Career Changing

Iris is 10 months now. Not because she is 10 months, only I can find the time to write. It is because I changed my job.

Changing job is never easy. What more changing your career altogether. It was the toughest decision ever. Even choosing the man to get married to, wasn’t as difficult.

I started my career in audit 7 years ago in one of the Big4. I enjoyed my time there, I complained a lot though, but I loved it. I was so workaholic, that going home past midnight was just a routine for me. When I got married, I knew I had to leave audit to find back my life.

I left audit and joined the corporate world after 5 years in one of the largest insurance company in Malaysia. I must admit I had a great prospect, good position, challenging tasks, attending external conferences, meeting big shots from big corporations, meeting regulators and governance body, I enjoyed every single bit of my work.

But what I didn’t like, was the inflexibility. There were no understanding and flexibility for young working moms like myself. Going home at 6.30pm is considered very early. Certain fixed period of time, you cannot plan for leave, and definitely cannot afford to fall sick. And every time you will be praying hard that your children don’t get sick during those period otherwise, you’ll be going to work unfocused, you can’t take leave to care for your child and forced to come to work, so all you see in the numbers are practically meaningless boxes or lines or filling up the excel sheets.

Those times are the accounts closing period. And it’s fixed period. Like every month, you are froze every first week of every month, every quarter will be the first two weeks of the next month from the quarter, and every year end closing, you are practically froze for the whole of January EVERY YEAR (regardless of weekends and public holidays).

After I had Iris in my life, I realised that I could not go on with this. When I tendered, I got to know that I was in the Bumiputra talent management list, they were going to groom me, and going to give me big position in 5 years time. Yea I had my beauty prospect there, but that means nothing if I have to sacrifice my time with my child(en).

I want to be able to take EL when my child is sick. I want to be able to go home at 6.30pm happily, no need to creep to the door hoping that my boss didn’t see me. I want to be able to enjoy my weekends and public holidays. I want to be able to utilise my annual leave by just staying at home, don’t have to have reasons like to fix my car or to go to the bank or to go for checkups just to take one day off. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I love challenging work. I don't mind having piles of things to do. But I want flexibility. I guess the working environment just didn't suit me well.

And now syukur Alhamdulillah, rezeki Iris, I found the right place for me to be in, with better pay and better flexibility. I don’t know about my career path though. Because I have left accounting completely. Not that I am confident that I will be a CFO one day, but at least the path that I had was leading towards there. Now, I don't have that option anymore. Sadly, I bid goodbye to the life I had dedicated to for the last 7 years.

 

I am now in one of the government’s financial institution governing body and I am doing Risk Assessment and Monitoring. Interesting right. InsyaAllah. May Allah give me the patience in learning and developing my love for the new job as much as how I loved doing accounting. Ameen.

I Wanna Die

A song by dubbed by I-dunnowho, but I am pretty sure that he is an auditor. Dedicated to all auditors.

They warn you about going through peak,

When you step into audit,

Everyday do casting, vouching,

And also cross-referencing,

You must know your debit credit,

If not you can't tie your balance sheet,

You whole day press your calculator,

Now can count faster than the cashier,

I wanna Si (die in hokkien)
After pluck leadsheet,
Still must do timesheet,
More work for me..

Why can't everything be I/C (inconsequential),
Suggest to leave, go home and watch TV,
Office so messy,
Can't find my TEH-C
I wanna Si..

When people are going through peak,
No time to work out and keep fit,
When parents ask us go home to eat,
We can't, we eating with colleagues,

On some days when we are lucky,
We can go home early 6.30
Do you know what's AUDITOR meaning?
All You Do Is Think Is Think Of Resigning

I wanna Si
I want throw letter, straight at the partner,
Take it from me!!
We work late hours everyday,
But we get so damn little pay,
We can claim taxi,
But can't claim OT,
I want MC!!!

Working through weekends

Listen to the song.

Peak period

Agak-agak bila accounts tak tie, balance sheet tak balanced, figures you are looking at does not make sense, makan ni:

Di perkaya dengan DHA. Serious terasa pandai lepas makan. :p

I am 27, and I still enjoy eating Rusks!

