Overslept this morning...

Was on leave yesterday to run some errands. So to me, it is a leisure day. Woke up about 9.30 to start my day.

Went to Jasper's Parent-Teacher meeting and the feedback is that he enjoys school, always happy and laughing. Just that his Mandarin is not that great. His tendency to think in English then translate his thoughts to Mandarin before saying it.

Brought Joelle for her jabs, for her first jab, not a cry at all but for her second jab, she went crying. And the second needle is actually shorter than the first. Funny girl....

Went to town for shopping after that. Jasper brought another 2 more books of "A Series of Unfortunate Events". His aim is to collect all the books before he starts to read them.

I got another new book for myself. Hope that it is a good read.

All of us went back happy. Jasper got a new Lego set for his good results. A surprise to him as he is not exactly expecting it. He was happily building his set with James' help.

Cheryl got a set too but as she is away for a 3 day camp, Jasper got first choice in choosing which set he wants. She will only be back on Friday. Jasper is saying that he sort of misses her as there is no one to play with him but when they are together, they fight all the time.

Kids....

Dad came over after dinner to see the kids but Joelle cried when he carries her. She is starting to recognise people and to her, he is not someone whom she sees often, so he is a stranger and she cries when he carries her.

Can't imagine why the alarm didn't wake me this morning as I remember that I had set it last night. By the time I woke up naturally, it is already 7am. Way past the time that I am suppose to get ready for work. So it is cabbie time again. Second time this week. Suppose to cut down on cabs but .... Sigh... didn't manage to wake up on time.....

Meeting that never happened

Had actually scheduled a meeting at 4pm, that is right about now for a short discussion on workflow with another group of accountants.

All of them had accepted included my supervisor as he needs to understand how the booking of entries will affect us downstream.

However, except for my sup, another person and myself, two other participants didn't turn up and didn't bother to tell me that they are not turning up. I went hunting for them and learnt that they are in another meeting and won't be out till 5pm.

My supervisor was okay about it but passed the comment, "Why did they accept the invitation to the meeting if they are not going to turn up for it?"

Yup, beats me.... should pose this question to them instead...

Slowly.....Sloowly....

There are new team leaders who came from another country and are here to learn how the work is being perform and they will bring the work back to their country, effectively taking the jobs away from my colleagues. They will be redeploy to other positions in the company after this.

I understand that people need time to learn how the job is done but when other people advise you that you need to respond within 48 hours, please do. Don't take 3 weeks to respond as it delays the rest of the workflow.

Even though I am back in Accounting, I am still in charge of the work that I had done previously for my last department. Any invoice that needs to be capitalised comes to me but now I need to pass it to the team leader to decide whether to capitalise the payment or to expense it off as an expense.

The first time I send the invoices to him, he asked me, "How many weeks do I have before I get back to you?"

I looked at him and replied, "I would need it back in two days' time as the payment will be due soon. We are told that we have to get back to customers in 48 hours."

This 48 hours rule was set by our ex-controller. In one of his monthly meeting in the past, he stated that we need to get back to customers in 48 hours, even if we are still in the midst of getting the request done, we have to let the customer know that we are handling it, ie, send an email to let the other party know that his request is being looked into.

WEEKS, WEEKS, can you imagine if we are allowed to drag a request for weeks, how inefficient we will look to the other departments???

On May 3rd, I handed him a stack of invoices, the due date for these invoices is on the 26th of May. Guess when he finally get back to me with the account distribution? LAST FRIDAY!! After chasing him for days, he finally send out the email on Friday morning stating the accounts to charge for all the invoices. It is a mad rush to get the secretary to raise PRs and for all 3 managers to approve the PRs before the PRs get to me to do the rest of the work. I have to get the invoices to Account Payables for payment as all the payments are to be TT over to the vendor's bank.

This is the 2nd or 3rd month running that I have to practically chase him every day for his account distribution. Until the moment he sees me, he automatically says that he knows that he owes me something. If you know that you have to get back to me about that "something" why can't you just sit down and do the account distribution once and for all, the moment I gave you the stack of invoices? Must you wait till the due date is barely a week away then you give it to me or you just like to see me rushing the rest of the people to get things done to ensure that payment is prompt???

