days ago that the Brits are going to let the fathers have up to 6 months of paternity leave.

I say it's about time someone did something about that gross gender inequality!

It's not always about the women you know? We men need loves too. =)

Apparently gender equality has a nifty icon:

image source

See, symbols of both genders are used yet almost everyone think only of the women when gender equality is mentioned, so unfair. =\

With (up to) 6 months of paternity leave, fathers all around the world would finally have a more levelled playing field to bond with their newborns as the mothers.

So we fathers could have an equal chance of witnessing the many "first" as well as exert equal influence to our newborns so they utter "papa" first instead of "mama".

Hey, these are bragging rights, okay? =P

If only Malaysia was also practising equal length of paternity and maternity leaves, then companies would have no basis of bias (openly or secretly) for either gender and employ solely based on skills and credits. The stupid racial quota notwithstanding, of course.

Not to mention it would have saved me a month of salary by not needing to hire the confinement lady and helped out my wife myself instead, hfft!

Yea, confinement lady makes as much money as I do. >.<

Diary

This is how my day was a few days ago.

06:55 hours: Wakey wakey, blurrily turned on laptop and connected to company's network. Noticed that there was indeed a 07:00 hours meeting. Don't you just hate those meeting organiser who doesn't have the courtesy to send out the agenda or cancellation at least 12 hours before the meeting?

07:00 hours: dutifully called into the meeting. Assigned to attend this meeting by my second boss. Only a single topic today and not relevant to my department, didn't bother to write my usual summary e-mail to the team.

08:05 hours: meeting ended. Showered and commuted to ulu place.

09:20 hours: arrived office. Docked, locked, and booted up laptop, nothing super duper urgent so it's breakfast time. Only Nelson wasn't in yet so I headed over to beg and plead two colleagues for the information I need for the oh-my-goodness-we-are-so-behind-schedule project. Think to get rid of me bugging them I finally got what I wanted, well, kind of. Everyone has limit, after a certain threshold I got to talk to the hand.

10:00 hours: Nelson finally arrived and ready for breakfast. Think the two colleagues must be real relieved I finally left them alone.

10:20 hours: back to my cubicle trying to figure out how to share information that was told not to be shared, yet must be shared else nothing gets done. Back to bugging the colleague and he kindly showed me how to make the not-sharable sharable. Went back to my cubicle and got it done and went to bug the colleague yet again for his approval on the not-sharable now made sharable.

11:50 hours: "go go go makan" message popped up in IM. Darn, noon already? I still had this, that and those to go through, sort out, and deal with ler. Time not enough.

12:00 hours: Nelson didn't have too many IM conversations today apparently, he was ready to go to lunch. Think him being in the toilet and we got him to move towards cafe after his "business" instead of let him got back to his cubicle helped.

13:15 hours: why incoming e-mails never end?

13:55 hours: darn, have to go! Have to go! Why nobody at the receiving store? Guess have to wait till tomorrow to collect my loaner chip.

14:05 hours: left ulu place, heading home.

15:05 hours: home, father said good to go after a shower. Booted up laptop and tried to clear a few e-mails while waiting.

15:20 hours: chauffeur duty, drove father to airport.

16:30 hours: bloody idiot parked at my reserved parking lot, security failed to stop the offender in the first place, then being incapable of locating the offender. After 15 minutes I gave up and parked right behind the mover's lorry. If you want to get out of MY parking space, come see me so I can give you an earful.

17:00 hours: idiots came apologising to wife and mother, was discussing work with boss on IM during that time, so I went down to move the car a few minutes later. Bastards had the gut to show dark faces, was too busy to get back to work to give them an earful.

18:20 hours: ridiculously heavy rain and thunderstorm, a few consecutive lightnings convinced me to stop working. Shut down and unplugged the laptop, can't afford to pay the company if a lightning strike fried it. Don't have surge protector ler.

18:40 hours: entertain king#2 while reading newspaper while wife fed king#1 and then had her dinner.

