Resistance Barrier

So here I am at 7:47 (isn't that the model of the airplane that
crashed?) pm in front of my monitor at my work cubicle. I am still here
because I have work to do, but have stopped working as of 6.45 as I
seem to have hit a wall of Work Resistance.

After a week of
full day meetings followed by early morning phone calls from my boss at
9 am yesterday morning and 7 am today (which I missed!) to feed
information gathere from key countries onto paper for our head office
marked URGENT, IMPORTANT and NOW (with 1 to 2 days turnaround time!), I
have hit a blank wall.

I wonder how my boss does it. I have
only lived part of what she goes through daily at work for the past 2
weeks, and am getting betrayed by my own body now. My boss not only has
full day meetings, but is FLYING to different places for more full day
meetings where she is constantly challenged and questioned on her
business plans for Asia. Not to mention that she has been quite ill the
past 2 days but have been coming into work for 2 days of business
planning with different department heads.

Well, its been a day
of back to back meetings with IMs, text messages and phone calls
peppered into my meetings. I am thanking God more and more that I have
the ability to multitask and somehow can work at doing a few things at
the same time. Call it a result of schizophrenia, split personality,
attention deficit disorder, etc, but I have the ability to divide my
attention to a few things at a single time. This ability has literally
saved my life in these past 2 weeks. What was it about God growing
gifts in you as you go through hardship so that you come out a better
person?

So there I was today, on a phone meeting, working on a
mindmanager file with a colleague for an internal e-communications
plan, eating lunch and responding to text messages from my friend about
my home renovations. Then after, checking files from a colleague,
responding to his IM questions, working on a quote for a Press Release
and archiving my mailbox which had reached its limitations, all at the
same time. I don't think I'm human...

So after a day of
meetings, communications, phone calls, coordination, arrangements and
teamwork, I find myself hitting an emotional blank wall at 6.45. I
couldn't work, couldn't breathe. So I decided to take a little walk,
buy dinner then return to the office to start on the true meat of my
job.

While on the way to dinner, a felt a tinge of chest pain.
That's my body's way of saying, "That's it girl, you've hit your stress
limit for the day. Relax or I'm gonna hurt more." So now I'm back at my
desk, done with dinner, and can't get myself cranked up to start work
again. Now with occasional physical pangs of pain attacking my chest as
a sign of protest from my body. Sigh. I was feeling so invincible just
last sunday...

I finally get it that I'm not going to get any
more work done tonight. My body won't let me. My emotional blank wall
isn't going away. Listening to Corrine Mae helps me feel better and
overcome enough resistance to get some blogging done. Not that it feels
like work to me ;)

So, good night all ye blog people. I'm going home to rest.

Arnie the Actor, Arnie the Mayor

Picasa Integration to Gmail

Ok, so this is a techie blog. I do have some nerd genes in me, I sadly confess.

I came across some rumors that the new Picasa Web Album enables you to insert pictures from the web album into your gmail message to share with friends. How cool is that?

There are a couple of hurdles you have to cross first before you can start doing that:

Firstly (of course), is that you have to be the owner of a gmail account. As Picasa Web Album is still now in its testing stage, only gmail users will be able to sign up for it.

Secondly, you have to be using the Firefox browser with the Gmail skins installed.

Ready to try your luck? In need of a gmail account? If you ask real nice I might invite you...


PS a HUGE bonus - check out the list of addons Firefox browser gives you! Especially the blog tool addons...

Cold Mama

Purrrfect Modesty

Farewell Hug?

Karoshi (Kah-Roe-She)

When I first read about Karoshi, I thought it was one of those "hoax" sites that put up false news to make you laugh together with them at the unexplainable behaviour of the human species.

Apparently not. Karoshi, or "Death From Overwork", according to 1990 statistics has been claiming up to 10,000 lives annually. I don't have the figures for this millenium, but believe it or not, there's actually a site delivering news of people who are worked to death.

How relevant was this article to you? Cast your vote!

Dell's Hell

An apt name considering that not only did a Dell laptop break into flames at a Japan conference, their customer service apparently shoves customers into the flames. Read all about it in this article. The saga of the flaming Dell.

PS Did you notice that advertisement? Which one? The one that says I can be paid doing what I'm doing right now. Let me get the scoop and all the details for you. If you don't hear from me? It's probably too good a deal for me to share.

Blog Formula

Check out this blog. Apparently someone called Chris Thilk is so blog-savvy that he has successfully created a niche for himself, promoting Universal Studio's blockbusters via "blog-of-mouth". Apparently, it was a tremendous success that has gotten other big boys knocking on the doors of his blog...

