Moving moving...

So finally its confirmed that we are moving. The new place is under renovation right now. Went for a briefing the other day and well, rules rules rules. There are like thousand and one rules in the new work place. But well, as we all know, most s'poreans are super civic minded. Thus, these rules are already part and parcel of us. Nothing much to be astonished about. But of course the foreigners were a little taken back.

The new level will be hosting almost 400 of us. With glass door discussion rooms which can hold up to about 7 to 8 ppl at a go, huge meeting rooms, breakout area -with 2 microwave ovens, fridge, water tap for both hot and cold water (means there is no need to boil water already.), dinning area, high table (al, want to come over my side? there's high table for u to stand and work..hee hee) and a open area for smoking. Hmm...seems like a lot of IT ppl here smokes.

Bad part is that my dept is going to be at the real far end. Ther last part of the area. Meaning, every morning i'll have to walk about 100 metres to my destination. Hopefully the aircon is gonna be strong else i'll be melting. Walk walk walk, finally to the desk. Semi transparent partition? U can see ur neighbour but u can't see wat he is doing. Here comes the part which i'm curious to find out. That's under the table. From what i can imagine from the briefing session, under table seems to be miraculously big. The CPU is not gonna be placed on the floor. It will be placed under the table behind the build in cabinets. In a position hidden by the naked eye yet the power on button is visible to the eye. Thats like..Hmmm..well, no files to be on the table. All files must be hidden under the table. There is another cabinet on the other side of the table to neatly keep out barangs. If there isn't sufficient space, there are the cabinets for every individuals to use.

Finally, why so many cabinets? Well, cos according to the person, we IT ppl tends to be very messy. Wires all over the place, papers all over. Already over here, we dun even shred our own confidential papers. We just dump into the store and the employ 3rd parties to shred. So new place, new rules - basically to keep the neat look in the place. Lets hope my bee hive will have 2 other ppl whom i'm familar with. Well, the positioning are in cluster of 3s.

Starting the county down ..

Once again the cycle repeates itself...Counting down to the weekend again. Long count down =( ha ha..cos today its monday.

My weekend. All things went well. Facial on sat, proceed to comcentre to convert my res line and HP line to my name to get staff rates. Proceed on to paragon M1 to claim reward points. Of course made it to R&R at starbucks parkway. Really nice to get a book from the lib and just nuah at starbucks. The day went well except for the stupid weather. Can't stand this weather.

Terrible me right? Never seem to be happy with anything in this little sunny country. Dun think i can qualify for some patriotic citizen. Ha ha..so now i'm going to get back to work. Thinking of handing part of my things to my colleague..Since the manager asked him to help me out =) hee hee..

Reason to be happy!

Happy? Of course =) cos its soon the long awaited weekend. Looking forward to this coming saturday. Lots of activities planned. Hopefully nothing will cock up and mess up the plans.

Had early lunch today coz some of them have meeting at 1 pm with Aussie side. Didn't have much appetite and still feeling bloated. KL is not in today and i'm stuck with ranges of numbers. Guess i've got to leave that aside and proceed on with others first and settle it on monday.

Lots of upcoming things to settle. Crossing my fingers, hoping that i get China Moo Moo. Anyway, i can only take out 50% of the profit if i make any. Sigh. That's the conditioned laid down by my parents. Dad so called left the finiding out of insurance/investment policy for me to settle myself. So right now, trying hard to learn the hard way. There goes all my spoon feeding. Well, of course..dad will still be there to make the final decision after all my analysis.

Poor me. Thousand and one things to learn these day. Learning all sort of ways to make money..and yes, i've given up on learning any computer techy stuffs at the moment cos they dun really give me profit plus i dun like them. Sunday lesson by my dad on financial things really gives me a headache. I've yet to revise any of my technical analysis. Though sometimes my dad will call me to his comp and asked me wat i think about this share. So i see the charts..tell him my analysis to it. Techincal analysis. Interesting topic. But yet, hard to master. Think i'm going to find sponsor (Dad) to send me for some technical analysis courses organise up by SGX. This is 100% more interesting then learning any of the computer framework. Tuition agency sms me for tuition assignment. But i rejected them cos the student is a guy. The tuition guy commented that i should look out for rates rather then the gender. And i commented that if the guy is willing to pay 35 per hour, i'll take.. ha ha..

I intend to take up one more tuition assignment. If only this job had provided me with just a slightly better pay. Sigh..guess i'll have to wait for another year or so before i hit the target my dad set for me before he buys a car for me =( Cos i've got to pay for petrol and carpark at the min. Already targetted on the car. Ha ha..but just today, i've spotted another nice car. Maybe its all fated. Cos when i was in JC, i told my dad, i want to own a Honda Civic by the age of 23 (past the age already). Then recently, i change my choice of car, cos Honda Civic got rather ugly. But today, i've spotted the latest Honda Civic. Nice nice..i like it =) price mah..dun think my dad will like it though..ha ha.

Did the news just say fresh grads from last year got a started pay of 2.5 K?! Freaking idiotic that i have to grad one batch earlier right? Sigh! Did anyone saw the report? abuot the non local local NTU guy getting a starting pay of almost 10k?! Tell me 10 good reason why should local students like us support local university? Are we protected in any sense like the Americans? The ans is outright. For all i know, they sucks big time!

Mixing around.

Seems like i'm still harbouring the same character since i was a kid. I've never been the center of attraction among my frens, i've never really have good frens in school and i dun really mix around. I just feel uncomfortable with ppl whom i dun knoe.

