"Do girls these days do their hair like that?"
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
So I popped the cherry as some would say by attending my first ever company dinner. Pretty cool though judging by the space left on the camera, I'm guessing more time was spent on snapping than gorging.

Overall, I must say the highlight of the dinner was not the performances nor the speeches but the lucky draw. I mean having a 40" LED TV as the top prize? They even gave away gold ingots amongst iPods, PSPs, Nitendo DS and almost every gadget one can ask for! Awesome can!




SP/MSD. Same same but different?


Makan for the night


Opening act by the chefs? Reminds me of Ratatouille.


CNY came early. Prolly served for us to make full use of the orange peelers given as gifts -.-


Samsui women and 警察穿短库


Exorcist and cheena vampires


Host with the pom pom hair


Another stand up comedian, some jokes re-worked from Kumar. Hilarious though!



Part 1



Part 2


Performance by the heads. "Beat it" by MJ.


Some kind of belly dance by the warehouse manager. Definitely remember him after that.



Best dressed female competition: The ladies gotta strut their moves, make some raunchy grunt and go "I feel so boomz!"



Male version: Mag, recognize that guy?

Finally, thank you Auntie Tay for inviting me along though it'd be better if I didn't have to pay the oh-so-bo hua fee.


I've been wondering. Why do all the female Tays I know look so old? :(
penned by Roy at 11/24/2009 09:07:00 PM | 0 comments

 

Nineteenth.
Monday, November 16, 2009
Seeing that we hardly get to meet up these days, it was pretty cool to just hang out. Especially when there's makan :P

Jac's two bottle of cocoa cake, not bad already!

4/6 peeps, thanks guys!

Still waiting rather impatiently for the pics taken by the photographer on friday. -.-

Aimless snapshots for the ignoramus:

Question of the week: How do you wash a towel inside out?

Email of the week


MH moment of the week or so I thought

Mh moment of the week :D

What can I say?
The 18th year was a tumultuous one marked with highs and lows.
Rambunctious as it was, it still came and went.
As the 19th era approaches, I still implore for a marvel.
penned by Roy at 11/16/2009 09:30:00 PM | 0 comments

 

"You can pat your godzilla everyday!"
Saturday, November 7, 2009
You know you're an office foodie when:

1. You get exotic snacks every now and then

2. You have office-grown veg for dinner

3. You stare at the canteen menu every other moment


Workplace on a not-so typical day. Spent nearly the whole day photocopying the stack of packages. Add on the mandatory "copy" stamp + signature + date on every page and you wonder why I don't get technophobic.

In short, it's been a week of good-byes and new beginnings.

So after all the supposition about when the merge between SP and Merck would finalize, it was officially announced that November the 4th would be Day 1 of the new Merck. But nothing much has changed actually; apart from the sudden interest of HR matters that is.

With hello comes goodbye and this week, we bad farewell to some colleagues. Though we weren't really very palsy-walsy, it still feels a little dismal to see someone leave.

We're coming into the tenth week and I'm not even close to finishing the first paragraph of my report. Boy, am I screwed or what.
penned by Roy at 11/07/2009 07:08:00 PM | 0 comments

 

"I don't want to wear my safety shoes!"
Saturday, October 31, 2009

Balloons. Often associated with joy, elation and delight.

But balloons in an office?! Out of place hm? Used to think offices as solemn, grim places. Apparently not. With the random outbursts of laughter from the other side, how can one help but chuckle at times?

So a few days back, SP had something like a "farewell party" to celebrate the last few days together before the merge with Merck. The buffet was great though as usual, my meter never reached "F".

One grouse. It's bad enough to make a group of starving people sit through almost an hour of speeches and video but tempting them with the delectable aroma of that chicken kebab or the occasional whiff of the laksa soup brewing next door? That's just tormenting. So as you probably can imagine, once the yada yada was over, everyone just chiong-ed for the food.

Since everyone started queuing from one side, we went to the other end (thankfully, or I'd never had the chance to try the oh-so-heavenly cheesecake bursting with flavour the moment you sink your teeth in) and started with desserts. The kebabs were pretty chunky albeit a little cold but the cooks were pretty generous la. I thought there was a limit to how many sticks one could get but lo and behold, they actually ask how many you want! Come to think of it, the 2 sticks I ordered makes me almost angelic eh?