America on Sale

There is this security guard at our building who goes beyond his call of duty. He is one person whom I would describe as someone who truly loves his job, is proud of it, and knows what "customer" relationship is all about. We should try to hire him!

I have suspected, and recently confirmed that the stack of local dailies on the high table near the entrance of the building, was his doing. If you were among the early few to reach work, the stack of papers would be sitting there everyday. You could simply pick them up and enjoy a condensed, dramatized and colloquial version of the day's news. These papers are distributed free of charge at train stations and bust (oops, I meant BUS) terminals. And as the papers appear only when he is on the morning shift, it is clear that the papers are his gift to the patrons whom he greets with such gusto and sincerity each morning.

Due to his diligence, I managed to read yesterday's headlines, "America for Sale". Astonishment overtook me, followed by cynicism. The United States Treasury would never allow that to happen. As I had 15 min before my first meeting for the day started, I scanned through the headlines and flipped the pages until I realised that it was simply an ingenuous piece of advertising by zuji.com.

"America on Sale" was the name of their campaign for cheap airfares to the states. As I did not have the time to look at the details, I left it on my desk and disappeared for my day packed with meetings. When I remembered that unique headline today and searched for my paper to investigate the deals that were being offered by zuji, I encountered another mystery. My papers had disappeared.

I have (mental) designated spots on my desk which I use to categorise my stuff, seeing as I hate filing and have no patience or time for them. Which is why I think e-archiving is the greatest advancement made possible by Windows. Bottoms up to Bill Gates on that. If he were to ever look me up when he's in Singapore, I would treat him to a nice dinner. Anyway, the spot where I had put yesterday's paper - labeled "Leisure, Urgent" - was empty. Reminding myself that papers are dead, inanimate objects that were actually incapable of flying or becoming invisible, I was baffled by the case of the missing news. It wasn't until my colleague - the same one who commented that I look 18 years old - was chatting to me from his cubicle that I saw it on his in-tray...

I wasn't offended as the few of us in that corner area of the office were an informal group. We joked around a lot and bantered about the stupidity of situations or policies aloud to each other. Our group feels more like a band of cohorts on the same ship than colleagues. Wait - maybe they're the same thing... But it was amusing to me to see the effect that can happen as the result of a creative ad-line.

Apparently, today the world is now on sale... Check it out.

Bumps & Scratches...

...on a bus.

And what's so special about this bus? I was on it.

How did it happen? I don't know. We were perfectly fine until we turned a corner.

Were there other bumps and scratches around? Yes, the car my bus bumped into.

Was anyone hurt? No other bumps and scratches were found apart from the 2 vehicles that gave each other bumps and scratches.

What a relief! Aren't you glad you're ok? Yes, and that I still managed to get to work on time was good too.

*beep*

News report ends.

The Art of Taking Compliments

The rule of the thumb when someone pays you a compliment, is to simply say "Thank you very much". Other optional comments that come with confidence are, "I'm flattered you think I have good taste" or even "Takes one with taste to know one who has good taste". For asians, where modesty is a virtue and pride is frowned upon, our programmed response would be "Oh, I'm not the one with taste. Fourth Auntie is the truly tasteful one!", or "You're too kind. I'm not really that good. You are such a generous person!". Or if you were paying a cynical asian woman a compliment, she might say, "That's not true." or even "What do you want??"

While receiving sincere compliments is as straight forward as you want it to be, how do you receive compliments that are obviously a stretch? My colleague from India, relocated to our Singapore regional office a few months ago, today told me that I look to him like an 18 year old. He saw the look I gave him, and repeated himself, unintimidated, "Really! I'm not just saying it. You really do. You're not 18 or 19 are you? I was wondering how an 18 year old could afford to buy her own flat. I thought you might be a millionaire or something."

It was a challenge to know the right response. Firstly, while the 2 of us are rather pal-ly, he is after all at a much senior level than myself. While I work for the regional office, he reports directly to our head office in the States. And while I take care of only web marketing and internal communications, he takes care of international strategic global accounts. So it would be impolite for me to say, "Dude, are you having me on??"

Yet, I wouldn't be as vain to accept that he was telling me his honest, sincere opinion. While I have always looked younger than my age, the "perception" gap has been steadily closing over the years. I used to look 7 years younger, then 5, then 3, and today, most people would guess my correct age.

I decided to conclude that he was having a good day and simply wanted to pass his sentiments around.