Today, there's farewell lunch again. Lets see, this is the 5th farewwell lunch since i came on 9 jan. Anyway, we went to the pizza place behind. Feels alittle like spizza, but it doesn't taste as nice. Felt weird with the company. Its the kind of feeling i felt when i was a kid, a teenager. Everyone chatting and there i am, sitting quietly. Just feel so inferior with them. They discuss things which i'm aliened about because i'm rather new here. Just feel so left out. I feel so much more comfortable if i dun go lunch with the enitre dept but just with my lunch mates.

Anyway, i just dun like the culture here at all. Things are so different. I never attend much of their functions or outings and i intend to keep that way. Just finish my allocated work and go off. I dun want to get involved with politics in here. I am actually thinking of resigning and take a break. I guess i didn't have a good break the last time when i left my old company. And at the same time, think of what i really want to do. Sigh. Feel so demoralised now. Just dun feel like doing anything.

Terrible terrible mood

The same everyday ...

How time flies, but i dun see any much improvement in my life. Everything feels so so stagnant. Is it because this in SG? there isn't much to do? or issit because i'm just like another s'porean? Not sure though. But i'm pretty sure that i'm one of the lucky sporeans who is right now sitting in the office early in the morning.

Well, sometimes i wonder why do we work so hard? For a better future? For a better life? Life sucks in fact to work and work. Sigh. Just want to spend more time with little boy =). Everyweekend seems to past way to fast to even knowledge each other's company. Before u even know it, its working monday again. Monday to Friday, work and work. No time for any other things. By the time i reach home, dead tired. Sigh, wat a life i have.

Maybe its time to consider a change in my daily routine. Start planning for my next year to wat i want to do. Maybe find another job which is less mandane to all my previous job. Maybe i should try out marketing. See, its marketing and not sales. I always wanted to try out marketing but dun really have the opportunity to do so. Maybe its time to change lines. =)

On a Bias Point of View.

Learnt something interesting this morning when i asked why issit that at each step of the project cycle, the person doing each step is different. I asked won't it be more efficient if the person being part of that module functional build the module, do the test scripts? I found the answer given to be very interesting. The word "Bias" was the answer.

I found it weird that unit test scripts are not written by the programmers themselve. They are written by our fellow team mates. The system test scripts are not written by the programmer or the person writing unit test script. I didn;t kind of understand cos i thought the person most familar would be the best person to write it all. But i was told that the ans was no. This person will have a bias pt of view because the end product was done by him/her.

As i did my system test and the system test scripts perviously for different releases, all i had was the functional. I was told to write test script based on functional rrequirements at the level of the user. I need not care how the programmer codes or how the build design is. I just put down the steps and my expected end product. After finishing the test scripts, i will submit to the head who will just vet through. All this is done concurrently while the developers are building. When all is done, the developers will run through the unit test scripts prepared by another individual and to make sure all is right before swinging into the system test phase. System test is then again handled by another individual. There is no one bias pt of view and usually and i find it very effective when i come to think about it..things which one party missed out, another party would have taken it into consideration.

Basically, i feel that this can only be done if the functional is firm and updated. Over here, functional is the one we use to cover our asses when we go to war. So as long as we stand by the functional, we are fine. Everyhthing done must have a proof and the best way is to capture screen shots. All bugs submitted are to be attached with screen captures and the relevant data used. Thats the tradition and culture here.

Nice learning ways to be effective and efficient.

Everyday is a learning day.

All the grumbles of this new job initially. Ha, but i'm really happy that all of that are well paid off. Thanks little boy all the while for all the encouragement. Soon into my third month. I'm already learning more then my previous job. Really lucky i well say. I'm not too certain the things i'm learning is more worth while or continue doing coding will be more worth it. But at least i'm happy to be learning new things.

Someone wants mentioned this to me, "Business is the Key Drive to IT. Without business, there won't be IT." Though, i might not have understand this fully till now, but this sentence do make more sense to me after yesterday's IA (impact analysis) meeting. Yes, i am now the key holder of Biz As Usual change. I will be the only in here doing biz as usual as my part time job cos they "sold" me as a whole person dedicated to this task.

I went through the entire set of changes required. Basically all the change requried are biz driven. Biz in the form of income, revenue. So i was thinking. If there's isn't any biz drive from the marketing side, then there won't be the position created. If there wasn't the biz drive for systems to cut cost and improve revenue, there won't be positions for IT ppl. Then we are out of biz. Thus, i kind of believe that line once mentioned to me is very true. IT, the line of all evil deeds to the data entry clerks, to the customer service, cos they will be out of job as a result of the IT expertise.

I read in the papers sometime back that everyone should note down wat they have learned so as to not forget in time to come. Should be noted down to the extend of the steps taken. Yes, i'm considering setting up a log book to note down all the things which i've learnt. Esp the key points. So why not use a PC to note down? Cos i'm still a very paper person. I still love drawing in organisers with all the different coloured pens, to read from hard copies. =)

I was injected the devil potion during the IA meeting. They taught me on a smaller skill on how to analysis effort and to come out with the time line. They taught me the buffer and the push the job away. Though they buy me for a month, but my official time which i should be spending on this job should only be ard 9 days to the max. There is no room for negotiation. When going for a battle, we must win. Find the weakness in the documents and fight it out. Never accept more then what i can handle. Once all docs are signed, no more changes can be made. Basically there won't be any code change for those which i'm supposed to handle. They are just DB changes. But the fact is that there are tonnes of changes and updates to the DB in just a month cos of biz drive.

Visualise a little, i need roughly 2 days to understand the entire structure to this part of the DB. The doc is like 50 page long to learn how to manipulate the data in the tables etc etc. Goodness! no wonder every new person has to go through this state. I'm looking forward for the months to come to actually do a CR all the way down. CR scope are much much bigger. Time required is about 3 months in all before it drops into the SIT stage.

Well, happy happy, mood improved alot. =)