A Typical Day

This morning, some time between seven to eight, I had this wonderful idea.  Why not write a blog entry on what I do today?  I mean, I have been encouraging people to start blogging, or at least keep a personal diary.  The common response would be, “My life is boring and there is nothing interesting to write”.  To that, I would reply, “It is all about perspective, yes?”

Little did I know that my ‘typical’ day is not that typical at all!

7am

Every working morning, my alarm clock rings at seven.  I jump out of my bed in my usual vigor and ready to face the day, which is going to be great.  I am in great spirit with a big smile on my face.  What a great night I had with my buddy Melvin.  We nailed those 11 waves of robotic and organic enemies in our Mass Effect co-op mission.  Not once, but twice.  33% of online matches end up a failure, according to the global statistics.  Winning twice in a roll has a success rate of 45%.  Yes, we nailed it.  I am so looking forward to nailing it again, with my buddy.  Maybe tonight.

Stretching exercise is good.  I do that almost every morning right after I brush my teeth.  My body has been stiff since the day I have come to know my body.  Every morning, I hope to touch the ground with my long stretched fingers as I bend over.  Every morning, my hope is dashed a little bit.  Never mind.  There is always tomorrow to try again.

Showering is the best time for reflection.  Yesterday, I have spent a lot of time – like 10 millions others I would imagine – going through the media kit Blizzard has released for their upcoming World of Warcraft expansion Mists of Pandaria.  I have tons of questions.  After my shower, I head to my computer, log into the game’s forum, and post my questions.  Seconds later, there are responses.  And more responses from the community at the ticking of the clock.  Despite all these responses, I am still confused.

Ironing too is the best time for reflection.  Yesterday, I have attended a media invite to watch Salmon Fishing in the Yemen. There is a deadline for the movie review submission.  What shall I write?  It is a great movie.  I love it.  Before I can type out the review in my head, my shirt is ironed.  Time to have my breakfast!

Breakfast is prepared by Cynthia during weekdays, always.  Over breakfast, I ponder upon the new reputation system in Mass Effect 3.  I have tons of questions.  I open up my browser, log into the game’s forum, and post my questions.  Minutes later, there are responses.  Useful responses.  I love the BioWare community.  They seem to be more mature than the Blizzard community.  I wonder why.

Washing dishes is not the best time for reflection.  I wash the dishes as fast as I can.  Cynthia and I sing Go West on our way out.  It is time to go to work.  Hooray!

8.37am

Every working morning, I drive 17km to drop Cynthia in town, and then drive 17km to my office in the east.  Today, we are still driving the rental car, which is old and smelly, dusty inside and a big splash of monkey shit at the bonnet outside.  We miss our car, which is still in the workshop, after that stupid accident.

We seldom listen to radio in the morning.  We listen to our music instead.  This rental car with a daily rate of S$90+ does not give us many choices.  So we listen to the Married Man on radio, like we have for the past one week.  Sometimes, the program can be really funny.  Most of the time though, it is a blah.

This morning, the DJs talk about Facebook.  Should employers investigate potential employees’ background via the social networks?  Personally, I wouldn’t check out my colleagues’ social network pages.  My time is precious.  I would rather spend time reading something interesting.  Besides, what you do outside the professional world is not my business.  For one, I do not want to unread what I may have read, including those weird photos.  You are my colleague and I only want to know you as my colleague.

At 8.37, one of the DJs announced, “Time now is eight seventy-three”.  The DJs break into laughter.  We break into laughter.  Sadly, that is the funnest thing we have listened to from the radio this morning.

The car workshop calls.  My car is ready for collection.  Hooray!  I will collect the car at day end, I say to Calvin.

Early Morning

Finally arrived at work, I head to my usual bench area.  The window seat is taken so I take the aisle seat instead.  I am not a fan of the middle seat.  Lucky for me, it is relatively early and there are still options.

Every morning when I arrive at my office, the first thing I do is to pee.  It has been a long drive.  The second thing I do is to fill up a bottle full of water.  The third thing I do is to go through my electronic mailbox.  There are follow-ups, and more follow-ups.  One of my business-as-usual activities is to analyze the change requests.  Truth be told, there are so many other things to do so much so that analyzing the change requests often get bumped to a lower priority.

There is an escalation, on some requests being stuck in the pipe for far too long.  My fault!

Oh great.  Time to write more email replies and to detonate the situation.

11am

It is time to meet our negotiator!  I am excited.  After months and months of organizing workshops and studying the feasibility of a product, it is time to let money does the talking.  The negotiator and I work in the same office.  I see her often and she sees me often.  It is the first time we are introduced.  I quickly get her up to speed on what we are doing and where we are.  Here are the ammunition.  Go shoot something.  I do not actually say that, of course.  But I make it sounds as though she is our savior, and our last hope.  It is true.  We hit a wall.  The price is too high.  It is time to send in our professional negotiator and lawyers and get the job done.

One way or another.

12pm

I go back to my laptop and, you guess right.  I check my electronic mailbox.  Out of nowhere, there is an urgent email sent by my boss: There is a workshop at the vendor venue this week, see if you can attend.  Lovely.  This tosses my schedule off the window, crashed by the landing planes.

All of a sudden, there is an incoming instant message from my colleague who sits very near to my boss’s boss: Are you going for the workshop?  Sure, I say.  It is time to call the car workshop and arrange for an early release.

After Noon

I don’t have a super long lunch break.  The workshop is 35km away from my office.  Time for high fuel burning driving mode!

I arrive at the workshop faster than I thought.  Calvin greets me warmly, with the invoice.  I pay the S$500 insurance excess.  I pay the S$700+ car rental fees.  The total repair costs more than S$3,000.  Out of the total bill, S$1,000 is for the spraying work.  My car now has a shiny backside, I joke with Calvin.  It is true.  View from the back, you would have thought that I have bought a new car.  I wonder when I will receive the reimbursement from the one who hits my car.