19:15 hours: dinner time, by that time everyone was done so I dined alone, as usual. Sad.

20:00 hours: done with everything downstairs so got king#1 upstairs, showered him.

20:20 hours: king#2 was giving wifey a hard time so my turn to cuddle him till he sleeps.

20:25 hours: trouble brewing between king#1 and wifey so I brought king#2 to my room while the thunderstorm erupted in the other room.

20:40 hours: wife gave up and came to my room. My turn to be "good cop", went to handle king#1, who was wailing at top of his lung. Good thing king#2 has fallen asleep.

20:42 hours: king#1 vomited from excessive crying, wifey got him changed and got him back to the room for the aftermath rebonding. I cleaned up the mess on the floor.

21:00 hours: took my shower.

21:10 hours: went to have a few words with king#1, kissed him goodnight, and took over king#2 from wifey so she could go take shower. King#2 has woken up again.

21:30 hours: wifey ready and took over king#2, fed him. I returned to my room and noted down the events today, will flesh them out and tidy them up for posting some other day.

Random Thoughts

My Google-fu is strong, for I found the bird hierarchy image I mentioned in the previous entry.

Behold!

image source

Can you find me? Ney, I am second from the left on the bottommost perch lor.

It's pretty warm and fuzzy really... =P

This image is a bit strong, I didn't know about the wordings top and bottom of the image since when I first saw it, it was flashed only briefly and I was busy running around doing stuff.

But no worries, for my Google-fu is strong! I found a milder version that's probably easier to accept by shit and assholes as a joke instead of being taken as an offence.

Here you go, buy one get one free! =)

image source

Am showing these images for no particular reason, honest! I just think they are funny.

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I am lousy at managing stress, so I am easily stressed. Hence when too many things that are new to me need me to handle at the same time, I get overwhelmed.

Plus, I like to complain and grumble.

What lar? This is typical for old farts like me. =)

Ranting is one of my ways to manage stress, can or not?

I find that spilling it out is a good way to relieve, rather than having it pent-up. Like shit really, better out of the system than in.

As the sole bread winner, having many tasks to do is a good thing really, means I still have a job.

Though it would be real nice if everything went a bit smoother and I got hit with less shits delegated tasks.

Maybe I should do more random acts of kindness so I get better karma. Like treating my colleagues icecream using the free birthday voucher, share the happiness!

Maybe I should really take the Feng Shui seriously instead of ignoring it, think I best ask the Feng Shui master tomorrow for some pointers.

Make things go smoother for me please, including but not limited to shitting. =P

Bosses

In the beginning, I have one boss, this is the real one.

For a specific project, I get another "boss" in the form of the project coordinator.

Then for a specific job assigned within a specific project, I get another "boss" who delegates tasks to me.

Reminds me of the bird hierarchy picture flashed in 2009 Annual Dinner, where the shits from the largest bird on the very top drop onto the birds on the second highest perch, the shits from birds on the second highest perch drop onto the birds on the third highest perch, and so on and so forth.

I am the one at the bottommost where you can see nothing but a big pile of shit with two eyes.

Honestly, this is not a complaint. I am after all a junior engineer with the least experience.

Better to have a job than to be removed because you "do nothing".

Overwhelmed

Woke up after a midnight meeting to find the inbox full of "heavy" e-mails.

This is not a nice way to start a day... >.<

The nature of my work involves dealing with ambiguity, and ambiguity invokes stress.

Sadly I am easily stressed. =(

The sudden influx of jobs which I have no prior experience in is overwhelming. Mind you I don't mind learning new things and doing new stuff, just not so many at the same time.

All new to me, all I have not a clue how to do.

It's just... too much.

I feel like a punctured balloon now. Meh.

On a side note:

Me is happy because three of my colleagues had to stay up late for the ungodly hour meeting earlier today, for once I am not alone in the suffering, muahahahaha!

Yea, me is evil.