The Gnomes Made Me Do It!

Finally, time to breathe
It's been an eventful few days, and I'd just like to remember it.

Friday 16th September
I take the day off to spend time with the brother and to meet Sonny for our zoo outing. Have breakfast with Joshua at Serangoon Gardens and end up reversing mom's car into a wall (that really seemed to appear out of nowhere. Damn wall). Mad flurry of panic and shuttling car to workshop in between which getting smses about morning's big happenings at the organization, phone call updates from collegues and realisation that I was well and truly unemployed. Went to the zoo feeling rather frazzled and morose but saw the naked mole rat, meekcat, had ben and jerry's and was instantly cheered up.

Saturday 17th September
Wake up early to go to office for clearance. Say farewell to the boss and finish up tasklist for handover. Pack office junk into suitcase and await Munkey pick up. Lunch. Realise there is simply no time to make it to secondary school mate's church wedding. Send apologies. Drive to Munkey's office to pick up clothes rack. Home to dump office junk and pick up flea market wares. Hop into Munkey mobile and head off to car workshop. Spend 30mins talking to drooling boss as he puts on finishing touches to car. Drive mom's car home with Munkey mobile following behind. Quick car swap and off to Tanglin Mall. Badger and Gatsby have already set up shop. Haggling and fun till 8.30. $91 richer. Dinner and home

Sunday 18th September
Lunch at Marina South. Golf club recee-ing at Marina Square. Home. Car Crash confession. Dinner with family at Lemongrass and Cinderella Man at Cineleisure

Monday 19th September
Breakfast. Papers. Meet badger and gatsby for lunch. Head to office. Finish up workshop content, stay till almost 7. Dinner. Emmy's at Munkey's

Tuesday 20th September
Yoga with Badger. Lunch in town. Home to veg. Dinner. The Longest Yard at Cineleisure

Mad errand running tomorrow and yoga with my fav drummer girl in the evening.
I'll be leaving for London Town Thursday Morning, and back on the 1st of October.
Back with pictures and stories I promise. Think I'll make a trip to East Sussex and visit the ol' boarding school for some nostalgia.

Be good and take care all!

Posted by sideshowjo at 12:39 am | Permalink | Comments

I woke up at 6.30 to fetch mom and her best friend to the airport this morning. It was awesome, cool crisp morning air and getting to see the planes and runways. I really love airports. Probably stemed from the 6 years of shuttling back and forth. It always signified one of two things
1) Back to boarding school/university and sweet glorious independent living
2) Back to Singapore for holiday madness

I miss going to the airport.
But Soon!
22nd Sept- London
14th Oct- Hong Kong

I Can't Wait!!!!!!

Posted by sideshowjo at 11:05 am | Permalink | Comments

I just received an e-mail from the boss to compile all files from the comms team before I leave as most of us will be receiving 'THE LETTER' sometime this month. It made me very sad to read her mail as it signified the end of a very exciting year and various office relationships with people that matter to me (Badger! You better jolly well keep in touch if not I will skin you and make you into a handbag). As you know, I'm the last woman standing in what started out as a 5 woman outfit:


This then reduced to 4 in September 2004 with the departure of Tai Tai Sim:

These were fun times indeed! I remember one incident where Baby Huang (in blue floral baby dall top) and I were staying back late preparing for an event. I remember I was leaving for Bangkok the next day. Gatsby had left the office for the day to go meet her friends and pick up tickets for a concert she was going to watch. The boss called Gatsby when she had already reached town and demanded that she to return to rush out the stack of invite letters to the guests of our event. Man! I've never seen Gatsby so darn mad in her life. Baby Huang and I stayed back till 11pm to help her out with it. It was late, we were tired, but it was truly a special night.

Joanna left us towards the end of 2004, so it was just myself, Gatsby and Baby Huang:

Baby Huang left to become superwoman so Gatsby and myself kept the department afloat for a good 3 months! A welcomed addition of Emily the Strange and Lianster mid this year brought the count back up to 4:

After a month, The Lianster left to go write fun stories and it was Gatsby, Emily the Strange and myself for 3 weeks :

Having the Lianster around for a month was good fun, and it was nice to have some testosterone to balance out the estrogen overload in our single sexed office. Emily the Strange and Lianster bonded really well with Gatsby and myself and the 4 of us made a good team. Once, before an outreach event, we were holed up in a smallish room repacking collaterals...and right next to No.2's office. It was heaps of fun as we entertained each other with dry jokes and old skool songs.

Emily the Strange left to take over the world, so it was back to Gatsby and myself:

Gatsby recently got a huge opportunity to help tell people things on TeeVee so she left last month. I have thus been by my own since then.

Goodbye Comms team! It's been one heck of a ride!

Posted by sideshowjo at 11:07 am | Permalink | Comments

Posted by sideshowjo at 11:13 am | Permalink | Comments

It has dawned on me that I will be out of a job end of this month. The badger was just telling me that they will only be retaining 3 out of our current 12.
I NEED A JOB!

