Offpoint - From Singapore To Seattle

A change or a make-do?

2009-06-04T23:58:00.001-07:00

Had a philosophical discussion with someone recently.

Somehow, this ties to an episode of South Park (Bloody Mary) that i watched recently. Randy, Stan’s father, attended AA after getting a DUI. Although he had the earlier realization that if he stop drinking, he would be fine, he got into the whole AA programme and got himself into a different problem altogether.

A few recent discussions and projects have been to find a way to do work in a more conducive and productive manner. Relationships and morale are two of the key areas, and some efforts have been driven to get us into a better platform.

My take on it is that if one wants to do it, one can just decide at that point in time, and switch. The bad thing about having some of these external trainings or courses is the what i termed as the post-post-training effect. Perhaps there’s a more scientific name, but it’ll do for now.

For example, if one attends a “productivity improvement” training, one will definitely be using the knowledge attained in the first weeks after the training, That’s the post-training effect.

Similar to a eventual sugar crash, if there’s no momentum or other courses to keep the momentum going, one goes into the post-post-training effect. The good outcome from here is just going back to square one. One of the bad ones is that one will generate a cynical view, what with the “hey… it no longer works!”.

It really doesn’t take that much to change, does it? My 2 cents is it doesn’t.

Processes are not the be-all and end-all

2009-05-25T00:56:00.001-07:00

This weekend was the Memorial Day holiday weekend and Sharon and I spent some time just hanging around and trying to stimulate the local economy in various ways.

At one of the places we went, a waiter was able to handle our off-the-cuff ordering and questioning really well. At another place later that day, someone else was following to an obvious process template in the way questions or comments were sent to the customers’ way.

I find it really funny. It’s also something that i’ve always disliked. Just because “everyone” do something a certain way doesn’t mean it’s the best way, EVEN (and especially) when it’s documented and approved by people that are not doing the day to day work.

A heck of a few weeks..

2009-05-19T00:36:00.001-07:00

As i was cooking a homebrewed version of Nasi Lemak, fried chicken wings, ikan bilis and sambal chilli for Sharon’s birthday,and doing a heck of a “pretty darn good” job on it, i thought about the last few weeks and events in the company.

The recent silence was due to a combination of work (saw a big RC recently anyone?) and the largely publicized impact to a large number of colleagues around the world.

My immediate group in Redmond wasn’t impacted, but i’ve heard of colleagues, including some highly respected folks, that were impacted across regions and groups.

Along with that, my group has a reorganization. That’s part and parcel of working in the company. Reorgs are common, and allow for opportunities to tweak and optimize our resources further. I will blog about my thoughts of it in an upcoming post as i spend more time to digest this change. Optimistic for it though.

Sharon and I also completed our really basic Japanese language training. Yeah ^_^! The training also indicated to us that we are getting overwhelmed with work and stuffs to be able to do a good job at this, and so i’m impressed at how moodyone is doing it with her MBA studies.

We were also planning on a holiday trip, but decided to postpone it till August. A few of the places that we originally selected suddenly because places that we shouldn’t be in unless necessary.

Talking about the big RC, i’ve been having so much fun with the product on my Aspire One netbook that i’m gathering some notes and stuffs on how i configure the product on the netbook to fully utilize its capabilities… 8). Maybe i’ll dump my notes onto another one-off blog. Too bad i’m not an “internet marketer” like so many Singaporean bloggers are apparently on Ping.sg!

Who Gain From AWARE Fiasco?

2009-05-03T21:41:00.000-07:00

The nominees who gained in AWARE Fiasco are:

Suntec Convention Centre - AWARE has to fork out a huge sum of money to rent the hall like $20,000
The Straits Times - Sensational news sell. AWARE has helped the national paper increase circulation and readership
Security Company - The folks who were employed to change security locks in AWARE office

And the award GOES to (drum roll please....) the Security Company!!! Hooray! Fantastic! Thank you AWARE for contributing to the bad economy. It was reported that AWARE's former exco team spent $80,000 within a month. I assume they spent $60,000 to install new security locks.

Moral lessons learnt in this fiasco include:

Please do not underestimate the wrath of women and women's purchasing power
We have a feminist mentor
This fiasco is a great tactic used to divert attention on the current bad economic situation

Relooking culture shock part 2

2009-04-20T17:36:00.001-07:00

Another major shock for me was the need to market oneself, or one’s organization.

Instead of focusing on making and ensuring things work, some folks are more concerned about how they, their organization, and their work appears to others.

I’m sure this is the Asian culture. Do your work, and let your work speaks for itself.

That sure doesn’t work the way here.

You can surely see it even in the pop culture, where every no-talenter gets his or her <15 mins of fame, and then spends eternity riding on the waves of that fame. Doesn’t have to be a good singer/actor/whatever. Just be known.

