No MSN Allowed!

The first half of the week has been quiet. My boss has been away attending to personal matters. I tried to use MSN but Geraldine warned me to not to. I wonder if all workplaces are like this.

I just realized that our agency is the only one with its own desktop computer sitting out in the open for our life planners to use. Geraldine sits inside the office at ther own table with her own laptop, doing her own stuff. For me, I have been sitting outside in the open and using the desktop where all the other life planners are.

I finished my work early and found some time to surf the net. I felt there was nothing to it (everyone needs a break sometimes). I wasn't sure if it was okay to do so here. Geraldine was surfing the net 'tactically' and it was perfectly okay for me to surf the net for my other jobs.

That was until, later in the day, Geraldine told me someone complained to her that I was playing games.

Playing games? Websites with colourful designs, art and screenshots do not equate to playing games. Meh.

Working Days @ Great Eastern

It has been a week at my new job as an admin assistant at Jasmine & Associates. I was the 'understudy' for the current admin person, Geraldine, who would be leaving at the end of the month. So far, it has been quite a peaceful first week. Geraldine always teaches me a few things then goes on with her work. When I am done, I just wait around for more things to do. The boss, Jasmine was away on course this week and rarely dropped by, so I had the whole place to myself most of the time. It felt very relaxing to have no one watching over your shoulder. I hope it stays like this next week. Overall, the workload is manageable, not too stressful and I still have time to play WoW every night when I get home.

The strange thing is that, up to now, I don't even know my exact salary (aside from a range) since I haven't signed any letter of appointment yet. The boss wasn't around most of the time and I only learnt from Gerlandine on Thursday that they don't practice preparing appointment letters. I guess I will try again next week. Hopefully I can bargain with her next week.

Insurance Agents

I went for a job interview for an admin assistant post on Thursday evening at Great Eastern (Eunos). Yup, it's that insurance company. Through our nearly 2-hour long exchange, the interviewer felt that I was a suitable candidate for the job and invited me for their agency's mid-year function on the following day. I wanted to turn down the offer (I'm not even employed yet!) and just stay at home but she hinted that it might influence her decision to pick me.

And so, despite the fact that I wasn't even hired yet (she mentioned there were two more candidates to interview), I attended their function today at Sentosa. The boss picked up several other colleauges at Tampines and I got a ride from there. There were about 10 agents in their little department. We had lunch at the Cafe Del Mar. The most uninteresting part of the day came when everyone started talking about things I didn't understand during the presentation.

Oh, well, I learnt that I was hired and would start work on Monday. As an admin assistant, of course. Though they did hint that I might be able to convert to a 'Life Planner' in the long run. Sorry, but I don't think I will ever dabble in insurance. Wish me luck on Monday!

Rolling Bomber Special!

Earlier in the week, Miya, being the nice person he is, recommended me for a part-time job near my home. I was pretty much bursting with excitement and looked forward to the interview on Saturday. Unfortunately, I was informed just the night before that I was not needed anymore. It kinda popped my bubble. Oh, well. Back to my regular job-hunting routine next week.

All in all, it has been a pretty typica, run-off-the-mill week for me. I still spend most of my time at home playing WoW and only go out only for meals. August is coming; things will change when I go for my annual RT again. That's very saddening.

Oh yes, Chaosmag showed me this crazy funny video which will always leave an impression on me. It starts off absolutely hilarious but gets somewhat deep towards the end. Have a look at:
"Rolling Bomber Special"

And... it appears that Blogspot is broken at the moment and I cannot input any text into the Title field. Tried it with both my computers and it's like that. Edit: Found out from the help forums that I have to point my cursor at the top-left corner of the Title field.

What Have You Done to My Room!?

I went on a little emo-streak last night when I got home. My mother had move around the furniture in my room without letting me know. She had my bed replaced with a new one (which I was actually okay with), but she emptied my cupboards and packed all my 'junk' in several large boxes. I spent the night wading through boxes to retrieve some of the important stuff that I use everyday (like my video games, trading cards, installation CDs, adaptor, cables, etc). I'd take a photo of my room but the USB cable for my camera is lost among the boxes.

