A Professional Mistake

A friend forwarded this to me. Judging from the life story told by all my friends working in the Big 4, it's just so true!

Subject: A professional mistake - a must read article for AUDITOR

A professional mistake
Your alarm rings, signalling another brand new day. You get up, looking forward for another new day of challenge, another new day to learn. After washing up, you put on your office outfit, giving you that professional look, one that you believe many out there envy. Breakfast follows(perhaps), and you head off to your office. You’re one of the earliest to arrive, ahead of all your superior and when they come in later, they greet you and you feel all charged up for another productive day. Plenty to do and learn and hence, you are prepared to stay back late to do all that is necessary.

If you’re currently doing a degree in finance, accounting or law, the above is probably what you’ve been waiting for all these years. You work your ass off (well… most of you) in university because it’s your dream to join one of those big glamorous firms out there in the market. Lawyers and accountants are the usual suspects for this curse. Once graduated, all of them will run like headless chicken towards those big firms. If you’re an accounting student… you want to be an auditor in one of the Big-4 right?

Well, if you do make it, it’s like a dream come true. In such firms, you get a personal computer, maybe a notebook (wow!). All your stationeries are free, and it’s also the first time you step into a ‘pantry’, where you can make your own coffee, just like those nice offices in TVB series. Next, you get an exclusive e-mail, the domain after your name is not the ordinary @gmail.com or @hotmail.com or @yahoo.com… No, it’s not, it’s your-name@a-big-and-glamorous-firm.com. You can’t wait to tell that to your friend.

Then comes the feeling of giving a business card with your name on it, and it’s not any other business card, it’s one with your name on it, it’s onethat signifies you’re an employee with a-big-and-glamorous-firm. And… the word below your name is not a lowly “accounts executive”… the word below your name is exclusive… the word below your name is… “Associate”. And when your friend gives you the “Wow, you’re an associate with this firm?”… you get into instant orgasm.

3 or 6 months into your job, you will then be experiencing the euphoria of saying… I-am-very-busy… I-have-a-lot-work…I-worked-till-very-late-last-night…I-can't-make-it-for-the-gathering-cos-I-have-to-work-this-weekend. Yeah, it’s an euphoria because to you, it’s a privilege to be busy, it’s very cool to work late, you’re very proud to work in during weekends. When you utter such words, a sense of arrogance and pride radiates from you. You feel great because working so hard means you learnt a lot of things, those not in the professional industry somehow looks lowly to you. You feel big, you feel you’re a level smarter than them. Reality will tend to sink in within 2 years or so, though the duration seems to be getting shorter and shorter now with the younger generation.

First, you will probably ask yourself, how come a graduate like you must do all sorts of donkey jobs such as photocopying, checking invoices, going through piles and piles of documents and filing. You will also be wondering how come your superior whom you once looked up to have to suck up to clients. Oh yeah… most all clients are unreasonable.

If you’re an accountant, you will probably realise that there is no such thing called a ‘balance’ sheet. It’s balanced because you did the balancing act so that your big boss can sign on it and certify it as ‘true and fair’.Yeah… signing on accounts, the job that you once dreamed of… isn’t exactly all a bed of roses. You then realise that you will probably never reach that “just-need-to-sign-only stage” but hey… it’s ok, you probably hate that job by now. When you tell your client something, chances are you are just as blur and confused as them. But you have to act as though you’re an expert because you’re the con-sul-tant. This is just a glimpse of it.

Now, all the late nights and irregular meals will probably cause you to age 8 years in 2 years. Those I-am-very-busy… I-have-a-lot-work…I-worked-till-very-late-last-night…I-can't-make-it-for-the-gathering-cos-I-have-to-work-this-weekend will take its toll on your body and it will show. You will probably look very skinny…or very far… you will certainly look old and worn out. Working late and spending weekends in the office is no longer a cool thing but absolute stupidity. But hey… you will still have to do it, because there’s still much work to be done.

By now, all your friends who ended up as salesmen or doing other things except being a professional, those whom you felt superior to are driving anything but a proton. But for you, it’s time to think whether you should buy a proton cause your perodua is beginning to give you problems. Of course, if your father is a well-connected fella, things can be different. But if you’re not, tough luck. You’ll be wondering how come you’re generally under-paid. Those exposure and learning curve that you once craved for are no longer relevant. You want to make more money. But unless you’re a partner of the glamorous firm, money can be a lil tough to come by.

At this point of time, probably after 3, 4 or 5 years, you finally realise that document (click on this link!) you signed when you first joined the glamorous firm was nothing but lies. Then, you decide to ply your trade in the commercial world, you leave the glamorous firm. You think joining a commercial firm will bring about a good change, not knowing that such a move means you switched from being a ‘profit centre’ to a ‘cost centre’. One of the main effects of the switch is that you will be working doubly hard compared to the profit centre, which probably includes a lot of late nights too… but your salary and bonus is much lower compared to the profit centre. What does this mean… a story for another time.

