aahhh... Fridays

I have a love-hate relationship with Fridays.


On one hand I love Fridays because usually it’s such a casual day. Calls at work are usually slow. Pace is slow and relaxing. It’s the end of the week so when the merchants are calling in they are most the time quite laid back. Joking and small talks are welcome as well. It’s cool. Plus the casual wear that we are allowed to wear every week in office, it just adds on to the relaxing weekend mood.

On the other hand I hate Fridays because it’s usually such an anti-climax days for work, because when merchants are trying to settle all the shits before they go and enjoy their weekend, they will try to blame it on us for not being able to settle things because those lazy asses only deal with things last minute just before weekends.

It’s usually the most happening night of the week. There’s no work the next morning, so no one bothers to sleep early. Everything that’s planned usually falls on this last day of the week. That’s something I love because whenever there’s something planned I will almost always have time to go for it. However that’s also something I hate because usually there’s so much going on and very often I have to choose where I want to be.



Anyway, tonight is a buffet dinner night, a pre-wedding dinner for one of my buddies since primary school. Congratulations to her for her getting married. Wish her happy ever after.

Fridays. hhhmmmm

Signing off.

A meeting - What's been heard?

There's so much to write about I have no idea where to start.

About work, about life about emotions. Lots.

It's 3 days since my last entry, I cant really chronologically organize what I've been through. Sometimes when many things happened you tend to only remember the recent ones, sometimes only the more important ones. Sometimes none.

Let's just talk about what happened today.

We had a skip level meeting with our boss's boss today.

A skip level meeting is a special thing for our company. Every quarter we have a meeting with our boss's boss, to address problems that our boss is unable to resolve, and also to address problems about our boss. We had no problems with our first 2 bosses. However in the last 3 quarters, we have been talking about the same matter, our 3^rd boss who is currently still in probation just doesn’t cut it. He's not good enough and he dun seem to ever going to be good enough.

Wonder if you can understand this but let me try and explain my situation before I tell you what happened in the meeting.

I've been in the same company and the same department since end of August 2010. It's already a high profile team when I joined. Half of the team is a risk management team with THE highest record and best result in the world, and a couple of new hires including myself were recruited to form a new department. It's a high profile new department because the company basically fired everyone in Sydney, and then migrated the whole operation to KL. It's the first year of the migration and the success of the team meant a lot for our new team leader at that time as well us new hires, because it will justify our stay, also our future in this company.

We have had 2 Team Leaders before this current one. Both of them were one of a kind. As in, beyond good. The first guy is nice, has an analytical mind, very quick risk judgment, excellent knowledge in what he needs to do in his role. He was an idol for us. All of us new hires grew tremendously while he was leading us in terms of product knowledge, service quality, call handling, escalation handling, analytical skills, presentation skills etc. etc.

However it was unfortunately that he did not have that much of time with us, his time limit was 6 months and he has moved on to a higher management role after he has proven his worth to the company by demonstrating the success in migrating the team from Sydney to KL and also maintained the world class result of the original roster of the other half of the risk team.

Then we had a secondment leader in his absence.

He was a totally different kind, he was quick, analytical and also have excellent decision making skills. He saved our time and thought us efficiency and also judging risk with a broader perspective, for the benefit of the big picture. He was with us only very shortly as he was only our acting team leader.

Then 9 months ago we had a new team leader.

A disaster.

He has no experience in a credit card call center although he was from another call center previously. However what he knew and what we are doing was not the same at all. He was from a servicing line, he wants to please customer. We are a risk management team, half the team does loss prevention, and the other half does loss recovery. In other words, the team controls the company's losses, to keep it to the minimum.

He never adjusted.

He is still the servicing man he was when he joined, he never grasped the concept of risk management, he has a huge problem with decision making, he has a huge problem in gaining the trust of the team after 9 months. Half the team have not many issues with him because we are already tired of raising issues to him because he never sees beyond the surface, half the team has so many issues with him because they cannot do things well without a decisive leader. Problem is that even until today he still has no idea what's going on and no idea what are the problems.

He is still thinking half the team has no problem with him, and the other team have a problem with him just because they dun like him. Like I said, he never understood the problem.