The last few years have been a ride. I get to see people that knew nothing, and did nothing, and yet claimed credit whenever opportunities arose. I really admired the gall of these folks.

I personally can’t do that.

I just do my job.

PS: I drafted this about two weeks ago, prior to my week of absence with flu+fever+cold+so on combo. Still slowly recovering from it as it is now. Sharon also got the flu. She’s blaming it on me though.

Wow

2009-04-16T15:37:00.001-07:00

Speechless

Apparently someone reads my blog…

2009-04-12T23:36:00.000-07:00

What’s the probability that the morning after my last post, a hallway discussion was about the exact topic?

From a very visible and “experienced” manager, he said “just because you don’t like to play the game doesn’t means the game isn’t played”, or words to that nature. What i guessed he was trying to say is, “get with the flow dude!”.

As Homey The Clown would say, “I don’t think so! Homey don’t play that!”.

It’s a sad reflection that some of the hard working folks are labeled as “worker bees” just because they want to focus on the work.

Perhaps we all need a personal marketing manager?!

A very experienced person in our org asked me about this. Should we adopt this approach too? To celebrate the fact that we are coming to office every day? To be able to send emails to one another?

On one hand, i don’t like the game, but on the other hand, i think it’ll be useful for the newer members of my team to get the benefits of more recognition and awards. In fact, i think I'll start to promote them myself!

Awards appointees, here i come!

Relooking culture shock part 1

2009-04-09T00:06:00.001-07:00

A relocation usually brings with it a lot of challenges, culture shock notwithstanding.

Luckily, being employed in the Singapore office for a number of years exposed myself to the ways of a huge worldwide organization, and reduced some of the shock.

One of the ones that remain though, and is still puzzling me at times, is a tendency of some groups to reward some folks with praise and visibility while ignoring those who did it right the first time. An example: the guy that demands for a usable and reliable system often get ignored and ridiculed while the persons that just wanted to say “the system is successfully deployed” even with lots of system-breaking issues gets rewarded and praised.

Let me think about another culture shock……….

Did Mr Seetoh antagonize someone?

2009-04-06T15:49:00.001-07:00

Just read this report about the food poisoning incident in Geylang Serai, and found the mention of Mr Seetoh’s publication in this report weird. There really wasn’t any need to do so. Funny thing is that no one in his website’s forum caught that yet.

Happy 5!!!

2009-04-05T19:11:00.000-07:00

Jon and I have been living in USA for five years.

Here's our five achievements.

We are DEBT FREE! whew!!!
Still using the same car we bought five years ago
Gain muscles and fats
Getting younger everyday according to our friends. Nice :)
Learning basic conversational Japanese

Five things I like about Seattle

Evergreen state. Everywhere you go, you see lots of trees
People are MORE FRIENDLY than ahem...you know Sxxxaxxxxans
Watched more than 100 black and white movies
Shopping paradise
I can work from home

Five things I dislike about Seattle

No Singapore Hawker Food. By the way, we DO NOT add curry powder in Singapore Chia Bee Hoon! Please consult my mother-in-law if you want to know how to cook Singapore Chia Bee Hoon!
Asian food does not taste like Asian food. What's up with that?
Food is expensive
Medical Insurance is expensive
Nine months of COLD weather

5th.. from my point of view..

2009-04-04T00:23:00.000-07:00

Like:

- The public library system here is amazing. Tons of movies and classics. That’s where Sharon’s cited >100 of B&W movies came from. We’ve found classics such as the “Thin Man” series, Abbott & Costello, Seven Samurai (and other Kurosawa’s movies), Fred & Ginger, and many many more. My friend that works in the media industry as a movie reviewer already said i watched more “high quality” movies than she does. Of course, i get to do this as a hobby, not a need or work.

- Getting things online here is fun. The deals and savings and sometimes rebates are such habit formers that i can no longer go back to Sim Lim Square in Singapore and use the word “cheap” there.

- Pro Club rules. I’m so used to the facilities in the Pro Club that i don’t think i can work out in any other gyms unless i have a total change of lifestyle and occupation

- Weather being cool and cold is good for me. I tend to have some issues with the weather in Singapore, and i like the feeling of “being always in a natural air-con” keeps me relaxed

- no TV feeds is a good thing too, though that wasn’t really by choice. My only treats is the South Park videos online and No Reservations DVDs from the library. Don’t ask me anything else about what’s going on in TV-land. I’m still catching up from the mid-60s TV series.

Dislike:

- Medical insurance is a joke and a mess here, and apparently Singapore is trending towards this model.

- Asian food always taste, at best, 90% of what we can get in Asia

- Some of my fave restaurants have closed up due to the economic crisis.

