Gender gander

Now I've seen it all. This is a screen capture from the registration page of a government website. I guess it speaks for itself.

Why I want to strangle somebody - Part 2

Bring it on!!! I'm facing problems left and right now. I'm moving into a new house soon (hopefully). And when I purchased the house, I was supposed to get upgraded tiles. But during the construction, I noticed that the tiles that they fitted were the lower grade ones. Damn. When I asked the contractor, they realised they made a slip up and will rectify the problem for me. When I asked one of them, when this will take place, he sarcastically replied 'Are you gonna move in now?'

So I was thinking, 'Fine. don't want to piss these people off as they are building my house.' So now, after getting the keys to my house, they promised me they will get it done soon. But after weeks of follow up, they have now called me and told me they will not be upgrading my tiles, but instead will reimburse me a portion of the costs to upgrade the tiles. I'm like 'OVER MY DEAD BODY!!!'

I told the developer to go back to the main con-man/tractor and tell him what I feel. I'm not going to pay an extra cent to get this done. They have even given me the option to get my own contractor to do it and they will pay for it. I asked 'When will I get the money to pay my contractor? Before the tiles are laid or after? What kind of reassurance do I get that the main con will pay me? '

It's good that I have all these terms and conditions in black and white on my contract, still have some leverage on them.

p/s: Sorry there's so much angst in my last 2 posts.

Why I want to strangle somebody - Part 1

HR. Human resource. The thought of them really makes me wanna puke. All they do is give you lousy excuses of why they are late in getting things done and asking you to sit tight as they twirl their pens and type some words on their keyboard and say that they've tried their best. Until I'm proven other wise, I don't really see what good that this so called department, that's full of directors, can do to improve or secure the well being of employees.

When the over pay you, it takes just a blink of an eye for them to deduct it from your next pay check. BUT....if they need to reimburse you, it takes ages and ages. There's so much procedure to follow, so much red tape, SO many people to blame for the mistake. Even when it was highlighted to them that there would be an issue if they proceeded as per their initial plan. Do they listen? NO!

Either I'm just unlucky or they're just out to get me. :-) They can even mix up my I/C number with my bank account number. Imagine that! Banking in my pay to a bank account with my I/C number! You don't have to be a rocket scientist to realise that the sequence of bank account number are WAY different from the I/C numbers.

Then when you change roles and your pay isn't reflected correctly, they say it's due to the system not being able to accommodate changes in between cycles...blah blah blah. And when it reaches the cut off date, AND it's not reflected correctly again, oppss...somebody missed it out!! And because the back end somehow is managed by somebody else in a different country, it will take 2 weeks to get it all sorted out. After 2 weeks, what happens??? NOTHING CHANGES!!!! What a bunch of incompetent bungling idiots!

And they even have the cheek to tell you to sit tight and wait as there's a lot of backlog to clear as I am not the only person effected by all this. SO?! Should I take comfort that I am not the only person that is being subjected to all this? Or should I be extremely worried that this multimillion dollar company cant get their books straight? For the record, I've been waiting since January to get this sorted but....sigh...

What happens to the money that's supposed to be deducted as part of my pay to go into EPF? What happens to the compounded interest as a result of that? Of course, I wont be a millionaire because of this, but it's still my entitlement, right? And don't get me started on lost opportunity cost. The management always wants the employee to feel secure/happy/part of the family/well take care of (you take your pick). But when such things happen time and time again, you begin to wonder, 'Do they really mean it?'.

I'll get some sleep if it kills me

That's what Donald Duck said at one point. While searching for some cartoons for my kids, I came across this oldie that's as good today as it was many many years back when I was a kid.

I'm sure some or most of us have gone through it. You need to wake up early the next day, so you decide to sleep early. But, the clock's incessant ticking becomes deafening, the dripping faucets and crickets cause a cacophony. You toss and turn the whole night as the hours go by. You will yourself to sleep, but....sigh.

Anyway, they don't make cartoons like they used to. I find that the older cartoons have more character and more expressive facial expressions. I guess Donald has toned down from being the grumpy old duck he's famous for.

Earth Hour

Want to do your part to save the environment, check out Earth Hour. I'll be the first to admit that I didn't realise there's such a big movement to conserve energy.

Check out earth-hour.blogspot too.