One thing's for sure… your morning will now be something like…

Your alarm rings, signalling another day… another weekday. You get up, after snoozing the alarm a million and one times. You hope today is Friday, but it’s not, and you feel like shit. You think of a million and one reasons to take MC, but you realised you have to go to office because you failed to finish the report due today though you stayed till 10pm last night. You tell yourself you need to change jobs, just like how you have been telling yourself in the last 1 year. Once in office, you’re in a dilemma cause you want time to go slower so that you can finish your work but yet, you want time to go faster so that you can leave the office and go for lunch.

During lunch, you will bitch with your colleagues about work and probably the bosses. You will all talk about so many people who seem to be doing so well except for you. You realised you should have done something else while in university. You realised you may have made a mistake in life… a mistake in being a professional… you have made… a professional mistake.

Author,
Zewt
(www.zewt.blogspot.com)

Lost Parking Ticket and tactics to avoid paying the RM50 penalty

Today is one of those days where everything seems to be going against me. Lady Luck just doesn’t seem to be anywhere near. Was going to meet Kimberly, Lisa, Gillian and her bf (Kelvin) at Mid Valley, and to my horror, the parking lots in every zone were full! Aside from jamming all the way into Zone C, I spent 45 minutes circling the parking area in hope of finding a spot. Since I’m not staying in MV for very long, I decided to just leave my car at the car wash centre and allow my car to have its spa treatment it deserved (hv not been washing my car ever since I got back from China XD). As soon as I thought I solved my parking problem and got out of the car smiling, the guy there told me, “Sorry, car wash services here are ONLY FOR MEMBERS.”

To top it all, I lost my parking ticket!

Anyway, I somehow managed to squeeze my tiny little Kelisa (damn I love my car!) into a sloping, non-parking area completely blocking an exit door. Haiya… as long as I didn’t obstruct the traffic should be ok la….right? hehe. However, anyone coming out from that exit would need to climb onto my car roof in order to get out. I doubt anyone would take those secluded exits lor... No sign of shoe print on my car roof. Haha!

Coming back to the lost ticket, I was mentally prepared to pay the penalty and declare myself bankrupt for the day when Kimberly opposed my decision to do so. (Had a vivid reverie of Kim being a lawyer yelling, “No! We shall fight!”) She then shared with me about the amusing incident that happened to Japheth and Chung Siew at One Utama and how they avoided the Lost Parking Ticket penalty. Sorry la…I’m not sharing that story, otherwise everyone will start to imitate what they do. Hahaha! I can just say good acting skills are much required. =P

SO, me and my rescue team consisting of Kim, Gillian, and Kelvin, our brainstorm session came up with several plans and tactics:

Plan A : Take Kelvin’s parking ticket, slot it in the machine and exit while their vehicle follows close behind and pretend their ticket is consumed by the machine but the gate is not opening. So when the guard comes and check if you are really the owner of the ticket by asking questions such as entry time, we would know the answer, if the ticket was to be retrieved from the machine.

Plan dropped.
Reason: My car is parked in a different zone, which is not linked to the zone they parked at.


Plan B: Press a new ticket from the parking entrance auto-machine.

Plan dropped.
Reason 1: Japheth (well-experienced in losing parking tickets) executed the plan before and failed. Possibility of heavier object required for the sensor to be able to detect.
Reason 2: Neither one of us want our faces to be captured by the CCTV camera and be mistaken for a car thief.
Reason 3: We’ve all seen how Mr. Bean did it before in one of his episodes and know very well how silly and idiotic it would make us look.


Plan C : Drive Kelvin’s car to the parking entrance, get the ticket, then reverse his car out.

Plan dropped.
Reason 1: Cars would definitely already start building a long queue behind us before we could even reverse our car.
Reason 2: CCTV would be watching our every move and our action would raise suspicion.


Plan D : All four of us take my car, head to the exit, pretend to slot in the ticket into the machine and make a scene with the guard complaining the ticket is defective. Kelvin and Kim will take over the front seat of my car since they are much capable in portraying a poker face while me and Gillian will take the back seat (we admit we’re just lousy at it).

Success rate: 50%
Reason: Chances are the guard would just let us go instead of having us obstructing the traffic. If he really retrieved the previous ticket and ask us for the entry time, we would just answer we were here to have lunch and we don’t have a clue on the arrival time.

As we were taking our chances with Plan D, on our way to the car park, Kim suddenly came up with the ultimate Plan:


Plan E : Borrow her friend’s season parking pass. So coincidently her friend works in Mid Valley. My Saviour!!! Executed the plan and SUCCESS!

One tiny issue we’re worried about is, does the season pass (which functions like a Touch n Go card) permits the card owner to do a double exit? While our escape mission has been accomplished, my saviour could be stuck in the car park after work! So I bought him some chocolates to show my gratitude and in case if he REALLY gets stuck in the car park, it would at least help to prevent him from cursing me so much. >.<

Xiamen Riyuegu Hotspring (厦门日月谷温泉)

This is the first time I've ever had such luxurious 5-star hotspring experience. And I love it! Tropical paradise setting. Wonderful services and facilities. Wide range of hotsprings with different ingredient choices. 3 swimming pools. Free flow drinks.