- Cell phone technologies are so far behind here.

- Some of the work experiences aren’t really something that i would want my enemies to go through

Almost five years here….

2009-03-24T23:30:00.001-07:00

How quick times flies? In less than two weeks, we’ll be here for five years.

At a high level, here’s what we’ve done:

- a job change for me (and a couple failed attempts at others)

- five managers (goes to show how often reorgs are)

- a couple of job changes for Sharon

- got our driving licenses

- bought our own car (no COE! In Singapore's context.. colleagues)

- stayed in two rental locations

- a trip once a year at least for me back to Singapore

- Sharon will probably say that another big item would be my increasingly larger video game collection

Wow.. that’s it? I’ll take the next two weeks as an opportunity to do a recap. Should be fun for my newly joined colleagues to have a glimpse of the life in the space that I'm in.

Unpacking fun

2009-03-23T23:01:00.000-07:00

Got myself the special edition of UNKLE’s War Stories album, and was forewarned by the cashier at Silver Platters.. “it’s a good buy… and great songs and artwork.. but good luck opening it!”

Took me about 2 hours on and off to open the ^#@!!#@) thing.

Just before i put it back into the packaging again, here’s how the package looks like:

The songs are great. The book has amazingly artwork. Just don’t make me open it again!!

Found a rather good book…

2009-03-23T15:23:00.001-07:00

After writing a post recommending two books on the company, i found a book that really drills into things that are often not discussed.

The scope is really wide and provides insights into areas like SKU planning, partnership engagement etc. When i was flipping through the book, the first reaction was “wow.. this guy knows his stuffs!”. Indeed, the author was a former employee in the company.

I would definitely recommend the book to anyone that wants to really understand the operational side of things in th3e company.

Read-ups for the dream job..

2009-03-19T22:12:00.000-07:00

I mentioned that it was a dream for me to join the company.

First.. the lack of knowledge of what goes on inside the company. To be clear, one cannot but know something about the company, but unless it’s public information, one won’t really necessarily know the inner details of the company.

In fact, prior to doing the interviews for my original Singapore-based job in the company, i was advised by the hiring manager to read up on some books on the company, with specific mentions of these two books. I was glad that i did, as the books helped me to set expectations on myself for the job that i was trying for.

I would say that these books are now nice-to-read, but with the passage of time, they might no longer represent the culture of the company. Is that a good or a bad thing? Depends on your view.

I think this book now captures the essence of the company. I went through the book in 2-3 hours flat without stopping, other than to ponder …

At least i’m happy i didn’t write it..

2009-03-18T21:40:00.001-07:00

Found this post off Secret Geek. Loved it.

Took the lingering thought off me to do a similar post like this.

Thanks!

I don’t know about you, but i think..

2009-03-16T22:43:00.000-07:00

i’m seeing a huge similarity between the outrage of the AIG bonuses and the Singapore CDC bonuses issues.

One thing for sure though: there’s no way we’ll be seeing some of the developments in the AIG issue becoming reality in the CDC one.

Thanks to socio-political blogs like WayangParty, The Online Citizen etc, i’ve been getting some interesting insights on this issue.

Thoughts on Blogging here…

2009-03-15T22:26:00.000-07:00

It’s almost five years since we were here. It’s also almost five years since the blog started. How times fly!

Originally, my motivation for blogging was to simply have a single place where family and friends can get updates on us over here. It started to become somewhat of a soundboard for some of my thoughts as i went through some interesting projects.

I was sure that at some point, i had more colleagues reading here than our Singapore friends. I even had my organization’s director here too 8). That was when i decided to have two instances of blogs (sounds familiar colleagues?).

With some unknown assistance from my mentor, one of my posts on another blog became a huge topic of discussion, and i even got bravos and kudos from some internet security experts! Gosh.. i am embarrassed to say the least.

The frequency of updates have slowed down in the last twelve months. A combination of trips, back pains, being distracted with new software from the company to play with and the eventual hitting of the proverbial wall made it hard for me to share my thoughts. Playing with Facebook and Twitter also reduced some portion of whatever free time that i had.

Recently, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking internally. However, shutting down the blog wasn’t one of the things i’ve thought about, so i’m sorry for disappointing some folks…. I still need a venting mechanism, though these days, i’m the Yes Man.

I think the common theme these days is “a reset”. I’m resetting it now.

Let’s see how the reset goes…

Now this is a story all about…..

2009-03-12T23:35:00.001-07:00

Looking back, i don’t think that i’ve never really mentioned how i came to be where i am.

