Help! I'm clueless...

"Zai, I need you to back me up in the next two weeks," said CL.

"Me? Backing you up? You trust me managing your budget?," I said

He laughed but he has no choice. So he piled up my in-box with all his tracking files.

"Do you have access to this module?" asked CL.

"Hmmm guess so but I forgot my password. SJ what's my password ah?" as I turned and look at SJ.

"It's arzaiXXX," said SJ

So I had 30 minutes briefing and handover to do SAP and budget for the next two weeks. I said to myself, this going to be disaster. It is as good as me going in doing operation on someone. I have no idea about finance at all.

I hate finance. I suffered for 3 months last year when they asked me to manage the division budget while waiting for CL to join. The day he stepped in and said hello, I dumped the whole thing on him and never bother to look at it again until today. I was hoping Madam CIO will not asked any financial related information from me in the next two weeks, otherwise, I will die standing.

And today I also received an email from my "Surrogate Boss" on what sort of training I need.

"Wow!", I whispered to CL. "Look after one year now only they asked us?"

So I replied him back and said (1) I need training on Service Level Management - Advanced training on how to improved and managed SLA. (2) Please send me to conference on SLM. (3) Send me to site visits to other Telcos (outside Malaysia). (4) Send me to contract management training and seminar.

He further sent me email, please elaborate how this can be achieved. I replied, (1) send me to oversea training or conference where I can meet other people from this industries and (2) sign me up for Diploma in Law classes. I'm just trying my luck here. Who knows that they will send me to oversea to attend all these conferences.

You see, I'm alway an IT person. Give me anything technical, I will ace it. Give me contract, I will stare it and give me finance, hmm...I will screw it bad, beyond help.

Around the World-Gold Coast Australia

It's supposed to be a fun and relaxing trip but it didn't happened that way. Here are the 10 reasons why I didn't enjoyed my vacation in Australia.


1. When you travel with 3 boys under the age of 12, and the youngest was 13 months old, it meant that I will be busy taking care of them instead of enjoying my vacation.


2. Three days before we fly off, I found out that I was eight weeks pregnant. I was lucky that I do not have morning sickness but I was tired the whole time in Gold Coast.




3. We accidentally left Zaki shoes in the car and he travelled all the way to Gold Coast wearing socks only.

• 4. We have very early morning flight and need to be at the airport by 6am, and getting these boys to be up at 4am was very challenging.

5. Zaki threw his pacifier during the flight to Gold Coast and he was cranky throughout the flight. With no extra pacifier to soothe him, you can just imagine how I felt.

6. We were the last group to disembark from the plane as we were busy searching for Zaki's pacifier.

7. We reached Brisbane at 8pm and the weather was cold as it was winter in Australia. Tired, hungry and with small kids, we were taken to a Chinese restaurant for dinner. Since I'm very particular about food, I only ate very little.


8. Our camera battery ran-out when we at Universal Studio and I have to use my P901i phone camera to snap the photo.

9. Can't enjoy all the rides because of my condition.


10. Didn't get to shop as much as I like.


When we reached home, I told my husband that until our kids are big enough and independent, there will be no travelling overseas. If we want to travel overseas, it will be only the two of us or me alone. You know what was his responsed? Urgh and I assume that he agreed with my suggestion. So I'm planning my next vacation without him and kids. Do you think I will make it? Let's see.

Nasib baik boleh control!!!

Today I want to rant in Malay coz I haven't write in Malay for so long. Pagi tadi mood aku baik. Dengar lagu best kat 105.7 yang mana lagu lagu favorite aku main pagi tadi. Seperti biasa pagi-pagi lagi aku akan access Facebook and Twitter sambil membaca email. Multitasking. Sambil access FB, tweet ,download lagu dengar lagu mood aku okay dan semuanya berjalan lancar. Kerja tak juga aku buat lagi sebab seperti biasa otak aku kurang function waktu pagi.

Lunch aku keluar ngan Yati pergi makan kat Zen. Kali ini kami makan Fish and Chip and ntah macam mana aku minum teh kali ini. Selalunya aku minum kopi. Lepas makan, seperti biasalah mengantuk dan tempat duduk aku ni menjadi port orang berborak tapi aku tak da mood nak masuk campur. Aku pun surf internet nak cari information pasal buku Power Play by Nancy Warren tapi network guys kat sini block the website. Bengong ke dia orang ni aku tak taulah coz website macam tu boleh di block. So mood aku masa tu biasa ajelah sampailah aku masuk meeting dengan Ini Barang Mahal.

Issue yang dah di escalate ke atas dan aku dah dapatkan apa yang dia nak tapi dia orang tak buat apa. Sapa tak geram.

