will i am's delayed diary

A colleague of mine had a housewarming at Kenwingston Platz @ KL North and invited several people from the office. Must say that the common areas look pretty impressive. Most impressive is the rooftop of this 50-storey builing. Love the air-conditioned lounge which is a glass house which provides a 360 degree view. There's also a scary glass-bottom walk. But looking at my colleague's unit, the provided furnishings did not match the overall feel. Anyway, wonder if this place is popular among the gay lous. Switching on Grindr would be a good indication, but I don't have it installed on my phone :P.

Arranged a rare Saturday with my ex-colleagues from the TPM workplace . Basically just to get an update from everyone. Met up at Foliage in Taman Desa, where the cafe is basically located in a plant nursery. The girl from the QA team was still with the team, but with little or no QA work because there wasn't anything new going on. The Chinese programmer who reported to me was still there, but I was happy to hear that he had found a job, and would be leaving soon. He was in the midst of handing over, and there was basically no programmers left. Big gap there. But at least his personal life had normalized after getting hitched with a new girl. During the past year, he had trouble getting over his ex, and was basically drinking every night because he had severe insomnia. Really don't know how he afforded that kind of binge drinking on the meagre salary that my ex-CEO was paying him. The other Malay developer was doing well at a German technology firm, so I was very happy for him....

Started a new job in December 2022, and I'm blogging about it 11 months later. Guess its an indication of how crazy it has been for me at the new place. Collected my brand new Macbook Air on the first day and commenced my honeymoon month of internal training. All the while I was pscyhed up about jumping into the thick of things, but now I understand why my mentor asked me to enjoy my first month. My new role can be condensed into a few key words: Amazon Web Services Pre-sales Migration Malaysia region Colleagues are generally approachable, and my boss is very down-to-earth, and defiitely not the stingy Chinaman variety. The environment is fun, but things get pretty fast-paced at times. With AWS as our principal, it is both a blessing and a curse. Just have to work within the parameters. Although I am supposed to be pre-sales, I eventually got sucked into project implementation due to lack of manpower and role segregation. Guess I'll talk more about those things in my future pos...

In my working career, I never really took a proper break. My new employer wasn't pushy about my joining date, so I gave myself four weeks of rest to properly detox. Thought about bringing my mum somewhere for a holiday, but she was very engrossed with taking care of my nephews with it being my sister's super busy year end period. Didn't do anything special, just some random things: Dim sum breakfast with mum and her taichi buddies. Fix my neck at the chiropractor's. Attend church meetings. Go on dates with the hubby. Cafe hopping with neighbours. Bumming at home. Perhaps I should have flew somewhere just for the heck of it. But I am pretty content with just spending quiet time in KL. 

A little over a year ago, I left the company where I started my career in IT. Early November 2022 marked another LWD ( last working day ) for me. Definitely will miss the 15-minute door-to-door commute to Technology Park Malaysia ( rebranded to MRanti recently ). So nice not having to wake up at ungodly hours to avoid traffic snarls. At least, I enjoyed it for a year. A new chapter beginning soon in KL Eco City come December. 

Sorry for the lull. Things have been crazy at work. Back to back meetings, tug of war between projects, clients, and business development managers. Trying to get things organized like my underwear drawer. I'll start with my skimpier stuff like thongs, and jockstraps. :D

At the new financial year's kick-off meeting, my group CEO declared increments and a small bonus for the whole group. Come bonus payout time, my subsidiary did not receive anything. The issue was escalated up to HR, and they diverted us to our subsidiary's CEO. Even the managers were left in the dark. Rumors started flying like crazy. In the end, a special full-day physical townhall was called, and the funny thing was, they asked the other subsidiaries on our floor to work from home! That set even more tongues wagging. In the townhall, my CEO declared the subsidiary was detaching itself from the group, and a downsizing exercise will be performed. My peer who had just joined for 6 months was first to go. He slammed his MacBook shut, yanked the power socket, and left without saying a word. I was also axed, together with a few others. Felt really bad for the junior who I convinced to stay just a couple of weeks back. Only the engineering team was safe. I had always felt that the t...

All of a sudden, my colleagues were busy trying to arrange a karaoke session. Turns out that it was triggered by the fact that there was a junior staff who had never experienced a karaoke session in his life. Maybe he thought its like those hostess clubs. His manager was committed to making sure that he lose his KTV virginity during his farewell party. The event was rescheduled once before due to a COVID infection spike, but in the end, it happened, and even my CEO attended. We booked a room at Loudspeaker, Sri Petaling. Pretty basic furnishing, but seems popular. I can't even remember my last KTV session, but it was probably during the height of the Neway era. Back when I was working near SOGO, we would often have a LONG lunch and KTV at Redbox Ria. Some of the most obvious advancements I noticed were on the KTV system. The large touchscreen makes selecting and shuffling songs much more intuitive. According to my colleague, some systems allow the use of mobile apps and personalize...