We gave him so much support and patience when he first joined. It was himself that destroyed his own credibility in the beginning. He lied and he did all the petty things and there are also all the things that he just isn’t capable of doing. He became unfavorable for the team and has been that way ever since. He may have gained some product knowledge, maybe some process knowledge but in terms of leadership skills and also charisma in terms of a leader, he's just a failure.

We have 0 respect for him. The reason that we still talk to him politely simply because he is of a higher position and he has the power to mess with our career.

The most motivated team and most independent team and one of the highest profile team will just torn apart and then fall apart. All the hard work in the last 2 years would have mean nothing. It's a little saddening to even think about it.

It's a skip level.

Some of us held back. We who are known to speak what we think, spoke what we thought. We gave our boss's boss the picture, for the 3^rd time, or more. I lost count. The message is simple.

He's not good enough, not even close.

We do not want him as our leader.

End of story.

It was brutal. However we do not know how much have been communicated.

At the end of the meeting we have no idea what he's thinking. We were dismissed because time's up and he needed to attend a call conference. There was no conclusion, just as the last few meetings when we discussed the same matters. I'm not quite sure about him but I think when the same issues are brought up over and over again it means that nothing is going anywhere.

We can only wait.

Waiting is such an exhausting thing to do. To think that this new boss actually has a huge opportunity with staying, it's already disheartening.

We can only hope for the best, and prepare for the worst.

I never believed in any higher beings, but if there are in fact something like that, maybe it's time for you to hear a collective prayers and make something happen.

Oh and if you actually exist, save the people in Queensland. The flood is killing them.

Cheers.

Signing off.

Hanging Out

Hanging out is fun.

What? You dun think? You must be really sad, really really sad.

I mean seriously. Who doesn’t like hanging out with people that they can have a conversation with? Having a conversation is such an healthy thing. No I don't mean debate. No not arguing also. Nah not discussing. Nope I'm not talking your boy/girl/”somewhere-in-between friend.

I mean friends, genuinely friends.

No hanging out does not involve you sitting beside his table playing with your hand phone texting other people that isn’t physically there, that's call hanging AROUND, not hanging out.

No hanging out does not involve you going next to someone doing nothing and saying nothing important just so that you have an excuse being next to him/her. That's called being a pest.

No hanging out doesn’t mean whatever you do in the office. Period.

OK, sometimes it is but not all the time. I take back the word “period”.

I like people that I can have an intellectual conversation with. There are some people on this earth that they are so brilliant that it saves your energy to talk to them. Now that's eco saving, screw the inverters.

Some friends are so awesomely smart when you are talking to them, 3 words into the sentence they start to nod to give you signal of yes he/she understands what you are currently talking about so you dun have to do any pointless elaboration. Sometimes elaborating stuffs are FUN but no not all the time.

My point is, having a conversation involve both parties LISTENING to each other. Not TALKING to each other.

Now now, I understand that some of you might have something to say about that statement BUT I dont care. As long as you do not agree with the statement above, you are wrong, now go back to facebook and continue surfing because reading this blog is wasting your time.

Anyway, back to hanging out.

I've got this friend that we've both been saying “hey let's hang out” for more than a year and it didn’t happen. Due to some change to her career path we cant talk trash in the office anymore because that would involve her calling or us calling her on the phone and we are not supposed to even call each other during work for the fact that we work in a call center. Phew, that was a long sentence.

So, I was saying, it was her birthday a couple of days ago and some of the work mates were meeting up with her to celebrate her birthday. There's something I had to do and I just couldn’t adjust the time to make it happen. So being a total ass I called her a day before her birthday and told her “happy birthday”, and then I asked her to come out AFTER her birthday for a lunch, tea and more-if-necessary hang out session.

I always knew she was smart but there weren't chances for us to talk about anything in length. We had a nice chat today. Having a decent conversation is such a magical thing for you to like a person. I mean of course in the middle of that somewhere it includes about bitching about something that you both hates but hey, there are a lot of other things that you could talk about too. Things that you don't mind sharing because none of us would go around spreading what we talked about. That's a precious thing to have.

So the point this point entry is: People! I know all of us have this person or these persons that you have been wanting to go out with to have a nice chat, go somewhere together, do something together, eat something together or whatever. Give those people a call. Today, now. Who knows, you might discover a better side of your already-good friend(s).

