My Langkawi Tales

Are all here...

TGIF!!!

It's Friday... time flies when you're busy....

I've been excuse from wearing a tie... and looks like I won't have to wear one for a very long time as resort don't require the boss to don one. I've been wearing a tie or a bow tie every day except on days off since I was 14, so this is something I like...

The office is closed tomorrow so no work for me tomorrow... yippee!!! Then Monday I'm off to Langkawi for a site inspection and do some scouting for staff accommodation and what not. Will only be back Tuesday night then back to work next Wednesday.

So far, I like the pace of things here...

Oh... and by the way... my replacement tendered her resignation... it will be interesting to know what happens next. I'm sure I'll get updated...

New Job... Day 1..

My office is at Leisure Commerce Square. Work starts at 9:30am. Yes, you read that right... I left my place at 8:30am and arrived at about 9:10am. Not bad lah... I took Jalan Tun Razak and on to Jalan Mahameru then Jalan Travers and then the Pantai Expressway. A total of 22.5 kms, Car park to car park. 

Introductions done. There are 3 sales persons in the office, a secretary, PA to the big boss and last but not least my new (lady) boss. Was given my desk... the one and only with the fucking air-cond blowing right into the back of my scalp... brrrrrrrr....

I went about doing my paperwork. No one disturbed me. Not like they can lah... since I am the only one in the office with my skill set.... and what skill set is that? Bullshittinglah apa lagi? Hahahaha... got my appointment letter and signed it. (Warning! Don't do this... normal, sane people sign their appointment letters before resigning)

Next thing I know it is lunch time. The lady boss took me out to lunch... in my motorboat on wheels. We ended up in Puchong having banana leaf for lunch. Pergh.... damn syiok! Went back to office... did my work... ding-dong-ding-dong... 5:30pm already... and time to ba-alif-lam-ya-kap!!

The journey home was shorter... used the Federal Highway..... 18kms. Was at home just before 6:30pm

Chill-out Day...

It is so different when you don't have to work and I don't have to hear that ringtone anymore... that ringtone always made me jump... it is such a good feeling.

Today, since I had time on my hands after doing my 'clearance' with HR, I took my car to the workshop to fix the exhaust. The mid bullet had deteriorated and needed a change. The guy recommended a replacement then also suggested that I change the piping. I agreed and asked him to change the muffler as well... alang-alang kan? One condition though... make sure tak bising ok? He assured me it won't be. After almost an hour of cutting and welding it was done. He started the car and the low drone sounded cool. It was louder than my Beng-wira but okay from the outside. It has a three month warranty. I paid and left.

Everything was okay... or so I thought. It somehow sounded louder inside... then I reached a stretch where I could accelerate... ALAMAK! I'm now driving a fucking motorboat! Shit... I can't bear with this... berdengung is the only word that comes to my mind now. I'm going to have to take the car back to have the muffler changed. A motorboat on wheels ain't cool.

Then I took Ayu to my cousin's place in Bangsar to do a portfolio. I was supposed to do this a long time ago. My cousin tried to get me to do a portfolio too... she keeps trying every time I see her and it's been like years of trying. This time, I like what she said... who knows? My client may need a botak guy. Hahaha... I'm camera shy lah... behind the camera is where I intend to stay. We chatted for awhile and then I left.

Then it was off to Alamanda for makan-makan and a movie... this is what you do when you don't want to end up in horrendous jams in KL in the late afternoon.

Office Cleared

I went back to the office to pack and clear my stuff. What a lot of junk I collect over the past 13 months. Geesh...

Botak makes a mental note NOT TO COLLECT JUNK again at the next place!!!

Last Day...

Today is my last working day... I did a lot of evasive action today. Avoiding all the 'emo' moments... I'm a sentimental dude so I don't think I would have handled it well...

I treated MMC (whoever was around) to lunch. We practically had to roll out of the place even though it was only a 6-course Chinese lunch. It was great to have lunch with them... there are some people whom you will always click with immediately no matter how long you've been apart and the MMC are in this category.

So... that's it... 11 years and 13 days.

Astalavista...

The Cat Is Out Of The Bag

I received a call from the owner today. Dato' called me as he had heard some disturbing news from his VP of Human Resources. As a policy... senior management have to be interviewed on exit so I did have a chat with the VP of HR and I did tell her how disgusted I felt with the accusation.

Dato' says he heard I was disappointed with the way I was treated. He said he called as he wanted to know what was happening. He says he never made any accusations. He was angry that he did not get the report as it shows that the system had failed and when the system fails people need to be held accountable which includes my boss. He says he was disappointed that I wanted to move on elsewhere but he accepts it and he would like to keep an avenue for me to return. He asked me who made the accusation? I told him it was my boss who spoke to me but he never cited anyone's name. I thanked Dato' for the clarification and also told him I would have still gone to see him  to say thank you and goodbye regardless of what happened. He ended the conversation by saying he did not make that accusation and that I am welcome to come back if I need to. I thanked him for everything.