DHA - for developement of brain and eye, improve cholesterol, lower the risk of Alzheimer and Dementia

Balancing life at work

In the effort to be a good employer, my firm has put this in the staff handbook where every month probably, I don’t know.. that they are gonna have this BrInG-YoUr-kIdS-tO-WoRK day!

Sounds fun eh. Work-life balance, no?


You get to bring your kids age 3 to 12 to office to introduce your work to them. What mummy does, what papa does, what is auditor all about, really. Introduce your kids to colleagues. It’s a half day event. Food are provided. And you get to leave with your kids after the event is over. Kewl.

But do you think these kids at this age really understand what you do? Or do they even bother to know? Unless you want to nurture your kids to have the same interest as yours.

Otherwise, please, I wouldn’t want to bring my kids to my office. It is so miserable. My idea of work-life balance is more like:

1. Work 4 days a week.
2. Membership to Phillip Wain gym
3. Eye allowance since 100% of the job requires the use of computer
4. Once a month healthy outing with colleagues (at the expense of the office)
5. Strictly 8 working hours daily (more than 8 hours will affect KPI)

Wouldn’t it be good than bringing your kids to work? Blerggh.

Anyway..good try :) at least they are trying to be good employer.

10 things about my job

10 things why I think my firm is making lotsa money
10 things I hate about my job

1. Work like there is no tomorrow, Saturdays anjd Sundays are just like any other day..


2. MC means work from home

3. Charge my hours to client like I’m bloody professional, but pay me like I’m a hard labor..meetings always after office hour so the full office hour can be charged to client FULLY..no incurring office expenses

4. Salary and benefits like senior associate but work burden like an assistant manager, so they come out with a new title ‘Supervisor’

5. Bonus only two month paying 60% in December and another 40% the next year

6. Pay for Company’s Annual trip, the higher your position is, the higher you have to pay

7. Difficult to get over-time although you work over the nights, because it is difficult to justify

8. No medical benefit

9. No allowance for eye checking although you practically can’t do the work without laptop

10. Annual dinner is not consistent, if they have extras after partners take their shares, then they’ll do the dinner, if not much extra, they’ll just do the sort of thing they call “Group Gathering”


You got anything worst than this, pls let me know... it definitely make me feel a lot better..

Bila nak cepat

Bad luck always hit me whenever I am in hurry,
When I have got something important to catch,
When I am rushing for submissions,
When I am due for anything.....

I was preparing for my presentation report for a meeting with the top management of my client. Chronology of what happened during my journey for the finalisation of the report:

Two days before the meeting, I had migrain. A really bad one. So I left my client's place quite early and I just immediately slept when I reached home. So I have practically wasted the whole day because I was really sick and still forcing myself.

After sleeping, I woke up to continue working. It was 10pm at night. I was surfing the net to get some information, suddenly got popups saying that I need to install antispyware because my machine has been infected by virus. I ignored, but it kept coming up, then i clicked NO. But it kept popping up. Then, my whole Internet Explorer got shut down. And I couldn't open it, The popups kept popping up.

I had to shut down the whole laptop. Scared if my whole laptop got infected by virus trojan. So my time was wasted again.

The next day went and repaired my laptop, it took me half a day.

Stayed back in office until 5 am in the morning to be ready for the next day meeting.

I tried to sleep even for two hours. My alarm did not ring, Or probably I stopped the alarm instead of snoozing it. I was already late. Then I forced myself to wake up, I heard cars honking outside. Like it never jammed before. Jam giler!!!! Oh shit, and I only had an hour.

Nothing is worse than waking up late on a morning where you are suppose to have early meeting, and these happened:

- Ubat gigi habis
- Baju x iron lagi
- Toilet bowl tak boleh flush
- Your one and only black office shoes patah tumit
- Arrived later than your big big bossssss

Conclusion"
Other things around you will not co-operate so don't rush for anything. The more you rush for things, the worse things will get.

Screw deadlines.

Balanced life

How do we define these two words? And how many of us actually do have a balanced life?


As a woman, it is rather difficult to balance it well, not when you are a career lady, with family to take care of.

My definition of a balanced life is a perfect life. In my perfect life, I see myself waking up in the morning, do some running for about an hour after prayers, breakfast with family, see my 6 kids off to school, and as a big shot of a big multinational, I can go to work anytime I like, and spend time at night with the kids and hubby at home. I can go shopping on weekends, and bring my kids for holidays in overseas at least twice a year.

