Am I suffering from side effects?

Just learnt on monday that I was supposed to help my colleague with her event which happened yesterday. Some miscommunication last week and I thought I was helping out at another seminar instead.

It was a tieup event with another external partner and I was appalled at how clueless and disorganized they are. My colleague was frustrated with them for not knowing the details leading to the start of the event such as space allocation and such. All questions were answered with "I am not sure" and without answers, we couldn't plan our event. It was only on friday (the third day of the partner's event)that we were able to see the whole setup (which they actually change everything on the second night after a big boo boo ). So we discussed with the executive from the external partner side on where we want to set up our things for the program on sat.

And guess what, after getting everytrhing ready yesterday, the executive's boss came and want us to change the things that we have laid out. More disorganisation and it was about an hour to the event. The exec's boss didn't seem that nice to us until my boss came and saw what happened. To make matters worse, they let the public into the venue when it was supposed to be a two-hour private event. I admit our guest attendance was not that good but the food we catered was for our guests only and ended up everyone helped themselves to the food. The external partner boss later apologised and offered to share the cost. But we won't as we felt its not nice to do that. Later, the external partner boss even asked my colleague if everything is ok and also apologised to my boss for everything being so messy. How fake. I bet she was compalning about us as I saw her talking to her staff with her eyes on me and her expression gave it away at a particular moment when I was speaking to my friend.

From this event, I learnt from my boss on the things that we will notice as an outsider's point of view. As we are not the organiser, just a partner, we can pinpoint the things that went wrong at this setup which are unacceptable by my company's standards. For example, the plasma TV that they got in for us had a dirty screen with tiny specks of dried white paint on it! I really wonder why the exec didn't look at it. Even their black panel displays and coverings were badly done. There were fingerprints and white paint smudges on the black glossy surface of their display. They should have ensured that all these were cleaned up. Imagine what their guests will say when they spot all these?

So fedup....sometimes I think this is the only avenue for me to vent my work fustrations as I can't let it out anywhere. The work exposure is great. Although I am accepting the downsides of the job, sometimes the frustration is too big to ignore. I wonder if I am suffering from sides effects of my work. Like insufficient sleep, stress, anxiety and poor memory (too many things to remember!). Even my friend said that I am being over sensitive over some dinner matter and whether I was too stress. Sigh.....another matter was that my boss could not convert me with the freeze in headcount but what she can do is to extend my contract for another year. That I will accept as I don't mind but I hope they will increase my staff benefits with more annual leaves. I will have to talk to her about that.

After the event yesterday, I caught up with lc and her bf. Walked around in far east plaza but couldn't find what I wanted. Got a pair of cropped pants at Mango instead. We also took some photos with the christmas lightings at orchard. This year's decor seemed a bit bland, including the tall christmas trees at Takashimaya. The design looked traditional, not enough bling and heartwarming aura to it.

Hoping for a better week ahead...

30 Nov 2008 10pm

Twilight Feelings...

I was reading the Twilight saga books. Finished Twilight yesterday and I started on the sequel New Moon just now. Edward (the vampire) told Bella (The human girl who fell in love with Edward) that he is leaving, that his family need to leave town and he cannot be with her anymore. The scene was so sad...especially the part where Bella called out to Edward and reached for him. He took her by her wrists and moved her arms to her side. Quick peck on her forehead and he was gone. It was really strange to read this as I recall a year ago, I broke off with my ex boyfriend and the scene in the story just reminded me of it and how familiar it sounds.
Wow...its been a year since I became single. I did not keep in touch with my ex because he prefers not to (unless necessary even though he claims we are still friends) and so I left it that way. I have not seen him ever since we broke up and I think I would prefer not to. Some months back, I thought I saw him from afar at the bus interchange. I was waiting for my feeder. It was late and I was making my way home after practice, feeling really tired (I remember that period was when we were preparing national band competition and that was the time where we were practising intensively). So I was in my queue and when I look ahead, I thought I saw him in the distance at another bus queue (that bus happens to go to his place). The silhouette looks really like him and a shiver went down my spine as that man was also staring in my direction. It was like I saw a ghost. I looked away and acted normal. It was far and I could not be absolutely sure it was him as I thought through when I got onto my bus. I was thinking maybe my eyes were playing tricks as I was exhausted from the day's work and band practice.
So its really strange that a year later, I am hooked to this twilight saga stories and I was reading the breaking up of Edward and Bella, like how he left me. Wierd and a bit sad but I am looking forward to a life with someone whom I am destined to be with. The feelings have changed and I guess I have also changed.

23 Nov 2008 10:36pm

It's not looking good

bad times......and i wonder if I will still be working in this place in 3 months' time...when my contract ends...
nope, i don't regret leaving my ex-company...that place do not deserve me. Even though its a full-time position.
Although my current boss has got high expectations and the job is so damn stressful, I actually feel that this place can make me grow. I am learning to handle tasks that can be difficult and knowing how to deal with it made me stronger. Yes, there are lots of frustrations but I am starting to accept it. But just when I am beginning to like my job, I face uncertainties. The financial downturn has resulted in a budget cut and I am not sure if I am going to be confirmed as a permanent staff. No news of it lately as well and the things that I have doing for the past few weeks do not bode well too. I am not sure what my boss is thinking now but I hope she can see my hard work although I make mistakes and don’t perform as well at times. I’m just so f**king fed up why things don’t turn out well when the situation was starting to look promising! I want to stay on. I don’t want to be on the move for another place again. I’m just so f**king tired!!!

sad.......