The Legend of Depp

Sunday was a good day for me. One of those days when everything turns out (almost) right. The day started with a lift to church from a funny guy friend with quite an impressive car model, a good read on my latest book while waiting for church service (which actually relaxed me!) and lunch with great fun, before drinks at City Hall.

Reluctant to end a good day, I decided to continue the fun by myself. I went to the gym for a workout that removed all the knots from my muscles and walked away feeling like I was invincible. Relaxed and a little gleeful at how good I felt, I decided to treat myself to an eye candy fix - Johnny Depp and Orlando Bloom.

Yes, I went to watch Pirates of the Carribean 2. It was great fun. I lurve the girlie sashay that Johnny Depp puts on for the show, and how dashingly cute Orlando was. What made it even better was that the storytelling and stage makeup were really good with all the makings of a first rate movie.

The lone flaw to the day was that as I was making my way to the theatre, another male species of homo sapiens actually tried to pick me up again. He wanted to date me out for a movie while holding me up for one.... He was a lot more pleasant and not as aggressive as the last guy, but as I mentioned, I'm not very good at being picked up. I gracefully declined to pass my number to him, highlighted that I had to a movie to catch and promptly made my escape.

However, I must say that Johnny and Orlando more than made up for my solo trip to the movies. I'm SO looking forward to Pirates 3...

What's All That Fuss?

So during Happy Hour my colleagues asked me why I didn't date. Well, I gave them quite a number of solid reasons. The primary reason, however, I believe is what my friends describe me as - Fussy.

The same Fussy principle applies to my house. Doing a renovation with Bohemian design, my dream living room consisted of a corner of broken tiles and mirror pieces assembled into a mirage on 2 sides of my walls. I fascinated myself with imaginations of how beautiful my home would look. I was jolted to reality when I looked at the finished product. Apparently, mirrors were a difficult material to break, and many of the pieces had line cracks and jagged edges. A prompt call to my renovator who called his contracter, and I met them over the weekend. While waiting for the contractor, I painstakingly went through each and every piece of the mirror pieces, making marks on which I insisted HAD to be changed (though they were already cemented to the wall) and those whose edges could be masked with grout.

The surprise for me though was that that weekend, I received quite a number of visitors to my half finished flat. My estate agent had brought 2 clients to view a flat some floors above mine, and came down to check how my renovation was coming along. Apparently his clients loved my house. And when I first reached my flat to meet my renovator, I had another agent with 2 guests who simply dropped by to view my flat. Among them was a lady who was running her hands over the broken pieces of sky, misty and dark blue tiles pieced together on my wall with pieces of mirror where you see a few versions of yourself peeking back at you from a collage of blue. She was fascinated and couldn't take her eyes off the wall. I cringed. What an embarrassment to have her see the cracks. Apparently, I was the only one who paid attention to that. People normally tend to see only the big picture when they view it for the first time. It was different for me as I scrutinised every inch for any flaws that deviated from the image of beauty I had in my mind.

I must say that I am very curious now. The 4 visitors I had were people who were viewing the flat above mine. However, the flat was on the 24th floor. How did they manage to wander onto the 15th floor, see that my flat was under renovation and decided to come in for a viewing? I don't know, but it was to my benefit. When my renovator saw that my flat was attracting quite some interest, he became more open to my insistence that the flawed mirror pieces be changed. Originally thinking that I was of no advertising value to him (I mean, I was the ONLY person who had ever asked for a bohemian flat and he thought would be the last), he suddenly realised that I was pulling clients for him.

My agent had 2 clients who got him to do their kitchen on that same day, and the other visitors asked for his number to renovate their future flat purchase. In one day, he had gained 2 customers and 1 potential lead. If they only knew the idea came from me...*grin*. After that, he was very helpful and a lot more obliging to changing the mirrors on my wall. Now everyone's happy.

Reebit!

Re my previoius entry, the only time I managed to earn for myself is dinner time. It was a great relief to be able to leave my ever so "heavy" laptop at home and walk out to the coffee shop for a bite. As my eyes were tired from the strain of staring at the projector screen the entire day, I failed to see the tiny "open" sign dangling at the store front. Seriously. It was probably only 35 cm long and 15 cm wide. OPEN.

Well, all I saw was the lady boss seated at the entrance of her stall looking absolutely disinterested in her surroundings as her husband was wiping the counters clean. As the stainless steel work area looked really bare, I came to the conclusion that they were closing for the day.

