The Consolation Prize

I finally called the HR manager today, since no one contacted me about the interview result. As it turns out, it was not all good news.

Although I pass the interview part, I failed the exam part. So, to compromise, the HR manager said the solution is for me to transfer my post without the promotion. It was not the best of outcome but it is better than the alternative of being laid off I suppose. She said I should look at this a development opportunity. Once I learned enough skills for the position, I can apply for it again in the future.

So it was not the best outcome but not the worst either. I did imagine what I would do with the raise in my salary. I guess I cannot put that in practice yet. At least I am not in the situation where I *need* that promotion just yet. But the added traveling cost will surely cut into my savings.

Although it was not quite how I thought it would turn out, at least this is over and done with for now. I am not complete happy about this, even more so now that I did not get the promotion. But at least I still have got a job and I know how hard it is to get one. The last remain issue, is when I will be moved to the HQ. So far not much has been progress on the move condition set by my boss. I hope it will not happen in at least 3 months or longer.

The Leo In Me

Although I was born under Leo sign, I never felt particular extrovert or any of the typical Leo's traits that you would read about in the astrology articles. Especially that I am the dual fire sign one. Both my Chinese Zodiac, the snake, and my zodiac are of fire signs.

However, it seems that I did had it in me after all. Late afternoon the previous day in my office, we had another car exhaust fume coming into the office. It was particularly bad because the rain was falling heavily and the cars that leaving the parking lot were backing up behind the office where the A/C ventilation was located. I called the maintenance asking for a technician to come up to fix the problem. It was after 17:00, so only one or two technicians left on shift. But after about half an hour, no one came up. I finally had it and marched down to the maintenance room and found two technicians watching TV.

I called out "I Need one of you to open the A/C unit room, Now" The younger one get ups and follow me back to the office. I explain what I need him to do and have him to it. He later told me that he was not on duty.

Today, I informed their boss that my office still have this problem. He spoke in a patronizing, dismissive manner that either intentional or simply his normal manner. When he said that I will help with this issue. This made me through the roof. I proceed to forcefully tell him that we do not need his help but rather him doing his job properly.

The problem has not really been solve as it happens again around 11:00. So I call the maintenance again. After 10 minutes, I called again to tell them that no one came up yet and if no one came up in 10 minutes I will go down there to get someone myself.

That seems to make them step up their game a bit and sent someone up.

I feels that it is time to take gloves off, no more mister nice guy for them until the problem is really solved.

The Longest Work Week

Although this is only the third day of my working days, it felt like I already had a full work week, since I came to the office in the morning...

Tuesday was my interview, Wednesday was office meeting day which I have to come in one hour early, and today we had major problem with one of the server. It was totally out of my league but the IT manager is just a phone call away.

Even he was struggle with this particular problem a bit. Luckily he was able to tell me how to solve an hour or so before the classes began. I was nervous as hell getting everything ready in case the problem cannot be solve on time.

The good news is "So You Think You Can Dance" season 5 will premier tonight in US. Which means that I will be trying to download it before I go to work each Friday. This should cheer me quite a bit :)

Interview Was Done, The Anxious is Over, For Now

I have done the interview... It was harder than I thought. I think I did ok, although I felt like I speak random things at times. They only need to *steer* me into the right direction a couble of times (that I noticed). When I asked about when I will know the result, they said I will be contacted next week.

My saving will be reduced significantly today, to pay my mom back for using her credit card to pay for the plane tickets. I will have to get a card of my own soon. Too bad the embassy did not return any of my documents... So I will have to spend another 200 baht to get the bank statement *sigh*

I tried The Sims 3 last night and boy it was quite fun :D. It certainly looks a lot liviler than the previous game. There are a lot more activities to do and gain skill of. Cooking is more tricky now that you have to do grocery shopping. Gerdening is quite a breeze as it included from the start. Now it completely occupied my time and my two other games has been put on tbe back burner :P

Booked Flights and Hotel and The Eve of Reckoning Day

After a chance researched last night, I found out that I could book my flight online at a cheaper prices, at the time I wants and I can have the airline transfer my luggage through the system without unloading it into the transit airport. What I needs to do, is simply have the two plane tickets and state my intend at the airline counter.

The passport pickup required a fair bit of time than I though. They only use one counter to check and return the passport. I heard the staff said it is because the rest needs to process the applications. A fair enough explanation I suppose.

On the eve of the interview day, I am still rather nervous about it. I hope I will do fine tomorrow. I think I will do fine in the interview... I just hope it will be over with quickly.

Nature's Wonder and Slight Tweaking

A friend of mine who started out as a fan of this blog had sent me these photo (he is the same guy who sent me the vintage Valentine's card). He said they were nesting near his house so he take photos of them as time passes. As you can see, they are hummingbirds :)






Aren't these looks like pictures from Animal Planet channel? :)

I also have replaced the header to something more related to the link name of this blog as well as the background which I am not too fond of.

It's been raining everyday this week. Which is great for bedtime. Luckily I only walked to and from work so it did not bothered me. Tomorrow will be another busy day for me... As well as this weekend.

