Summary of week 4
Things looked a little brighter last week. Starting was easy, all according to sequence. No matter how many times we tried.
But wait a minute, if there was no problem with starting, why do we need to try so many times?
Well, the middle part got a little bumpy. And we tripped many many times. The longer we stay tripped, the longer the start-up will be. So we tried to start back up straight away. But often times, we cannot do that when we had to fix the cause of trip. (Which got delayed as we found ourselves lacking of tools and spare parts).
I realised we take things for granted where we came from. In the less developed country in Asia, things would just go wrong. The efficiency and reliability of the people and the system here barely past the 50% mark. You ask for one thing, you get something else. Whatever you request to do today, you will get it earliest only tomorrow, even if your request is simple. Everything is tomorrow, tomorrow. If they forget it tomorrow, they will do it tomorrow.
So I postponed my flight another 11 days.
romanced at 12:27hr
Monday, August 24, 2009Summary of week 3
If week 2 we worked long hours, then week 3 we work superhuman hours. There were 2 shifts: day and night, so everyone worked 12-13 hours. The 13th hour was overlapping time for discussion between day and night teams. Well, there was only 1 engineer in the night team actually.
I was on day shift of course. It was really a trying time. We got delayed due to the smallest yet the most basic thing. For the whole week, we did a job that under normal circumstances could have been finished in 3 days.
Postponed flight back to 8 days later than original schedule.
romanced at 11:19hr
Wednesday, August 19, 2009It’s quite frustrating when you find that you cannot share your frustration about your loved one with your loved one cause the loved one will get frustrated. It’s like a double frustration? Haha… if there’s such a term.
Anyway, I think it’s not really frustration that one would feel, but sadness. I would probably feel less sad keeping the pain inside than confronting it, and then realized that the person you confronted just don’t care. It’s also very bad to get asked questions like: “So what do you want me to do”, “Can you don’t bring it up”, “When will you put it behind once and for all”, and this one’s my favourite, “Bringing up won’t help and you only make me can’t focus on my work” (i.e. better your pain than mine, which only substantiate my point that mankind is a selfish lot). That’s sort of turning the table around and making the victim the one at fault.
Ok, I am guilty of the above too, having been in the shoes of both the confronter and the confronted.
I can understand now why people choose to walk away rather than to confront. Some people use the word coward to define such action. But not wanting to feel more pain is not being cowardice.
I am beginning to see the advantage of polygamy. You know how some men are so egoistic and some women so sensitive, they cannot take complaints about themselves from their spouses. They get defensive, come up with excuses for their actions, bring up the spouses’ past mistakes to make their own look smaller, or worse, lament about their oh-so-sorry lives as if living poorly gives you the right to not apologize for your mistakes. (I'm speaking from observation of my parents' interaction as well as between my sister and I, so I'm not just uttering rubbish here ok)
So if you have 2 partners, you can complain about partner A to B, and partner B to A. The same with siblings. And each partner would only be too happy to hear about another’s shortcomings. Perfect right? Thus, you're doing your children a big favour if you have 3 or more. But it's not so simple for husband and wife. If each person is entitled to 2 partners, that means the husband will have 2 wives, and each wife will have 2 husbands who will also have 2 wives each. That’ll be confusing. And everyone is sort of linked to everyone else. Ok, this needs serious planning.
romanced at 16:54hr
Monday, August 17, 2009Summary of week 2
Week 2 passed quickly. But it felt longer than usual. I think it’s because we went to office on weekends as well. Only the Sunday of week 1 we had a half day. Now, it’s lucky if we can leave at 6pm. It had stretched to 7pm twice.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not complaining about the long day (we start at 8am). It’s just that I hardly have anything significant to do. Yes, I’m here to learn, and I did learn useful stuffs. It’s just that, given the time, I could have learned a whole lot more. As it turned out, I only managed to take down one or two significant points every day.
I admit it can be hard to really take in all the new and important knowledge. And I have, at times, forgot stuffs that I’ve just been told. But I can note down all the important points first, and try to understand them later. After all, time is money. Though it is money for me and money from the company, I don’t want to cause unnecessary expenses that are avoidable if given proper planning.
Actually I’m really happy to have training overseas. I just miss some decently cooked food, clean water to drink, and street night lamps, especially after 2 weeks without them.
Well, 1 more week to go. Or more, from the look of it.
romanced at 16:52hr
Tuesday, August 11, 2009It’s a real pain in the ass to be sick overseas. And I’m speaking from experience here.
I took my flu jab 1 week before my flight. This flu jab does not work against the H1N1 virus. But for me, it’s good enough that it works against normal flu virus. What I did not know is that, the flu jab does not prevent against cold. So I still caught the cold bug.
I was allowed to take the day off to rest. It would be bad to infect the other, more important people. In the afternoon the secretary called and asked me to see a doctor in the area. I initially declined. After all, I never really see a doctor just for a cold. But then my mum asked me to go, since the company asked. So I said ok.
