WSO verification and dragon dolls counting

One thing I dread most but no choice have to do is to complete the WSO verification excel sheet. This is how it goes about. First, I need to look out for small sheets of return chits in WSO big folder. Once I found them, I need to compile 8-10 outlets worth of return chits and then compare them against big sheet of WSO for any discrepancies. Normally, the figures should tally and matches to be the same. Else, the figures when keyed into excel will go to a column that will compute the variance which shows the level of discrepancies. What makes it rather tedious is that I will need to do this process of tallying over again and again with different batches for 7 days. At the end of the verification, the pub codes like ST, NP, WB, SM should be very familiar to you even if you do not know anything about it initially.

Another ad hoc task that I am asked to help out is the counting and packing of the dragon plushies with the chinese words "ji" or "Xiang" on its belly. This task consumes alot of time. Sometimes if the original big box is torn and unable to be resealed again, I and a few other temps will need to find 5 boxes to contain 200 dragon plushies. The counting part is especially daunting as we need to check whether the big box contains exact 200 plushies or there is excess or shortage. As there are many big boxes to count and repacked, one day is not enough. I am not sure how long they finish this task as I only help out for a day and a half. One thing is for sure, after this task I dread to see any flowery patterns or images for a long while.

So far still ok...

I think I did a not too bad job covering the duties for my colleague. Except for the overwhelming void reports, everything else has been adequately done to the best of my effort. The only problems left include settling the returning of Purchase Orders from the contractors to my side and inserting the void reports into the DNs that are bundled according to each delivery day. In total, I only took an extra OT of 1.5 hours to finish off the keying in of DNs besides keying in the WSOs in the day.

For the upcoming week, I think my workload will be back to normal since my colleague is back. The only thing I need to worry is managing the leftover work from last week with keying in the WSOs. Maybe I need another 1.5 hours of OT to clear the workload if I cannot clear it within this upcoming week. I shall see how, afterall a bit of OT is not that bad and I can earn a bit more money.

OT in the week ahead?

Last sunday(20.11.2011), I attended a neighbour's wedding dinner at goodwood park hotel. The food was great as I liked the prawn dipped in wasabi sauce the best. What I dislike most is the long delay before the first dish is served. Together with the videos shown before first dish is served, it just make me hungrier. I attended the wedding dinner with my parents and we received keychains as souvenirs. It was a pleasant day as it ends at 11.10pm. Home sweet home as my parents and me rode a direct bus from scotts road back to my home.

Everything at work is normal as only sometimes I am asked to search for backdated WSOs from as long as August. It is a tedious task to search for August WSOs as the WSOs is sorted by chains and not by batches. Luckily, not everyday do I need to search for long back dated WSOs. Sometimes, original copy is wanted instead of photocopy. But anyway, photocopy is still required whether it is given to the sales rep or kept in WSO box.

For next week wednesday onwards, I may need to work OT. This is because my colleague is going for a holiday and I am required to stand in for her duties. My workload is going to get more, but I am treating this as a new learning experience. My challenge is to do as many tasks as I can, so as not to disrupt the workflow before my colleague returns. Hopefully everything goes smoothly enough in the coming week.

Another Ad Hoc Task...

Besides consoling the DNs and doing the once a week WSO filing, there are other things to do at times. One latest ad hoc task I have done is faxing documents. Why I need to do faxing is because we need to inform store managers of reputable stores like kinokuniya, times and popular etc, about the latest magazine release so that they can send their order form if they are keen. As there are dozens of store managers to fax to, I have to key in different fax number on the fax machine for a dozen odd times.

One other ad hoc task that I have done before but not recently is packing goodie bag for events or promotions. For this task, quantity of each type of goods have to be the same throughout the entire batch. The type of goods can range from anything like small tubes of facial cream to packets of maggie mee.

During mid week, I also done another annual ad hoc task. And that is about helping out to dispatch diary books to various departments. As it is rather heavy, I used a trolley to move many boxes of diary books to different people within the big office. It is a yearly ad hoc task because every year the company issues out new diary books once. Lucky that it is a yearly task as it is rather tedious when it comes to stock taking.