I'd call that time well spent, don't you think so?

Signing off.

Birthday count down

a friend is celebrating his birthday here at another friend's house.

what a stupid line to start a blog entry. lol.

sorry for typing this blog with a lot of errors and a lot of lower cases not corrected. I'm typing on a mac book keyboard and all of the keys seem to never be at the right places. i mean, PC places, if you get what i mean. the last time i check they were both called keyboards. weird that they can be so much different from each other.

anyway, i was saying, I'm at a friend's place in the middle of a pyjamas party, watching all of the making all sort of jokes out of no where, it's no wonder that i could be friends with all these people for all these years. they are a bunch of marvelous people almost like a laughter factory, and the production line never stops. quality guaranteed.

just to show i mean it, please read the following words aloud:

"HAHAHAHAHA"

sounds loud didn't it. when a laughter sounds loud, it means it's fun.

to show that i mean it, please see the emoticon below:

=D

large isn't it? that's the size of the smiley on my face.
those who read that as "equals Dee" please you can go die now coz you have no sense of humor and you dun deserve to live another day.

anyway, the cocktails are ready, and the party is ready. I'm ready to laugh till i drop, how about you guys?

happy Friday night, and hallo crazy Saturday!


Signing off.

Lunch Time!

22 minutes to my lunch time at 11:30am.




I'm thinking what I should have for lunch. Actuall I'm just wasting my time because I'd probably be going to be drinking HerbalLife Shake like I've been doing for most of the time in the last 2 months. Some asked me why I drink Herbal life for lunch, instead of finding some nice food to eat. I usually just shrug and not answer that question. I'm going to answer it here.



Reasons:



1# Because I'm lazy to think what to eat. Nothing around here is ESPECIALLY good.



2# it's boring when no one is there to discuss.



3# I hate eating alone.



Simple aint it? I'm quite sure most of you share the same opinions

I love writing.

Life kinda caught up on me when I started working in 2005. I stopped reading, I stopped playing video games, I stopped watching TV (actually I hardly watch TV but...), I reduced my time severely with friends and family, I stopped writing, I stopped almost everything. All I do everyday was to wake up, eat whatever available, run out, and meet whoever I gotta meet, tell them about how awesome the insurance packages (FYI i genuinely know that they are awesome) and why they should sign up a policy with me.

Life caught up. Money was important, and it was never enough.

Then things started to change, I realised that I have no time to spend my money. More over, my money seems to always be leaking away for no reason. My bank account never fills beyond the amount that I got on a monthly basis and it always hits the bottom on the end of each fortnight. Something was seriously not right with my life.

So Seven (my dog) came into my life 3 years ago. She was so small, so fragile and she was going to die. To save her I have to set everything aside. I started to significantly cut down the time I spend outside doing sales, and spent more time at home trying to keep her alive. Then I realised I still have a life. It isn't about chasing wild dreams of getting rich, so what if I'm really rich and have friends that are really rich or want to be really rich? There's no heart in there.

Then I realised something more.
The writer in me was missing.

I used to write a lot.
I've won prizes back in school for writing.
I've earn quite some pocket money over the years by writing.
I've confessed to a few girls that I like via writing.
I've solve issues with writing.
I've made people smile with writing.
I've wrote to myself as a form of self conversation.
I've wrote diaries to keep myself sane at hard times.

All of that were missing, after I starting doing a sales job that requires me to just run out of the door when someone calls me, even on weekends.

Then I realised something more.
I used to observe a lot when I was writing. To write about people you have to interpret them. To write about people you have to assume things. To write about people you have to analyse what you see. Observation is the key. I haven't been observing when I stopped writing. It's like my brain has been operating in less than half the capacity for half a decade.

All of a sudden I woke up.
Maybe it's impulsive. I started up a blog. Maybe I'm just a copy cat because someone else in the office is blogging. Maybe it's not impulsive because I actually spent time in creating the blog and try to make it look like a blog before I write an entry. All that effort was put in, and when that's done, I still have an urge to write something.