I will make a trip to his office before I leave to Langkawi.

So, now... Wow! again... I can understand my boss' frustration and disappointment for me leaving as I was one of his hopefuls but to let me leave in anger thinking that the company had accused me of such misdeeds is just too much. Way too much. Geesh... I don't know what to think anymore. I'm just glad I am moving on.

Great Dinner, Great Company...

Today I was treated to dinner at Saisaki's by my HODs. This place is really amazing. After all these years they are still packed and the food is in abundance. I did a quick walk around to recce what was good and I  pleasantly surprised that they had lamb shanks! I whacked TWO whole shanks. Yum! Yum!

Good food, nice green tea and watermelon juice and exceptionally good company. It was a great night. They even got me a Samsung 21.5" Full HD LCD Monitor. How thoughtful of them. Now, when I get my Mac I can hook it up to the monitor...

Thank you very, very much guys and the two gals... must be very hard being the two roses among 10 very prickly thorns.

If any of you need a change of work environment, just give me a buzz...

Mac, Mac, Mac...

I have been dreaming of the Mac for weeks now. And today, I just feel like going over to Pavilion to buy it NOW. The VP of Finance told me today that she had failed in getting my boss to strike a deal so I could keep the company notebook at a discounted price. She says he went into a fit at the mere mention of selling it to me. Wow! So many "Wows!" in the past week.... Wow-ing over a hot hoochy-mama is fun... not otherwise.

I guess that the mere mention of my name now sends these people into orbit. Well... looks like I have wasted about RM2k on upgrades on this notebook. Looks like 'execution' will take place as planned on Saturday morning. Looking on the bright side... I get a further RM150 towards The Buy Botak A Mac fund as I have a buyer for my 2 x 2GB of RAM.

There are two reasons why I am not in Pavilion now...

1. Buying from the store, you only get stock models... standard versions. I need a RAM upgrade so it's better to order online.

2. The Macs are due for an upgrade. It currently runs on an Intel Core 2 Duo processor. Most other notebooks are now running on the Intel i-series processors. Word is that Mac will follow suit very shortly. The current model was released in June 2008. It has been 275 days since the last update and the MacBook Pro has an average of 200 days between updates. So, it only makes sense to hold on for as long as I can.

Did you know that this beauty can give you 7 hours on a single charge? And did you know that its battery has a 1000 recharge lifespan as opposed to approximately 300 on other batteries? Well... check it out... and if you fall in love with it... it's not my fault. Click at your own risk.

Back To Windows 7... Where's My Mac?

I spent all morning trying to get the netbook to work. There are many sources on the net on how to fix these problems but I was running out of time and patience and finally decided to buy Windows 7 Home Premium for RM395. Moreover, I think Windows is better suited for Ayu. The software arrived at 3:30pm... I made a bootable USB drive and transferred the entire installation disk to the USB drive so I could boot from the USB drive. The netbook does not have a resident DVD drive. It installed flawlessly and then it was another round of updating... antivirus didn't work, needed a new version... updating drivers, etc. I would have thought that after over 10 years the process would be simpler but it seems just the same to me.

So much for a Hackintosh... I think I'll just buy myself a Mac... and I have some donations already towards The Buy Botak A Mac fund. My bestest friends, the MMC (Mickey Mouse Club) have given me some money for my birthday instead of the usual gadget birthday present as they know I'm itching for the Mac. Thanks dudes and dudettes. The fund now stands at RM1800.00.  Another RM2700.00 to go... any others care to contribute?

My boss called me at 4:00pm to wish me... just as I thought that he wouldn't. He still sounded sore though. After the operations meeting today I was surprised with a nice classic cheese cake from the department heads. And they've booked me for dinner on Thursday night. A farewell cum birthday dinner. Again... thank you very much.

Desktop, Notebook and Netbook.

Over the past few days I have been busy with computers. My desktop, the company's notebook and my GF's netbook. 

First, the desktop. I unpacked my desktop from the bubble wrap last Friday as I needed some pictures that were sitting on its hard drive. Upon booting... this bald old man forgot his password. Alamak... I tried every single password I could think of and all its permutations but to no avail. Finally, desperate... I scoured the net for a utility to crack the password. The download was fairly large but I tell you...  the results... amazing... the application cracked my password in less than 5 minutes. It turned out to be an abbreviated version of one of my passwords. I then spent the balance of the day updating the desktop... OS, applications, antivirus and what nots. I must say it is still pretty zippy. The machine itself is probably 5 years old... a Pentium D which I made some upgrades to and also upgraded to Vista Business. 

