Mini Office Warming Event

Yesterday we had a mini team building, or rather office warming. It was held at our new office premises in Serangoon North. Since I know this place really well, I was appointed as one of the committee members to organize this event.

We had ice-breaking game and treasure hunt, followed by a mini hi-tea. Was glad that most of the colleagues enjoyed themselves very much. Kudos to the fellow committee members who spent lots of time coming up with interesting ice-breaking questions and walked around the neighbourhood for inspirations.

Not being able to take part in the game did not ‘hinder’ me from having fun. In fact, I got entertained from colleagues who came back with lotsa funny stuff for the treasure hunt. I didn’t know that IT geeks can be creative too!


I shall present the committee members... (with my new hair style)

Mark was roped in last minute cause the other committee member was tied up with some project stuff. Nevertheless, we thank him for rescuing the-damsels-in-distress cause none of the female committee members wanted to be the emcee for this event.

What is an event when it has no prize?

That's not all, we still have Capital land, Carrefour and Times vouchers for the winning teams.

After organizing this mini event, makes me wonder, should I really move to event management (since I graduated from PR degree). Aye… tough question. Should I move on or should I remain in the comfort zone?

Can you believe it?

Was using a ticker from a free website. Decided to make one for Ziv and ourselves (Kevin and I) and was flabbergasted by the number of years we have been together, as a couple.

Some friendships don't even last that long not to mention couple-hood.

Ziv Rolling Over

Here's Ziv rolling over for the umpteenth times!

Ignore the baby talk! I was trying to make him make some noise.

BTW, Ziv will be 4-month old tomorrow! Coincidentially, tomorrow is also our wedding anniversary!

Happy Anniversary, Kevin!

Full Month and Wedding at Swisshotel The Stamford

Went to a Little Jayden's full month dinner and a wedding dinner yesterday.

Full Month
Baby Galore!!!
Lots of full month to attend, this week alone I had two and upcoming week another one.

Congrats to Emily! Hopefully, Jayden is easier to handle after confinement lady leave for M'sia. If I can do it, you can too!

Disastrous Wedding
Went to Kelvin's wedding (Kevin's friend) at Swisshotel The Stamford. There were 5 wedding held at the hotel concurrently. I told you, I wished I wasn't there, and I wished I should have eaten alot of Emily's full month.

Here's a list of unfortunate events at the wedding dinner:

- I walked to my designated table and waited for almost half an hour and no banquet staff came to offer us drink. I had to literally ‘catch’ one of them to request for drink. The best part was when I asked for a drink, the China nationality banquet staff simply shouted across the table, “Orange juice” and came to pour orange juice on my glass. I was dumbfounded by such rude and disrespectful attitude. I wasn’t even given a choice to choose my drink! Drinks were not refilled promptly, many times we had to ask for refilled. Unlike my wedding at Marriott, drinks (even red wines and beer) were straightaway replaced while half drunk.

- Banquet staff talked loudly in Chinese, pulling each other’s clothes. I hope they understand this was not a ‘playground’ for them, for God’s sake, this was someone’s wedding!

- Cutleries were dirty and stained! This is something which I cannot stand. I hate dirt!

- Dishes were not served at the same time. My neighboring table was served almost 10 minutes ahead of mine. The kitchen was extremely slow in serving food, to me, they didn’t seem to be well prepared, it slowed down the entire wedding dinner, first time in my life encountering a 2nd march in of the wedding couple at 10pm! The dinner was expected to end at 1130pm, I left at 1030pm realizing the rest of the wedding dinner had already ended!

- Banquet staff with low EQ. One of the dishes was steam prawns, the dish came late and the staff merely placed the dish at the middle of the table and left, we saw other tables were being served and yet we were not. Many of the guests had to actually bend over to reach for the prawns. The banquet staff saw that and served only one of the guests. Once again, I was speechless. I noticed our table had no hand-washing bowl, unlike other tables, which had 2 of that bowls. I requested for that, and it came almost 1mintue before the next dish!

- Kevin drank beer and red wine, and none of his drinks were refilled! We wondered, were those drinks refillable or were they based on request! So in the end he requested for coke, and guess what, the banquet staff blatantly wanted to pour coke into the used red wine and beer glasses! When we told them the glasses were previously used for beer and red wine, she still answered, “You want a new glass is it?” as if it was not right to ask for a new glass. And the best part was, she came back ith 2 new glasses. I wondered what she was thinking, or if she brought her brain out to work!

- Food that was left untouched, were taken away by the banquet staff without even asking the guests for permission. Rude!

- Staff was clumsy, one of them tripped and fell behind me. Luckily he was not holding any hot soup, else, he would be pouring the hot soup on guests!

- Staff were not helpful at all. It was so typical of them to stand and daydream after serving the dishes. Imagine, all of us at the table had to stare at the fish and the staff to HINT them to serve us the fish individually. It was oblivious to the staff that they had to serve us! Finally, one of the staff, realized something was amiss, after placing the fish on the table for 7-8 minutes, some one clear headed finally remove the bones of the fish and slice them into small pieces, like they were being minced. After ‘mincing’ the fish, she left the table. Leaving the guests wondered, “what’s next?” At this point of time I really had enough, that I left without eating the “minced” fish.