18 Nov 2008 10:30pm

Easing in....

The Gathering

Yesterday we had a gathering of people whom I have not seen for a long time. Its my spband friends (from my batch) and everyone still seems pretty much the same, busy with work and other stuff. The main topic of our conversations seem to revolved around the gloomy economic situation now. Reduced budgets, freezing of headcounts.....although we are all not in the financial sector, we still feel the impact of the downturn. Don got a pair of levi's (from the outlet at Raffles City) at $50 off by trading in your old jeans so I also went to have a look. But the sales girl wasn't so helpful and my size was not available so I didn't get it in the end. It was mainly due to the unhelpfulness of the sales assistant that I did not buy anything. She didn't even bother to offer suggestions or find out exactly what I was looking for. The art of service is certainly not easy to attain but I feel that enthusiasm goes a long way. Sure its easy for me to say that but I have also worked in retailing before. The store wasn't busy at that time and if the sales assistant choose to idle around and not bother about serving me, I shall bring my business to somewhere else.

Anyway, we ended off the evening with coffee and more chats. The feeling is familiar as we always had coffee over conversations during the old days.

Nice Dinner

My boss treated us to dinner on wed and it was really fun. For the first time, i actually felt relaxed and there was so much talk and laughter and I got to know my colleagues better. Work is really stressful here. So far I have got through it because my colleagues have been helpful in showing me the way. Heard some things during the dinner and it made me wonder whether some people are not what they seem to be...

Band Break

The band is taking a break for exams and friday was the last practice. They had a performance yesterday but I couldn't take part in it due to the gathering. I hope the performance went well although I felt it was too last minute and slightly not organised. Sometimes I feel like helping them by offering my advice on how things can be done. As I was previously the librarian when I was in the committee, I wonder if I should offer my help to the new librarian on how she could perform her task better. But I was afraid that I will be intruding or stepping into areas that are no longer my business to bother with.

Year is coming to an end soon.....time really flies. And I am thankful to my friends for getting me to where I am today.

I'm still hoping...

9 Nov 2008 8:40pm

Feelings of frustration but with a dash of happiness

The Event
The days leading up to wednesday were bad. After the long weekend holiday (which I spent the sunday working), tuesday was a mad dash. I think my boss was stressed over the event and reprimanded me and my colleague for not doing and preparing enough and being unsure of our respective roles for the program. A miscommunication in our discussion made me thought I should print one master list and one rsvp list for the reception. I also misunderstood my boss's email. She was hopping mad when I got to the venue on wed morning. I had to call my colleague at the office to re-do the list and help me get it printed. I actually stayed at the office till midnight the night before to print the list but the formatting kept running our of place and I was so frustrated with it. Only had a few hours of sleep and even dreamt that I was still doing the excel sheet in the office! The whole day of setup went on with scoldings from my boss but I bear with it although I nearly broke down after the morning incident. The event went rather well without a glitch but I felt I could have done better if my boss actually got me more involved in the planning because she kept saying she has to tell us what to do at ground level. But if she had got me more involved in the planning since day one, I would have thought of the questions earlier and not the day before. Or am I being incompetent?
The next day at work, my boss sent a thank-you email to me and my colleague and told us to take two days off as long as we clear off any urgent stuff. Just when I thought things might be ok, she chided my other colleague and me for not doing this powerpoint file for another dept which they needed it asap. But then, in an earlier email that she sent last week, she told everyone that we are busy with wed's event and could only discuss about it on thursday! She doesn't seem to recall what she has mentioned before and should check what she replied first before saying anything. But I must say she is a good leader.

Slow progress at rehearsal
My conductor didn't come at friday's practice. There was this student who came to conduct the band as past of his assignment and this incident created some bad vibe among a few people. Its all bad decision making but I hope things will pick up after this. We went Robertson Quay for drinks and I got drunk again ( wasn't like this for quite some time). Sorry guys :(.

Bliss
Yesterday was KT and Shar's solemnisation ceremony. A simple affair at the singapore arts museum. A few of us helped to coordinate to throw rose petals at shar and her dad down the isle as he gave away his daughter to KT. We were camwhores the whole evening, taking a lot of pictures. Xl wondered why people from our class who seemed the least likely to get married first are hitting the altar before us. I wonder as well but I have kind of leave it to fate to decide when I will meet my prince charming. To create some fun, KT and Shar gathered all the single ladies to catch the throwing bouquet. shir nearly caught it but it slipped her hand and fell to the ground so shar threw it a second time. Someone else caught it instead and shir lamented that it should have been hers. haha....

Its been a frustrating week but there was a moment when my mood was lifted. He came by to talk to me...:) and that made my day.

2 Nov 2008 9:34pm