Termites!
Another week has past. This coming week is also the beginning of the one week break for NTU folks. Ever since I started working, I've lost track of exam seasons, school holidays unless i personally ask my NTU friends. To many of those who have started work, they missed school days. For me, even though i missed the school days(more flexibility in time management) I would still prefer work anytime. I do not like studying for subjects which doesn't apply in my working world, not to mention having exams!
Anyway, early this week as I was pulling out some cable drums for delivery for the rig project in Tuas, there was a termites invasion at the bottom of 3 of the cable drums. Immediately, Hassim (the guy manning the forklift who is very helpful too) came to the rescue. He took a pail of water mixed with kerosene (or diesel) and a broom to the infected area. He dipped the broom into the mixture and applied it on the termite nest and the infected wooden planks. Immediately, you can see that the termites are fleeing for their lives. There was a huge pile of sand and wooden grains consolidated after the after that. He said that these are both brought up from the ground below (due to the crack on the cement) and churning on the wooden planks on the cable drums.
At that time, i was asking God, how come He didn't protect the drums and causing so much inconvenience.
I proceeded on to delivering the rest of the requested cables that were not infected and asked the termite control team to come and exterminate the pest. They came the next day and replied that we are lucky to spot the termites early because it seems that they just inhabited 1-2weeks recently. If we were to spot them one or 2 weeks later, the results will be worse because termites eat up wood very fast.
It was then that I felt God telling me that He let this happen because He wants me to know that He is in control and He is always there. Most of the time, we do things with succession and feel that it's due to OUR own strength and capabilities. Termites came and invade without anyone's notice. If He didn't intervene (using my customer to request for that particular drum), we would still be ignorant about it. Thus, it brings us back to reality that He is in control and always wants to partner with us in whatever we do. So that we will always give the glory to God and not onto ourselves. Thank God for one week that has past and it further makes me say that God is good!
Finally a chance to take a breather
After 2 consecutive weeks of hosting the reps from various countries (Germany and Finland respectively), my workload was still very packed coz one of our colleagues was hospitalised (intestine ulcer) and MC-ed for 2 weeks! Another colleague reservist for 2weeks during this period too.
Thus, most of the time i would be handling their customer accounts and enquiries. Concurrently i have my personal customers' enquiries, oil rig cable project delivery schedules and miscellaneous enquiries. Drained and tired. Need to take time off and destress!!!! However, taking time off would be out of the question coz it would mean my workload will still pile up and my dear dear has started school. Would be nuaing at home if i take time off so nahhh...
What do you do to destress? Retail therapy? work out? Sleep? etc?
For me, though retail therapy and watching movies do take a away certain stress levels but personally I destress by doing customs on my toys (be it repainted my zoids or transformers).
People may say that it means doing more work! But I find great satisfaction and happiness when i complete a custom and call it my own. Same mold but unique (paint scheme) and it's only one in this world. Normally i'll take a week or two to do one repaint and basically i've thought of the color scheme before attempting on it. It takes a bit of reverse engineering coz you need to disassemble every part and allocate which parts are for wat colors and REMEMBER how to fix them back into 1 piece! haha.
Okok, signing off. Remember not to put too much stress onto oneself. Cast it to God as He cares for you.
Playing Host
Summer holidays. Not Singapore of coz but in European countries where the temperatures can reach at a peak of 30+ degrees. This would be a period for them to take the opportunity to get out of the country and go abroad.
I had the honour of hosting 2 representatives from Germany. They are our overseas suppliers. One is the regional sales manager and the other is the sales and marketing director. They are on a asia tour whereby Singapore is their final destination before heading back home.
On the night where they arrived, my dad and I were at T2 waiting for them. Now I can understand those people taking cards and stand at the arrival counters waiting. I stood there waiting for more than half an hour not knowing how they look like! When they finally came out and acknowledged who they are after looking at the card i'm holding, it was almost 90% of the ppl from that flight had already came out and left. As my dad don't talk much, i had to do most of the talking from the airport to Orchard Parade Hotel and it doesn't help when there is a massive jam at the marina to orchard area. So much for the first night.
Second day, my colleague and I went to fetch them from the hotel to our office. Thank God my colleague is good in talking and he talked to them 70% of the time. Hee. The whole morning was spent introducing them to the bosses and colleagues and discussing on new product range they they have launched and also marketing strategies. They also proposed on other possible market industries that we can look into with their wide range of safety products.
In the afternoon brought them to eat Boon Tong Kee chicken rice as we want to let them taste some local delights. After that we brought them to visit one of our customers (SPH) and it was my first time visiting their production plant. It's really an awesome experience! At night, we brought them to Turf city to eat seafood. I can only say that they love seafood! Both eating and looking at them live! So much for the whole day. After fetching them back to hotel, I reached home around 11+pm and just KO after my bathe.
The 3rd and final day, we wanted to let them have some R&R thus we told them to go to Mustafa to buy what they wanted (sony thumbdrive, video cam, etc). The actual reason was we need to clear our outstanding enquiries that were untouched the previous day. In the afternoon, we picked them up from Mustafa and went to a "fear factor" lunch (for them). We treated them to the famous Hill street ba chor mee, ba kut teh & rojak. Can see that they love the ba chor mee but not the later 2 items by the amount of portion that they had taken. Visiting the Energizer production plant was the next and final destination before they head to the airport.
Overall, it was really an experience for me to host foreign suppliers and it is definitely not easy to play host. You have to be always taking the initiative of thinking where to go, what to do. Before they left, they told me that we have to let them know if we are going to Germany and they will play host the next time round. =) Thus, this week really flew very fast.
Come next week, we will play host for our supplier from Finland. But this time round, it's not my turn to play host. Hee.