I can't wait for these team leaders to get back to their country and start doing the work there. I really can't imagine how the workflow is going to be with these people working at half our speed. Their attitude is so laidback and they expect to be given weeks before they reply on any of your requests.

I wonder if our department is going to get complains from the rest of the department managers in the months to come when they are not around anymore. Because they will not be the ones who face the rest of the managers, we are the ones left to face the managers here.

SIGH.......

Joelle's photos

Finally got a chance to load my photos...

Picture of my kids... Going for my birthday celebration in April...



Amy carrying Joelle...



Joelle at the Japanese Restaurant...



Joelle after doctor's checkup at Hougang HDB office...

Shitty customer service from my outsource company

You know, that outsource company that my company employs to look after our benefits really sucks big time....

In March, I discover an error in my benefits statement, I called them up and let them know about it, they send a revised softcopy to me to show me that they have updated their records.

Today, when I received my Quarterly Reimbursement statement, what do I see..... they have included the "additional" purchase of an item that I had told them about and they "had" removed in March, reflected in my statement again.

I really don't understand, if you have updated your system, why is it still showing that I have spent the money.

Spent the day at SOX training today. Didn't know that there are so many new things to do for SOX this year. Have not really seen the list of to do for my processes but I heard that I have got more new process to write up this year. First due date is in 2 months' time.

Hopefully I can get all the process written up by then,

Sick today...

Fell sick today...

Felt funny this morning but thinking that it was nothing so went to work but got worse once I reached office. Tolerated till nearly lunch time then took a cab to see my doctor.

Stomach flu was the case. Took the med and rest at home for the rest of the day.

Have got another training tomorrow. Received the notification to go for the training late on Thursday. Have actually thought that I can give the training a miss but once I received the email to go for it, I was like... another boring training to go for.

Just hope that I can keep myself awake tomorrow.

Busy weekend

It is a long weekend due to the Vesak Day holiday on Friday. Short work week, only 3 days of work and the previous week, 4 days of work. One does feel lazy after all these short work weeks. Even my supervisor was saying that we will have trouble getting back to 5 days workweek after all these holidays.

Was on my way to get my flu jab this morning when the taxi driver was telling me that nowadays there are more people giving up driving taxi as the cost of diesel was going up. It will increase by another 6 cents come Monday but the rental of the taxi is not coming down so it is harder for them to earn a living.

Previously, when the taxi company get a complain about the driver, they will look into the complain but nowadays, they don't as the number of drivers are getting less. There are even cases of drivers who have not got their license when they start to drive the taxi but will take the test as they drive around Singapore.

After listening to the driver, I start to think of all the complains that my girlfriends have written on their blogs and yes, that may be why the standard of taxi drivers are getting worse because the old timers are giving up driving their taxi.

Can you imagine a cabbie who don't get ready enough spare change when they start work? This is just basic knowledge that they have to have sufficient spare change as passengers do not always have small notes to pay their fare or the case of the cabbie who didn't know how to operate the credit card machine, it is in the papers today. In the end, the passenger had to pay cash for his trip.

In view of all the increases that may be coming our way, even I have to cut down on my taxi trips. Have to get use to squeezing with all the people on the MRT.

Talking of MRT, I have to wait for 7 minutes for one from Dhoby Ghaut to Raffles Place yesterday and it is in the afternoon. Shouldn't it be about 3 to 5 minutes between trains? I just don't understand if we are encourage to travel by public transport why must we wait for such long interval between trains? Even the bus that takes me back to my place from the MRT station is a long wait between buses, about 10 to 20 minutes if I were to miss a bus.

Catching a movie tonight with James and the kids, Poseidon, been wanting to watch this movie since I saw the trailers for it. But wonder if it will put the kids of cruises in future....

Tired, going for a nap...

40 hours of training needed for this year

At the end of the training session yesterday, we were told that we need to clock in 40 hours of training in a year.

40 hours, at least 20 needs to be Accounting related. I don't want to go for more Accounting classes anymore. Spare me please.