On the Way Back to Office

I am hungry.  I am tired.  And I am sleepy.  The only thing that propel me forward, on this never ending highway, is the vision of a large gourmet sandwich dangling right in front of me.  Katy Perry’s latest song plays on the radio.  My vision of a large gourmet sandwich has instantly been replaced by a totally different vision.  Oh man.  Katy Perry.

By the time I am near to my office, I change my mind.  Why not have my quick lunch at the airport instead?

At the Airport

Lasagna talks to me.  I can’t recall when I last ate a lasagna.  So I have a combo meal that comes with warm garlic bread and a can of Coke Light.  After my quick lunch and as I am heading to my car, horror strikes.  Where is my car key?

I dash back to the restaurant.  Combed through the entire counter and the black colored floor, together with the help of the restaurant’s manager and staffs.  My car key is nowhere to be found.  Panic!  I leave my number to one of the staffs, and trace my way back to the car.

Nope.  I pray very hard, and still, I see no car key.  I body search myself very hard, and I find my key at my back pocket.  Oh gosh!  Since when I put my car key … there?!  Morale of the story #1: accident often occurs when you do something unusual.  Morale of the story #2:  what you are searching may have been right there with you all along.  Morale of the story #3: do not underestimate the power of prayers.  For all you know, God may have retrieve the key and put it into my pocket.

I would not have known.

2.02pm

Due to the little episode at the airport, I am late for a 2pm meeting.  For two minutes.  No one seems to notice.

It is the first time the new business analyst team gets together, and introduce among ourselves.  When asked what my favorite animal is, I blur out pandas.  I blame the World of Warcraft media kit I read yesterday.  Year 2012 will be a year of pandas.

Again, I am tasked to look into the project’s overall quality and standard.  That is fine.  I like discipline and I love templates and processes.  I am as rigid at work as my stiff body at home.  Halfway through our meeting, the fire alarm goes off.  A false alarm it turns out to be.  Typical.

3.15pm

I rush back to my desk  and clear some of my work.  Because I need to rush to the workshop in town at 4.30pm.  Another colleague asks if I can share my business continuity plan with her so that she can copy the contact information into her fire drill document.  Sure.  I love to help, always.

My boss’s boss emails me asking if I can review a document crafted by one of the global heads.  Sure.  I love my job, always.

And my work plan for the rest of the week can be flushed into the drain, for good.

3.45pm

The drive from my season car park in Changi to my season car park in town takes less than half an hour.  The workshop is two train station away from where I park.  So I walk to the station and take a train from Bras Basah to Promenade.  Suntech City is right next to the new Promenade station.  OK, it is not really that new a station.  But it is my first time emerging from Promenade.  I am delighted, very delighted.

4.15pm

When I enter the large meeting room on 18th floor, our team and the vendor’s team are locked into a focused discussion.  It is so focused that out of twenty people, only one notices my arrival.  I am specialized in being invisibility.  This ability has its merit in helping me to survive in a corporate world.  For instance, the bosses may one day gather around the table, or at the pub, and they may ask among themselves: Who shall we fire next?  Invisible man does not usually get fired.  Because no one sees him.

5pm

During the break, I am finally spotted.  Some are shocked, “When did you come in?”  I reply, “I materialized into this meeting room, that’s why!”

I think I shall stop playing video games.

This meeting is utterly strategic, talking about upcoming new features, areas we could potentially benefit from the overlooked features, and the road map ahead.

6pm

The meeting does not end on schedule!  The host announces that 6.30pm is the new target.  Somehow, I know that she is not going to keep her words.

6.30pm

This meeting sees no end, as I have predicted.  You should know by now that the reason why I am so good in anticipation is because I can see the future.  I am Twilight’s Alice and Invisible Man combined.

6.40pm

Zzzz.  I am getting hungry.  My Spanish class is starting in 20 minutes’ time!  Hurry please!

7.02pm

Finally, this meeting has ended.  I have no idea how the American on the call can stay awake till 4am in the morning.  I would have fallen asleep.  Time to take a train back to Spanish school, which is two stations away.

7.30pm

There is no point in rushing to class.  I am super late, anyway.  So I take my time and have a bowl of fish soup served with rice at a hawker center nearby.  The food is not memorable, like most of the food in Singapore.  It fills my stomach.  That is its sole purpose.

7.55pm

Knowing that the era of my Spanish learning journey may come to an end, I put in extra effort during today’s class.  Learning Spanish is getting harder and harder.  I feel as though I need the time to digest and to experience the language.  Not in a classroom setting, but rather through reading and listening.  Today, we have so much fun practicing to articulate what we are afraid of.  To be honest, the only thing in life that freaks me out most as of now is Spanish oral examination.  The class laughs when I say this out loud.

9.02pm

The class gets stretched a little bit.  My mind is somewhere else when we get down to the last set of exercise.

We have an assignment.  In this assignment, we are the the scriptwriters.  We have to make a video in order to present a set of images that are completed with Spanish narration.  Cynthia and I share the same assignment – a movie titled Singing Under the Sun.  This is going to be fun, I think.

By the time I reach home, I have clocked 150km of driving distance today.

10pm

After a nice shower, time to start writing a blog entry titled A Typical Day.  I target to complete this entry by 11pm so that I have one hour to play Mass Effect 3.  Commander Shepard awaits.

11.30pm

Cynthia has retired to the bedroom and I am still stuck in front of the computer writing this entry.  I am a sad panda.  I am wondering: Am I a slow writer?

12.22am

Time to push that publish button.  I have read and edit this entry a couple of times.  I will spend more time tomorrow morning to do more editing.

My beloved bed here I come!