Once we were done with the food, it was time for the collectibles-giving aka clearing old stock session. Jackets, umbrellas, shirts, caps, stationery etc. Heard some die-hards even queued 5 times! When almost everything was given out, my department sorta turned karung guni section for the day and helped ourselves with the leftovers (mostly pens). While, least I won't have to worry about running out of ink anytime soon I guess. :/

Yield for the day

I realized how much I forgot when my colleague asked for help with this:


Okay, I still remember the formula for the ideal gas law. But applying it? Well, that's another story..


Silence is golden but once it's broken, there will be molten.
penned by Roy at 10/31/2009 10:13:00 PM | 0 comments

 

"No one wants to take responsibility here. It's the SP culture."
Sunday, October 25, 2009
So this week, instead of the usual gathering at gram's, we headed down to Choa Chu Kang area for some educational trip as my aunt calls it.

First stop was Qian Hu. Been awhile since I last came here and unless my memory failed me, nothing much has changed eh?

One particular breed of fish that caught my eye:

I've never seen fishes with backbones this uh, unique.

Betta splendens aka Fighting fish. Childhood days.

Highlight of the day: Fish spa

My first time trying it out so I started out with the smaller fishes first. Couldn't really feel much of the fish nibbling and my aunts were like going "no kick la", go try the big one. So edwin and I were like "okay lor, go see see".

"Bigger spa fish, bigger sensation." No kidding.

The first 10 minutes at the pool with the bigger fishes was just hilarious. Edwin and I, being kinda sensitive to tickling, had a pretty slow start. Whenever one fish came over, we'd sorta push them away. We probably made a laughing stock of ourselves, even some passer-by laughed along with the aunts. "Man who are afraid of this will most likely be henpecked." Hm.

Cannot really blame us la. The fishes were gigantic compared to the smaller ones. Like they were on steroids or something. And their nibbling felt rough, kinda like rubbing sandpaper on your skin. After several rounds of giggling and resisting the urge to move my leg whenever a fish came, I finally grew accustomed to that rough sensation. It even felt good after awhile.

Side note: This treatment is suitable for those with hairy legs as well. Tried and tested. No visible patches of empty plains amongst the forest of black trees. Results may differ depending on the individual. :D

Random sign

Next stop was some vegetable farm. I'm not exactly a green person so didn't really interest me.

Pepper?


They even have a display of a preserved arowana

Overall, it was a pretty fun day. Especially, when you don't know the route well and have to tailgate follow someone else's car. It's like playing catching, only much faster. I like.

P.S. To a certain Ms Tay, this is for you. :P

video
penned by Roy at 10/25/2009 09:47:00 PM | 2 comments

 

"You'll go gaga if you're too serious at work"
Sunday, October 18, 2009

Come tomorrow, yet another semester begins (though it's just another work week for us, interns). Wow. Like a blink of an eye, a month and a half is gone just like that.

Let me start of by saying SEP equals SEPT.
Not in this industry at least.

So just because of one extra letter, packaging had to reprint nearly 5000 labels. Thankfully the slip-up was discovered on time man. Had the packages leave the premises, it could have meant a possible re-call and those cost a bomb.

Case-study:
Company loses revenue due to re-call. Less revenue equates to bonus. And no end of year 红包 means people aren't gonna be very happy. And unless you don't know the meaning of "死", you don't wanna mess with an unhappy lot.

Okay la, I was overstating things a little but you get my drift eh. Meticulousness has to be the order of everyday. I almost learnt the hard way but still, it feels unpleasant enough.

I still remember my virgin attempt at printing a full report aka fyp. I was in awe. Mostly because I've never printed so many pages of stuff in my life. These days, I hardly bat an eyelid printing loads of pages. My record was like what, 600? I half expected the printer to have a nervous breakdown or something; thankfully, it didn't.

Now I get it. Paperwork -literally.

