Mapless in Melbourne (aka Fatigue and a Shortage of Everything)

This is one of those 'ME' posts - long, ranty, and not very much useful in the bigger scheme of things. It does feel good to write these once in a while though.

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I am tired:

- of being me.

- of being me being a crutch.

- of being me being a crutch once too often.

- of being me being a crutch once too often, and for other people.

- of being me being a crutch once too often, and for other people, without anything in return.

- of being me being a crutch once too often, and for other people, without anything in return. What's more, it isn't like I am expecting some reward (though I do habour some expectations).

Being supportive, or otherwise being a friend, is sometimes a tiring exercise. Sometimes, I just want to quit it. If I could just easily tender my resignation as a friend sometimes, it'll be so much better.

A leave of absence will probably not hurt either. In some way, being 6000 miles (approximately) away from home does help.

I don't get too bothered by folks back home when I am here.

I don't get knackered at the end of a day chasing deals that never materialise.

I don't worry about people around me.

I get time away from all that has saddened me and worn me down. I am still sad about it - I just can't do damage to myself from being physically where it hurts (thinking about it still hurts... but it's containable here)

*** By the way, don't believe that bull shit about how getting away will help you forget.

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But I don't get to be myself though. Over here, my social circle is diminished, and there is increased interaction with a very small number of people. Being with colleagues for 12 hours a day, constantly, and without respite, is probably none too healthy (even though most consulting engagements are such, I've always been the local and never realised the almost 24/7 interaction required with other colleagues).

Consider this: I live in the same hotel as them; see them the first thing in the morning before heading out; take turns driving the rental car and bitching about traffic; work in a small meeting room overrun with cables, laptops and assorted fat-inducing munchies; hunt for new vegeterian options (I work with a vegeterian Indian, a somewhat renounced vegeterian Indian, and a none-too-picky Thai) during lunch; brainstorm over coffee about our collective problems; fire off emails and make cruel jokes about our counterparts from Hong Kong (they and their 'sing-song' English); check out eatability.com for new dinner options (Thai today, Italian tomorrow) - the first suggested restaurant wins (so long as there is vegeterian); and then retire to the hotel room, with the privacy it offers me to watch my latest downloaded shows (ack... Heroes is ending!).

I see my colleagues too much. I even talk like them now (affected Indian accent with bobble head thrown in for good measure; kawaii Thai intonations - quite charming for a gal, very gay-ish if you're a guy though).

My rant is: I need to be home... and they aren't letting me be.

Part of the reason is cost: it costs less to house me in the hotel over the weekend than fly me back and forth. The hotel is none too bad: it has broadband, the room is big and spacious, and I get a queen sized bed all to myself (anyone wanna come share it?). The flyback is not bad either: the company books us on SIA (Side note: Since I fly economy class, I always check into seats near the galley, somewhere around row 53 or so, and on the window aisle seat - go find out why).

Another reason is my bad timing: I chose to stay over one weekend, just for the heck of it (and me and another colleague did the Great Ocean Road! 2nd time round for me but she was totally thrilled to see the cliffs and winding roads). That was last weekend, and the intention was to fly home this weekend. Which proved impractical because we were going to fly home ANYWAY next Wednesday (or Thursday, or possibly Friday because we are such poor planners).

It sucks that I can't go home this weekend because: 1) I already miss home and people I know - I also miss TCC coffee; 2) I am going to miss a friend's wedding, and furthermore, that is my one chance to play being a 'Brother'. This sucks ass - I've always wanted to be the guy helping the groom tackle the ruckus of 'gate-crashing' while fighting off demanding bridesmaids. It always sounded like so much fun.

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In other news...

1) Melbourne May 2007 is probably not the best of times for this sunshine state. The water shortage is made further acute by the realisation that the government has miscalculated its water reserves by 40%. 40-freaking-percent! This means further water restrictions are likely, with Stage 4 being a distinct possbility now. Yikes... people are already not washing cars due to current restriction levels. What's next for this drought stricken land? What is a stupid tourist like myself worrying about a drought in this country? Perhaps I just like the collective environmental conscience that seems to permeate policies within this country, and therefore hate to see it suffer such (un)natural problems.

2) When driving in Melbourne, you cannot do without their version of the Street Directory. The Melway is one really comprehensive road directory - it never fails to list every major or minor road. The one thing that impresses me about it is that it accurately reflects how 'big' a road really is (which is one gripe I had about Singapore's version of it - all roads look the same size and one-laners are no different from expressways). Much as the Melway helped within understanding and planning a route, Melbourne itself makes it disappointingly hard to get your bearings: street signs are not the most conspicuous objects and the necessity of doing hook turns at junctions featuring tram lines still baffle me sometimes.

3) The Great Ocean Road is one big scenic drive - doing it the 2nd time round is decidedly more fun, since I am now a more seasoned driver and can navigate the curves better (there are other curves I navigate better these days too but... sighs... no chance there). This time, I was driving in a generally west-bound direction and during the mid-morning to afternoon period. The views were amazing - sheer towering cliffs, waves crashing on rocky shores, inlets carved out by years of pounding surf. Given the chance, I would love to do it all over again - and bring a camera... and lose the non-too-adventurous colleague.

4) Finally, the last news item of the day: If you know anyone who can take me out to somewhere chic in Melbourne and have a swell time, sign me up with them. I hang out with people who are currently married / engaged or otherwise seriously dating someone while here. This means there are no singletons like myself who would love to hang out over some drinks and meet other people, and this means that this means post 9pm, I'm mostly back in my hotel room watching downloads or checking out Australian TV shows like Big Brother, 1 vs 100 etc. In the short term, it is kind of nice having a hotel room to thrash like a rock star. In the longer term (which is the next one month or so) this place will start to seriously bore me. HELP!

There.

Oh btw, since I have a surfeit of photos which I have yet to blog about, I will probably put a couple of posts to showcase them a bit - bear with me as some of them date back to last year.