But that’s just too perfect and too good to be true. There is always an opportunity cost. You will always have to sacrifice something.

I have always wanted to be a very understanding senior. I told myself that I will try not to let my staff work till late night. They need to have a balanced life.

However, the deadlines are killing me. I don’t know if it’s the Malaysian companies, or is it the Malaysian working culture. How can a company close its business on a 31 March, and expect the auditor to give clearance on their stupid accounts in a week’s time?

The deadline is FORCING me to be a bad person I already am. I have to get my staff to work late night and on weekends, and if they don’t I feel angry and worried if we can’t meet the deadlines.

And I’ll get screwed up because I can’t manage my staff well. But who’s to blame? My staff? My boss? My client? Or the stupid regulatory? I don’t have the answer.

I hate to be so bitchy stressing up on deadlines, when people just show their concern but continuing to work at their slow pace. And when they can’t finish, they’d come to me and say, “I’m sorry but I don’t think I can finish this”. And what the hell you want me to do??? Finish it for you????? But I can’t blame you right? Because this is just a stupid way of working, chasing a deadline that you cannot even meet. Taking away people’s family time just to meet the deadline? I just don’t know whether to be angry or to be understanding. I don’t like it either way.

What makes it worse is the bosses will not understand. With such an impossible deadline, I would have thought he’d go ahead and fight for us telling the client that it is impossible. I thought wrong. But can I really blame him? Cause if he does not abide by the request of the client, we will lose a million dollar job.

Like a contagion effect.

Oh, what a sad life.

bila boss marah

Hari ini,

Aku kene marah dengan boss,

Sebab melengah kan kerja yang sepatutnya sudah habis.

Walaupun bukan salah aku,

Tapi, dalam dunia aku,

kelembab-an client aku tak memberi aku sebab untuk tidak hantar kerja.

Dalam erti kata lain,

Only death can make me escape from submitting.

Tapi, kerana mood aku agak songsang hari ni,

Aku butakan mata,

Aku pekak kan telinga,

Aku buat bodoh,

I just followed my own pace yang agak malas hari ni.

Later in the afternoon,

Aku terima satu text message,

Yang aku rasa mempunyai kuasa 'reversed psychology'.

"Fren, sorry. I dun mean to shout just now. I'm pissed of.

At one hand, company secretary is pushing us, but in actual fact,

their finance is not responding,

while we did not communicate our concerns

or push client on urgent basis.

Our partner does not want to sign

until she is comfortable. I just want her to sign before my leave starts,

Because I don't want to leave this shit to you.

Hope you understand.

However, this does not warrant me to shout at you

I am sorry."

Bila boss cakap sorry,

Terkedu-kedu aku,

Tersipu-sipu segan.

Maka,

Aku dengan pantas, semangat, dan tekun,

Terpaksa stay back untuk menghabiskan sisa-sisa kerjaku.

Dan, terhapuslah lagi cita-cita aku untuk balik awal hari ini.

 

Manager at work

Seriously,

I wonder how he works.

And how,

he can last more than 8 working hours

in this working environment..

Oh,

you haven't seen the floor area.

Salah pinggan

Kerana aku gemuk,

aku cuba makan sikit.

Apa aku makan,

Aku ambik separuh.

Bila ambik separuh,

Dalam pinggan nampak 'ciput'.

Tapi sejak staff baru aku ni hadir dalam hidup aku,

Aku rasa sungguh gelisah.

Badannya sangat kecik,

Boleh kata separuh badan aku.

Tapi, dia makan bukan separuh portion aku,

Malah, dua kali ganda.

Mana aku tak gelisah?

Pinggan tu macam salah tuan.

Aku sangat teringin makan banyak tanpa naik badan

Seperti budak ini.

Jeles seh.

Skin-ny-er

My staff told us that he doesn't eat chicken. Reason because chicken walks on the ground. haha.. So since then, the boys call him chicken.

Since he is sooo skinny they started calling him 'kampung chicken'.

He argued saying that he is NOT skinny. He said, "I used to be skinnier!"

O.M.G.

What did he look like before. Was there even ANYTHING under his skin? haha.. Kidding man.

We still love you.


Photo courtesy: Ben-10

Dear Trainees

If you are not mentally prepared,
please don't apply for this job.

