Reminders at Work

1. Stay calm – don’t show you’re stressed, being composed speaks mor
2. Stay friendly but keep personal life private – be approachable but not necessarily available to al
3. Support your immediate boss – keep them prepared & ready for their own boss. If/When they go up, they pull you up as well
4. Build relationships where they matter – not all who hold titles make or influence decisions
5. Stay out of gossip – listen but don’t be the source of it

clam....shell...

Attended a half-day course yesterday. All participants were ROs. Around 30 of us, with another 3-4 pax from the Workplace Development & HR teams who conducted and facilitated the session. 

Again I felt small & inadequate. Within the cluster group I was seated with, I could still speak a little & interact. I tried to siam all other presentations or impromptu speaking that needed to address the whole room. Was quite glad I managed to do so. 

Those who were cued could speak on the fly and articulate things so nicely. 

I'd clam up. 

:( 

AI - yah

And then there's this sudden pressure/push to adopt AI or use it in various ways in your work. 

Think about how it can improve or streamline your existing processes, etc. 

I am old school. I take long to learn new tech. 

And yes, while I am somewhat open, I am lazy, I am not savvy & I am a klutz at such stuff. 

AIyah.........

Sigh. 

Stress leh. 

Fangirl

Attended a meeting yday which had reps from ministries, agencies & a tech giant. 

There were 2 very charismatic folks. One was a lady from a Ministry who was chairing/leading the meeting. The other was the APAC Director of Public Policy from the tech giant.

So so charismatic. So so intelligent. 

They spoke with grace, humility and clarity, with humour injected appropriately at various junctures to diffuse any tension there might have been in the room. They were extremely quick on their feet. They knew what they were saying, they knew what they wanted, they read the room, they led their positions well. They were intelligent, articulate and spoke with clarity. They were honest, reasonable, and respectful though they were on different sides of the table.

I was fangirling the entire time and I realized my boss was super impressed by the both of them as well lol. 

I was just an observer in the room, a fly on the wall if you may call it that way. Was quite floored by the exchanges in the meeting and definitely did not mind that the call overran by close to 45minutes from the original 1hr slot. 

It was an eye-opener for me and a learning experience. And also, a reminder to myself, of how much I am still lacking in. 

App developer

Laoniang developed an app! A web app that can be optimised for mobile & tablets too. 

Steady lah haha...

Underwent a Vibe Coding course over the last 2 days with VK & SP. Aside from my laptop battery, the course drained me of my brain cells. 

1st day I went home like a zombie. 2nd day was abit better haha. 

Actually I did the following apps:

1. A simple roulette kind of decision making app to see where go for lunch

2. An AI chatbot which uses the persona of Mickey Mouse to converse with you (annoying thing is it responds with alot of "Haha!" and "Oh my!")

3. A task-tracker kind of app for an office team

4. A meal planning app - this was the biggest project all of us had to undertake. I did this meal-planning app. Mediocre actually. Some folks did some really really "sard-ki" stuff like calorie-counting app for local dishes, a site for mental health support, a site for cataloguing Pokemon cards complete with tracking the commercial value of the cards, a site for retirees to find out where to travel and be linked up to part-time jobs (digital nomad concept), etc...

I also got to create my own computer game, very basic but still workable I guess. 

Quite a cool & interesting experience! 

Shen Hu Xi

Staff took long to come up with an SOP. Late for some months. I cut her some slack on this. 

Quality of the SOP is not there. I gave pointers on how to improve 1st draft and formatting which sucked. 

2nd draft came back. Formatting still sucks. certain paragraphs don't flow and don't make sense. 

Taking deep breaths. 

Fighting!!!!!!!!!!!

继续走 

我不愿意被绊倒 

Recent weeks have been challenging. Due to some self-entitled folks. There've been complaints, at least one case a week for the last 4 weeks. 

Today's case brought alot of stress. Really alot of stress cos my stomach was just scrunched up the whole day. The guy complained to the Ministry, to the PS. And now alot of senior management of both ministry and agency are in the loop. Sigh.

I cried twice today. 

Pek chek. 

But.........

继续走 继续走

我不愿意被绊倒 

Dislike. And bias.

Finding it hard to shake off bias. In the workplace.  

Me, being biased against someone else. And disliking that person to the point that.....I don't want to be at the same lunch table as far as possible...and I try to interact with the person as little as possible. 

The voice alone makes bring irritation to my nerves. 

Not good though. I need to find a way to calm myself down abit. 

Hmm. 

Work is madness

It's been a hectic 2 days. It will be a hectic week ahead as well I think.

Back to back meetings & discussions for these 2 days. Leaving me with not much time during the day to settle my own work. 

Last minute high-level meeting this afternoon between an international organisation and parent agency's DCE = mad scramble on Mon afternoon preparing talking points, booking meeting room, ordering beverages, handling visitor registration, updating relevant bosses. Thankful Val was around to handle the admin & logistics while I focused on the updates to bosses and drafting up talking points. 

Many bits & pieces of things to settle. Some requiring more thinking, some which were thrown to our team and which I am (very) reluctantly handling. 

Nvm...breathe. 

Just do.........

...............

钱

So far we've arranged 4 business trips for our big boss over the course of the last 1-1.5years. 