Mapless in Melbourne, May 2007

Two Steps Behind

It's been 5 days in the Garden State of Melbourne and it looks set to be much longer now. Going by what is required, the work is going to be done by a partner in Australia, with my company being in a more supervisory and advisory position. I believe that this can largely be done out of Singapore. But given the tight timelines and strict deadlines, I guess there's no choice but to be here in Oz-land, stepping on tails and cracking the whips.

Coming to Melbourne in May is both a blessing and a curse. A blessing because it means that I get to meet my sis and her boyfriend again - the last time we saw each other, it was in rainy December. A blessing also when it comes to food and lodging: the food's largely covered by the per diems, and lodging comes courtesy of the company (of course!) so I'm living here like a well-fed happy consultant, with nary a care who cleans the room or washes the toilet (eh... it's not like I worried about these things back home either... )

It's a curse because I ended up being here (initially) with 2 Indian vegeterians. They're nice guys who took the trouble to explain all things Indian to me - I understood more about Hinduism and why Hindus are such tolerant folks when it came to other religions, and also why they aren't (Hinduism is both everything and nothing at the same time, but at a less abstract level than Zen Buddhism is); I understood also why a map of India from India is geographically depicted to have more land area than the typical atlas, and why Indians are outraged at seeing maps from so-called authorities on national borders; I understood that arranged marriages have a whole structure and organisation to them, that it is in and of itself a grand affair with parents on both sides involved, and brides chosen with much care, and that even if it was a love marriage, the logistics of an arranged marriage are followed nonetheless (70% of marriages in India are arranged marriages and they have one of the lowest divorce rates in the world!).

Oh wait, it's a curse because they are vegeterians and are really good at wrangling a situation to their benefit. :) When it comes deciding where to head to for dinner, the research on Indian restaurants in the area had already been done, and the decision was moot: 2-1 Indian curry place wins hands down. Oh yes there is a concession on one of the nights to go to a noodle joint, but the less than enthusiastic response from my Indian counterparts told me where their cuisine preferences lie. They are picky, cautious and particular when it comes to the food they eat - 'Rightfully so!' Ravi claims, 'because it is what you put into the system, and the system is all that matters in the end.'

Philosophical, that Ravi.

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Melb's left an impression as well over the last 5 days or so. First thing I noticed on getting here is the water restrictions put in place. From the various sources I've got (sources include sister, cab drivers, receptionists at workplace and hotels among others), it appears like there's been a drought in the state of Victoria for a long time already, something in the area of the last 5-6 years apparently (according to one source).

It's probably been quite severe before, and there are actually water restriction levels that are put in place to control water usage (to some extent). This also explained why my sister's beat up car looked more beat up (dust, grime and dirt is obvious on a 20-year-old white Honda) because it hasn't been washed for months. Water restriction was at Stage 3 during my stay there and I can't help but think about other such similar 'levels' and stages out there: Hurricanes, Tornados, DEFCON, Terrorist Alerts etc. (for more details on water restriction levels, go here)

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An additional curse, if you can call it that, is that our client site isn't located in town. Initially, the expectation was that the site might be on St Kilda Road, which was a hop, skip and jump away from the city centre. Following our own research on the Internet, hotel rooms were booked nearby.

However, upon further information provided by the client and other sources, it was apparent that the client site that we thought was the client site is not the client site that we were supposed to be at. The actual client site is in some suburb outside of town, in the 'city' of Whitehorse (I'm not gonna give away the actual 'urb' it's in because it just might give too much information away on my client and what I do).

The city of Whitehorse is not a city in the strict sense of the word: from the looks of it, it's an extension of Melbourne, or rather, a suburb of Melbourne. The road trip over here passes many houses, and it appeared like we never left the urban areas behind at all. In contrast, during my time in France, driving from one town to another is usually through forested areas and the distinction between one town and the next is usually clear cut (exceptions exist... like Fontainebleau and Avon, which are essentially two towns merged into one big urban mess).

I suspect, though, that Whitehorse might be a local municipality: i.e. it is more of a political entity than that of a geographical one. Given that I am in the airport transit lounge at the moment, I'll check that hypothesis out at some later date and perhaps qualify what I'm babbling about here. This might mean that the jurisdiction over essential services might be separate and distinct from the main Melbourne area itself - it might have its own police force, garbage disposal services, and the like.

Nevertheless, seeing the phrase Whitehorse brings back memories of my NS days. Singaporean males will know what I mean. The White Horse is that oft-used phrase describing a full-time national serviceman who is a 'priviledged son'. He is typically the son of an influential politician, rich and prominent business person, or some other similar e-literati (A l33t in netspeak). The name came about because the dockets (35A and 34B for those who care to recall) will have a white horse stamp on it to remind the unit commanders of the special treatment require for the rich kid.

Few people liked the system (for obvious reasons) and its existence was only very recently acknowledged.

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Right. Boarding soon. Thank god for the new IBM Thinkpad my company has deigned to bequeath to me: this baby runs on juice for more than 2 hours at a stretch! (on those days I don't run power intensive programs on it like Azureus). The Thinkpad is a tool for the pro: it looks chunky for sure, but the whole charm of it comes from its ubiquitous black monochrome and the sleek black lines with hard edges and sharp corners. In other words: don't mistake this for a fluffy mac pretender; it is a work tool through and through. And it doesn't say 'I look like I might collapse' like the Dell does sometimes. Thinkpads are made to get you looking like the professional you are, and there's no looking like a pro than tapping away on one while in the airport transit lounge.

Now... if only I can look like I'm actually doing work than blogging away. hehe...

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See you in Singapore soon. Bon Voyage.

How deep does the Rabbit Hole go?

It's been a while.

That's all I got to say on the subject of my tardiness.

Now on to the main course.