If you are not strong,
please don't ever think of applying this job.

If you you think you are the type to be home by 6pm,
this is not the right job for you.

If you think you need your senior to babysit you all the time,
this is not right for you.

If you think you can't do multitasking,
don't apply this job at all.

If you don't know how to lie,
don't ever think of being an auditor.

If you can't work with me,
you definitely can't work with anybody else.

I wasn't about to give you a bad rating.
But you went and complaint about me.
That shows you didnt understand what I was lecturing you about.

You didn't report when you were supposed to come in.
The next day when you finally did, you came in at 11am? You think you own the firm?
And when you finally arrived at 11, you told me that you were gonna go for breakfast. Oh, yes..you really thought you were working for your father, weren;t you?

When other seniors came in office at 10am, you come in at 11am. wah, sungguh boss.
When other people were busy and stressed, you started to pack at 5.15pm sharp to go home.

You take your own farking sweet time to do your work.
You were rude.
You lied all the time.

You have a serious attitude problem, girl.

I wish i can squeeze your head and throw it to the wall, pijak-pijak sampai hancur.
That's how much i hate you.

If you ever show up again..you'll never gonna see the sun.



mode: stress dengan trainee.

Ultimate Tea Time

Earlier this week, on Monday to be exact, Pakcik Radzi who works in our office bought some durians for everyone for tea. I am not a big fan of durian and I can't differentiate let alone appreciate the taste. There are so many types of durians with weird and sometimes odd names given.

But I never fail to like the taste of good durian kampung - small but packed with awesome good taste - original taste. I supposed that was what it was.





The Durians



Kak Norma about to enjoy her share





Pakcik enjoying the durians


And today Pakcik brought some sticky rice (PULUT) and some thick coconut milk (santan pekat) from home and we bought more durians to be eaten with the pulut and santan. I had tasted durian with pulut before but never with santan. It was indeed really nice and good. But it is not recommended for people with health issues. Hehe...very berdosa.



The awesome dessert




15 minutes after eating it Pakcik went into this position.

I should consider eating pulut for power meal before runs as I had a rather breezy run this evening-and I am pretty sure it was the pulut.

I'm off

I was reviewing my client's Death Claim Files (my client is an Insurance company) that was lodged by their policyholders' beneficiaries.

I was stunned to have gone through a number of files that illustrated the reason for death was mostly heart attack, and almost 60% of the samples I chose were files belong to policemen. And most of them were in between 51 to 60 years old. So young, I know. But I think there's nothing bizarre in this kind of environment.

However this one, has really caught my attention.


At the age of 51, he died because of 'Penat'. This is definitely not normal to me.

And I thought to myself "What am I still doing at my client's office at 2.30 am in the morning reviewing Death Claim Files, where I should be home, resting. I am definitely tired now and I don't want to die because of tireness".

So took 3 days off from work.

I got screwed

I left the house at 8.20 am today as usual and I headed straight to office.

The moment I hit the road, I realized that there were less car today compared to any other day. My drive to the office was very smooth and to my surprise, I reached my office in Pusat Bandar Damansara in slightly less than half an hour where it would normally take me 45 minutes at minimum.

I thought to myself “Is this a bad sign?”

I reached office, opened up my locker and found a stack of documents that my boss was looking for the whole week. I kept telling her that I haven’t seen them but in actual fact, they were in my locker all the while.

I handed them to my boss and I got screwed up.

Later, I called one of my clients. Apparently, she told the heads and the big bosses that I said something I have never said before. I got to know about this yesterday and I got screwed up for the first time by my boss.

So I called her this morning to clarify that it was very illogical for me to say such things, and she kinda admitted that she did it just to cover her fucking ass. So I got the bad name instead. She laughed over the phone, I felt like slapping her on the face. Fucking bitch. The conversation was done on a loud speaker, so my boss could hear it too, to show that I was on the right side.

I got screwed again because my boss said I was too nice to client that they can easily taking advantage on me. And when I told this to Ali, I got screwed up another time, with the same comment. I shouldn’t have been unreasonably nice to people.

Then, I went to see my mentor, to discuss on my performance during the year because I am due for promotion. I submitted two performance reviews because I had only been auditing two big clients during the year, with one insignificant client and the rest is my study leave.

