Never too late

My last post was a bit more than 5 weeks ago and i think it’s been the longest i went without writing something here. Anyway, it’s my blog and it’s never too late to write so here are some of the major events then happened during this period…

Semester 2 exam
I had my exam one day after my last post. I hate the fact that the exam time is never enough for those exams that require lots of writing (essay/short answers). It’s writing all the way from start to end and sometimes it feels like if i pause to think, i’ll be losing my marks from not having enough time to finish answering. My right hand always feels abused after ever non-calculation exam. Anyhow, i felt a bit better about this sem’s final and although i knew that i was only 1 mark away from the next best grade when my results came out 3 weeks later i was still overall satisfied. Classes for my third sem started even before my results were out and because it’s sort of a short/summer semester, everything is squeezed into a much tighter packed semester. Bad news is that i have less time in between assignments and my up coming final exam is a week before chinese new year. cock!

Penang
I was over at Penang in one of the weekends after the long wait (I bought the ticket in July this year). To be honest there aint a whole lot more places to shop there compared to Kuching so most of the time i was just going places, looking for food. My top priority was the cendol (mission accomplished!) but other than that i got to try the indian ox tail soup, super delicious dim sum, prawn mee, loh mee, curry mee, lok-lok, some roti-canai look alike wrap with hot-dog and cheese, J. Co baby donuts, Winter Warmer afternoon tea, Char Siew Puff and Paddington HOP Pancakes!

My last trip to Penang Hill was probably almost 20 years ago so it was great to be back there on this trip. The weather was perfect and we could not have gone at a better time (5pm sunset).

Indeed i had the holiday withdrawal syndrome when i got back to Kuching 3 days later and im really looking forward to another trip somewhere. Only problem is that i practically have z-e-r-o leave…nada. Sigh…it’s especially hard having to see all those Airasia promotions almost every month and not able to plan a freaking trip. Case of got money also cannot go holiday. WTF!

Big THANK YOU to my friends in Penang who were very accommodating.

Work
S-U-C-K-S!

A lot of factors contributing to the fact that i getting very demotivated at work. In OB this sem, i came across this topic about motivation in an organization. Apparently there are many theories about motivation such as Maslow’s. Yeah it’s just a theory but it’s fking true because i can so relate to it. Really i’m not trying to be a fussy/fked up/over reacting employee and everyone knows there’s no perfect place to work.

However, at my current position in my department and the way the organization is structured,

1. My bosses will never know who’s doing the real work because they spend a whole lot of time away from us in the office. I once read somewhere “You’ll be surprise on how far you can go if you careless about recognition” and for a short time i tried to live by that motto but I’ve come to realize that it’s only true in a certain way. I mean, when everything is going right, when im trying to work my ass off to make sure things are going well, no ones really gives a damn. Ok fine i can live with that but once something goes wrong, it’s like all eyes are on me, grilling my ass over how did it happen. Another scenario, sometimes after a hectic morning working like a horse i go for my lunch break and i may take a slightly longer break (knowing that all the machines are running ok)…but any of my top superiors see me, they give me the ‘wtf are u still out here catching snake for’ look. In a way i cant fking blame them rite, they dont know who actually did the freaking work. So how? I’m not ‘recognition’ crazy but i believe personal development also relies alot on feedback and recognition. Feedback good or bad help and recognition (higher appraisal marks) motivates people to work but if your bosses don’t know who’s doing what in the first place, how are they gonna rate you based on individual performance. It’s sad to say that just few days ago, i was putting in some extra effort refurbishing some of the machine parts and few of my colleagues walked pass and said “Don’t need to do lah, do so much for what? Nobody sees what you are doing also”. At the end of the fiscal year, everyone gets almost the same pay rise/bonus even for those people who never put in any effort. How would the employee feel? So yea, the culture that has been around is “Why do so much? Got do or not also same” and 10 years down the road, everyone is not very far off in terms of personal development from where they started, no?

2. We all know there’s no place on earth that’s free from people that just plainly get on your nerves but amplifying to the first issue above, there are people who are experts in taking credits but never do anything. I know one who not only does exactly that but also a retard in prioritizing his work. Not tending to important machines that have broken down to do something extremely unimportant. So retarded that is like telling his wife who is in labour at home that he has to finish mowing the lawn first before taking her to the hospital, so retarded that is like him insisting on trying to finish brushing his teeth in a burning house.  Almost 99.9% of the time either he finds something unimportant to do or not do anything at all when there’s an important task at hand. Not only that, after everything, he claims credit for the work or at least act as if he done something in front of the bosses. Sadly again that’s how he climb the corporate ladder to where he is now.

And all the little other things regarding leave, duty on Saturdays, no office table, computer for us is enough for me to want to leave. I wont die there but i rather not be there. Of course there are wonderful colleagues there too who can make certain days less agonizing that it really is.

Semester 3
Im taking accounting and organization behaviors this sem but i only have one exam. The latter only requires me to submit two long assignments in which one is about scenarios related to organization behaviors such problems with communication, trust, motivation, employee behaviors, appraisal, empowerment , corporate culture etc. Maybe my problems mentioned above are, in a way blessings in disguise.

There are times i feel like this part time study thing is such a burden and i feel like giving up but say what you say, i really do learn a whole lot of new interesting stuff foreign to my current discipline. Sides, no pain no gain.

END
I should end here. A too long of a post gets boring. Till then.