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Firstly, the update. For the last 3.5 months, I was working away at a search firm / recruitment agency / headhunter (choose your description) interacting with a lot of people and generally getting a handle on the recruitment industry in Singapore. Also, I started seeing signs that the famed 'Employees' market' is back again: candidates show up with multiple job offers and companies are getting pressed to hire as quickly as possible (to stem outflows and offer rejections). What has not changed though were the salaries: they do not accurately reflect this demand.

So, that fun time at the search firm lasted until a kickass consultancy offered me a 3-month contract with them. It was not the most lucrative offer that an MBA can get, but it was good enough to entice me to join them. I had talked to them since last November and the expectations were rather clear in terms of compensation and work (the work is exciting stuff - strategy consulting always is). Thus, I took the plunge: I ate the red pill and took a dive down the rabbit hole to see how deep it goes.

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It goes deep south, far enough for me to be currently in Melbourne. Today (30 Apr) happened to be my first day at work (not counting the 2-3 hours at the project kickoff and that office party event, which were before my official start date). I had barely left the search firm (last Friday) and found myself on a plane Sunday night headed towards Melbourne. There was the inkling of an idea what the project was about (a Market Research thingy), but largely, all I was doing was heading to Australia with little idea what I was meant to do there.

Sitting pretty in the hotel room now, I can't help but wonder if this is what my worklife is going to be for a while: travelling at short notice to strange places and seeing a lot of airports, the inside of taxis, and intimately knowing the interiors of the hotel room (oh carpet, you're so fine!). The consulting life is going to be like this for a while... which is great! I never got to travel much at my last job.

Melbourne also affords me the opportunity to see my sis. It also afforded my dad and mum the opportunity to pile my luggage with stuff they want me to send to her (at last count, this was a headset with microphone, a couple of MicroSD cards, and some baby stuff for her bf's niece). We haven't caught up yet but I reckon I might take part of the weekend to do that. We shall see.

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On another note, I'm not sure I will be able to write much anymore. The following reasons are all why I haven't updated this blog for the whole month of April (btw, this post is backdated to 30 Apr so I have something in April... it was written on Labour Day... which is NOT a holiday in Australia):

1. Anime - Spring's offerings have intrigued me: I started on about 7 new animes that came out for the Spring season and have followed every one of them up until at least episode 3 or 4. Each anime takes up about 25 mins and this meant that time lost to anime amounted to around 3 hours every week.
2. TV - There are two programs I've followed throughout this recent period (let's call it greyscalefuzz's search firm times): The Amazing Race and Heroes. Whenever possible, I download both shows from bittorrent sites and collectively, they amount to almost 1hr and 40 mins away from more productive work as well. I still like TAR's reality show concept (comes from my travel bug syndrome) and Heroes is just simply mindblowing for its plotlines.
3. Interviews - and the preparation for them also took up time in April. While the 1st two months of the year were a drought where interviews were concerned, March and April brought a bit of a windfall in interviews. I met 5 companies for interviews (some leading to a 2nd round) even while juggling the possiblity of accepting the rabbit hole job. :) It was good to be desired, but only one other job came to a conversion. There is no way to estimate the time spent here though.
4. Other distractions - I surfed voraciously in April (my search history shows this) and this also meant much of my downtime (while not at work) was spent reading stuff off the Internet. Topics ranged form Spartan history on Wikipedia to recaps of TAR on Television without Pity. Engaging content on the web abounds - I will never read it all!
5. Oh yes, there is also The Gym. Since I signed up for a gym membership, I've been working out twice a week (almost religiously). This is a new thing on my calendar and has amounted to 3 hours in The Gym. The Gym is a noisy dancefloor music haven with hunky dudes pumping iron and gym bunnies in 2 piece attires prancing around. Eye candy aside, it also has too many gay guys (getting checked out in the shower room is the usual norm, especially when it came time to wrap the towel around the waist).

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So the rabbit hole goes deep: I know little about what I've gotten myself into, but it is a reality I am happy to explore for a while (if just for 3 months, so be it). Beats the uncertainty of recruitment. :)

PS: Give me a shout if you're are in Melbourne!

Learning from Searching

It was a most unpleasant experience: Having to deal with another person's disappointment and being forced to be too honest.

While helping out in the search firm I'm currently in, I'm made to run interviews with job candidates often. I ran one today where the candidate was obviously not a fit for the position that was advertised: the misfit was not in the skillsets - the CV was good. The misfit was in the attitude and required behaviour of the candidate, who just did not have the right frame of mind I was looking for.

The candidate looked shifty and nervous. The candidate could not maintain eye contact. The candidate's body language conveyed her discomfort with the situation, and while I did my best to put her at ease, she distrusted me. The candidate hated search firms and what they do. The candidate had seen too much, been through too much nonsense and it showed.

Anyhow, I am learning new things while on my current job, and I've learnt a few things today:

1. It is possible to tell from a person's tone of voice certain characteristics and traits about him / her. I have to trust my guts / instincts more when being on a conversation over the phone. If it doesn't feel right, I should not have proceeded. The vibes that one feels do matter.

2. Over the phone, I could have also asked more questions: people are usually more willing to share information over the phone if they know it will save them time (case in point: a particular job seeker could have establised that it is unnecessary for her to come, because she lacks certain credentials, thus avoiding meeting up personally and finding out at the end that she isn't a fit at all).

3. I should not waste another person's time. He / she is willing to see me for a purpose, and that purpose cannot be compromised by me not having done my job well. If I had done my job well, the meeting (and perceived waste of time) could have been avoided.

4. I should never have mentioned the ugly word 'fit'. Fitting people may be the job I do, but if I mentioned that 'fit' was what I am looking for, it forces people that I see into uncomfortable ideas regarding their perceived performance.