Anyway, had already put my name down for 2 courses in June and August. That will take care of at least 16 hours. There were a couple of courses taken at the start of the year that will be taken into consideration too. So perhaps I can just scraped through the 40 hours this year.

Need to seriously think about going for classes next year.

Joelle was so cute yesterday. She just woke up after I had my dinner and after seeing me, she just don't want anyone else to carry her. It must be me but I was having my shower and there she was crying away, waiting for me to carry her. Naughty girl. Mum had actually came to hurry me twice because she was crying and won't stop. I came out and carried her and noticed that her eyes are still teary but she seems happy to see me and let me carry her and actually didn't fuss about needing to be walked about. She likes to be carried and walked around the house but she just let me carry her and sit there, reading the papers.

No new pictures at the moment. Will post when I get them.

World Class Accounting training

In class the whole day today, Corporate had send trainers down to train us on World Class Accounting concepts.

Very dry subject at first, nearly fell asleep but it was much better later as there are more discussion and case studies.

Back to class now...

Phan-tastic's blog

Remember my post that someone is starting a blog because I had asked him to... "Someone is starting a blog because of me" ....

Well, it is up and running now. He, Phan, had actually started to write and post in his blog as he was chatting with me over at MSN. Though it is only a few posts from him but then he is keeping his promise. I have linked his blog over at the right side... Phan-tastic.....

Make up holiday

Polling day was Saturday, so today is a make up holiday for me.

My GRC was Aljunied so you can imagine how excited I was on Saturday night. I stayed up to see the results till the very last one. James and I had a bet on the percentage win WP will have over at Aljunied. To cut a story short, I won the bet. Hahahaha...

Went out shopping on Sunday. Brought Joelle out with us and she is rather good for a while till it is time for her milk. She can really cry when she demands for her milk.

Was thinking of setting up a separate blog to sell some of the Chinese novels that I had bought over the years. The collection is rather hugh now and the policy at home is that if I don't get rid of the books that I have now, I can't buy any new ones.

So a new blog will be up in the near future that feature the books that I want to sell. All of them are in good conditions as I have only read them once or twice. Will show picture of the book and hopefully can get the write up of the books too so that people will have an idea what the book is about.

May even sell my English novels too if possible. Will see about that...

One more day to voting

Still have not recover 100% from my flu. Nose still runny and eyes still tears at times. Rinafort is not working or perhaps it is due to me as I am only taking it once a day instead of twice a day.

Was asleep early yesterday. Felt tired as I was travelling on the MRT to go home. Had actually thought of just sleeping for an hour, then wake up and do my stuff but wake up I did, just to fall asleep just as fast after that.

Almost didn't want to wake up this morning but got the SMS that my carpool guy was coming to pick us up today instead of tomorrow as he won't be driving tomorrow. So nice of him.

Left with only 2 more facilities to close tomorrow. Hopefully there is no problem with the closing, all 3 months' of adjustments posted correctly and details given early for me to close. Last month, I was only given the details at 4.35 pm to close my system and it was after me chasing him the whole afternoon.

Okay, time to stop and do my project...

It's Month End Closing again...

Well, it's that time of the month again. Month end closing of my system.

This time, the GLS accountant promised that he will correct the wrong entries for the past 3 months. Hopefully he keeps his promise. Already Corporate had noticed the negative amounts and zero amount spent for assets purchased. Another facility had a hugh credit leading Corporate to send emails flying all the way up to the top management for help in resolving the credit in the system.

Have closed 3 of my facilites by this afternoon. Another 4 more to go by Friday. Just remember today that it is China's one week holiday this week, send an email to remind the accountants there to close their facilities. The accountants there better remember to close their system come Monday if not, emails will be send to the big boss again. Last count was 3 China facilities had closed their system by yesterday, but there is still 4 who had not closed as yet.

It is very tedious to wait for information to work on...

Someone is going to start a blog..... because of me.....hahaha

Was chatting with one of my chat mates online and we talk about blogs... actually I was pestering him if he have a blog.

In the end, the deal is that I let him have my blog address and he have to start writing a blog in a week's time and link me to it....

Counting down 7 days from today....