Well well well, as usual(AGAIN) His Highness, for unfathomable reasons, did not tell me that the replacement minion is coming in tomorrow. I found out from the poor minion that was asked to go fetch the replacement tomorrow morning. How apt, catch me on my last day!
Anyway from a separate source, it was said that my replacement is 1) a MBA holder, 2) with working experience. Wow, I must say I'm honoured that they needed to hire such a high level person to come do my puny job. I wonder which part of the job description did His Highness tweaked. He should show me the JD so I can copy that into my resume. Let's hope the replacement minion has a stronger heart than me and will at least stay around longer. More updates on the replacement minion tomorrow when I get to meet her. :)
*Updates*
Haha sending someone in on the last day is definitely not a good choice as leaving minion has more important things to do such as being grilled on unfinished work, meeting pple for last lunches, meeting pple who can't get me for lunch for tea, returning office stuff etc. In the end I only got to talk to the replacement minion for 1 hr.
Definitely not a spring chicken and the 1 hour is enough to tell that she's a deep person. She doesn't offer any more information than she should. I acted ignorant and asked if this is her first job and all she said was that she came from completing her MBA. My counterpart in Philippines was assigned as her buddy because she just finished her MBA there. Immediately flashing through my mind was: Who the hell goes to Philippines to do MBA?? Plus she's a Singaporean. And earlier I had a conversation with my ex-manager who said: So what if she has a MBA? MBA has many different types and quality of work may not be all the same even if she's a MBA holder. Well then I asked is this her 2nd job all she did was said no. Well, ok, point taken that she will not say anymore.
But the best was the last question she asked me: So any tips for handling certain people in the team, you know, people like His Highness or my other manager etc. Girl, you just have to find out for yourself, I'm not risking this kind of question. And so I lied that everyone is nice, well, it is partly true.
So I left her as I've got plenty of things to throw or return on the last day. Next thing I know, 5pm she came to my desk and tell me she's leaving coz she had no laptop and nothing else to do. Wow, an experienced hire is definitely not the same. Even when I'm leaving, I dragged up to 6pm before I'm finally done with everything and here she is, first day at work and leaving even before time is up. *clap clap* I hope His Highness have fun dealing with her or maybe it's the other way round? :)
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Tale of the Mad Man 3
May this be the last post on the mad man, I think I have dedicated too much postings to him. Anyway, let this be a pictorial one, in memorial of the GREAT emails he is always sending.
Note: I especially like the classic phrase used in the most miraculous way in this particular email: "idiot proof"
*oops... seems like I can't make the picture any bigger so you may have to click in to have a closer look*
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Sighs....
Sometimes I wonder what's life. When you think you've got the worst of it all, someone else with a even sadder story came by. This must be the most tragic story I've heard so far, sounds like a drama but it happened in real life.
A friend whom I have not kept in contact for a while messaged me on msn the other day. I think, last I spoke to him was at least more than a year back. Turned out that last July, he got into an accident and nearly lost his right leg but the doctor managed to saved it. However the road to healing has been really slow. On top of that. before the accident, his girlfriend of 3 years broke up with him for another guy and 2 weeks after the break up, he was retrenched from his job and just before he start on his new job, he got into this accident. It really broke my heart knowing all these happened and I wasn't aware. He was a very active person, I cannot imagine how terrible it is for him to be not able to move and rely on crutches. And when he told me there are bad days he was depressed because the healing of his bones is taking too long, I was helpless. I wonder what else can I say to make him feel better. It's definitely not easy for him.
He was one of the few people I kept in touch from my wild IRC-ing days long ago. My memories of him were the tons of Doraemon comic books he gave me. But I think the accident changed him, from our conversation, he no longer exudes that carefree nature. He used to play a lot of football but I don't think that will be possible for him for a long time now. I feel sad and want to pay him a visit but knowing him, he probably won't want me to see him in such a state, plus we have not met in ages. Anyway I'm afraid I'll start crying if I see him in this state now. Some people are destined to take the long road, I just hope that he makes it out.
A friend whom I have not kept in contact for a while messaged me on msn the other day. I think, last I spoke to him was at least more than a year back. Turned out that last July, he got into an accident and nearly lost his right leg but the doctor managed to saved it. However the road to healing has been really slow. On top of that. before the accident, his girlfriend of 3 years broke up with him for another guy and 2 weeks after the break up, he was retrenched from his job and just before he start on his new job, he got into this accident. It really broke my heart knowing all these happened and I wasn't aware. He was a very active person, I cannot imagine how terrible it is for him to be not able to move and rely on crutches. And when he told me there are bad days he was depressed because the healing of his bones is taking too long, I was helpless. I wonder what else can I say to make him feel better. It's definitely not easy for him.
He was one of the few people I kept in touch from my wild IRC-ing days long ago. My memories of him were the tons of Doraemon comic books he gave me. But I think the accident changed him, from our conversation, he no longer exudes that carefree nature. He used to play a lot of football but I don't think that will be possible for him for a long time now. I feel sad and want to pay him a visit but knowing him, he probably won't want me to see him in such a state, plus we have not met in ages. Anyway I'm afraid I'll start crying if I see him in this state now. Some people are destined to take the long road, I just hope that he makes it out.