Upon a request from Agagooga, .. let me see if i can remember how it went…

“Now this is the story all about how
My life got flipped, turned upside down
And Id like to take a minute just sit right there
Ill tell you how I became a relocated employee in WA

In Singapore, born and raised
On the sports field where I spent most of my days
Chilling out, maxing, relaxing all cool
And all shooting some football outside of the school

Got into a job which was really funny
The hiring manager left on the day i joined
Did pretty well, if i might say so myself
And was contacted by that ex-hiring
Manager again.. after a dinner
Came back to the company and say…
“Home to Redmond!”"

(not really.. but was asked to go for an interview in the Singapore operations office)

Enough of Fresh Prince of Bel-Air!

In my company, reorgs are a way of life. In one such reorg almost 5 years ago now (wow.. that’s a quick 5 years gone), the ex-hiring manager who became my second-time hiring manager in the current company relocated over. Somehow, i was asked again if i want to relocate as well, as regular 1:1 sessions with my 4-5 different managers have allowed me to tell them that i always find it a lifelong goal to work here,, and i guess these managers liked me enough to push me to do it.

Prior to the relocation, i had a number of training trips here, and i found myself a great mentor and friend. He still gives me advice and jokes and nowadays even self-composed music too. I know he also contributed a lot to my dream becoming a reality, though a few years later (we joked that it became a nightmare).

Of course, Sharon also played a huge part in supporting what i want to do. And so we’re here. It was as simple as that.

“Looked at my rental house, I was finally there
To settle my throne as the dude of AM!”

(many apologizes to DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince, one of my all time favorite duo)

Looking back, i guess it’s a combination of fate (the same manager helping me get a job in three different locations, my mentor, the various managers i had in the Singapore office), some amount of hard work, and luck?!

My thoughts

2009-03-07T08:39:00.000-08:00

The economy is getting from bad to worse. Washington unemployment rate has increased to 8.1%. More people are losing jobs and will not be able to find another job within two to three months' time. There are more bad news than good news. What is happening to the world? Am I living in hell already?

I am not sure whether I will lose my job and thus work with an attitude that I may lose my job tomorrow and do the best that I can. I don't want to think about it but I cannot as I know one of my co-workers will be losing her job. A good hardworking co-worker losing her job due to the economic situation. Argh...

Something that i’m worried about..

2009-02-28T16:13:00.000-08:00

Looking at how the healthcare system is slowly being USA-like in Singapore, and with someone asking us to export our elderly to another country (a world’s first i believe), i am worried that eventually my friends and family will get to experience things like this.

Sad that even Oscar speeches are censored..

2009-02-26T00:20:00.001-08:00

Saw a post on TOC, and as i was chatting with my friend who works in Mediacorp, made me joked about it.

It’s sad to see that with access to such information easily available (YouTube anyone?) with a quick search that myopic people actually wasted their efforts in doing such censorships.

It’s the best actor’s speech… how can you expect anyone to not notice that??

My Valentine's Day Presents

2009-02-15T10:55:00.000-08:00

Ahh...it is the time of the year again. Presents. Yes, I know in this bad economy, we should save money. However, we should also allow ourselves to splurge on small indulgence.
My presents include:

Pink camera
Pink camera case/pouch
Pink mini camera printer
Black camera stand
Red and pink roses
Kukui Moisturizing Lotion - found this in Haiwaii

Rashomon effect is here ….

2009-02-13T19:01:00.000-08:00

Rashomon has been one of my favorite Kurosawa movies and though the story surround the rape of a woman and the murder of her husband, it’s the mutually contradictory recollections from four major players in that movie that drove an theme throughout it, and the cinematography that blew me away.

There’s even a term called the “Rashomon effect”, which basically means different observers or players within an event could easily produce substantially different accounts of the same event, viewed from each of their respective point of view.

Due to some events that occurred in a project last year, we had different players providing feedback on the incident. A brief recap today mentioned about differences in objectives and the corporate-speak “roles and responsibilities”, but i filter that down to the Rashomon effect. 8)

I sure hope some of the folks will borrow it from the library, rent it from Netflix, or just buy the amazingly high-valued Criterion Collection set, watch it, and think how closely it applies.

I probably should get it too, after watching it twice, to supplement my Seven Samurai set and the Yojimbo/Sanjuro set.

Spoke too soon…

2009-02-09T00:05:00.000-08:00

I think i jinxed myself by saying that i was recovering in the previous post.

Something weird happened and my back got into a muscle-spasm situation, where the lower back muscles are pulling down the rest of the body, and made me into the hunchbunck of notre dame’s copycat.

Had to stay home for a few days as sitting or standing was too painful.

Went to see my chiropractor (no chinese sinseh here!), and also started getting massaging treatments, and a combination of these and some good old oilments seems to have made it almost bearable to go to office to work.

I’m not going to jinx myself again.. so let’s see how it goes..