Transitioning from one job to the next, I would have really preferred to take a break before a new start. Unfortunately, that was not to be. My new employer was in a hurry to get me onboarded. Definitely could have used some time to detox to better absorb the fresh environment, and new challenges. Over the weekend, I received a pretty Nyonya kuih gift box from my ex-colleague, and had a nice early birthday dinner with Gratitude at Restoran KK Ocean Point in Kota Kemuning. The next morning, I clocked into my new job!

Always one to grab opportunities, KH turned my last working day into a paktor session. He picked me up and sent me to the office. After I was done with all the formalities, he brought me out for coffee at Bean Brothers . While sipping my long black, and enjoying my chocolate roulade, I composed the customary farewell e-mail. KH took one look at it and disapproved! A bit too fake lo. Try again. Hehe. Ran a few drafts past KH, and finally sent out a semi-fake version. Done! A surreal feeling to have finally left my first job. A long 'detox' session would have been beneficial before I started my new role, but I didn't have the luxury. I was to report to work on the coming Monday!  

During my last two weeks at my old company, I tried to make sense of the exit documentation. Why so difficult right? The HR system automation sent me one variation of the forms. Payroll also emailed me. My company admin also had a long-winded email on the subject. In the end, I chose one version and had to merge all the instructions that I received, and even consult with other ex-colleagues who had run the confusing 'exit gauntlet'. Zzz.  First and foremost was assets. The systems department set an appointment with me at 11 AM on my last working day (LWD). The purpose was for me to surrender my laptop. They later changed the appointment to 3 PM ( too many resignations? ), but it didn't matter because I wasn't doing any real work. In the morning, I had one last handover session ( *roll eyes* ), then headed to the office. I arrived at 11 AM, and tried to settle some stuff with the admin department. Managed to return my insurance card ( expired years ago ) but I was given ...

By the time my work handover started, there was only one month left. It was a funny affair really. My work was handed over to a bunch of people, and even so, it had to be done carefully as not to 'stress them out' ( wise words from my COO ). In my career, nobody ever cared if I would be stressed out whenever I was on the receiving end of a handover. Another funny thing was that the person leaving had to chase for the handover. In my opinion, if you 'don't have the time', then its not my problem. My handovers continued right up to my last working day. I made sure to document all the sessions, and also left as much documents as possible on Confluence. The first colleague I told about my departure was also leaving. She tendered her resignation a month after me. She made it a point to like all the pages I authored on Confluence-- "no one would read it anyway".  An inside joke between us. Anyway, it was great to unload all that had accumulated over the years. T...

My new employer produced the offer letter in record time, and they changed some standard clauses as a sign of their sincerity. I was happy with the package, and I signed it. A week later, I tendered my resignation after talking to the head of my department.  HOD: For everyone on the team, I have an idea on what would make them leave. For you, it would be due to task overloading, and perhaps also due to the CEO.  Thanked him for understanding my motivation to leave. In the afternoon my COO called me. COO: You want to leave? Seriously? Two months notice period not enough la. Can you delay one year? Or maybe you sign some retainer.  Don't be crazy. Not interested. Best of all, there was no counteroffer like I predicted. Less one thin g to reject. My handover dragged for one month because my COO thinks that my new employer would delay my onboarding. Wishful thinking. Anyway, he still 'insisted' that I help them out with some outstanding customer engagements that had been dr...

Here's a gist of my working experience. In 2003, I joined the company that I interned with. Not long after I joined, the company was bought over by a bigger company. For a span of 18 odd years, I had stayed on, merely changing subsidiaries along the way. With each change, came a change of management, a change of line of business, a change of domain. There was some career progression up till a certain point. But the flexible nature of the organization made it not very clear. People often wonder why I stayed so long when I never got a single proper bonus payout. Loyal? Content? Afraid of change? Too well-paid? Somehow, I made it through laaaa. The past 4 years were the most challenging. We tried to do anything and everything under the sun, under the guise of being 'dynamic'. And from what I saw, it was mostly a waste of time. In the end, I ended up in a subsidiary that had more than fifty different clients with at least fifty different installations. The mountain of problems ...

