Potter Mania!

It's a damn inconvenience when I have to work and not be able to read my Harry Potter. It's lying desolately at the bottom of my work cabinet, just begging to be flipped and cherished, word for word.

Bah.

Crazy SMEs

It's not that I don't want to support local companies and work with small enterprises, but sometimes, they truly test my patience. And I end up wanting them to burn in hell forever and ever.

It all started when my boss wanted to place an ad in the Straits Times Appointment Page. After passing me the Job Descriptions, she told me to cut it down to a decent size and send it to an ad agency to do the layout. Fine. I did all that. What I did not know was the hell hole I had just stepped into. Firstly, the agency did lousy proofreading and we had to keep sending things back and forth. Never mind. Then my boss kept changing her mind and adding new stuff in. Never mind. Even though we had a Wednesday deadline, she could still change her mind at 5pm on Wednesday. Never mind. When everything was done up properly, she decides that the layout is too boring and harsh. Change again. Never mind. But the straw that broke the camel's (aka me) back was when the bloody agency calls to tell me that for all new customers, the 1st ad must be paid up in full first before they would do the ad. THAT caused my boss to fly into an apopletic rage and screamed to cancel the whole thing.

I wanted to kill myself. After 2 days of stomach-churning, deadline rushing, coordination in Chinese (my supervisor heard me speak Chinese on the phone and started rolling around on the floor, laughing in spasms), my boss killed the whole thing.

Sigh, so after some sulking and feeling completely demoralised, I put on a (fake) smile and moved on.

A week later, my boss decides to put up the ad. This time, she gets a graphic artist to do the layout, but wants to go through the agency as we can get a discount. Can you imagine how awful I felt when I had to speak to my contact at the agency? She heard my voice and went "Harr... you again...". I know darling, I felt the same way too. Sigh. Anywayz, things were chugging along until my boss spotted some more corrections.

Unfortunately, the graphic artist was not at home and could only change things in the evening. Mind you, this was Wednesday (again!!) evening and the latest we could submit everything was on Thursday morning. Fine. But then my contact (her name is Angel) tells me the boss wants the cheque first to cash in before he would let her book the ad space. How crazy right!!!!! I was so close to telling her to "Piss Off!" but had to grit my teeth and proceed. Where got companies demand cash on delivery, you tell me? Harlow, there's at least a 7 days grace ok!

Fine. My boss conceded and I had to run around the Finance department getting the Finance Exec to do up the cheque, then had to chase 2 bosses to sign the cheque. Fine. Then Angel calls me back and says whether I can meet her at Bukit Batok in the morning to pass her the cheque because she doesn't know how to go to HarbourFront.

I think that's where I lost it a little. I suddenly (miraculously) found all the right words in Chinese to convey just how ludicrous I thought the payment situation was, going so far as to call her company crazy (but nice crazy). I was THIS close to yelling at her and questioning whether her company was really so hard up. Sheesh.

She compromised and agreed to take a cab to my place. Upon reaching the dropoff point, she called me to pick her up cos she didn't know how to find the security post. WTF!! I wanted to faint can! Where got people so retarded!!! Ok fine, I'm a nice person and I do it. What happens next just made things worse. I ushered her into a meeting room, passed her the cheque and inspected the invoice. Just when I thought everything was in order and I could go back to doing work, she launched into a sob story of the company and how trapped she feels. For 15 freaking minutes. It took all my will power not to roll my eyes. And honey, I do that oh so well.

Having gotten rid of her, I still had one more hurdle to cross. The graphic designer had not sent the agency the final artwork. It's Thursday morning and sweat is dripping (figuratively) down my back. I call the designer and harrass her, I call the agency to harrass people. I think I do harrassment well. And when I called the agency, guess what? I got transferred 7 times because the office is idiotic. Some people had not even heard of Angel before! I got transferred to a Josephine, an Aaron, a couple of grunters and generally blur people. Argh. Can you feel my frustration, I ask you?

All in all, that was a truly harrowing experience. Now I just hope the article comes out nicely or else there will be hell. Oh yes, there will be hell. Look out for it! The Straits Times, Appointment Page, Saturday Edition. Global Brands baby, Global Brands. Know that name.

The Small Perks of Life

My life as an intern peaks and flattens out with startling speed. Some days I'm so busy I don't have time to breathe, think or even go out of the toilet. On other days, I jab disinterestingly at the keyboard and do menial tasks with my brain shut off.

So really, it's about enjoying the small perks in life. My sup and big boss have both treated me to lunch and although I often protest to the greatest of my ability, I eventually cave in. Hey, I'm earning peanuts okkaay! And I'm privy to all the salaries so seriously, I'm sure I barely make a blip in their account.

But today, ah, today, things looked a bit better. Seeing how I'm in HR and we're also in charge of employee welfare, my supervisor wanted to shake things up a bit and try to introduce some life into the company. So she came upon this Grant given by Health Promotion Board, which basically funds companies in their efforts to promote healthy living in the workplace. I dunno why, but although my sup likes the idea of the grant, she didn't want to do the work involved. So she passed the project to me. Hence, I started sourcing around for activities the company could do and shit like that.

I thought gym memberships might be a good idea cos not only did it fit with the healthy lifestyle theme, gym memberships are a good perk for employees in terms of status and whatnot. More HR tactics to retain people. Anywayz, I chanced upon this gym near my workplace, Sky Fitness and unbeknownst to me, I started to make enquiries. This club turned out to be super exclusive and priced at a premium.

Seeing how my big boss didn't really like the whole idea of this health at workplace programme because the company must match the amount provided by the grant, I was basically working with a budget of zero. Never mind. I tried to be honest with the sales guy from the gym and tell him the club was way out of budget, but he kept badgering and pleading and invited me down to tour the gym and eat lunch.

Helplessly, I gave in and brought along my sup and another colleague. The club turned out to be really nice and the view is phenomenal. It faces Sentosa and is on the highest floor, ensuring unobstructed views of the area. Fully personalized and the sales guy, Aero, turned out to be really, really nice. He didn't try to sell a package straight away, but instead emphasized on a partnership with us and wanted to meet our needs.

Lunch turned out to be pretty good too. But as the saying goes, there's no such thing as a free lunch. I just hope he doesn't keep pestering me. Oh well. After that, we hopped over to Planet Fitness and really, there's no comparison. No doubt, it's much cheaper. But it's also highly sterile and impersonal and all about business and the money. Customer service is efficient and neat at best. Darn, we've been spoiled.

So yup, enjoying the small perks that get thrown my way. Otherwise, being an intern is rather miserable.

Did I mention that the company created an email signature that doesn't appear to me until the message gets sent out? And what title did they give me? HR INTERN. I'm surprised anyone wants to talk to me.