I just knew that I was supposed to submit at least 6 performance reviews, meaning that I was supposed to be servicing at least 6 clients a year?

Again, I got screwed up! I will not be able to get myself promoted this round, because I am doing fucking ICAEW that requires me to take at least 1.5 months to study and I kept failing my papers, hence sacrificing my audit period.

So after the review, I went to my client’s office. I received a call today from a friend and I got to know that a close friend of mine ran away from home undetected for 2 days. Of course we were so worried. Worried because a lot of things.

Falling out of love, another affair, kidnapped, accident, run away from Along, and all other possibilities.
I told Ali about this, just a matter of sharing. And he said I was too kecoh about this, he doesn’t see this as a big problem. I got screwed up again!!!

1. Boss, I am sorry that the documents were with me all the while, I lost touch because I had a lot of things to do. Everything was dumped on me, so it is natural that I lose certain things.

2. Dear client, I hope you burn in hell! Boss, yes, I am nice. So I know audit is not for me. You know I will chow once I finish my papers. Ali, I don’t need you to tell me that I was wrong. Because I already know my mistake.

3. My mentor, I don’t care anymore if I don’t get promoted.

4. To my friend, please come home and don’t make everybody worries about you. Ali, I just wanted to share. Yes, I am a little bit kecoh. But my friends will do the same to help me if say one day YOU leave me with no words and undetected.


Sorry.. just venting.

Antik sungguh

Tidak ku sangka telefon sebegini masih wujud pada hari ini.

Lokasi: Meeting room di sebuah office client yang ternama di negara ini. Begitu antik kan?

Medical Certificate

I am still on MC today, although my fever has gone. Could not sleep last night because my throat was annoyingly irritating and I was coughing the whole night. So this morning, I went to see the GP.

I got myself an antibiotic to be consumed a tablet twice a day, ubat batuk, 10ml also twice a day, ubat demam 1 tablet 6 times a day.. Now, THAT is weird. I am not THAT sick to be taking ubat 6 times per day. The GP gave me a day MC for today. So I don’t have to go to work. But I still have to work from home though.

In audit line especially during the peak time, MC does not mean “Cuti Sakit” as how some Medical cert will be written as. In my line of work, MC would generally mean “Work from home”, unless you are hospitalized and unable to use you hands and eyes to work. I make audit sounds so scary. And maybe that is a bit of exaggeration, although 65% of the cases are quite true to some extent.

I was looking forward for the long Labour Day weekend. Unluckily I got home last Thursday feeling unwell. My temperature started to increase gradually and the peak was at 39 Celsius and I felt so hot (not the sexy hot) like a roasted chicken coming out from the oven.

Fortunately, I was taken care of very well by my dear Ali. Well enough that he managed to take my ugly photo in the previous entry while I was unconsciously lying on the sofa.

Perkara baru yang saya belajar bila menjaga orang demam adalah.. bagi makan KFC sebelum makan ubat, rendam stoking dalam air, perah, pakai kan pada si demam. Biarkan towel yang basah dalam badan depan dan belakang, dan selimutkan. TERBAIK!!

Now, fever is gone, but batuk is here. And nothing else is better than makan ubat batuk and tidur dan off mobile phone supaya tidak dihubungi.

“Why I didn’t see you work from home yesterday?”

“Sorry boss, my internet got problem, so I could not online, that’s why la you could not see me in the workspace. My fon pulak, rosak. People call me, but couldn’t get through, I don’t why……”

LAME.. :)

Stress release

Been in hell in the past weeks with tight deadlines after one to another. Time has been very unfair to me and all those sleepless nights have brought me nothing but weariness. At this point in time, I am really-really tired. And broke! Haha.. I am currently stationed at Menara Great Eastern, Jalan Ampang. Although the mall is just next door to the office, there’s nothing much to eat there, really. Everything is overly priced and we don’t really have much choice for food. On average, I spend RM 30 daily and working 14 hours a day would normally requires you to spend more because you tend to eat more and you’re prone to buying junks at Cold Storage.