Posted by sideshowjo at 11:23 am | Permalink | Comments

This auditory overload is crazy!
In Front: Jay Chow, JJ whatever and other chinese pop songs
At my 2 O'clock Sappy old chinese love songs
At my 5 O'clock Class 95 Blasting away

And if it was'nt for another collegue on leave, Trance blaring from 10 O'Clock. The thing is, they all try to out play each other! So you can imagine, the decible levels in the office are of skyscraper proportions.
Psychic S suggested that I should get them all earphones as a big hint.

Posted by sideshowjo at 10:59 am | Permalink | Comments

Day Off

The badger and I decided not to go to work today, a grand total of minus 20 good worker points for us :p
This is how I spent my day off:

9am: Wake up to big goofy grin from brother, and get dragged out of bed for breakfast
10am: Breakfast with brother at nearby eatery
11am: Help brother with decorations and dinner place cards for brother's friday 21st brithday celebrations
12pm: Send out resumes and e-mails
12.30pm: Lunch of Pak Choy and soup
1pm: Shower and ownself pampering
2.15pm: Hail cab to Arab Street
3pm: Salmon Salad with Sonny
4pm: Sonny and Jo go wandering and bump into Monkey Bastard's friend and Jo's old secondary school friend, chats and photo taking
5pm: Hail cab back home
6.15pm: Leave house with mother and brother for Mandarin Hotel for Brother's birthday celebrations with Dad's extended family
10.30pm: Home and very bloated
12am: Curl up on couch for Nip Tuck

I could really get used to this.
But like a wise old man said, "Only when we work can we truly enjoy time off, because only then are we actually privvy to 'Time off'".
What a lovely day.

Posted by sideshowjo at 10:47 pm | Permalink | Comments

Since I am on the subject of Children, my office is full of them.

Posted by sideshowjo at 1:54 pm | Permalink | Comments

Children. Asked them to come up with a skit for the kiddies in the hospital as a cheer up MTV of sorts, they did a 2 minute skit of a MacDonald robbery. Can't say I blame them tho', our props consisted of guns, capes and a terrorist ski mask among other violence inducing things. What were we thinking?!

Posted by sideshowjo at 10:09 am | Permalink | Comments

Traditional yoga includes a movement called the Sun Salutation series, where practitioners perform a combination of steps, including one where they raise their hands up to the sky to 'Salute the Sun'

Monkey Bastard On Yoga

Jo: I'm going for Yoga today, will only be done at 7.15.
Monkey Bastard: OK! Say Hi to the Sun for me!
Jo: Ha...you think you're really funny don't you!
Monkey Bastard: Erm, Yes.
Jo: Wait I ask the very gay Vijay to come over bend you in half and spank you!
Monkey Bastard: *In hysterics* Sure! I'll moon his sun!

Posted by sideshowjo at 12:38 pm | Permalink | Comments

Because of the recent moral debacle, we are no longer allowed to outsource any jobs or employ the help of part-timers or volunteers (Not that anyone would want to help, honestly). As a result, a few of us were mobilized to conduct street surveys. Ppft!!!

Yesterday's survey experience was demeaning no less, however, I now have deep respect for the teens, timeshare and insurance people who spend weeks conducting street surveys. Whenever approached, I usually put up my hand and tell them I am in a rush or falsify answers. It's karma I tell you. It was a bad day yesterday, given we had the short end of the survey stick due to the subject matter and the organization I represent.

I used to think that I was a rather personable person, WAS being the operative word. Highly sociable during my uni days, always up for parties and meeting new people, heck I even served as a social secretary for a year during my 2nd year at Sydney Uni. I sort of fizzled out when I reached 3rd year, found fantastic friends who were intelligent and grounded, they kept things real for me. I am constantly inawe of PornQueen and Lil'Drummer Girl. They are truly inspirational. Since then, my attention seeking days came to an end. Anyway I digress.

Yesterday, I was privvy to my attention seeking collegue's flirtatious conduct. She approached the cute 30 something male execs, turned on her girlish charm, batted her lashes and spoke to them in her baby tone. Well, her method proved effective as she managed to bag 10 surveys as compared to my 5. I was more interested in the geeky specky guys and women who looked opiniated. I don't know why, but I could not help feeling irritated and disgusted. I think it is the fact that she felt that the only way to get answers was to use sex. We have always been told that women have soft skills and the power of persuasion, is that the reason or is it that men, slaves to their penises, love having their ego stroked so the prospect of having a girl cooing and baby talking them for a couple of minutes makes them feel like a Fabio.

Sigh.
I refuse to do it again today.
Contemplating a half day MC.
Minus 10 good worker points from Jo.

Posted by sideshowjo at 11:03 am | Permalink | Comments