It currently has 1.5GB of RAM and I think an upgrade is on order coupled with a kick-ass 23" inch LCD screen... whoa! This is the 23" LCD screen I borrowed from the F&B team. I definitely could get used to this. I think I'll go buy one soon. It's about RM500 I think.

Next... my notebook or rather the company's notebook. The original specs was Core 2 Duo 1.66GHz, 120GB HDD, 512MB RAM and Windows XP. Yeah, I know... piece of crap. This was back in October 2007. When I received it I told the IT guy not to install the Windows XP. Instead I bough an OEM Windows Vista and installed it. I then upgraded the RAM to 2 x 1GB. I then bought the OEM version of MS Office 2007 and installed it as well. I have many other applications installed in it as well... my Photoshop, antivirus, performance utilities, etc. Last year I upgraded it further by installing Windows 7 on 64-bit platform and then changed the RAM to 2 x 2GB. The notebook is running well with the excepton of the intermittent screen flickers which is a sign that the screen will fail soon... how soon? Only God knows...

So... when I decided I wanted to leave the company I enquired with the VP of Finance on what it would cost me to acquire this unit since I had invested so much into it. She then consulted the VP for IT who said the value was RM1,500.00 based on the original specs. Ummm... Fuck you... add RM400 and I can get a brand new kick-ass machine... and probably an i3 processor too. So, I told the VP of Finance... thanks but no thanks. I will pay no more than RM500 for this machine and that's being generous. That was about a month back. So, I have started to move my files from the notebook and getting it ready for 'execution'... putting it back to the state in which I received it. Yeah, I know.... I'm such an arsehole... I have a buyer for my RAM. The applications? Too bad... they're non-transferable.

Today, the VP of Finance learns about my 'early departure'. She wants to see if she can do something for me as she felt bad for what has happened to me so she's going to have a word with my boss on doing something about this notebook as a gesture of my 11 years of service. So sweet of her. She's an ok person... just that I never agreed with her methods in doing her job. I understand her job but her methods are horrendous. So... I'm waiting to see if the 'execution' will be necessary.

The netbook... I bought it last year to keep Ayu occupied and for her to learn to be IT savvy... like yours truly. It came with Windows XP and running on an Atom processor... it was not as zippy as I was used to. Then I learnt about Windows 7 and I installed the RC (Release Candidate) and upgraded the RAM to 2GB. Definitely better than Windows XP. So... RC is a trial version... as of 1st March it started shutting down every 2 hours and by July it will be unusable. 

So... it's either back to WIndows XP, buy a Windows 7 or...

I have been considering buying a Mac ever since I got busy with my photography and I will eventually get it... pretty soon too. Just waiting Apple to change their processors. So... as usual when I buy stuff I normally do lots of research on the product I am going to buy. I starte dreading about Macs and found out that I could actually convert my S10 to a Mac! Wow!

So... my ex IT guy and I embarked on this... Hackintosh...

It was quite a nightmare. We spent a good two hours trying to figure out how to proceed with the installation as we could not see the 'Continue' tab as the program was not meant for such a small resolution screen. Eventually, I managed to Google some instruction on how many 'Tabs' and 'Spaces' to hit to get it to install. 

The installation itself was quite fast. I think in all it took about 30 minutes. Just about the same time required as installing Windows.

Here you go... Max OS X on a Lenovo S10. After installation, to my horror all the hardware did not work... keyboard, wi-fi, touchpad, everything... except sound. I plugged in a USB mouse and it worked. So I fooled around a bit trying to upgrade the version. It's getting late so I have to continue this tomorrow.

The Replacement

The replacement arrived today. Poor lady. She was ousted to make way for my predecessor and now they have asked her to come back. She accepted under protest, so she says. She says she was afraid that if she refused she would be pressured and victimised. But on the other hand it is also good for her as it 'appears' that this place needs her after all. She was at the top of my list of candidates who would be considered to replace me. Anyhow... I'm 'Item 86' as the industry would call it... hahaha...

So... 7 days to go...

Lovely Day

Indeed it is... I slept soundly last night.

Happy Birthday and Wow!

It's the boss' birthday. Since he's also a friend and not just a boss and not to get emotions mixed up, I sms-ed him as usual in the morning with my greeting. No response. Ok. Never mind. He does get busy and forgets so we will let this rest.

Later in the afternoon he calls to say he is attending my Ex-Com Meeting. Ok. I'm fine with that. No worries. After the meeting he excuses everyone and asks me to stay back. I knew something was not right. He starts the conversation by saying that my failure to tell him certain things have got him into trouble. So, I have to back track now so you'll understand.