Busy Friday...

Normally friday, I do not need to do WSO filing. But it turns out that the filing cannot be completed on Thursday as the number of people doing the filing is not enough. Before filing, there are some tearing to do to separate different batches of WSO sheets. This week, there are some things to take note. Some outlets have 3 sheets instead of 2 and a few outlets have only a single sheet. So while tearing the sheets of WSO, it is important to check that the separation of sheets are not done wrongly if not an outlet may not receive its WSO complete in its original state.

Besides that, I also done lots of photocopying of receipt size delivery notes. Sometimes I do this because there is some problem with the orders of a particular outlet. Other times it could be because the outlet is closed temporarily. Before photocopying, I normally have to search for the outlet DN based on the summary sheet at the front of each route pile of dozens of DNs. Its time consuming to locate and photocopy a series of DNs as I need to open up clips and remove rubber bands when neccessary. In the end, I managed to complete this task within 3 hours as I need to make sure DN is in correct place after photocopying.

Another busy week gone

Keying in entry to signify DN has been received has always been a hassle and time wasting. So in order to cut down time wasting, nowadays the DNs are sent for checking first before keying in entry. This way, as long as the DNs are not missing when checked, I can then checked 'Yes' quickly to signify DN has been received without checking for the DN no. How I wish the company can remove this keying in system as checking DNs alone will be enough to indicate which DNs are missing.

Just as I thought it is another normal week, a contractor suddenly returned alot of long overdue DNs. They are of the old A4 size type and only records one magazine title per DN instead of multiple magazine titles on current DN. Our team are given a week or so to complete checking the old DNs. I don't know whether the deadline can be met because there are alot of other things to be done. Anyway, my colleagues say the time given should be enough as long as we commit a few hours to check those DNs each day.

And then, I first time faced WSO filing on friday instead of thursday. This time round, we got two extra helpers to file the WSOs. As usual, 1000 odd folders are filed and bundled into various parcels and waiting to be delivered to outlets a bit later then usual. And that completes the end of another busy week...

Collecting goods trip

Last wednesday, I went on a short collecting goods trip to Great World City. Me and the driver had to collect 50 small and big boxes worth of equipments such as cameras, vacuum cleaners and other miscellaneous items. We had to be careful when transporting the goods from the store to the van as it is bulky and the store contains full of expensive electronic stuffs. Throughout the trip, I get to know that the driver has been working at SPH for many years. If I am not wrong, the goods are supposedly meant for some sort of redeemption.

Anyway, such trips to collect goods are rare. I look forward to another such trip if there is any chance though.

Busy week indeed

So fast... Another week has passed and its weekend again. This time I experienced keying in date arrived for nearly 2000 pcs of WSO sheets. Plus all the stamping of date received, it is quite exhausting indeed. Maybe it takes some time to get used to this manual job. I believe I am coping well though as I managed to key finish about 200 batches of WSO sheets. As each batch is about 10 WSO sheets, that roughly accumulates to about 2000 pcs. At the end of keying in the dates in excel and stamping dates received, to some extent, I do feel a little satisfied.

With more time handling WSOs, I hope that I can pick up some much needed speed. Sometimes, I wonder if an introduction of technology can help reduce my workload. But then again, my company probably won't need temps like me if there isn't much things to do in the first place.

Coping with workload

It has been a busy week for me. Just extracting WSOs from a thousand odd pile of big size folder (roughly double the size of A4) is exhausting work for a person in a week. Each outlet has one WSO, hence a thousand odd accounts for the outlets islandwide. It is quite tedious and is a manual task. From extracting to keying in computer excel file plus stamping a received stamp, it all requires some patience and speed to complete this task. What a week it has been for me as i did not handle that many DNs as compared to my first week. All week long it has been WSO, tiring manual work indeed. Every 2 - 3 weeks, it will be my turn handling the WSOs. I sometimes hope WSOs can be a monthly routine instead of it being currently weekly routine. Haha, guess that won't be possible anytime soon though.