I will have to prepare for my interview, pickup my passport, pay for my plane ticket and insurances and prepare for my interview *Ugh*

Visa Acquired and The Final Endeavour

The embassy finally called me, I have got Schengen visa :D

So I will spend the next few days finalizing my plane ticket and hotel bookings. I will also gonna look into buying the fake AAA Nike sneakers as well. As of now, I do not have the appropriate walking shoes. Not the one for traveling in slightly cold weather anyway.

The HR personal from the head office contact me today to set the date for interview. At first she wants to have me do the interview today or tomorrow. But my boss put his foot down saying it is too sudden and I should have to prepare for it. The HR manager agreed with my boss. So the interview will be set next week. My boss will help me prepare for the interview tomorrow.

I hope this would not be an obstacle to my travel plans...

The 24" Delivery

The monitor I ordered finally delivered today. The delivery truck came in morning instead of the afternoon, which is ok for me as well.

Now it looks triumphantly perched on my new desk. Everything fit nicely XP detect the change right away and change the resolution automatically, which is nice. I think it will take some adjustment to using it. Everything have more space to moved around. Video files looks a lot bigger now and more TV like. Although many of the video files are a little too small for resolution this size and turn slightly blocky but it sitll nice to be able to watch them this big. I would have to turn the brightness level down a bit to save my eyes.

All my high price purchases are all done for about a year or two, not counting the traveling cost.

The Rain Spell

It's Raining!! Hard!!! Fi-freaking-nally!!!!

It's been uncomfortably hot for the pass several days. The sky turn light gray since afternoon but it finally rain now, at about 22:30. Now it feels more comfortable in my room. I must say I cannot wait until Winter arrive to see how my new leather chair will feels against my bum...

The rain is great!

Schengen Visa Application

Per my plans to visit Prague and Amsterdam in late July, I went to do my visa application at Netherlands embassy yesterday.

The odd thing, for me at least, is that they seems to have small office to receive the visitors. Only about 15 people waiting inside the A/C room and about 4-5 people in the inner room waiting for their turn to be interviewed. I have to wait outside for about 5 minutes before an officer get into the booth and do the initial check of my papers. Then I was given a queue number before I could get inside.

The wait was not too long but surely not that fast. The *interview* itself was more not that probing... Just how long I will travel, where will I stay in Amsterdam, and that's about it. They request more documents regarding my friends' passports. I was able to get those last night, so I went to the embassy again today to drop the paper off. They said they will contact me on Monday to tell me the result. I hope that is a good sign that I will get the visa. If I got the visa, I will also have to get an insurance and show that paper when I pick up my passport. They give me a list of companies for this. I am still deciding which would be the best choice...

The Exam Commence and general Rants

I went to SSQ to do my test in my bid to keep/upgrade my position. The test was difficult, that much is true. The test was multiple choices with written part to explain your answer.

Most of the questions were network related, which are not my trade. But I muddle through and answered every questions to the best of my abilities.

Right now I am still tired from the lack of sleep the previous night. There was a road crew just outside my house working on something in the street with an engine that produce rumbley loud and exhaust fume that goes into my room... Not only they were here last night and tonight, they will be here for 2 more nights!!

I called the police and they sort of say that this is government works and asked me to call again later in the night. I will probably do so soon... I don't think I should take this without any complains...

I have not been contacted by Dell regarding the shipping of the monitor I had ordered. When I check the webboard that I ordered it from, the seller posted that the shipment of the lot that I ordered will be in BKK tomorrow :( Since Friday is public holiday, the goods will be delivered after Monday... That really screw with my plans to enjoy the big screen monitor during the 3 days weekends...

Hopefully I will not have problem at my visa interview tomorrow...

The Learning Experience

I have been using 5800 for a few days now. I am still learning how to customize it to my taste and I am learning more and more about it.

Garmin GPS software works today, finally. It took about 10-15 minutes before it was able to pickup the satellite signal. I was waiting for a bus at the time, I open the software and let it search for satellite signal while I put it back in my pant pocket. When I took it out again, the map was loaded up as the signal was founded.

It was said on the 5800 community webboard that it will eventually work faster the more often you search for the signal. Hopefully that will be true.

I have also loaded up new themes and applications. One of which give the home page a new, more useful looks. I certainly prefer this *shell* over the default one.

Like many other 5800 owners, I am waiting for the new firmware to be release. Somehow only a few people were able to get it. No one seems to know the official release date though... Only speculation, while other countries for their update already.

The New Phone

I finally bought new phone today. As planned, I bought Nokia 5800. Although I bought the red one instead of black, because they ran out of the black one.

I am happy with the big screen. But, for being tout as music phone, there is no button that directly play the music. I also have trouble making Garmin software works. Other than that I am quite happy with it. If only I have more reason to use it :p I do enjoy typing SMS more now, with the mini QWERTY virtual keyboard of the phone.

With bigger screen, it means that I have to redo most of my video conversion and upload larger wallpaper images from my collection. I am still learning how to best utilize it. Hopefully I will not have to change it again at least 2 years later.