Moreover, it's not too costly, at RMB 118 during weekdays. No time limit.

More info at http://www.riyuegu.com/english/hotspring/hightlights.php

As far as I can remember, the types of hotsprings available are such as green tea, puer tea, oolong tea, specialty tea (can't recall what's so special), rose, lavender, peppermint, lemon, coffee, aloe vera, curry(this is a weird one.), ginger, ginseng, red wine, white rice wine, dong guai, pineapple, fish spa(additional RMB30) and natural hotspring water. Rose and lavender are among my fav! The aroma's just so relaxing and rejuvenating~

The Puer tea hotspring is pretty special too! It offers a cold then hot sensation. By first dipping into the cold pool then into the hotspring. How it felt? numb! can't feel myself. However, it slowly gets more n more enjoyable. Torturing at first. But rewarding next. =D

There's one culture that caught my attention here. Ladies just walk around in the washroom NAKED. Exposing their breast and their bottoms 0.o omg. I do know about this culture long before. But experiencing it personally in this situation is just.... awkward. Sorry for my 'ulu-ness'. haha!

Rain rAin go AwAyyyyyyy.........

(photo by HelDes, taken from http://www.flickr.com/photos/heldes/2281540527/)


I just detest rainy season here (well, at least my boots are put into good use)...It's not that I hate the rain. Rain would be fun if it's for just mere 15 minutes to an hour. But raining from morning to night is just unbearable. The worst so far is raining 3 days straight, non-stop. urghh. It just makes me lazy... and most of the time I'd just snug under my comforter. Plus, at this temperature it's turning my room into a freezer!


However, I still go for my usual ping-pong games to exercise. Never played ping-pong seriously back in Malaysia but I'm beginning to love it ever since I picked up this sport here. hehe.


Today's the first sunny day after the past one week of rainy, muddy days. Hurray! =p

Bunny Bunny~

Bunny bunny. Why are you so cudly?! *hugs & squeeze my adorable bunnies*

My very own pet rabbit. Finally! (Fergie's "Finally" starts echo-ing)

Spotted these cute, furry creatures on sale on the side lanes of QuanZhou's Zhong Shan Lu. Tried withholding the temptation to buy each time i passed by them but i just can't resist it anymore the third time.

Moreover, they are unbelievably cheap! Try guessing the price for one rabbit. (scroll down for answer)

A: RMB20 (That is only RM10!)

Dad went bananas when I told him I bought rabbits. He complained that they emit strong, unpleasant odor and that it's troublesome to have pets. Don't worry dad...I'll take gooood care of them!

This snow-white baby of mine has red eyes and very very round butt. She's such a fluffy furball XD

Isn't she cute?? we call her Vivi.

The name suits her well. She peed on my shirt 3 times so far! T.T

Thanks to Maricel, my Filipino room mate. Her wish definitely came true. She was like, 'go! wee-wee on Jeannie!' each time i hold the bunny. So wicked! haha!

pee = weewee = Vivi!

On the other hand, this one has black eyes, grey fur (looks brown in the photos but he's in fact greyyy), and bigger buttocks as well.

He died within 3 days before we could decide a proper name for him. Sobsss... (so much for the "I'll take good care of them" note to my dad)

Don't worry. No matter how much I badly miss him I won't commit suicide. That's just too stupid.

However, idiots do exist. Makes me recall an incident where a teenager kills himself along with the death of his beloved E-Pet!! C'mon la....tat one just click reset button and ta-da! your pet is alive again!! tsk tsk.

The way my baby sleeps.....

She looks just like this bunny bao XD (photo taken from Lisa's FB album)

Doesn't she?

Meanwhile this one has an eccentric sleeping style. LOL.

This is what I call 'Yengz'.

Ok Ok. Don't stare at me that way my baobei. I'm sorry for your un-intended death of your partner. I'll buy you a new playmate soon.

Berry Sweet~

Red, delicious, juicy strawberries are in season over here now!

Every fruit store I came across has basketfuls of plump, firm strawberries. And they're sold at a very reasonable price too! Let me emphasize that again, VERY reasonab....I mean CHEAP! 1kg for only RM5-RM7!

RM5 for the smaller ones and RM7 for very large ones. I find the medium-sized ones to be more sweet and flavorful, thus i prefer them.

Have been having strawberries as part of my daily diet for the past 2 weeks. Berry berry sweet and delicious~ *slurps* (u guys can juz continue to jelez lar. wakaka)


Some tips and facts about Strawberries

-Once picked, they don’t ripen further. So, choose medium-sized berries that are firm, plump, and deep red, as they will provide the best taste and the highest nutrient density.

-They increase HDL (good) cholesterol, lower your blood pressure, and thus reduce risk of heart cancer. It also fight against breast, cervical and esophageal cancer.

-Strawberries score in the fruit group with the highest antioxidant values, which fight free radicals. These antioxidant properties are believed to be linked to what makes the strawberry bright red.

-Just one serving, about eight strawberries, provides more vitamin C than an orange.


May I have silky smooth complexion soon XD (I wish!)