Busy in the meantime, Less busy in the future?

2 weeks ago on a thursday, I filed 10 parcels worth of WSO files and bundled 16 of them using the strapping machine. Oh man, that was the busiest day so far for me in recent times. Then this week, because of a contractor late bringing in of his parcel 19/20 WSOs, I basically spent my friday time splitting WSOs into 2 sheets each because of the once a month split week orders and keying date as well as batch no. into 2 spreadsheets. So next week until end of the month, I should be less busy as my workload won't be that much as this week as I spent 3 hours extra this week alone keying details into the spreadsheets.

So besides waiting patiently for the new release of iphone5 this coming Sept/Oct, I also got to see if i can clinch a job in the same department or else I got to start finding a job elsewhere. I am sure some of you may ask me what sort of job am I looking for? Actually, I just need a simple admin job but it can also be a logistics type as I work for one company before in my poly internship time. Some of you may even ask why not I go for further studies? I thought of that before but there is not a course that seems appealing to me so finding a stable job is what I feel better for me at the moment.

What will happen to your old IT gadgets???

Every month, there is always new IT gadgets for consumers like us to purchase. It can range from handphones to printers to laptops. Now how many old IT gadgets we have will depend on how frequent we buy new IT gadgets to replace them. The term 'old IT gadgets' to some may mean 1 year old gadgets, but to many may be referred as 2 years and beyond gadgets. I always wonder what should we do with such old IT gadgets if its spoilt and cannot be resold. Is it possible to sell to karang Guni? Where to 'recycle' them if nobody wants? Some IT gadgets which are 3 years old may not fetch a decent amount of cash, so if its still usable, will you use it until its spoilt then purchase a replacement gadget? Hope some of you people can give me some valuable comments.

Yesterday, I met up with an ex-poly classmate. Both of us laments how time passes so fast. While she is likely to change a new job soon, I am still finding a stable job. Till today, I am still puzzled as to how fast two ex-poly classmates can be engaged out of a sudden. Anyway besides those topics, we had a decent dinner at mos burger and chatted about some other issues as well. After that, we walked into some shops in Tampines One and soon its home sweet home. What a great feeling to be able to spend some time with ex classmate of mine. Don't some of you have this feeling before too?

Is it worth the wait to wait for Iphone 5?

Not long ago, Samsung Galaxy S3 was out in stores. I thought it look nice and its features are pretty good. But so far, the reason I not buying is because none of my friends seem to own it. Till now, I still think about whether to buy this samsung phone or wait until October for Iphone5. From what I heard from news so far, there are some changes in the new design of Iphone 5. To me, I feel it does not make much difference as I am not that type of hardcore apple fans who may spend alot on it and its accessories. If I am to buy samsung phone soon, it maybe because of its 8 megapixel camera and the ability to capture 8 quick consecutive shots. As of now, I stay put with my Iphone 3GS and thinking whether to own a Samsung Galaxy S3 phone will be better than the upcoming Iphone 5 or not.

For the upcoming week, it maybe my busiest week since entering SPH. It is because I will be receiving alot of WSO sheets and will be giving them a number each in the excel spreadsheet. Looks like I will be working OT again but I am used to working OT about twice to 4 times a month. Hopefully nothing unusual happens and I can finish keying the WSOs entry by thursday so that I can do other things on friday.

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. =)