tornado thoughts

My "Playground"

Happy belated Valentine's day everyone. Yesterday spent this occasion sending flowers for my girlfren. After dinner at home went to pick up her brother and the flowers. When we finished delivering to the required places was around 9pm liao. After that the boss wanted to treat all those who helped out in the shop and thus I joined along and ate supper with them. By the time finished eating and stuff around 10+ liao and my girlfren was quite tired. Only time I spent time alone with her was when I sent her back home which is about 20min ba. Gave her my vday presents for her and that's it for the day. Due to the good response of orders, my girlfren skipped class on vday and went to help out in the shop. In 2 days she only slept about 8 hours ba. Today she's down with stomach flu.... my poor dear dear.... Hope she'll get well soon....

Oh ya, yesterday during work, I went to ST Marine to send 2 catalogues for the Technical office engineer. It was really a long journey. Past NTU to discovery centre there and further in. That long stretch of road got several shipyards and companies. The ships that were on repair are really gigantic. It seems like moving buildings when you see the size of the shipyards. Work is getting more and more interesting.

Now let me show everyone my "playground".

This is one of the company van. Yup, we deal with navigational lights, cable glands and alot of "other stuff". Tong Sim Marine & Electric company was founded in 1977 by 3 people. One of them decided to sell the shares to the other 2 partners during the early days and thus now it's a partnership business for 30 years and counting. From a small office room without a shop front and progressing on to a shop. Few years later it expanded and moved on to a bigger building in kallang way. As things got more and more, they shifted again and is current located in kaki bukit industrial estate with 2 warehouse to store cables (gigantic ones).
When you enter the 4-storey building, you'll be greeted with this "mess". This is the "marketplace" where goods are collected or consolidated before they're transported out of the building. I heard from the "old guards" (those working for more than 10 years) that when they first moved in 9 years ago, everything was not that messy. But as things got more and more, they build the "half storeys". Now even with the half storeys, it still look chaotic. As I had an enthusiastic, teachable and willing heart, I picked up things fast and roughly know the locations of each particular goods in 2 weeks. Of coz I cannot say that I know everything but at least I know the locations of major or common goods.


This is one of the ladder to climb up to the half storey. It's really fun to climb up and down to find the stuff. Within these 3 weeks, I got to know different kind of navigation bulbs (halogen, metal halide, high pressure sodium, mercury); screw type bulbs, pin type bulbs; different voltage, watts, amps. There are also cable glands, sirens, mast lights, stern lights, signal lights. There are still alot of other stuffs that I've yet to really know the name and usage. Can you be amazed that the old guards know which item is on which storey and roughly placed on which rack and location? There are 4 storeys and up to 40 racks and even more partitions. My brain cannot store so much stuff in it yet. haha. But they're computer illiterate or else everything will be more efficient. But nonetheless, their experience is very very vast and I've alot alot of things to learn from them.

On the 2nd storey is the office. This pic is taken from the lift. My sis is sitting in one of the table on the left hand side of the room (dun think can see her in this pic). Imagine even the walkway also got stuff. The company carries up to 10+ major brands (eg, Philips, GE, Glamox, Legrand) with 2 brands being the sole distributor of Singapore (Wiska - Norway brand and Schmersal - Germany brand). Tong Sim Marine & Electric company really had gone through a humble beginning and it takes alot of hard work, risk, commitment and of coz a dedicated team of colleagues to build it to where it is now. It needs a smooth transition for the younger generation to grasp its roots (high standards in terms of quality and good customer service) and even learn and pick up from there.


A glimpse of the 3rd storey. The 4th storey would look something like that too. but dun wanna bore you with mountains of boxes.




Regarding my little sis, everything is still a question mark. Sometimes she will not come back home till the next morning. Sometimes she'll be back at 4am (yesterday); while sometimes will be back by midnite. But everything is at a standstill as there's no war erupting. She dun bring ppl back home to stay overnite but she still stays out late. Praying that everything will be better the next day.

posted by tornado @ 5:00 AM