"Oh! I'm still waiting for them to give me the names", katanya.

Aku sergah dia. "I have given this to you three weeks ago and you have not done anything on it? Why are you sitting on it? Haven't your escalate to your boss if no cooperation given by others"?

Dia jawab, "Yes I did escalated and asked help from my boss but I still did not get all the 20 names"

Dengan geram aku tanya lagi, "What about those 7 seats at level 14. You guys asked for it and we have given to you 3 months ago and until today you claimed you have not enough seat to assign to your team? This is your issue and you need to manage it. I will escalate this to my management" Pucat muka dia.

Kesian aku tengok budak tu. She almost cry tapi aku geram sebab tak ada progress. Dah lama aku tak mengamuk dalam meeting. Nasib baik boss dia tak masuk meeting sekali. Kalau tak memang aku lanyak sekali. Jangan main-main ngan Zai! Nasib baik aku marah sekejap. Setengah jam kemudian marah aku reda. Budak yang nak update aku pasal status on proposal tu pun nampak takut aje. Yalah dah lama tak update aku. Nasib baik aku dah cool kalau tak dia pun kena sembur. Hah!

Okaylah! Enough about my outburst in the meeting today. It made me feel sorry for the girl. Oh I also have good news. Tomorrow HR is arranging for HINI vaccination and it is free. Isn't it a good news eventhough I gonna get prick by a needle tomorrow? But on the brighter side the pain will be short term but I will get protected from the HINI Virus. Yeah!

Facebook and Twitter Equals to Cyber Friends

Facebook, Myspace and Twitter have created big impact to so many people at so many levels. Some people use it for business, some use it to promote their products, some use it for social networking and some use it to stalk others. I never been a fan of Myspace but I have no problem accepting Facebook and Twitter. Not sure why I'm not interested in Myspace even though my sister has been telling me the good thing about it (that is before she converted to Facebook). For me, Facebook and Twitter are the tools that I use to reconnect with my old friends and also to follow others that I admire.

I used Facebook mainly to get connected with my friends and to follow some of my favorite authors such as Susan Elizabeth Phillips, Eloisa James, and few others. Facebook also allows me to create a photo album that I can share with my family and friends. Not only I have local friends in Facebooks, I also have international friends from India,Turky, UK, Australia and US. Where do I get these international friends? Some are my friends that I know personally but some are Farmville and CafeWorld friends. I don't know them but they request to be added just because they wanted to be my FV or CW neighbours. I told my office mate that my facebook homepage is updated 24x7 where daytimes mostly will be updated by my local friends, evening will be by those from Europe and nightime will be from US.

Since my homepage will be full of updates from Farmville and Cafeworld, I normally use my iPhone to filter updates. This is very handy tools and sometimes when I woke in the middle of the night and cannot go back to sleep, I just reached my iphone and launch the FB apps and starts reading the updates. Mostly the night updates will be from those authors that I follow.

If Facebook is where I get connected with my friends, I use twitter mainly to follow writers. I like to follow them cause they are witty, informative and they are willing to share information on their profession and their life as an authors. It is also fun to follow their tweets and I found out that sometimes it really help me to get through the dull and mundane job that I have here. Since most of these people live in US, most of their tweeting will be happening at night. However I can still follow their tweets in the morning before they say goodnite.

Since most of my local friends have not embrace the world of twitter yet, therefore I'm pretty safe if I want to rant about them especially about my bosses. I can't do that on Facebook because they are listed as my friends and if I rant against them, they will know. The one person that I can confirm which is not listed as my friend on Facebook or following me on Twitter is my dear hubby. So he never knows what I update on Facebook or Twitter.

First family gathering of the year

We had a family gathering last Saturday night and it was held at my parents’ house in Seremban. It was a gathering of 4 generations with the youngest in the family is my grand-niece, a 4-months old Elisandra or known as Sandra. Everybody was there except my youngest sister and her husband who were away in Penang, my nephew and my niece who has prior engagement, both my sisters-in-law where one was in New Zealand on vacation and the other one has family commitment.

My sister, my niece and my grandniece

Our last family gathering was in August last year for our fathes 79-years old birthday. It was held at my sister place in Pantai Hill Park during the fasting month. After the breaking of fast and Maghrib prayer, we had a special prayer for our father. The prayer was lead by my father-in-law and the followed by cake cutting. We presented him with a digital frame and loaded all our pictures in there. He was very happy because everybody was around to celebrate his birthday.

For last Saturday gathering, it started with Maghrib prayer, which was lead by my brother-in-law and followed by special prayer for our family. It was a proud night for me too when my eldest son was asked to Qamat, which he never done before, and he aced it.