Trying my luck (well, actually more like I was miffed that I walked all that way to find out the stall was closed) I approached the man. He was at least more interested and alert of his surroundings than his wife. I asked if they were closed for the day. He couldn't hear me the first time, so I repeated myself a little louder.

Well, I found out that his wife wasn't as clueless with regards to her surrounding as I thought. Before he could reply, his wife snapped back (loudly and in a hostile manner), "What does our sign say? Can't you see that we're open?" I swung around to stare at her and she pointed her finger above her, where the sign was. She gave me a look meant for people who have lost their brains and promptly returned to her posture of disinterest. She could very well win a competition for still mime if I hadn't irritated her. Or be framed in the London Wax Museum.

Too tired to care, I sat down to wait for my dinner. Tinkling with my handphone, navigating through movies I could watch on my mobile, I suddenly realised that I was thirsty. Looking around for a waiter, I managed to espy one that was passing me by a table a way. I waved my hand and shouted. He didn't hear. Not in the best of moods after being snapped at for no reason, I raised my voice to a Hertz level that would ensure that the waiter would hear me. As did a few others.


I returned to my mobile and while engrossed in it, someone rudely banged a glass of ice and the canned drink on my table, shouting loudly at me my order and its cost. Startled, I dived into my bag for my wallet and stuffed the money into his hands, too tired to look at him. Doesn't anybody have sympathy for this overworked single gal? Sigh.

It was as I was finishing my dinner that I realised I had been staring at a cage full of frogs in a metal cage for the past 30 min. It hadn't registered in my mind how strange this scene was until then. A cage of frogs in a coffee shop serving food and drinks... it seemed a little bizarre. Until I remembered that one of the stalls sold frog's legs as one of the dishes. Looking at the frogs again, I suddenly felt better. They deserved more sympathy than me. At least I could be sure that there is no higher being out there who would kill me for my legs. One of the frogs was curiously staring at me out of his left eye, probably wondering why I had such a look of pity on my face. I stared back. Well, what he didn't know couldn't hurt him... or maybe it could...

I got up and left the coffee shop. What a frog's life!

Monday At The Zoo

So it's been a week after another of looooongggg full day meetings at work. I am starting to pick up the habit of taking cabs for early morning meetings and when returning home at night. Not that I'm complaining - it's good exposure for me in an industry entirely foreign to me. It's the quickest, and most practical way of learning about the business. My only complaint is it zaps you physically, and i find myself mentally blanking out like a zombie. Sitting through a full day of meetings in business planning for programs, countries AND summarized meetings of these day long meetings to people from other departments and updating them, getting their buy-in, etc etc etc can be trying. AND make you claustrophobic. Today, we sat through a day long meeting in a room where there are no windows, and where one side of the wall is made of glass. So anyone and everyone walking along the corridor can see the bunch of us cooped up in the fish tank bowl. I have a good mind to start learning how to blow bubbles to add entertainment value to all those who pass by and stare. Some even wave like they are visiting a zoo or museum and we are subjects of observation.

Yes, I do feel claustrophobic. It does get difficult to breathe at times. The irony is that while I fight claustrophobia in the fish tank meeting room, it only gets difficult to breathe when I finally am released to return to my desk at 6 pm in the evening to start my REAL work. I have so many unread emails that all sender names and subject topics are blurring into one unrecognisable list of unreal communication flags. What makes those emails more unreal is that while I have been given the job of co-leading with my boss on marketing programs for our department, many automatically assume everything falls under my responsibility. Uploading of files into common access area, announcements to the entire department of changes that individuals have made, requests for weekly meetings that track item for item from individual countries, as well as training in the SOFTWARE that we are using for our presentations for consistency's sake, yada yada yada ... are suddenly perceived as my responsibility.

And I have gotten feedback from my boss that I am too nice and need to make people stick to their deadlines. Argh. My ever fatal flaw. Not that I'm such a nice person, but I when I pile people with work, I get guilt pangs about taking their time away from their family and kids, potentially the cause agent of hypertension, heart problems, stress disorders.... ok, so I'm neurotic.

So at the end of the day when I am done with my day long meetings, at 6 pm in the evening, I have a document I need to complete for my US office for a meeting due in Aug, 3 newsletter launches due NOW, and corresponding internal websites due TOMORROW, and one external product brand site for relaunch in Sept. My colleague who's the e-administrator for all my web and online projects started worrying last week, and I'm sure is panicking now. Having only slept 3 hours last night, I decided to make my way home after replying the few critical emails in my inbox.

There passes one Monday in the life of this busy executive. Oh, how i have missed blogging.