On Pretty Much Everything in My Life Since Whenever

1. I'm still job-hunting. It doesn't feel like hunting much anymore: Job-Hunting sounds like the kind of thing where you traipse around hilly forestland cradling a rifle, ears cocked and eyes darting from side to side, waiting to pounce upon unsuspecting deer. My job hunting is more like a pimping parade where I sell myself like a two-bit whore to the most down and out drive-by looking for a cheap and good time. I don't want to sell myself short; I also don't want to live through half of this fantabulous year STILL housed with my parents (which is where that income... IN-COME... will come in handy).

2. I'm not all bitter and sarcastic though. Life threw me a curve ball in the form of an old secondary school friend. He needed help at his search firm (otherwise known as employment or recruitment agency, but search firm sounds waaaaay cooler) and I gladly jumped at the offer.

The search industry is highly saturated - there are all kinds of firms filling every area of executive search possible. Segment it by industry and you have professionals serving banks, manufacturers, FMCG companies etc. Segment it by function and you have firms that keep files on finance, HR, customer service, marketing, and IT professionals among others. Segment it by complexity and you might see firms looking for management positions or trying to fill temp staff.

And if you don't know where to start when looking for a job, head down to International Plaza and take the lift to the highest floor; ditch the lift and knock on all doors next to signs that have either of the following words: "Consultancy", "Talent", "Recruitment", "Services". Chances are, they are an agency and you can leave your CV behind (no guarantees).

3. Speaking of that search strategy, there was a good reason why my friend locks the door to his office (at International Plaza... affectionately known among the HR-literati as IP). There are so many job seekers doing the hit-and-miss that the door gets an average of 8 knocks a day. Most of the time, they try twisting the knob and go away after finding no one home (we don't open it).

On occasions, I have had to entertain the lucky few who managed to enter because one of us forgets to lock the door - it isn't pleasant (for me): "We don't entertain walk-ins" seem to work the charm and the job seeker tries his luck next door; "We don't have positions at the moment" seem to trigger other desperate measures so I don't use that line anymore; "We are not an employment agency" is a partial lie which I hate to employ. IP being recruitment firm central (Adecco's among the biggest here), these seekers are bound to find something eventually.

4. What is it about hitting that big 30 which makes a guy worry? Nearing 30, your typical Singaporean dude will start thinking about settling down - or when he stops thinking about it, will settle for NEVER settling down, but most guys do the wanna-settle-down thinking more than the never-gonna-settle thinking. It preoccupies him, becomes him, and defines him. He becomes driven by it, or will end up not caring (i.e. never-gonna-settle).

Let's see what happens to the wanna-settle-down guy: he becomes less of a risk-taker, preferring options that guarantee him more safety, assurance and perhaps less uncertainty; the settle-down mentality guides all future actions: perhaps he plans more financially, perhaps he sees more people (if he's still single), perhaps he decides not to seek a job overseas; Singapore's inhibiting social norms start panicking him out: words such as ROM, flat-apartment-condo, ceremony, and wedding dinner start becoming a part of the vocabulary; oh yes, there is that ring shopping and damn marketing-speak about how expensive the ring should be (Side note: bring your girlfriend to watch Blood Diamond to convince her of evil machinations behind the nasty diamond trade - she might change her mind about whining for that expensive piece of carbon; convince her by telling her it stars a fat Leonardo DiCaprio).

It all stems from the time-bomb notion: the clock is ticking away and counting down the minutes of your short existence; brief lives indeed. To make the most of the time you have on earth, to live it to its fullest extent possible, you feel you have to settle down. 30 is the point, the barrier. You are now a man and a boy no longer (yes, you'd better be). Time's running out. It doesn't help that your friends are settling down. It doesn't help that some of them are into their 2nd kid already. It doesn't help to forget to bring Christmas presents for little kiddies running around calling you uncle (ack... I'm an uncle now).

Oh yes, I turned 30 last year but hey, I still think about silly stuff like this. :)

5. So what did I do for New Year? I met one friend, and then I met another. With friend #1, it was coffee, cake, and chat. With her, it is always those 3 C's whenever we decide that we need each other's company. We summed up our 2006, talked about new year resolutions (she resolves to be a better organised person; I don't make resolutions, but I did say something about learning to dance). Friend #1 is going on to better things in her life and walks away, head held high - she calls later to wish me a Happy New Year and I've never felt happier that there are friends who remember you. May distance never be a barrier to our friendship.

Friend #2 was a different encounter: we sat down and watched a DVD. It's like the DVD-rental relationship: rent DVD, sit down with popcorn (or in our case, some ice cream) and watch the time away. Oh yes, there is that obligatory switch over to Mediacorp's Channel 5 to count down (they are supposedly 'official time'). The count down program, as with any count-down programs by Mediacorp in the last 20 odd years, sucked: some star will be singing, followed by another star, and then the time comes to count down, they will count down, sing Auld Lang Syne, and its back to more of the same. Oh and it MUST be hosted by Gurmit Singh and Michelle Chia.

After catching some shut eye, we headed out to watch the sun rise and get breakfast. Not much sun for the first day of 2007 though... not that it portends anything of the future - I do hope the sun shines down favourably on the new year.

6. I bought two books a week back, each for a very different reason. The Long Tail is a book about how the Internet phenomenon is bringing society back to being the niche culture it was before mass media came into existence. On the other hand, Guns, Germs and Steel is a 10,000 walk through the history of the world as we know it. Both books have similarities: the Long Tail offers a framework for understanding how to market products to the niche cultures of today (and why they matter - the niches are the long tail of the title); Guns, Germs and Steel go behind the scenes to understand the real forces that shaped history, and comes to an understanding of why Western European civilization came to dominate in recent history.

The reasons behind buying them differ. I bought the latter book because I'm a sucker for popular books which take a crack at explaining history (or sociology, or applied economics); I intend to look smart while reading it and then telling people about views from it (without actually telling them about the source - how smart). The former book I bought for a somewhat nefarious reason: to try to have something intelligent to say at a job interview. The interviewer I was meeting had talked about the book before and I thought it might impressed him if I can say something about it (I did, but in a rather clumsy way, alluded to the book and my praise for its theories).