Looks like I have to spend some time these few days to undo the mess. I was so pissed last night I couldn't sleep. Parents have no clue about privacy. The new bed & mattress is awesome, though.

Anyhow, I watched the Transformers movie at Ang Mo Kio with the gang (before all the nastiness above). I was hoping to get seats at the new AMK Hub cinema but tickets were sold out so it was back to old & anicent Jubilee. The movie was far better than I expected. One of the nicest movies I've watched in a long time.

New Layout!

I was playing around with the 'new' Blogspot (it's new to me cos' I don't explore it much) and learnt that it was now customizable via a neat user-friendly interface. And so, I am now playing around to see if I can create something nice & simple out of it. Wee.

Out of Job; Back to Warcraft

It is now 3 weeks after I left my job at SMART taxi. The last few days at SMART had been pretty relaxed for me as I mainly handled simple filing and report-writing duties as part of the handover to the one that was replacing me. Incidentally, fellow colleagues started leaving one by one during those days and after I had left. It somewhat made me feel good that I was abandoning a sinking ship and several others shared my view.

I am back to playing WoW and have reprised my role as main tank for my guild. Our progress have been steadily improving with the recruitment of new raiders. It looked like the days of being stuck with insufficient raid classes is finally over. I would say our progress is pretty good.

I guess I'll be enjoying myself for quite a while again before I resume job hunting again.

The Countdown Begins

I am feeling kinda relaxed as I am typing this because I am planning to take MC for Wednesday. I know it is quite evil of me (my colleague will be all alone) but I'll just treat it as 'compensation' for the second week where I had high fever but tossed my MC aside.

Anyway, I have began counting down to the day that I would be leaving my company. That would be the 23rd of May which means I have completed one month. I actually made the decision last week. It was a Tuesday when I woke up and felt very heavy-hearted; I have stopped looking forward to every new day. I got to work, still feeling sick due to my fever, then, within the first hour, the phone rang and some retarded driver had an accident. I felt angry and sad at the same time. And so, I spoke to my department head, Siti, and told her that I would resign at the end of the first month.

I had wanted to keep a low profile then leave quietly on the last day. But as days went by, more people from other departments began to realize I was leaving. They started talking to me, mostly offering me encouragement (some even asked me if I had any job recommendations because they wanted out, too!).

I'll be looking forward to my freedom again coming next week.

Fever is Killing Me

I have been sick for one whole week. Somehow, I feel that this was not the typical flu that strikes me every year. I have been to two different doctors so far and the fever & headaches simply won't go away. Every night when I get home, I would just go to bed striaghtaway. If I don't get well soon, I think it may be time to get myself checked into a hospital.

What I do know is that part of my illness is probably due to work stress. The number of people working in my department had been halved ever since two of them transferred out. Right now, it's just me and Faritha. Okay, I would consider us as 1.5 (with me being the 0.5) since I am still new and pretty clueless as to what is going on. Both of us now suddenly have 50-100 more cases under our names since the other two bitches left (the least they could do was to tie up their last few cases and organize their files before leaving). And the irony is that, everyday, I see other departments getting new staff even though they already have like 3-4 people. Where is the love for our accident/claims department?

Seriously, I have been hating my job ever since my workload suddenly increased ten-fold for no good reason at all. I can never seem to finish whatever I am doing and then I suddenly get even more work to do. I am normally a very sporting person but falling sick because of work (and being unable to recover) is probably an indication to me that I have reached my limits. I imagine what would happen if I were to quit the job and then there will be only one person left to do the work of four. Maybe then the department heads will wake up.

Welcome to the Working Life

I have been meaning to blog about my new work but every time I think about it, I am overcome by sadness. Oh, well, here goes.

I received the phonecall last Monday from SMART taxi saying that I was hired. I was quite excited, though, so I just agreed to the job offer and cancelled my other interview with a 'feng shui' company.