And then I started my first entry. My fingers just fly themselves around the keyboard. All I have to do is just think what I want to say and my fingers do their job on the keyboard. It feels good. I laughed at myself that my English grammar has not improved a bit but who cares. Words flow, there was no block, it doesn't feel strange. It's just like old friends coming back to meet me. Writer's block? I'm a stranger to it.

I used to tell my friends that writer's block was such a piece of crap. It's an excuse for people that's lazy or a valid reason only for people that are mentally disturbed. But people are all mentally disturbed in some ways nowadays that the second reason shouldn't be valid anymore.

I used to blog in Mandarin. One reason is that's the language my mind is speaking. Another reason is my English sucks, and no one blogs with a language they suck at. Well, you get the idea. Although I still suck in English but I've learned to speak it now, so maybe things are a little different. Or maybe it's just me, no other reasons.

I started the blog about 10 days ago. It's really not that long and I have about 16 entries when I'm typing this, that's an average of more than 1 entry per day. I'm sure that's going to reduce eventually but intend to keep it consistent. To keep writing you gotta keep a look out of what's happening around you, like I said earlier that's something I haven't been doing for a while. When I starting looking around again it's amazing how many things are going around me all the time.

Cute girls seem cuter because you appreciate their cuteness in more dimensions.

Idiots seems more idiotic now you wont even bother getting angry at them anymore.

Talented people seems more awesome because you understand more about how awesome they are now.


Seems like blabbering but if you get it you get it, if you don't, then you don't. You dun have to understand what I'm blabbering about. It doesn't give you better score in school and it doesn't get you an increment at work.


Life is so great when you start looking at it.
Life is so great only when you start looking at it, and see what's more in it.
Life is so great precisely because when you see more in it, you appreciate more of it.

Life is so awesome.

I love writing. I still do.


Signing out.

Lazy work mate (continued part 3)

He went home 2:30pm sharp as if nothing ever happened.

Sometimes I just hope that my prowess in shooting games can be applied in the real world.

I'll make that my next Christmas wish. Whatever superior being out there that's hearing my prayers, I promise I will make good use of this power and will not hard innocent people. Please grant me my wish. Amitabha, Amen, Abra Ke Dabra.

10 minutes to 4pm.

What's at work, stays at work. I shall forget all these shits today and go home happy. For the fact that I get to go home everyday at 4pm no matter how shitty things get.

Lazy work mate (continued part 2)

And he is now wondering around flirting and joking and completely forgotten about it.

Speaking of "busy".

Gah, what a day.

Lazy work mate

I kinda confess that I'm not exactly a super hardworking type. I believe in working smart but I admit without working hard it'd just be total bullshit if someone were to be able to work efficiently. So working hard AND working smart are equally important to me.



With that said I just want to say that I hate people that's lazy. So lazy that he could say that he's busy while he was shaking his legs, and said loudly "shaking legs cannot be busy ah?"



If I was a couple of years younger I would have already ripped his neck off. I'm glad that I didn't. That would just stained my hands. Who knows if his blood is erosive enough to make the whole office building collapse. hhmmm, wouldn't want that.





Here's the conversation that I had with that fella.



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

8:28AM ME:

Case ref# 123CAL, 123AABU

hi pal can you let me know what's happening with these 2 cases?

one of them says support received, how about the other one?



8:28AM Lazy Colleauge:

se called in....promising to send in supports....nothin yet so far



8:30AM ME:

one of them is received, arent they xref#?

how about the other one?



8:30AM Lazy Colleauge:

maybe



8:30AM ME:

is that a yes or no?



8:31AM Lazy Colleague:

busy now...late will check

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

HE was shaking leg and was laughing and chatting away with the other work mates around his seats by 9am.

So I confronted him:

ME: "Hey pal are you free now?"

Him: "No I'm still busy."

(He said that while shaking his legs facing the colleauge behind his seat with his back facing his computer. both hands on his crossed legs.)

Me: "come on man you shaking leg right?"

(obviously I was annoyed of how "busy" he was looking)

Him: "Shaking leg cannot be busy ar?"

ME: "Geez fuck you man."