The challenge is now to actually read them. Given the busy work at IP. Given some of the travelling that I will be doing. Given the hectic search for a job. Given this. Given that.

7. In other news, this is one of those years where marriageable folk everywhere will rush to book that lucky date for their wedding dinner. Which one am I talking about? How about the 7th of July, 2007? And this is a good point on which to end this post: point #7.

Have a lucky 2007 ahead.

The Z-monster

It's not quite what you think it is. Clearly I've been lacking sleep the past few nights - working late, rising early. That biological clock of mine just refuse to allow me more sleep. Having gotten used to waking at 7.30am meant that I don't normally (repeat, normally) sleep past 8.30am.

But yup, I'm lacking sleep, which is why I'm losing focus with this entry: the Z-monster isn't about sleep (or lack thereof). I'm talking about the Z-curve.

Recall your statistics course in Uni. Or JC. Or whenever. There definitely was a time back in your schooling days of yore that you did some statistics. And if you know what I'm talking about, then you will surely remember the Normal distribution.

Quite an extraordinary feat of human ingenuity, this distribution. Effectively, its saying that half of any distribution is on this side, and its symmetrically on the other side as well. Like most things a human mind is capable of imagining, it has come to assume a phallic shape (especially more so when you reduce its 'spread'):



A normal distribution is also known as the z-curve. The z-curve is the bane of every INSEAD student.

Why do I say that? Coz we're graded based on the z-curve. This means that absolute marks don't count - one doesn't pass by getting 50% of the marks. One passes if he doesn't fall too far down the distribution to land beyond negative 2 sigma from the mean (i.e. 95 percentile bottom up).

The problem is that the z-curve forces you to be competitive: if you want to make it, you have to be just that much better than everyone else because everything is relative. How well you do is in relation to how badly someone else does. It is kind of like Harvard: the students there are so competitive that they'll sabotage your ability to perform wherever they can (disclaimer: Not a personal experience, hearsay only!!). Supposing you left your notes inadvertently in the library? They'll be gone the next moment - don't expect them back.

I digress - the whole problem is, this z-monster is making everyone work hard. Which means I have to work hard. And when I work hard, I can't blog much and my blog entries suffer from bad grammar and horrible sentence structures. Such as starting sentences with the word 'AND'. And not doing much about it. And the worst part: not actually caring.

Stressed I am. Exams force you to a corner and it makes you work your ass off for artificial rewards. I can only hope that I do well enough not to fall too far off the mean - everyone here is smart (the average GMAT is 700 something I recall) and everyone here is to some degree competitive.

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I meant to write something about Brokeback Mountain, which I saw last Saturday... it touched me, but the thing is, what I wanted to write was a memory which the premise of Brokeback Mountain triggered (and it is kind of crude compared to the sensitivity on display in Brokeback). Later perhaps - keep coming back and I might just put it up. :)

Right. Back to studying....

Bushed, Beat, and Broke

I'm so tired. I'm so tired from reading. There's so much to prepare before a class, and it really frustrates me no end that some folks DO NOT actually prepare their work and can breeze through class. Its so not me: back in the great NU of S, I've never read my textbooks, worked on my tutorials, nor even folded the pages of my notes (you know, like when they're stapled in the corner and you flip the first page over?). In the INS of EAD, I'm suddenly a superman - reading, digesting, working, spreadsheeting away... till the wee hours of the morning at times.

I'm beat.

To give you an idea of a typical week (not that there is one anyhow - each week is an entire adventure!), here's my Outlook calendar:



Click on the image to view the fine print.

Confused? Let me explain what some of the items mean.

French class means French class (Voulez vous couche avec moi, c'est soir?). So far, I haven't learnt much French. The teacher hasn't done a good job of livening the class up and the French lessons I did about a year ago didn't help a bit. The whole experience feels like being a plush toy - someone squeezes you and so you make a noise. Whether or not that noise sounds intelligible doesn't matter. As long as phonetically, you make a noise akin to 'something frenchy'. Looking forward to the next boring lesson - let's hope things liven up a bit.

The blocks that start with Career Svcs refer to activities organised by Career Management Services (CMS). Things at INSEAD happen on mainly 3 fronts: the academic aspect, the social aspect, and the career aspect. CMS organises events to cater to the career aspect of the MBA student: this means getting companies to come recruit on campus, workshops to brush up interviewing skills, info sessions on various after-MBA careers and the like. For some of the MBAs, I know this is one of the reasons why they come to a premier business school: that after-school thingy.

There were a couple of items that started with the word 'Brazilian'. Those events refer to the current National Week event. Here's another lengthy FAQ: National Week is some INSEAD tradition whereby a country's students will organise activities throughout the designated week to showcase the culture, food and general gaiety of their country. Brazilian Week played host to meaty Brazilian dishes, a dance workshop for a uniquely Brazilian martial art Capoiera, a visit by the diplomats from the Brazilian embassy (well, you never get enough visitors it appears) and movie screenings of popular fare such as City of God.

The stuff that sound really academic are the courses themselves. For the nerdy folks, this IS INSEAD. For most of us though, these are the pain-in-the-ass lessons that we have to sit through to get that brand / badge / accolade (actual phrasing depends on your point of view). However, business school is already taxing enough without imposing the additional burden of boring lessons, so most professors try to liven things up a bit. The stats lecturer (the course is, bombastically, titled 'Uncertainty, Data and Judgement') makes lessons somewhat fun by betting with us. The problem though is that he knows the real odds, while we tended to perceive our odds to be better. Try this at a party next time: In a room of 50 people, bet that there are at least 2 people with the same birthday, and dare anyone to counter. The odds? 0.97 in your favour.