Had 2 lunch outside my work area for the past week. Food is so so but the nice part is getting to travel in a colleague car to places like toa payoh hub and circuit road hawker centre. Also had a small buffet lunch in office on friday which is so so though. It only means I get to save a meal worth of money. Anyway, hope to look forward to more lunch outings in weeks to come.

Coping with changes

After being back in SPH for a week, I find myself still coping with some changes. For me, there are good news and bad news. Good news is that delivery notes are now smaller, down from A4 size to receipt size, thus making handling them easier and also easier in consolidating them. Bad news is that I got to be more involved in Weekly Sales Orders (WSO) work which I did not handle them the last time round.

Previously, I look forward to every wednesday as its a day where a colleague will drive a few of us temps out to macpherson area to have lunch. It often varies from duck rice to things such as Ipoh Hor Fun. But nowadays, it seems that the colleague is not driving out anymore. It makes me wonder whether he still has a car or not. I will ask him one day whether he still drives or not. For now, I just follows where the other two temp staffs want to go for lunch.

Lately, one incident has made me wonder whether i am the one at fault. There is this distributor who returns some magazines and they are being kept at our side temporarily. I made sure that before I return him 3 magazines that are supposedly deem to be extra, there are to be 37 magazines. The next day that our side pass it to the store side, it turns out that there are 3 magazines short instead. Now, either its because I took out 3 additional magazines which I am sure it couldn't have been the case or somebody took it without me knowing. Hopefully the lost magazines are found soon so that no one else has to be held responsible.

So far so good...

Things have gone well as planned... Looks like in no time, i will meet some colleagues whom I have worked with before. Wonders what shall I talk to them? Shall think about it these few days since there is still some time before I meet them... How I love wednesdays back when I work there... Shall talk more about it next time... Stay tuned... =P

Job confirmed...

Just received news on monday from HR about the latest job offer. Its a 6 month contract with a decent pay of $6 per hour. Somehow Its a bit less than what I expected but still I feel it is acceptable. So I filled in the application form and send in the necessary documents through email. I hope everything else goes well so that I can work in SPH starting 12 Sept 2011. Hopefully, this will be a refreshing start in my working life...

Waiting for latest Job offer...

I have heard from my supervisor that it will be a contract job and not a temp job. So now he says that he has told HR to contact me about the revised job offer, but I have not heard from HR since the day he told me this. I certainly hope that things will not come to a standstill as I am now waiting for the HR to contact me. It has been more than half a week since there is any latest development. I think I will ask the supervisor to check with his HR side by monday afternoon if i still have not received any news by then. If the 2 weeks notice still apply, then I shall start work on 12 Sept 2011. If only a week notice is needed, then I still can meet the 5 Sept date. Anyway, the only thing I hope now is that the HR can contact me as soon as possible if not I am really clueless about how late than expected that I can start work in a familiar environment.

Temp Job or contract job?

Now, my new job starting date is not fixed yet although I hope issues such as whether it is a contract job or not can be finalised soon. Hopefully, it won't be a temp job as i am looking to work for a much longer term but if the supervisor says it is temporary measure then i probably accept the terms. At the moment though, the supervisor still has not picked up my calls. I wonder what is he busy with, though i still will try to contact him probably during my lunch breaks. Must hear personally from him why the job offer is a temp one and not a contract or even a perm one. Anyway, should things get finalised soon, hopefully as early as sept 5 I can start work in SPH or else it will be much later than initially planned.

Job Change soon??? or not???

Hi everyone, I am glad that i passed the probation rather smoothly and can claim some allowance in due time. But now, the supervisor of my past company claims he can help me find work in his company. So now, my mind seems to be rather keen on a move back to my old company if he can really help me find a department that i can work in. So how long more will i be training in IMH library? A week more or longer? That i think will depend on how things go in the next few days...

Back after a long break...

Hi everyone, I am back here blogging after a long break. I am now training in IMH library as a librarian assistant. So far, I have provisionally passed my probation. For how long am I going to undergo this training, I don't know. Maybe a month more, maybe half a year? Let's see what happens next...

BTW, Happy National Day, Singapore!