Cycling is fun?

One of the old pastimes I used to have is cycling. It started off around year 2007 when I am posted to Tampines Fire Station for my national service duties. Then, I bought a bicycle which cost me $230 from a not so familiar ex poly friend who also happens to be serving his duties but as a clerk there. I initially thought that bicycle will suffice enough for my leisure cycling around Tampines. But somehow, I ended up persuaded by him to upgrade my bicycle parts one by one until left the normal front fork part untouched. Hence, my bicycle now costs me around $1000. For the next 1 - 2 years then, me, him and a few of his friends cycled at night to areas like Pasir Ris Park, Changi Village, East Coast Park, Kallang Indoor Stadium or even once to Orchard Road. Sometimes we would cycle to multiple areas in one night. Other times, we chill out at east coast park mac or see aeroplanes at Changi beach. At numerous occasions, I suffered cuts and abrasions to my elbow, knee cap area but we still cycled until the day I ORD in June 2008.

Not long ago, I and a few of my other ex poly friends went to Pasir Ris Park to rent bicycles and ride up to Punggol Park. The view there is quite nice where you can see nice tall trees along the water way. We cycled around the area for a few hours before returning the bicycles back to Pasir Ris Park. Maybe one day I may decide to cycle there with my own bicycle. Who knows when I will do that, maybe I will when I am too bored. Right now, my bicycle is left untouched in my kitchen area. Only once in a year, I will pump air into the tyres of the wheels and clean it with a piece of wet cloth. Now if got friend wants to buy my bicycle for $500 or so, I may hesitate to sell it since I own this bicycle for quite some time. Oh well, afterall cycling can be fun isnt it?

Good thing to buy less IT gadgets in recent years?

In recent few years, I found myself buying less IT gadgets than before despite me having challenger membership. Hence I find that my current IT gadgets are ageing and becoming increasingly needed to be replaced in near future. Certainly, I think more people have come to realised that being dependent on gadgets is not that healthy although there is a need to use gadgets in our modern lives. Not long ago, my 2 year challenger membership ended. I apply for a refund on my membership fees and now I am currently waiting for a reply from challenger. Not sure how they will refund me though. If its vouchers, maybe I will spend it on a portable hard disk as my laptop is quite old and the contents might be lost if I don't save it into another place in near future. Better still if its cash but I doubt challenger will be that kind. In the meantime though, I am waiting for the release of iphone 5. After buying iphone 5, I shall look at various laptops and choose a better one to use for maybe next 3-5 years.

Meanwhile, I find that the WSO printing time kept on delaying from thursday to friday. It is not a good sign as it means that there will be quite a rush each week to file it into a folder each by end of the day. There are only 4 persons doing the WSO filing each week and if one takes half day leave, the other 3 will have to do more filing work. Thankfully, it is not often that there is a person less to do the filing. Sometimes, I hope to have 1 more helper around to do the bundling of the WSO parcels so that the amount of work can be distributed more evenly. But that can't be helped since my department does not seem keen to hire more temps to help out. This therefore results in more work being delayed.

Another Titanic sinks?

Well, a small incident happened at workplace just a few days ago. It just happened without anyone knowing. A long rectangular table fell to the ground to my right with lots of bulky WSO files on the right side of the table. It probably is a case of overloading as I had minimal contact against the table with a pair of long legs. Luckily, noone was hurt during this incident as the files that were sent tumbling down off a side of the table landed on the floor. I am not sure if anything else will happen because a staff took picture of the scene with files all over on the floor. At least now I know that the files cannot be placed too near to the edge of the table with the metal legs seemingly looking not that strong afterall.

The new technology still has not been introduced to check in the attendance of the WSOs. I have been waiting for it for almost a month since the news of the barcode technology filtered through from my colleague to me. When is the trial run going to start, no one knows... I just hope that when it is introduced, scanning it will be a breeze and will reduce the time needed to 'mark' the attendance of the WSOs.

Communicating with colleagues

Communicating with colleagues at workplace can be a challenge at times. If u miscommunicate with them, your relationship with your colleagues will not be good and you will be lonely during lunch breaks. Lucky for me, I communicate with my colleagues reasonably well. But I am not so sure about that for one temp staff who works in another department.