Yesterday after the closing meeting we had with client, we were invited to Alexis for lunch. That was the third time I’ve ever visited Alexis. It’s really not a place that I’d prefer to go for good food. However, me and team-mates were very much pleased to be invited to join our big bosses as well as Great Eastern Chief Finance Officer, the Head of Finance and the Accountant. When I looked at the menu, I knew instantly that I was going to order pasta. Of course the CFO told us to order anything that we’d like to. But it looked and sounded rather odd when all the big bosses ordered Asian dish with warm water while we, the small nuts had the intention to order the western instead that would costs almost RM 20 more than any Asian dishes. So reluctantly, my colleagues started to order nasi briyani and kebab. I couldn’t make up what to order as I really wanted the pasta instead, and so I was contemplating. Unexpectedly, my senior who thinks that all expensive food are good, ordered a cabonara. Ah, what the hell, instantly, I made up my mind and ordered angelhair aglio olio and so did my other friends who subsequently changed their order.

My pasta came with two big yabbies and it sure did look expensive. Everybody was looking at me and said “wah, Izrin’s one looks nice ho?”.. Yes, Miss Wong, if only your boss knew how much it costs him..! :p


HAPPY CHINESE NEW YEAR AND HAPPY HOLIDAY TO ALL

Bagai jatuh ditimpa tangga

Exam was here.. result is now here! I failed my both papers.. Today I memang very sad lorr.. ok la.. not la so sad.. kinda expected it anyway… but cannot imagine that the fail is a ‘bad fail’ Wah! Sungguh men ‘depress’ kan! Tu lah..asyik facebook jer!

After lunch today I went to a pet shop in Great Eastern Mall. Me and my colleagues would call it ‘Safari’ and believe it or not, we drop by at the Safari every day after lunch to visit our adopted pets which I have adopted a dog named Shinzu (a Shin Zu breed) and a cat named Percy (a Persian breed). Only to find that they have been sold!

Sedihnyaaaaaaaaaaa……………………………………………………………………… :( :( :(

My Shinzu

Didn't manage to take Percy's photo though coz he was always sleeping.. lazy cat!

I'll miss you both!

A long November

It has really been a long month. First week of the month was in inherently pressured by examination. My last paper finished at 2130, came home, and qada’ tido.. and was back in office the next morning. Started with new client, and already started to go home late the first few weeks of the job. Been on training for weeks, walaupon on training, kerje kat client still has to be done and so I stayed up till late after training. It has been tiring for me, tapi tak kurus-kurus jugak.. kalau la stress keje ni boleh kurus..i rela stress sampai bila-bila.. :p

It has been three days since I last saw my parents. Sent them to Tabung Haji..their flight to Mekah was at 11am, last Sunday, but had to be in Kelana Jaya at 7am that morning. My house has been packed with relatives and friends the whole weekend. And even the morning before my parents left the house, there were still some relatives came over to see them off. Although the weekend was tiring, but overall I was quite satisfied and thankful to those who dropped by to see my parents and wished them for the best.

I have not been updating the blog, mainly because I have been busy doing analysis and review for one of my clients about their expenses and loans. I have been writing..or shall I say typing.. the whole damn week that I was sooo lazy to even look at the computer when I get home.

A little update for the past week:

I was scheduled to change my laptop at the office from IBM T60 to IBM T400. Apparently, the latter one is the latest and it’s a wide screen. Had to return the laptop, and pen drive that was loaned to me when I first joined in order to get the replacement. The size of the pen drive was 512 mb. Unfortunately, I lost my pen drive some time last year and I never bothered to look for it or find a replacement from the shop, well I thought if I had to pay, just pay lah. Pen drive now is so cheap what? If follow market price pon, makan Chilli’s lagi mahal. But I was told recently that a girl lost her 128 mb pen drive, and had to pay RM100. And apparently it is a standard fine regardless of the size. I was like what the f***???

So I started looking for it at the shops (in case they still sell it). But memang don’t have la.. not only me went and look for it. Ali and my other friends also tried to help me.. but no success. My last resort was to buy from someone who owns it. And finally, a friend came to me and said she had one. And then to make it more complicated, I was told that my blardy firm would have known that it’s not the original because they only buy Kingston that’s blue in colour, so they are identifiable. Nasib memang malang, because my friend’s pen drive is RED!!!!

I am still looking for it though, although I have lost my means of getting it. There must be SOMEBODY in this world who had bought a blue Kingston 512mb pen drive before!!! Please.. let me buy from you! Hahah (punya lah tak nak bayar RM 100).. but.. what the hell..economy is bad!