Each time, he requests to upgrade his flight to business class. Paying for the upgrade out of his own pocket of course. Even a short flight to Hong Kong was on business class. 3.5hrs cannot sit in economy? Hmm...

We calculated. He's spent around $30K over these 4 trips just to upgrade to business class. 

如果他嫌钱多可以捐给我的.......

Nanny

Perpetually. 

Tiring. 

Nanny at home.
Have you done your homework? Have you packed your bag? Tomorrow's 行程 will be this followed by that so you have to plan your attire for this & then that. Did you wash your hands? Wash your feet. Brush your teeth. Brush your hair. Go bathe. Clear your clothes! Clear your desk! Clean your desk!

Nanny at work. 
Have you sent it out? Why not? Deadline coming, are you done? Why do I need to remind you? Have you processed? Not yet?? Why?? ST sent you instructions yesterday, till today no action done on your end, let me know why?

Kids I can understand....

Adults who cannot manage their own time or deadlines. I cannot accept. My patience...is sorely tested this year. 

深呼吸

Never thought the Marketing colleague could cause so much annoyance. 

工作能力 is really not up to standard. (alot?) Lower than what I'd expect from an AM. 

disorganised, slipshod, careless, always making mistakes, not meeting deadlines, 

if this were a private organisation, she would have been fired long ago. 

sigh. 

hmmmm

More flustered these days again and just want to 躺平. 

什么都不想做， 什么都不想想

只想躲在我窝里

能吗？

丢信的念头又来了， 今年仿佛有了好几次， 以前都没这么想过的 hmm.....

Reality check

Had an hour long chat with my direct boss this afternoon after lunch on some sensitive work matters about how another team's boss spoke to me about tapping on my staff to fulfil the other team's work scope. 

Somewhere in the conversation...

Me: The youngest in my team is already 40. 
Him: We need to get younger folks on board to know our work. We're in a niche industry. It takes someone several years to know and understand how things work...and you're already nearing 50. When we leave, who's gonna take over? 

Didn't bother with his last sentence......

*cue cymbals clashing*
*cue sad music*
*cue close up shot of my anguished face*

"....AND YOU'RE ALREADY NEARING 50...."

Laoniang is mid-40s....I still have 5 more years to hit 50 ya...not too far but also not so near lah!!! 

岁月不饶人.....sigh...

Words from ST

I am always thankful having u as my RO

More work to do (compared to last time)....but I am never alone....thanks for always supporting us and being around. 

==============

Words from ST. Some small motivation to keep going. Glad I have good colleagues & teammates to keep me sane amidst the rubbish that comes sometimes....

Jiayou Michelle!

Jiayou

Maybe I need to 冲花水

One complaint case last week. 2 this week. So many angry, self-entitled people around who are quick to flare up or jump to conclusions which lead to misunderstandings and misconstrued intentions.

Yesterday's complaint case is hopefully resolved. But it has dug up a can of worms which we did not know about for 1.5 years. Can of worms is being addressed at the moment. 

Today's case took up so much of our time. I hope our proposed solution works for both parties and the case can be resolved by tomorrow. Didn't realise my stomach was tensed up till I left my home work desk for dinner. 

Patience tested as well. Glad I have my teammates around to handle some of these together with me. 

==========

What does not kill you makes you stronger....

But 也不要这样 leh....给老娘一点喘气的机会好吗？

Work

That piece of work...is really stressing me out. 

At times I can feel my stomach tensing up. And there are days when I go to bed with my stomach tensed up, and in the morning when I wake I feel tense again. 

You know it's a sibei sensitive issue when your parent ministry takes a long time to assess and clear its channels just to provide you with its position. And clearance was at top-management level, with even the Min kept informed. 

And lawyers from both parent & your end are involved. 

And you need to keep your CEO informed as well. 

And.......sigh...

Alot of "firsts" that we met with after I took over the ops. Why me? 

(Reminds me of a white Tshirt I had when I was a teenager...it had WHY ME?! sprawled all over the front of the T-shirt in big bold and black letters)

Zapping me out. 

I hope, and I really hope that this issue gets resolved soon and smoothly too. 

Fingers & toes crossed. 

Woot!

Checked my HR app yesterday.

Checked my bank account yesterday too. 

Yay, performance and corporate bonus are in already...! 

Boundaries Redrawn

And so EBRC has published its report of how the various GRCs & SMCs will be like for the upcoming elections. 

Not looking forward to the work that has to be done on my end...and the jitteriness of the higher-ups and the possible scrutiny that might be on our team's work processes.

Fingers (and toes) crossed that everything will be 顺顺利利. 

#!%$%^@$@!#

Hate dealing with a certain person from the parent ministry.

Hate having to deal with high achievers with snooty attitudes who write in circles, and use exclamation marks to emphasise certain points in their emails. (How rude though. It's a professional work email.)

Maybe I am just not good enough & cannot understand their "angmoh". 

Sorry lah, laoniang is not from that strata, I cannot comprehend things beyond a certain level. Sorry lah, I ish also not a full-time policy-maker. I ish just a 打工仔 who is trying to 过日子 and 混口饭吃。

AND, laoniang 不是 scholar. Laoniang brain not so good. 

Deep breaths. Let's not ruin my Friday night. Maybe feeling emo & dramatic cos menses coming soon?