P.S. First it was free MSN, now it's Twitter. What will Starhub come up with next? Facebook! :D
penned by Roy at 10/18/2009 08:37:00 AM | 0 comments

 

"Everything also urgent. So urgent go toilet la!"
Sunday, October 11, 2009
Sample question from this year's math PSLE paper:

"Jim bought some chocolates and gave half of it to Ken. Ken bought some sweets and gave half of it to Jim. Jim ate 12 sweets and Ken ate 18 chocolates. The ratio of Jim’s sweets to chocolates became 1:7 and the ratio of Ken’s sweets to chocolates became 1:4. How many sweets did Ken buy?"

Aiyah! Looks so easy. Bet I can solve under a minute. After all, how tough can a question involving sweets and chocolates be? 20 minutes later, I was still figuring if it was Jim who ate the sweets Ken gave him or the other way round. Seriously.

Must be getting rusty up north heh. Starting to lag behind a little while going through the P6 syllabus. Like how would I know how to explain a food web when I don't even have an inkling what a bulbul is (for the record, it's a species of songbird. Wiki ftw!) . Even had to get the little bro's help for a few chinese words on one occasion.

It's called diffusion. Transfer of knowledge from a region of higher concentration (bro) to a region of lower concentration (me). Tsk tsk. And that is why, I can never teach. :D

Auditing period's just round the corner. Hopefully there'll be no screw ups.

Bah! Where are all the trance fans? :(
penned by Roy at 10/11/2009 09:09:00 PM | 0 comments

 

"No, we're not selling pau".
Saturday, October 3, 2009


I'm gonna hit 19 soon. And that means NS is just around the corner. Chanced upon this tiny footprint while searching through my past medical records, can't believe how that once cute and tiny feet grew into this humongous, gigantic size 10 monster. Medical examination coming right up, that means blood tests and needles. Uh oh.

Got my first paycheck but it just disappeared before the dollars could even get comfy inside my already cash-deficient wallet. Ah well, marks the start of being independent albeit a short time and I gotta say, it feels good.

With my job scope widening by the week, mistakes are starting to catch up and thank god for verification. Simple stuff like signing off, punching in the correct numbers I can't even do well. I dread to even think what would happen if my blunders went unnoticed. And it sure doesn't help that the auditing period's coming up; Let's say auditors want a particular document, you have 30 minutes to locate it. Fail to do so and they record it as a major finding which I presume is a biggie. Definitely have a whole new level of respect for those doing documentation. Can't think of a better analogy than to say that GMP-ians are probably the only ones other than accountants who don't use correction tape to correct their mistakes. There's just no room for errors.

And finally, after much anticipation, I get my first glimpse of the clean area whilst tagging along with a colleague doing quality monitoring. Got to gown up for real and boy was it fun (imagine wearing a coverall while ensuring it doesn't come into contact with the floor). Saw stuff I thought only existed in books and even though it wasn't quite what I imagined, it's still pretty neat.

1/6
penned by Roy at 10/03/2009 10:17:00 PM | 0 comments

 

"There's a cookie monster upstairs"
Friday, September 25, 2009

Thus concludes a pretty short week owing to raya celebrations (thanks yaya! :D) and the quality department's team building event at Sentosa (get some sun people!).

Work's been starting to pile up, my desk's no longer the empty shell I saw in the first week; notes hanging on the cubicle wall, files strewn on the table, shelves with documents ready to be collected. Time definitely passes faster if you're kept busy. Like I never knew printing documents (100+ pages thick) could take nearly 3 hours.

I think I might just have a new hobby - snacking. Yeah, tidbits, sweets, donuts, anything! It's like my metabolism rate doubles when I'm at work. Sure, the canteen serves a heck (serving) of a lunch but the hunger pangs still return like pesky flies. And it most certainly didn't help when a colleague who recently went back to her homwtown bought back some local treats, one of them I just could not resist - Cookies N' Cream Polvoron. It's this sinfully milky, cookie-type pastry wrapped up like a sweet that just crumbles and melt in your mouth. Dang! Why don't they sell this here? :(

P.S. To those who follow, Heroes is back!!
penned by Roy at 9/25/2009 08:41:00 PM | 0 comments