We send report A to the owner and the boss everyday. Report A is very basic. Report B is circulated internally and includes all kinds of attachments with logs and incident reports and what not. I had two incidents last week and the reports circulated as per normal. However, last year my boss did tell me to include incident reports together with report A for the owner. I passed the message and it was followed... albeit... for a while then it reverted to the old way... I don't know why, maybe because the other two properties were still doing the old way and were not required to change. I never noticed that it had reverted as I receive all reports and as long as I received the reports I don't pay attention to which e-mail it is attached to. So... we failed to send it as we were required to but I did send sms-es reminding the person responsible to do it. Short from doing this myself, that is about all that I can do.

So... back to today. Now I am being accused of deliberately not sending the reports out as I knew I was already leaving. My boss was informed of the incidents by me, verbally. It's just that the reports were not sent out as it should have been. Were there any losses in these incidents? No... one was a suspected narcotic bust and the other a credit card fraud which we found out and incurred no loss.

Wow!! That's what I said to my boss. Wow!! 11 years and you think this of me? Wow!! Thank you very much. So, he then asks me when would I like to leave to make this 'clean'? Originally when I tendered I had planned for the 15th as the last day as I had 28 days of leave to clear and only required to serve a  month's notice.... but he asked for more time and I told him 30 days max... so now he asks me when I would like to leave to make it 'clean'... Saturday or Monday he asked... again... Wow!! So, this is how it's going to be... whatever I said... do what you must... you have a job to do so do it. I am outgoing so don't worry about me... Just think of yourself. You tell me when and I will go. If you say now... I will go now.

Then I carried on telling him... I was very sad to leave after 11 years but now... I am so glad with my decision. I think God loves me as I don't need to put up with all this shit anymore. Good luck to you as you have to stay and deal with all this and put up with all this shit. And I went on to tell him... I have the sms-es with me with my instructions to make sure the reports were sent. He replied... so you did instruct? And they failed to do it? I said Yes... but you know what? You've already thought such of me and I am not going to let you see the sms-es... I am outgoing... it is their intention to pin anything that they can on me so let me shoulder this. No need to drag anyone in anymore.

So, tell me when and I will leave. He finally decided the 15th. I said FINE.... 

Then he continued small talk... I just entertained him out of respect and pity as he turns 64 today yet he has to do this shitty work as he has a schooling son to think of.

So, there you have it... slog 11 years for them giving your best... uncountable leave forfeited due to non-clearance... churning millions for them... and this is what you get in return. And what a lame reason... Wow!! My ex-wife was right... she did say that they will never appreciate what I do.

I think I will sleep well tonight.

Unethical

My boss found out that I had intended to take someone with me to my new job... someone whom I had worked with before in my previous posting. He said it was unethical of me. 

Wow!

Unethical... indeed... the late Michael Jackson would sing... Man In The Mirror... and I concur.

You call me unethical... didn't you do the same thing? And there are more unethical practices that are rampant in the company which made me quit and you dare say I am unethical?

Ethics aside... I am moving on to a 'David' company... you are 'Goliath'. This 'David' company offered me a good package... and for me they had to bend backward slightly. So, it already says that 'Goliath's' package isn't very good right? I stayed 11 years... and I assure you it was not for the money. Anyway, my offer to this person is still lower than what most other places offer for the same position yet it is attractive enough for the person to seriously consider it. So, what does that really say about 'Goliath's' package? And how many employees has 'Goliath' already lost due to this? But No... they will not admit it. It's ok.

It's like a woman who does not dress up or put on any make up while everyone else does and then wonders why she does not get laid while the rest do. So, why don't you just dress up and put some make up so you can get fucked instead of just whining and not doing anything!

There is a moral sense and there is an immoral sense. History shows that the moral sense enables us to see morality and how to avoid it, and that the immoral sense enables us to perceive immorality and how to enjoy it.

A man should not be without morals; it is better to have bad morals than none at all.

Moving On...

The die has been cast... the game is in play. There's no turning back now.

I tendered my resignation today. After exactly 11 years in service. My boss didn't take it well at all... he even threw his bag (with his tablet inside) onto the sofa in tantrum. I felt extremely sad that I had to do this to him. I'd like to stay and help him but I can't. He asked me to stay on and help him personally as a friend and in return he would find me a job later on in the international arena. The offer is good but I couldn't accept it.

Here's why... I am one of my boss' favourite's... I know it. Some say I am THE favourite but that, only he will know. In the past 11 years, no matter what my achievement and regardless of whether it was my effort or not it just gets brushed off as... "Oh, that's only because he's CK's boy... and he gets more support then he should and CK would 'cover' for him"...bla...bla...bla... never, ever am I recognised for my own merits. So if I accept that offer, essentially he would be pulling strings for me and I would end up being 'his boy' again.

I think it is time for me to try something else on my own. And if I fail, then I failed.

I am sure by tomorrow the news would have spread and there will be many, many happy people.