Over the weekend, colleagues across the whole group received hurried Teams meeting invite from the management. Judging from the timing, I guessed it was a long due townhall meeting. Some colleagues found it alarming and was wondering whether it was an 'earth-shattering' announcement. We didn't have one the previous year because we were too busy dealing with the start of the pandemic. And suddenly, my CEO decided to talk to all of us. The whole tone of his speech wasn't very uplifting at all. The general message was that we were surviving. The group consisted of four entities, but he merely touched on one company, ignoring the rest. The second half of his speech turned alarming when he started talking about investors and revenue numbers.  "We might not have a job next year if we don't have the numbers." "Even if you do your job well, but we don't have the numbers, then we all fail." I bet alarm bells were going off in the heads of junior staff...

The MCO had introduced working from home to many who never had the 'luxury'. In my whole working life, I never worked from home before. And I saw so many benefits : 1. No morning commute. 2. More sleep ( refer to previous point ). 3. No dress code.  4. No office clothes to iron ( refer to previous point ). 5. No evening commute ( where Netflix standstills are common ).  6. Do whatever the heck you want because nobody is watching you.  For me, the last point is the best. Working from home is the biggest boost to my sex life. I have the whole house to myself, and KH would come over for a quick shag provided I didn't have any concalls. He jokingly suggested that he could suck me off while I was in the call. I would very much prefer being fucked. Does an orgasm increase productivity throughout the day? How ethical is it to be skanking on company's time? Or do I need to record my skank sessions into my timesheet? 

On Hari Raya Haji, KH jio-ed me to breakfast at Birch , DC Mall. It was a breakfast gathering with three other guys whom I had never met before. They went to the same school as KH, Lasallians all of them. Very chatty people, with lots of playful banter. I just had a cup of Americano as I already had my breakfast at home.  I couldn't relax in the afternoon because I suddenly had work to do. Bloody proof-of-concept for a prospect. They kept changing the requirements. Was supposed to take a tour of MaisonSK 2.0 at Desa Petaling, but I had to FFK her the last minute. By dinner time, things were settled. Finally could unwind, and enjoy a Vietnamese dinner at Banh Mi Cafe , Jalil Link. After dinner, I brought SK to 6Yi Cafe for coffee and cakes.  The biggest surprise of the day was a packet of Hokkien bihun from GrabKH for supper!  

One would have thought that working at home would be less stressful, but the reality was completely the opposite. Pressure was turned up because my CEO wanted to take advantage of the situation by rolling out a solution that's tailored to the lockdowns. We worked day and night, with remote commands coming via emails, What's App, and Microsoft Teams. The whole episode did 'wonders' for my skin. I started getting stubborn acne along my jawline. So annoying. Acne is usually no biggie for me, but my last encounter with stress-related acne drove me to a skin specialist. Solved that problem with a dose of antibiotics, and a prescription of retinol cream. This time round, I didn't want go on that route. I had to experiment with several products to find something that worked. And it didn't help that I kept touching my face, especially when faced with problems at work. Sigh. Blemishes. Blemishes. Found this to be the best combination so far : Nu Skin Epoch Yin Yang Mask ...

Starting the 1st of June, my company started loosening the work-from-home policy and encouraged employees to return to the workplace. A staggered approach was chosen, with two teams taking turns on a weekly rotation. I was Team A, so I got to experience firsthand the new normal.  The biggest change on my part was that I no longer took the train to work. The trains were too risky in my opinion. In the early phases, traffic was excellent. Entering my office area required a temperature check at the boom gate. Funny thing was, the procedure was mandatory for the driver, not the passengers. Big loophole huh? The lift buttons were covered with plastic and supposedly sanitized periodically. Never once did I see anyone cleaning the buttons. And since the lifts were tiny, only two persons were allowed at any given time. Entering the office, I had to register and do another temperature check. I didn't wear a face mask in the office ( surgical mask : no, fake smile : yes ). Hand sanitizers we...

Due to work commitments, I had to make a visit to my office on Wesak Day to collect the company Macbook because my colleague needed it for iOS app development. The elevators were disabled, so I had to use the stairs to get to the sixth floor. Opening up the office revealed a snapshot of the day before the Malaysian Government announced that Movement Control Order. The waster paper baskets were full, hand sanitizers were on the counters, and the biggest surprise waited for me in the toilet. For some reason, algae started growing in the toilet bowl. Brown sludge crawled from the rim, down to the stagnant blue water's edge. Yuck. I quickly collected what I needed, locked the doors, armed the security system, and made my way out. Before going home, I made a short bread run. First was the sourdough from Wild Yeast , and secondly was the k ouign-amann from Bakery La . Truth be told, I'm not crazy about sourdough. I much prefer the sinfully buttery kouign-amann. Goes so well with a cu...