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Tales of the Mad Man 2
Turns out that the mad man have no decency to tell his team that he is going to be short of 2 persons in the team. A few of my team mates in other countries told me they were shocked by the news that the Malaysia counterpart's last day is today after they saw her farewell note at 4pm. And I think they will be even more shocked when they are suddenly handed our work to help cover for the time being, not as if they are not already fully occupied in their own area. So it seems like in order to keep the rest sane, I have to announce my leaving to them soon, since the mad man is not going to do it.
Disappointed yet again by his action as he has no decency to inform the team and also never thank the person for a job well done during her stint with us. At the very least, while we were in the job, we gave our best and did our job, there are times we may have missed the mark but at least have the courtesy to thank them for their hard work. I know of some people who do slipshod jobs or were never available and never do their work but this team is not like that. For a person who is so used to paying lip service, he just can't do it for the person one last time?
I saw this on an ex-colleague's msn msg: "Competent Leader Can Get Efficient Service From Poor Troops, While Incompetent Leader Can Demoralise The Best Of Troops". I felt that it was so true. This could have been a strong team but the leader did not make that happen, all that he was capable of doing was to make them take on his tasks but not give them recognition - sure recipe to people leaving eventually.
Disappointed yet again by his action as he has no decency to inform the team and also never thank the person for a job well done during her stint with us. At the very least, while we were in the job, we gave our best and did our job, there are times we may have missed the mark but at least have the courtesy to thank them for their hard work. I know of some people who do slipshod jobs or were never available and never do their work but this team is not like that. For a person who is so used to paying lip service, he just can't do it for the person one last time?
I saw this on an ex-colleague's msn msg: "Competent Leader Can Get Efficient Service From Poor Troops, While Incompetent Leader Can Demoralise The Best Of Troops". I felt that it was so true. This could have been a strong team but the leader did not make that happen, all that he was capable of doing was to make them take on his tasks but not give them recognition - sure recipe to people leaving eventually.
Wednesday, April 07, 2010
Tales of a mad man
I've decided to blog about the crazy things my manager is STILL doing up till the day I leave. So I'll continue to add onto this list:
1) Ok this has nothing to do with him but it's one of those things I can never understand. Well apparently it being a technology company, even resignations had to be entered into a system and the manager has to approve it. I tried submitting a few times but keep getting unfathomable error till I got fed up and decided to ask HR who then told me that I'm suppose to change my computer system date to the mm/dd/yyyy format for the system to recognize the submission. Sometimes I wonder, is this a technology company at all?? Maybe it's way too advanced for me. Just like the other time I had to downgrade my Internet Explorer version because this system cannot work on the latest version. Duh.
2) The mad man came to tell me that the next day he's interviewing a possible candidate to replace me. He told me if that candidate is interested, he will get this person to come talk to me and I can tell the person more about my job. He must be out of his mind. Who in the right mind will let a possible candidate, go talk to someone who is leaving??? If he makes me talk to this person, I'll surely tell the candidate he/she better be prepared for a crazy guy like that. In the first place, can't you, the manager, who supposedly do one to one catch up with me EVERY week know very well what I do??? But apparently he doesn't.
Anyway I found out that he threw one of his job to my Indonesian counterpart so he now has 1 less conference call to attend. How convenient.
3)I also found out that our JD mysteriously changed overnight without us being aware, apparently none of us in the team, including me, is suppose to be an ASEAN headcount. Woah since when my ASEAN cum Country portfolio changed? I started off the job double-hatting but now I'm supposedly just country support?? Then how come I'm still stuck doing an ASEAN job?? So all along I'm doing something he's suppose to do coz he's the so-called only person on ASEAN? This mad man really makes my blood boils.
1) Ok this has nothing to do with him but it's one of those things I can never understand. Well apparently it being a technology company, even resignations had to be entered into a system and the manager has to approve it. I tried submitting a few times but keep getting unfathomable error till I got fed up and decided to ask HR who then told me that I'm suppose to change my computer system date to the mm/dd/yyyy format for the system to recognize the submission. Sometimes I wonder, is this a technology company at all?? Maybe it's way too advanced for me. Just like the other time I had to downgrade my Internet Explorer version because this system cannot work on the latest version. Duh.
2) The mad man came to tell me that the next day he's interviewing a possible candidate to replace me. He told me if that candidate is interested, he will get this person to come talk to me and I can tell the person more about my job. He must be out of his mind. Who in the right mind will let a possible candidate, go talk to someone who is leaving??? If he makes me talk to this person, I'll surely tell the candidate he/she better be prepared for a crazy guy like that. In the first place, can't you, the manager, who supposedly do one to one catch up with me EVERY week know very well what I do??? But apparently he doesn't.
Anyway I found out that he threw one of his job to my Indonesian counterpart so he now has 1 less conference call to attend. How convenient.