Sighs - in the time I took to wrote this post, I could have done the readings for tomorrow's class. Guess it's back to burrowing in my notes again.

P.S.: Keep the comments coming! It's great to know people are reading my ramblings. :)

Life isn't Linear

I've closed a chapter in my life and am opening a new one soon. Working in a consulting firm has been one heck of a rideand the best part about it had always been the people I got to work with. I'm sad to leave; I'm happy to depart. :)

Strangely, I did not feel too weird about moving on: it seemed natural. There are folks who leave with moods of lingering resentment, joyful elation, or seeming indifference. For me, I leave knowing that I'm leaving behind people whose lives I have touched, and whose actions have molded me, whether these actions were positive or not was another matter.

I do not feel like this is the end though - life is not a series of milestones that we set ourselves to achieve. The end of primary school may signal the start of secondary school. The departure from one job may signal the beginning of another (well, in my instance, it meant going back to school). But if we were to live life as breakpoints that we are to hit, then we're missing the point about living.

In any endeavour, the best part about it (as I have said before) is that we are given the opportunity to make friends. The business phrase is 'Networking', but that word does injustice to relationships that we build (it subtly suggest that we stand to gain something from it). The relationships we build do not end when that particular endeavour (a project, school year, NS etc) concludes. Rather, the relationships endure and we seek to build on them. Well, some of us do anyway.

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In many ways, we touch those around us, and those around us help shape what we become. It is more than the web of relationships we build - it is what we are.

Why I haven't written

I haven't written in a while... events from the last few weeks have overwhelmed me and I've not had the heart to write anything.

Until today.

What have I been busy with? The first thing to have overwhelmed me was the change I tried to describe in my previous post (on change). Well, being cryptic didn't make me very popular - I think no one would have understood what happened. The big change happening is that I've accepted to do an MBA in January at INSEAD. INSEAD!

It is kind of prestigious - the pedigree of the students there alone is fantastic. Having had a brief run-through of the student profiles, there are a lot of consultants, investment bankers and some such in the course. There're also the technical folks - your engineers and IT professionals - and the somewhat less often seen ex-military or ex-police person.

Having decided to do the MBA meant a whole slew of things to be done: I needed to sort out my finances and take a loan to finance the MBA - it is tiring to call banks asking about interest rates and loan tenors. It is also tiring persuading friends to be guarantors - that is probably the hardest part.

Doing an MBA also meant quitting the job: I've decided that an LOA (Leave of Absence) is out of the question. The firm needs to justify keeping me; rather, it needs me to justify it for them. And I don't think I'm up to it. I have thought about an exit for so long, and this is the best I've had so far. I'm leaving - but I might be back, so never say never. (I will so miss my colleagues - all in, they're the best people that I've had to work with, ever).

As if I'm not having enough worries, the project I was on finally decided to kick into 2nd gear. A real pain in the neck, this project. Now, I've had to organise sessions to review my design, listen to nonsense about how bad or good my design fits the business model, review and re-design, log issues and generally get shot for shoddy work (at times). However, through it all, I've felt comforted that the users appreciate the effort - they have a generally good feel about where we have progressed.

However, I wished I was on the project full-time though - that would have made things easier. As it is, I've also had to go for in-camp training for 3 weeks in Tuas - a major schedule wrecker of a reservist. Being on reservist meant that the social life is ruined: Book in at 3pm, leave the next day at 4.30pm. What can one do with the time in between? It's like what one of the guys said: it's a bu4 san1 bu2 si4 (Chinese for not 3, not 4) kind of timing.

So there: MBA, project, reservist. Project and reservist I can't do anything about: after all, I'm quitting, so the project's drain on my body is only until mid-Dec. After that, whether the project is chugging along nicely (or dead to the water) is not my concern anymore. Reservist has to be served - and it meant time away from work, so it isn't such a bad thing totally.

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The above matters aren't so bad. However, another big thing happened yesterday which really saddened me: the GF wants to break up. :(

It seems like there are fundamental problems in our relationship, and even though we love each other dearly, the problems we have now might mean that we will never have a meaningful long term relationship, i.e. a marriage meant to last.

She feels that I'm not spiritually mature... I don't have the strong Christian conviction which she is looking for in a husband. It's true in a sense: I've not lived as a good Christian person for a long time, and it isn't fair to have us marry if I can't lead the family we eventually build in a Christian way of life.

To be fair, I was a good Christian once. I remember myself being diligent with my quiet time, and being faithful in my walk with Christ - it was the period of my life when I was attending JC. I was fervent, but I was no evangelist (I've never been one). I also participated in church, serving in the youth fellowship committee.

Things changed when NS started. Things really changed when I went to Uni also. I think those were the formative years of my adult life - they shaped me to become more or less what I am today.

But the weak Christian in me isn't the only aspect of our failure in this relationship: we've lost that spark somewhat. That initial surge of optimism, passion, and faith in things to come. The feeling that we've found that someone special.

I tried to re-create some of it for her birthday: she wept. I hope she was touched by what I did. (still sorry about what else I did though...)

On her birthday, she suggested we break up. The world came crashing down; the legs became weak. Information which came to me while I was in-camp, and all I could do in response was stare at the sea for a whole 2 hours (an hour each before/after dinner). Called a close friend who comforted me somewhat with her views (jaded as she is, she is not me) but did not salve the pain.

Is there any salvaging this relationship?

If she needs me to be a better person, can I change?

I know one thing for sure: I really do love her and I want to do what I can to keep us going.

So lost... so lost...

It's fine except that it never happens

I had my encounter with the Exception Monster today.

See, the first thing about our line of work is that there will always be exceptions. Exceptions are those things which nobody wants to really care about, but some stupid user will bring up nonetheless.

Exceptions are those things which some people insist can happen, and will happen, and must happen just to prove that they will and can happen. I have this nagging suspicion that these exceptionistas create the scenarios for exceptions to happen just to prove a point.