On Wednesday, I began my duty as a Operations/Claims Assistant (that's what the appointment letter says) in the Insurance & Claims Department. My working times are 9 pm to 6 pm for 5 & a half days every week. To summarize what I do; I am in charge of doing accident reports, which includes everything from interviewing the driver to finally engaging a lawyer for them. It's actually a lot of work and since I am still inexperienced, I have to keep asking my colleagues for help. Every day, I pray that that the roads are safe so that I don't have to handle any accident cases. Unfortunately, I learnt that Singaporean drivers are very careless. So far, the accident record has been: WED (1), THUR (4), FRI (0)

What really came as a shock to me was that, on my first day of work, I was made by my colleagues to handle one accident case already. I felt it was inappropriate since I was still new, but come to think of it, such 'arrowing' has always been viciously prevalent everywhere, even during NS days. And so, I now already have numerous cases on my hands. I find it even more appalling that one of my colleagues is getting transferred out next Wednesday and she happily told me that she will be handing over all her cases to me. What the 'F' is wrong with these people?

Anyway, I also cannot really say that I like my job for now. True, I was quite happy initially that I have gotten a proper job at last (after 18 months!), but come to think of it, I was job hunting just because it was deemed the typical thing for most people to do. If given the chance, we would all prefer to idle at home everyday, doing the things we want to do. I already miss playing WoW reguarly. Now I only have about 5+ hours to myself every night when I get back, then it is bed time or else I'd be too tired to handle the stress from work.

I hope that I will be able to get used to it soon. I am guessing my current state of depression is due to the my body's adjustments to the new lifestyle. In the meantime, everyone should keep on praying that our country's roads are always safe so I don't have to handle any accident cases. I am already looking forward to Tuesday because it is Labour Day.

A Surprising Wednesday

I was up on the whole of Tuesday night because I couldn't get to sleep. I just idled in WoW, chatted with all those that were up and dueled a bit. I hope it is not insomnia again. Before I knew it, it was 8 am on Wednesday. I had a McDonald's breakfast then went to sleep.

I was awakened by my phone ringing at around 12 noon. It turned out that I was asked to go down to Tampines for a job interview at 2 pm. I tried to remember which job this was for but it was impossible since I sent over 10+ applications over the past week. I was grumpy from the lack of sleep. I went to print out my resume and prepared my results slips before going to lie on the bed a while more. It was soon 2 pm and my mother offered to fetch me to the Capital Building at Tampines since she knew where it was.

I found out that the company was SMART. I just know they have something to do with taxis or something. The receptionist gave me a form to fill out and I noticed that there were other applicants queueing for the same admin assistant job. And they were all ladies. Doesn't look good for me being the only male.

When it was my turn for the interview, a guy invited me in. He was quite a lively and cheerful person. And as with all my previous interviews, the first thing he said was "you are over-qualified for the job". The only difference was that he didn't say it in a chiding manner; it was more like he was surprised. This guy was different. We chatted and had a few good laughs. He was looking for someone who could handle accident reports and going on-site to talk to people. He said some of the taxi drivers were real rough and the job required some working under the sun. I felt that this was the best time to mention my Military Police experience. The interviewer seemed pretty pleased with what he was hearing and brought me to meet another lady to take down more of my particulars. She said they'd call me back in a few days.

For a moment there, I think I have a pretty good shot at the job since the rest of the applicants I saw outside were ladies. Oh, well. The interview left me in good spirits for the day.

I arrived home at around evening time and collapsed on the bed. I woke up at 8 pm, thinking I could attend my WoW raid but I felt totally lethargic by now. I apologized to my raid group, saying that I had totally no sleep at all for the day. Then I went to bed. Before that, I continued watching Code Geass and chatting a bit on MSN. I didn't want to feel like I didn't do anything on the computer for the day. hehe.

The Jobless Penguin!

I was considering seriously hunting for a new job after my birthday. I thought I could take my time with the resume-sending but it looks like I now have to step things up a little.

I think I am out of work. The office haven't called me down for 3 weeks already. So these pass 3 weeks I have been idling at home. I only called on the 3rd week (I was enjoying life as a free man for the first 2 weeks, thinking it wouldn't hurt) only to learn that the boss was overseas. I still do check the company's e-mail from home and, from what is going on, I believe that their e-mail account got hacked. I wonder how did a SingNet Business mail account got hacked.

It's back to mailing my resumes again. I'll pick up the Straits Times every Saturday now and look out for Admin Assistant positions. If anyone knows of any job openings that does not involve too much people-to-people interaction, let me know.