Then the secretary found out that this doctor would not be able to converse in English. And she had me going to the International SOS at about 45 mins drive away. This time I really declined but she was too persuasive.
But the price, my God, was so exorbitant. Consultation fee (less than 30 mins) was SGD 150, blood test (the doc insisted that I go for it) was SGD 90, and medicine? Only SGD 16. The doc even had the cheek to tell me that she would state my consultation as brief so I would be charged lower for it. Almost died of heart attack
romanced at 19:51hr
Monday, August 10, 2009Summary of week 1 at work
Lunch is taken care of. Transport is taken care of. Everything’s set. Except when they screwed up with the arrangement and we have to walk about 1 km from the gate. Under the sun, in my safety suit, with my laptop bag. A good morning exercise though.
There’re flies indoors here. Actually I’m not sure if they are flies. It’s some tiny flying insects that hang around you all the time, to irritate the hell out of you. I’ve killed one or two.
I’m seeing floaters now, I wonder if it’s because the sun is more glaring here (there’re 4 windows in this 5x5 square meters office room). I’m praying to have the floaters gone soon.
Anyway, we work Saturday and Sunday as well. Thank God everybody needs rest and we only work till noon on Sunday. Mummy is here to visit me since yesterday and we plan to go back together :) Hope mum will enjoy her stay here (and her rest, cause there’s nothing to do in this area).
romanced at 16:02hr
Monday, August 03, 2009Day 2 in Vietnam
Start work on Monday.
The sun rises before 6. Taxi pick-up to work usually comes at 8. So I had my breakfast at 7.25. A very basic buffet selection of Western and Asian food. For Western: bread and butter (what else duh). For Asian, very Korean-influenced: Korean fried rice, Kimchi (in the morning yes, luckily it’s not cold), some fresh vegetables, some minced meat and omelet strips to eat with porridge.
Met the other colleagues for the first time. Had a hard time understanding their English: one American, one Australian, one Thailand, and one Malaysian. But I'm sure I'll manage.
Work is less than 10 minutes drive away. The office building is small. Well, the plant is small too. But there’s LAN connection and wi-fi would be available in a few days. That’s all I need. Oh, and a table and chair please.
romanced at 21:53hr
Sunday, August 02, 2009Day 1 in Vietnam – Ho Chi Min City
Flight was comfortable. A few turbulence during meal time but I’m used to it. [After I experienced a total of 7 take-offs and landings in a period of 2 weeks when I was on my grad trip, my tolerance for turbulence went up a few notches.]
Ho Chi Min City – drizzling.
Airport is spacious, though the size is only a fraction of Changi Airport. Means it’s not as crowded. Overall look is neat and clean.
Luggage collection took a while. Mine came out really late. Custom clearing was smooth. Officer asked for hotel name and how long I’m staying.
Shops were closed. Maybe cause it was Sunday.
Used the restroom the moment I came out. Clean, nothing to complain about.
There were a few foreign exchange and taxi services available just in front of the arrival hall. Took my time scanning which one got a better rate. Found Exim Bank to be the best. Rate for SGD was Vietnam Dong was 1 SGD = 12200 Dong. 1 USD = 18000 Dong.
One funny thing is, for my 100 SGD, if I have bought USD at home and convert to Vietnam Dong here, I would save 2 SGD. Which would be just enough for the bus fare I have to pay to get to the nearest money changer anyway. But that’s beside the point.
The point is, the rate for USD was better than the international forex rate (I checked on Yahoo!) Perhaps when you sell your Vietnam Dong, you will get a very poor rate. Otherwise these people can’t make money right. Better don’t change too big a sum then.
Found my pick-up after scanning the crowd for 2 minutes. The driver is a really small-built man. And he squat at the corner (to rest I suppose) after having to wait for more than half an hour. Vietnamese drives on the right (driver seat on the left). And they like to horn a lot. A lot a lot a lot. I saw the lane was clear, but apparently my driver saw otherwise, for he horned all the way. He would horn before passing a junction, before and after making a turn, whenever there are other cars on the other lanes. He would only not horn on a straight lane without branches and without any cars less than 400 m away. They also have different sound for horn. Some even come with melody.
The drive to where I’m staying at took about 2 hours. Got a slight shock when I found the resort is in the middle of nowhere. Keeping in mind I’m here for work, the shock disappear soon enough. Maybe an isolated resort with a very relaxing atmosphere is what I need for a couple of weeks.
Room is better than I expected. LAN connection no problem. HBO, Cinemax, Star Movies, Channel V on TV. Hot shower ok, though I would love one with stronger water pressure. No room service. Apparently the information book gives false information, haha. Laundry very affordable, if your clothes are not those bought during sales. Wash and press 4 times and I can buy a new sleeveless shirt (BHG SGD 6.90 =>). But no choice. I always wear a sleeveless shirt underneath my work clothes.
It gets pretty dark here when the sun sets. The resort is not well lit. The restaurant is also not well lit. Well I’ll get used to it.
romanced at 21:48hr