(I was angry)

Him: "come lar how you want to do it"

(Obviously he didnt get the message)

I kinda walked away from my seat to take my deserved break at 8:45am so that I dun slap him to wake his lazy bones up"

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



It's 10:30am right now when I'm typing this, and the fella just came back from his lunch 9:30am-10:30am.

he has logged into his computer and is chatting around without doing anything and yet he dun seem to be checking anything, let alone of "later will check". I'm starting to think that "late" that he said actually means "never".

Gosh why is this guy being hired. On top of that he did not even perform when he was in probation. He was pretty much just a lazy ass and a failure. And then the next thing you know, his employment got confirmed after 6 months in probation. HUH!?

I shall not talk too much about that. if you want to know more details just check out this blog: http://sinoffire.blogspot.com/

I'm just ranting. Just so that I dun snap anytime today.



Signing off.

Weirdest call ever.

I work in a creditcard merchant servicing call center. I take calls regarding on Creditcard disputes. Where I guide merchants to answer to dispute inquiries.

It was about 7 minutes to 4pm and I was about to finish work and head home. Usually these were the hours where no longer anyone from ANZ would call. So I was chatting away with one of the colleagues about weird calls, sharing what kind of funny or strange calls we had. Just as we were doing that a call from Australia came in.

Phone:      "DOOOOOOOOOD DOOOOOOOOOOD"
Me:          "Chargeback prevention, this is Alvin, how may i......"

(before i could finish my intro the merchant spoke)

Merchant: "Alvin you listen up, you sent me a Direct Debit Pren-otification telling me that you are about to take 89 dollars out of my account."
Me:          "Uh huh... sir..."

(before I could respond in anyway he continued)

Merchant： "Now I'm telling you, don't you dare doing that because if you do that I will go up there and grab whoever necessary by the throat and hit on his head until his ass bleeds! and then I will report to the police and prosecute you of stealing! you understand me?"

(Geez man this guy never heard of auto-debit? him or his boss were the one that authorized it)

Me:          "erm yes sir... but..."

(he cut me off again)

Merchant: "who the fuck do you think you are? If I owe you money, You send me a bill! you hear that? who told you that you can help yourself to take money out of my bank account when you want it? huh!?"
Me:          "that's the agreement you signed sir..."

(Of course he didn't let me finish)

Merchant: "then I'm gonna fucking unsign it tonight"

(What the heck how do you unsign something you have signed?)

Me:          "sir..."

(duh... he didn't let me finish)

Merchant: "I'm telling you I'm going to go to the bank today and terminate any services I have with you guys, I dun need your services and I dun need your businesses. you fucking people try to steal my money and that's not going to happen!"
Me: "Sir!"

(he didn't hear me and continued)

Merchant: "NOW you better fucking call me tomorrow, or i am going to be very pissed!"

(I'd get someone to call you but not while fucking.)

Me:          "Sure sire but first I need to know who you are."

(He seemed surprised that did know who he was, I know I'm good but not that good.)

Merchant: "WHAT?"
Me:          "I said, Sir, first I need to know who you are."
Merchant: "oh..."
Me:          "Your name? Sir?
Merchant: "oh my name is Michael"
Me:          "Do you have a merchant account number?"
Merchant: "oh yes, here it is, 1212121212, trading as xxxx car rentals."
Me:           "Let me take a look, yeap I could see that. dun worry sir, I'll get someone to call you tomorrow."
Merchant: "you better because I'm really pissed right now"

(I thought: you're not pissed, you're just being an ass.)

Me: "Sure Michael, you're going to get a phone call tomorrow."

(what an idiot, he's not even talking to the right department)

Merchant: "OK then"
Me:          "happy new year Micheal, bye"

(Basically i meant "get lost, loser")

Merchant: "erk... OK bye"

(I think he got the message)

and he hung up.

Speaking of weirdness... buahahahahahaha I wonder how you beat someone in the head and he'd bleed from the ass... these people needs to learn how not to throw threats and ended up like jokes. but that brighten up my day.

By the time the call finished, it was already 3:59pm. as soon as it hits 4pm, I just logged out of the system and got the hell out of the office. The pissed off guys that can do magic by making people bleed from the ass after choking people and hitting on the head? He can wait. Or he can just hit his own head and bleed out of the ass and make the news.

I'll deal with him tomorrow, If I remember him.