See, most people don't want to build complicated system processes just so that you can take care of that once in a year exception. Why? Because most people pay good money for complicated system processes. For that once in a blue moon thing? Don't bother - cross that bridge when you come to it. However, more than one client that I've been to insist on getting that 'bang for the buck', and so exceptions need to be handled.

These irritating exceptionistas don't have half a brain: Its either "Cater for it! I don't care how!" or "Document the exception handling processes, all 20,000 of them". I'm sick of it all - the world isn't ending just because your stupid exception is not being handled. And please wipe that stupid smirk off - I am not really impressed that you're able to find exceptions to throw in my face; I'm appalled that you're not helping with the situation by screaming at me about it.

Anyway, it never ends and that's why I sometimes hate system implementation. No matter what you do, and no matter how much you try, you WILL leave shit behind, and someone else has to clean it up. There are just too many things to juggle, and invariably, some unfinished business gets left behind, tucked nicely away for some unsuspecting soul.

Exceptions are one of those things I'm fond of sweeping under the carpet, so good luck to whoever's looking under the carpet! (you have my sympathies)

(Note: reproduced this post from my post here)

Slacker for a day

It's nice to call in sick, without actually being sick (there is that hint of a cough), and sit around at home, pottering around the entire day.

It's nice when no one calls you to ask for that impertinent status report, or bug you about that deliverable you owe.

It's nice not to be able to retrieve your email, cos the client is so sensitive with their information and stuff that they don't allow vendors to VPN into their network. Ah, such is the bliss of isolation.

I asked myself what I achieved for today? Nothing. Zilch. I've done nothing, no work, no nothing. Well, I did make some progress in that old game I've been tinkering on, but that's not real work. I've totally wasted (let me see...) 8 hours of the day doing absolutely meaningless stuff.

And the best bit? I love it. Well, I don't think I can do this for a really long time. The problem with having worked in a job like mine long enough is that you're conditioned into looking for things to do. It's this little itch that gets to you in the worst possible way - like when you really need to scratch your pubes but you're in public (and in full view of a lot of genial old ladies).

Anyway, I head back to the grind tomorrow. Hey, perhaps the best bit is having been able to update this blog. Not a total waste of a day then.

The Week in Review

Ha I haven't updated in a while. Been busy. Work. It's not like I'm sitting here just thinking of things to say.


Alright, I am sitting here thinking of things to say, but hey, it's while I'm at work thinking of things to say. I guess I've got enough to say, especially with the rubbish I've spouted so far. So I shall keep saying it. Hehe...

Work is the shits (what else can it be?). I'm practically swimming in shit. Imagine being stuck in a cesspool, and you're given a little bowl. All the while you're in the cesspool, some celestial being is dumping shitloads of ... erm... shit on you. You're busy scooping shit and getting them out of your cesspool. But it keeps coming. Oh hey, after all, what's a cesspool for, right?

So you're shovelling shit. And nobody cares that you are. (Some do, but when they care, they give you more shit, even if they don't know it, and they apologise about it).

I don't need more shit - just some peace of mind will do.

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So, life takes a turn this weekend - a new member in the house (not by birth though) and new tussles over bathroom priviledges. Wardrobe space got cut in half - I finally managed to dump those old clothes - into another part of the house.

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Stuff never gets thrown away where I live. They just relocate to another part of the house. Mum has this thing for never throwing away stuff - they get re-stuffed into other parts of the house. That old set of books gets boxed up and stacked on top of the cupboard. The old bed is dismantled and lined up nicely under the new bed. My sister's old toys fill up those cupboard drawers which lie unused.

It's a karang guni paradise - frankly, 50% of the stuff should go - can you imagine living with a broken down TV for more than 2 years? Ok so there's a replacement set from a relative (still working, has colour, and works with our cable). But hey, that old TV is spoilt. It's beyond economical repair (haha... where I work, we call this BER). So throw it away. Dad says he might be able to fix it. When he has time (he never does, he's busy watching TV).

I've never felt more like moving out.

When work sucks you in

A new guy finally joined my team of one (now its two! - a master and his apprentice) last Friday.
Colin my young padawan: much to learn you have. The dark side of the force beckons, and we are few in number. The enemy assails us relentlessly. We have to be vigilant (or quit caring). We have to fight the good fight.

Much to learn...

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It is a welcome relief - the addition of a new team member takes some of the pressure of me, allowing me to do what I do best: design the solution. Seriously speaking, I love designing an IT solution, especially when it is totally customised. You have so much room to be creative, solving problems and figuring out means of handling exceptions. Also, the knowledge that your design will bear down significantly on your client's revenues (and its staff's efficiency) does add that slight hint of pressure to what you are doing.

Oh, and having Colin in the team doesn't mean I have someone to bully - the onus is on me to develop his potential. So far, he's been showing initiative, and has strived to add value every step of the way. Sighs - I'm getting old. It gets hard to keep up with young punks like Colin when you know they can do your job at half the price and twice the speed.

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In other news, I finally published some of the pictures I took in Myanmar online. Of all the things I liked about my trip to Myanmar, the best has to be the children I encountered. Here's some photos taken while stopping over at a nondescript village (I think it was somewhere near Lake Inle).


Keep your clothes on please!!!


These kids have never seen a digital camera before. Seriously...


Long road home...

Check out the rest of it in my Flickr if you can. I think they're pretty decent pictures. :)

Wow its nice to be regarded as an expert

People who know me know me well. I think they do anyway, cos I don't know myself at all.

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It feels good when someone wants your opinion on a matter. Of importance. To a whole lot of people. Whose job scope depends on that comment you're going to make.

So you don't screw up and say something stupid. Like "Hey, you have snot clinging to your moustache".

You're conscious that there is audience, hanging onto your words, your actions. After all, you are a consultant. After all, they can blame you if things go wrong. After all, you're paid a load of moolah for dishing out half baked knowledge.