- Qualities of the dishes were not satisfying. I wondered, how chicken cutlets with crackers (was stated fried chicken at the menu, I think) were able to make it to the menu for the couple to choose. And by the way, some of the crackers were soggy!

ARGHHH.... been to so many wedding dinner and this was really the worst of all. And given that they are a 5-6stars hotel. BS!!!

Ziv's Development

Since I do not have a blog specially dedicated to Ziv, here's at least some space to record Ziv's development...

Have to post this cause I need blogspot to have this picture to publish it at the side bar.

Ziv/Coby Updates and New Gadget

New Gadget

Ciao iPAQ, Hello MOTO

Bought this last week, so far no complaints. Best of all, I can go online, use MSN!! (that of course comes with a PRICE $$$)

More Ziv Updates

Taken this morning, after he wakes up...

Coby

Patay (Tagalog, similar to ‘chiam’ in Hokkien)

I got my very first maid on 12 October. Till now, I am still not used to having a perfect stranger at home.

I remembered on that day, I went to the agency to fetch my maid home, when I walked into the agency, all the maids greeted Kevin and I, “Mdm”, “Sir”. I felt uncomfortable, cause it sounded so formal, although my Filipino friend assured me that, the words “Mdm” and “Sir” are used so common in Philippines that it is like “excuse me” in Singapore. Ok, yes, I’ve been to Manila several times for work, and I truly understand that, somehow, I am not that kind of person who likes to lead the ‘hierarchical’ life.

Digress a little, I don’t like giving instructions, I don’t like monitoring people.
I believe everyone should be free to do what they want; I believe freedom is something which everyone should deserve.

Now, I have to put behind my ‘beliefs” and turn into an authoritative, naggy and irritating Mdm.

Of course, there are advantages of having a maid at home, I can forget about household chores, I can delete away my list of top 5 most-hated household chores. But it comes with a price…

Maybe I am unlucky, the maid that I have is not up to my expectations. And by the way, her name is Enrica. She is a farmer before coming here to work. According to her “untrustworthy” bio data, it stated that she worked as a housemaid for 2 years.

Ok, back to that fateful day, on the way home when I talked to her, I realized, she does not understand ENGLISH. Gosh. I don’t even know how I can communicate with someone who doesn’t understand English and Mandarin! Luckily I bought a Tagalog-English book, so I talked to her in Taglog during our first day. I should have engaged an Indon instead of a Filipina if I know that she doesn’t know how to speak English.

I remembered asking her, where her hometown in Philippines is accompanied with lots of facial expressions, actions and pointing. Guess what she replied me? She told me she has a cat at home! Duhhhhh…. Patay… she cannot understand simple English and hand gestures.

Everyday I nearly draw out what I want her to do, even a time table will not make things better.

Whenever I talk to Enrica, she will say ‘Yes, Mdm’. I tell myself, give her time, she’ll be fine, and I will be fine…

On the 1st November was her 18th day with us. Conclusion?

Communication
She still cannot understand simple English even though I borrowed books from the library for her to learn English. We even encourage her to speak more to us.
Instance 1: I told her to close all windows if it ever rains. Until now, when it rains, she just stare blankly at the window, enjoying the scenery outside.
Instance 2: I told her to boil water, when there is no more water. Until today, I still can’t have cold water to make milk for Ziv.
Instance 3: I told her to wash something and put something properly, guess what, she went to wash that something which I asked her to put properly and she mixed every instructions up.

I told Kevin, I cannot tolerate her anymore, cause I have been speaking a lot of broken English recently and I was so afraid that one day Ziv will come to me speaking broken English.

Instance 4: I told her, remember to offer guest drinks when they come to our house. One day, Kevin’s grandma came to visit us with a maid. The very smart Enrica, offered drinks to the maid instead of his grandma. We almost fainted. I told myself to REN!!!

Cooking
She is one lucky maid who does not need to do cooking, reason being, SHE DOES NOT KNOW HOW TO COOK. Now, I feel so cheated. I remembered in her bio data, her cooking skill was rated GOOD, her English was rated GOOD. But now, everything is BAD BAD BAD.

Cleaning
Her cleaning is horrible. Speechless...

Tell lies and eat chocolate without permission
Instance 1: She told me she did not know how to take a lift, but on the day where I terminated her, I asked her to take a lift down herself (since I don’t want to go up and fetch the Pinoy Princess), surprisingly, she can make it to the ground floor. Damn.
Instance 2: Stealing chocolate. Alright, chocolate is not everything to me, but once she formed the habit of stealing, she can jolly well steal everything. This is definitely a No-No.

Of course there’s more to complaint about her, but since she has left us, I shall let the matter rest.

Destruction so far (19 days)…

Zara dress
Ironing board
My Tagalog book
Missing Rochers

Well, not much destruction though, cause she does nothing other than mopping the floor, washing/ironing clothes and tidying the house.

Oh the day when we return her she blatantly told lies to the maid agency saying that we abused her by making her work for two household. Kevin was enranged and told her to report us to the police since she felt being exploited by us. Of course, she didn't go, and all of us knew that she made up her own story.

While you are reading this, she might be sitting at the agency, waiting for some dumb ass to choose her. Enrica, wake up from your b***** dream!! You are not Pinoy Princess.