We had Nasi Briyani with Chicken Kurma, Rendang Daging and Acar mentah, but for me, I just like the plain rice, Cendawan masak lemak cili api (Mushroom cooked with cocunut milk and chilli), ikan masin(salted fish)and acar mentah. It was heaven but I didn't eat a lot as I have to control my diet. For the dessert, we have tapai ubi (fermented tapioca) and watermelon as dessert.

Since this is the first family gathering for the year, I anticipate that there will be more gathering and the next one will be at my new house in Villa Seroja, Bangi.

Lunch - Where are we going?

It always a problem when it comes to lunch for me and my lunch partners, Bee Poh and Yati. When the three of us are together, sushi is out as I don't like sushi and Subway and Swiss Oven are out as Bee Poh doesn't like sandwiches. So what are the options or our regular hangout at Sooka Sentral?

Our favourite hangout is at Chilli Expresso. This place is a favourite hangout for the local and expatriates. The place is always pack and if we want to eat there we have to leave a little bit early before 12.30pm. Chilli Expresso serves Western and Asian foods and they have Durian Cake for dessert which is very good. Normally I will have Nasi Ulam with fried chicken or Mee Mamak or Mee Hoon if I'm really hungry. If not, I will have Pizza or Chicken or Beef Pie or Mango Jacima Salad. My favourite drink is Ice Cappuccino.

Second favourite hangout is at Zen. Normally when we are at Zen, we will have soup, salads or fish and chips. Their food is average but they have varieties of cakes for desserts. Coffee at Zen is not as good as at Chilli Expresso but their limau kasturi drink is good.

If these two restaurants are full, the next options is Kelantan Delight where it servers an authentic Kelantanese food. We normally eat Nasi Kerabu, Nasi Dagang or Nasi kukus when we are there. Their teh tarik and kop tarik are serves slightly different than other places and we normally will end of lunch with either a glass of teh tarik or kopi tarik.

If we wanted to have Indian food for lunch, there is Kabul restaurant next to Kelantan's Delight. Normally we will have Chicken Tandoori with Garlic Nan and a glass of Teh Masala. Killiney's Kopitiam is another place that we will go if we wanted Malaysian food. It serves Chicken Curry, Mee Siam, Mee Ladna and Curry Mee. Normally I will order Chicken Curry with Teh Cham. Since it serves Malaysian food, you will find that the place is always pack and if we want to go to Killiney, we have to leave office at 12pm sharp or after 1.30pm. I guess it is popular not only they serves Malaysian food but also because the food is much cheaper compare to the other restaurants.

However, if Yati or Bee Poh are not around, I will normally packed my lunch from the food court and my favourite food from the food court is Nasi Kukus. The rice is pack with three different kind of curry, chicken curry, fish curry and pecheri nenas pineapple curry) and I have the option of having fried chicken or dried cuttlefish sambal together with the rice. This will only cost me RM6.00 and it is the cheapest among the other places.

So how much do you think it cost us to have lunch at this places? On average, it is around RM 20.00 and in a week it will cost me RM100.00 and you know how much for a month. Hmmm I should start pack lunch from home. At least I can control my diet. What do you think?

Time to change....

Happy Labour Day! Since it falls on Saturday, it doesn't make any different to me. I didn't get any extra day off if compare to my friends in the blue team. Well, they are still half green and half blue and I guess it will takes years to totally remove their green DNA.

Well, it's already one year one month since we completed the outsourcing. It was one hell of a project. I was asked to be PM for the project when the previous PM left. WoW! Instead of having one month of handover, I only have two days of handover for such a big project. Initially, I was under a lot of stress as there were so many things I need to know and responded to. I work late hours just to catch up on the projects, sacrifies my time with family and friends, forego my Raya holidays, but at the end, I made it. I can proudly say that I beat the odd. Nobody believes that I can pull it through. This was acknowledged by my counterpart from the blue team.

By completion of the outsourcing project, it means ISD lost most of the people. I feel sorry for my friends, especially my best friend,TBP, and my ex-staff because it means the end of their career with the green team and the beginning of their career with the blue team. From 170 people in the division, 37 were selected to stay behind. The rest were given an option to join the blue team or transferred to other division.

It also meant a new role for me. From Operation to Contract Management. From action lady to supporting lady and this is killing me. I don't really enjoy doing my new role. I just told my "Surrogate Boss" that the new role is "very very exciting" and I will give one more year before I made my move. He was shocked. I told him to get my boss in otherwise I will say goodbye. Just to give him pressure so that the management will expedite the search for "The ONE". While they search for the candidate, I'll better start updating my resume. Anybody looking for IT Consultant with Vendor and Outsourcing Management experience? I'm available with the right incentive.