This temp staff acts weirdly as in the way he speaks to us during lunch breaks. He would often interrupt a conversation with out of the blue remarks or sometimes talks about something unexpectedly odd. I don't know whether he himself has realised about his odd comments or not. But he lately has not joined a group of us for lunch. Maybe he is reflecting on why his relationship with colleagues is not so good. I find myself lucky that I do not need to communicate with any unusual colleagues. Only thing that I missed a little is that I have not worked with another temp staff side by side since January as my department do not plan to hire another temp staff. Maybe when I join a new company next time, I may have to work with more colleagues. Hopefully, my relationship with new colleagues by then will be as good as now. =)

Contract extended

After a few days of thinking, I finally decided to extend my contract at SPH for another 6 months at least. The reason is simple. I like working at SPH. Although there are alot of things to do, but at least it is not brain damaging tasks. I think 6 months later, I probably would review my situation again or start to find a better job with a much better pay then. Cos in due time to come, I may find myself needing to support my ageing parents. So I think it is time to move on in due time and find better challenges. As of now, let me relax a little and work comfortably first before I move up a gear or two in time to come.

Well, I just ended a week of heavy duty WSOs to key in. This time round, its shocking to know that there are still a considerable amount of WSOs not in yet. Dunno whether the contractors will be paying a hefty fine for late returns or not. Anyway, its not within my control whether or not to fine them. I can only hope that those people in charge of bringing in WSOs will not be fined alot. Besides busy with WSOs, I have also been busy photocopying DNs for cold storage and cheers. Just completed photocopying cold storage DNs last week, so now still left with a hefty number of Cheers DNs to photocopy. I think it will take me at least 3 weeks to complete as I still need to key in WSOs for most of the time. Hopefully, the new technology will come in sooner rather than later so that it can free up more time for me to do more things.

New technology wont be implemented too soon

Latest news I received is that new technology will be implemented only end of march instead of mid feb. Upon hearing this news, I am a little bit disappointed to learn that it will be delayed. I dont know whats the reason behind this delay, but I am told by my colleague that there is this trend that whenever there is something new, it will always not be introduced so soon. Oh well, I hope I will still be around by end march to experience this new change then.

Apparently, my contract at SPH ends before mid march. I am told recently that I can't be converted to perm due to the limit in perm headcount in circulation department. If you ask me whether I will renew my contract, I actually half want to and half unwilling to commit to another term of new contract. But at the end of the day, my supervisor says it depends on whether the big boss would still want to recruit my services or not. If I am given the nod to continue another term, I might continue as I like the workplace. But I might also not continue as I heard from others that for the same amount of work elsewhere, I will be paid a higher monthly salary. So sooner or later, I will leave this company as I know there is not much prospects in staying for too long. So at most I will be staying for another 6 months since the prospects for my future in this company is not that high afterall. I will update my blog again maybe next week as to whether I will be starting another new contract soon or there is other new developments. Stay tuned... ...

Barcode technology to be used in scanning WSOs

I heard from my colleague that trials of using the barcode scanning technology is starting in 2 weeks time from now. Actually I wish it can start next week when I have double the workload of WSOs to key in. But my colleague claims that its best to start when its not too busy a week so that I will not fumble too much and hinders the process of getting used to the technology. Oh well, i hope everything will be alright when I start using the technology. Hopefully, it can speed up the process of updating the database that WSO sheets has been received. I think I can cope with it as technology stuffs does not unnerve me much. Till then, I will blog about it on how it goes.

As of feb 4, the cupboards have now been shifted outside the small room and my side have been allocated 4 tables for our own use. Now that the room that is enclosed with false walls is empty, I really wonders what the room will be used for next. If it is used to store goods, I won't be surprised since the other places to store goods like freebies or promotional items looks quite full. I just hope that our cupboards will not be moved again as it will hinder the consoling DNs process. The year of dragon has been good for me so far, hopefully it continues to be like this for the rest of the year. Hmmm... Whats next?