"Clients I have worked with generally do not use that functionality." Friend, don't bluff lah. You have worked at only 3 client sites, and you screwed up at that last one. Which is why you have learnt your lesson, and can say with mock confidence that it doesn't work.

"This is not the best practice. The best practice is to do it by..." Uncle, that is not original man. You think you can fool me? You obviously checked in your knowledge database to get that shit, most of which are derived out of some business school. Oh, thanks for telling me what is common sense. Hope you're not saying I'm lacking it.

"That won't happen 99% of the time. We should not be building too much to handle exceptions." Riiiiiiight... See how you feel when you're that guy who has to deal with that 1% of cases, and no one knows what to do, and that half-baked design you did up seriously screws up any hope of salvaging the situation. Oh, thanks for leaving us that shit - we really love shovelling it out of the way.

Sorry guys - I'm a con and I know it. You don't know it yet because I'm a real hardworking con - I actually bother to look and sound intelligent when I'm meeting you guys. And half the time, its the use of the right words at the right time (and of course, avoiding the wrong words at wrong time thing). I'm no genius in this area - I just happen to have had learnt what went wrong, and am trying not to do it again.

Anyway, you guys love me - when I speak, you actually listen. Oh yah, I do say the wrong stuff, but when corrected, I know how to make myself sound good (eh, easy... just repeat what you said, with authority and lots of gravitas).

Hehe... my job is so much fun...

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I feel lighter all of a sudden. Oh. Wait. That's cos I just lost my soul.

Doggone tired

I thought it would be nice to do a project where I actually understood what I was doing, for once. A project where I finally got to drive, and to have control over. A project where I could truly be a consultant, because I finally knew more about the issue at hand (and didn't look so stupid whenever utterances such as "I'll go check" come rolling out).

Oh noooooooooooo.....

First, the users. They suck. Of all the users I have ever had to work with, they're the worst. They don't know their own processes, tell you in your face that they don't know, then try to bamboozle you with what they think are the processes. Oh, and they do the solutioning as well! I've never had users who give you what THEY think is the solution, and tell you why the system isn't doing it THAT way, as if it has been tried and tested for yonks. Stupid yobs...

Oh, and the IT folks. They suck. IT folks who do not understand the users' processes, and bamboozle the 3rd party vendor with information they have a half baked knowledge of, then turn to you (the eminent consultant) to verify that they did not speak out of line, like you're some stern headmaster ('Um' = nod, yes; 'Uh-uh' = shake head, no). Their saving grace is that they're able to log things down dilligently, and spout lines like 'oh we'll discuss that tomorrow, and eventually get it signed off, somehow, sometime in the eventual future'.

The 3rd party vendor - ah... the only redeeming light, in my opinion. Smart folks, intent on the solution to the exclusion of politics and preferences. At least they have their heads screwed on right. I'm thankful to be working with them, but with the IT folks meddling like Muggles bumbling in a Hogwarts laboratory, there is little hope of a speedy conclusion to this project.

Oh what I would do to have a lightsaber - I can really sever some heads right now. ;)

Our lives are linked in intricate ways

I've never fully explained the story of how I ended up going to school. it reminds me that our networks are an important part of our lives - both at work and personally. Although I should be doing more about expanding my network, I... hmm, that's another story.

In any case, if I were to trace this back to its source, it really started during my reservist in February. Sometime during my reservist in Feb, my reservist unit's office called me in to issue me an SAF100 (for the uninitiated, namely you, this is one of those official looking letters sealed up, with an order to appear at so-and-so time in so-and-so attire to do so-and-so). The SAF100 stated that I was to show up for a medical check up (which I previously ignored), for purposes of evaluating my PES status (takes too long to explain, so I won't).

Fast forward to last Thursday, our fateful 24 March, the day of so called medical appointment. I was prepped and ready to go, when sometime that morning, a call came from the medical centre to say that the Medical Officers were not going to be around in the afternoon. Thus, no more check up (those idiots - making their long weekend longer was the real reason). In any case, I gave the clerk on the end of the line a mouthful, decided I shall stay in office, and promptly hung around.

The course of our fateful day then took an interesting turn. AY msned me to go for lunch with him, the usual thing when he has no other company (I'm the lunch buddy of most convenient resort, in most instances, for AY). We went to that beef kway teow place along Purvis Street, and happily lapped up the kway teow. Fred called AY about lunch near when we were done and, well, AY went to order for Fred (and friend; not important to story). We waited for Fred.

So Fred (and friend not important to story) came and we proceeded to sit there and watch 2 said lunch companions eat. Usual banter ensued. With Fred, the talk can be quite risque and crude, and so it was with that day's lunch. We adjourned to Killeney Kopitiam for tea upon me and AY's insistence. It was here that 2 things were revealed:

• I moaned to Fred I was unassigned
• Fred moaned to me that he could not go for school cos of the project he's in

Well, what great timing. I agreed to take his school (if possible), and Fred agreed to find out if... erm, its possible. The process was kick-started, I did my part, Fred did his, and today I'm in Chicago freezing my butt off (oh thanks Fred).

This was all because there was no need to go for that medical check up. See, Mitch Albion did make a good point in his book "5 People you meet in Heaven" (I'll lend you the book if you ask). In it, there was a lesson about how our lives are all interlinked - no man is an island. Our actions and decisions have implications far beyond what we can comprehend. So, I urge you, take the time to ponder some of the more difficult decisions you make - they can have far reaching consequences.

Back to School

In consulting parlance, going to school meant heading for training. Not just any training, mind you, but training at corporate headquarters, country retreat (whatever the big time consulting outfit so chooses to call it).

I'm going to school. Actually, I might go to school, and the probability of that happening is quite high.

Fingers crossed - school means Chicago. Chicago means trip abroad. Trip abroad means... something like a paid holiday I suppose.

Fingers crossed.