3)I also found out that our JD mysteriously changed overnight without us being aware, apparently none of us in the team, including me, is suppose to be an ASEAN headcount. Woah since when my ASEAN cum Country portfolio changed? I started off the job double-hatting but now I'm supposedly just country support?? Then how come I'm still stuck doing an ASEAN job?? So all along I'm doing something he's suppose to do coz he's the so-called only person on ASEAN? This mad man really makes my blood boils.
Saturday, April 03, 2010
The showdown
And the showdown took place. It wasn't as I intended to, which was to tell him that I despise his high-handed way of handling the situation which triggered the sudden decision to resign.
We were discussing work (as usual) and he decided to bring up the matter of my leave application again. In his pathetic attempt to ask me to change the dates of my leave, I coolly told him I may not need to take leave anymore as I've decided to resign with effect from today. My regret was not being able to capture the classic moment of his face as his eyes looked like they were going to pop and he could go into cardiac arrest any moment. The next thing he could muster himself to do was to ask me to go to a meeting room where the first thing he did was to give a resounding: WHY..........
In the meeting room he kept probing whether there was there any reasons besides my response of I'm tired and I need a break and there's no breakthrough in what I've been doing. I'm not giving him the satisfaction of the truth. He should know very well what the trigger was from how this whole resignation talk began. Then of course he asked is there anything that can be done to stop me from leaving, I told him no. Then he tried telling me I was doing well so why leave now and in my mind I was thinking of course it makes sense to leave on a high note to make an impact and leave people with good impression of me and not when I go berserk and at the low point of the job. The he mentioned that I have not even progresses to the career path we talked about my last year but truth is, he didn't do anything to attempt to help me move at all after last year's discussion because it was just one of those chores he needed to do as a manager, I'm sure in hoskins he just want to keep me there as long as he's there so someone can continue to clear shit for him.
So unable to pry the truth from me, he launched into his 10-years-in-IBM story of how he moved from a consultant to marketing because his manager helped him and sent him for course etc. I had the urge to ask him: are you that kind of manager? If he was, then why I was never sent for courses under his leadership, why didn't he make an attempt to find me a mentor from the field I want to move to? Not knowing people from that field is not an acceptable excuse. Then he went into how GREAT the company is (which I would have agreed if my impression wasn't spoilt under his GREAT leadership). To this statement, I replied that it's just another job.
Seeing that he wasn't able to convince me to stay (of course not, with such an insincere and pathetic attempt, who would have been convinced?), he turned to asking me whether I could stay on longer than my 1 month notice and I said NO. If there's one thing I've learnt in all my previous jobs, it is to say NO to extension because at the end of the day, no one will thank you for that goodwill and worse still abuse it. In his last attempt, he asked if I can don't take leave during the notice period. Given that I only have maybe one or two pathetic days of leave, I gave in to it. A quick look at my watch, it's already 6.40pm, no wonder he is in a hurry to leave and close the discussion.
And so that was the showdown
We were discussing work (as usual) and he decided to bring up the matter of my leave application again. In his pathetic attempt to ask me to change the dates of my leave, I coolly told him I may not need to take leave anymore as I've decided to resign with effect from today. My regret was not being able to capture the classic moment of his face as his eyes looked like they were going to pop and he could go into cardiac arrest any moment. The next thing he could muster himself to do was to ask me to go to a meeting room where the first thing he did was to give a resounding: WHY..........
In the meeting room he kept probing whether there was there any reasons besides my response of I'm tired and I need a break and there's no breakthrough in what I've been doing. I'm not giving him the satisfaction of the truth. He should know very well what the trigger was from how this whole resignation talk began. Then of course he asked is there anything that can be done to stop me from leaving, I told him no. Then he tried telling me I was doing well so why leave now and in my mind I was thinking of course it makes sense to leave on a high note to make an impact and leave people with good impression of me and not when I go berserk and at the low point of the job. The he mentioned that I have not even progresses to the career path we talked about my last year but truth is, he didn't do anything to attempt to help me move at all after last year's discussion because it was just one of those chores he needed to do as a manager, I'm sure in hoskins he just want to keep me there as long as he's there so someone can continue to clear shit for him.
So unable to pry the truth from me, he launched into his 10-years-in-IBM story of how he moved from a consultant to marketing because his manager helped him and sent him for course etc. I had the urge to ask him: are you that kind of manager? If he was, then why I was never sent for courses under his leadership, why didn't he make an attempt to find me a mentor from the field I want to move to? Not knowing people from that field is not an acceptable excuse. Then he went into how GREAT the company is (which I would have agreed if my impression wasn't spoilt under his GREAT leadership). To this statement, I replied that it's just another job.
Seeing that he wasn't able to convince me to stay (of course not, with such an insincere and pathetic attempt, who would have been convinced?), he turned to asking me whether I could stay on longer than my 1 month notice and I said NO. If there's one thing I've learnt in all my previous jobs, it is to say NO to extension because at the end of the day, no one will thank you for that goodwill and worse still abuse it. In his last attempt, he asked if I can don't take leave during the notice period. Given that I only have maybe one or two pathetic days of leave, I gave in to it. A quick look at my watch, it's already 6.40pm, no wonder he is in a hurry to leave and close the discussion.
And so that was the showdown