One Year at Work

First entry for 2013!

So time flies, I just turned 1 year at my work in Manila. To be exact it's 1 year, 1 month and 3 weeks! That's also how long I have cursed and finally re-accepted the quirky bits and parcels of moving back to Manila, that is traffic, pollution and the 32% tax included.

Work is good to me so far. In one year's time, I built a good name for myself (I think). So how good? I just translate it in simple manner. The fact that I can get to office whichever time I want (still within 10am), the fact that I can ran away a few hours in-between to High Street/Burgos Circle/Market/SM Aura, the fact that I call it an early off on Friday afternoon once in a while, the fact that I can work from home if I'm lazy (but I dont do it often, curse the internet and intranet connection). So basically that's all I need.

I earned several rewards/titles for my team. I can do a specific critical deliverable with almost eyes closed. But hey, I never ever said I am a career woman anyway.

I find it amusing to see the slow pacing of the people and how some crappy souls kiss ass to rub their shoulders with the top management. One time I was asking another person, so what should be done to the problem here (referring to a project issue). The favorite answer I got so far: 'Well we first have to do a root cause analysis. After finding the issue, then we do a gap analysis of what needs to be done. After analyzing the pros and cons, then we'll draft a plan.  We have to ensure the plan follows the standards in place and abides to the Target Operating Model..'  I was totally dumbfounded. It sounds so old-school bookish BS-ness.  Can we not get into action instantly? :p 

And I still wonder how people can't manage their time and predict their time properly.  A 2pm meeting means that people starts standing up from their seats at 2:05, get some coffee, and probably get seated at 2:15pm. People struggle to book a ride home (office car) because they can't predict their OT time. Isn't it simple, if I say I'll finish by 1030pm, then I just stick to it, no questions asked. It still strikes me if people can really be successful if they don't have self-control over their own time. This is probably brought about by lack of respect for time of others too.

The positive side is having lots of these 'bonding', moments spent on team activities. It was good to see warm people again.

And the 32% tax is killing me. My previous monthly payslip can afford me a monthly travel to anywhere I like.  Now, the last vacation that I had to Japan, hmm i had to spend >1 month's salary. Ouch. But still it's super fun!

And I have stopped complaining already. I have embraced all the beauty and ugliness of it. :)  I don't want to make my life miserable any further.  Just grow up and move on, note to self.  Oh btw it's July again soon...  Good night world!

One Year Again!

Tomorrow marks my 1yr at work. Hmm this is a milestone :D Time really flies.

I have so many things to say about this year! but too little time to blog. Still busy packing my balikbayan box at this second for my take-home goodies + disposal of my unwanted garbage as well :) As my sister puts it, 'wag mo na isama basura mo!' But what can I do, I dont have enough space!

Work is a little manageable now, no more instances to piss me off (keeping my fingers crossed). I suddenly become a release manager for the upcoming release next year, whatta name, but yeah I still prefer to be a follower, really! And oh there's occasional layoff (a dramatic one, I will blog next time). I care less now, kung matanggal man, SO? I'm really getting old, dont have the energy to waste time on these rants :D

Sharing one of my fave pix from the cheongsam shoot (aint over with it) :p I love this shot, my friend has labelled this as 'Wishful Thinking'. There seems to be elements of hope and tint of positivity. - exactly what I need, or everyone needs if I may say so. :)



Happy holidays!

P.S. I think this song suits the picture, one of my LSS last month

蘇打綠-無眠

你現在想著誰　有沒有和我相同的感覺
固執等著誰　卻驚覺已無法倒退
曾經想一起飛　在自己心中蓋了座花園
把你的一切　都種在這個地點
卻像魚守在裡面

Quick Translation:

who are you thinking of now, do we feel the same way
stubbornly waiting, yet knowing there's not much turning back
dreamt of flying together, grooming a garden in one's heart
have all about you, planted in this spot
and be like a fish, guarding inside it

It was too artsy, I am not sure how the garden relates to the fish, perhaps there's a fish pond inside it :p. But yeah even if I dont get it, anything catchy catches my attention. :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2TtliknCEA

Ooops dont dwell too much on the voice/gender or whatever, I dont know the gender too, but I like the lyrics and melody :)

And nothing happened..

This is what happened... nothing. As simple as that.

After a grueling, struggling, agonizing week of scratching my head and being bullied, this week starts off with all smiles, strangely. I got greeted with smiles by the senior bullies in the office on Monday. In group chats, I received some 'thanks leslie' with smiley icons once in a while. The bullies have become polite. Note that the doomsday project is not over yet.

I have no idea why the sudden change. Anyway I wont complaint, this is of course better. If you keep pushing, you might not like what you see when you challenge my patience limit. How I wish I can do AWOL or submit my papers with the note 'effectively immediately', a friend of mine has done that, I wonder how it felt :p

I felt like a dog! Sinisipa ka the other week, hinihimas-himasan ka nman ngyon, like nothing happened. Not funny. No fun. Do not groom me to be a bitch!

You are such an a**hole

And my career goal in life remains unchanged: retire. :p

Tips on Domains

I think I have to share and note down my meager knowledge on different domains, before I totally forget again lol.

There are so much more factors to it for each of them, I will just state a few liners.

Point of Sale and Retail and Shipments
This is where I spent the initial almost 4 years of slavery with, a consumer good giant. Basically from a data warehouse point of view, this is none other than reporting of fact and dimension data: in layman terms: sales vs customer vs product kind of thing. SAP Barcode comes into play, different ways of computing for bundled products and promotion, etc. The level of granularity depends on how you want the information to be stored in the warehouse (star schema, dimensional, etc) and the analysis on what metrics to compute of which the top management people are actually tracking and dying to read and monitor. Basic KPI index on ROI, turnover would be among the favorites.

Telecoms
I spent almost 1.5 years on and off a telco company. Simply put there are 2 lines of businesses, the prepaid and postpaid. UDR (usage detail records) will be tracked, to the details like for a customer, how many local and international calls did he make, when (peak or non peak hours) was the call made, demographics, VAS (value added services) like voice call, 3g, incoming, call waiting, data plan, etc and equally important and volatile are the sim states which could be active, expired, terminated, reconnected. Datawarehousing sounds cool, but it is just a fancy tool for Marketing and Sales executive people to dwell and do their fancy forecasts and analysis. (I overuse the word fancy).

Banking: Forex
Ok finally working on an end-user forex trading application, as they say, where the money is, financial market focus. There are different ways of trading: I will state a few
Spots - trading today where settlement is 2 days from now.
Forwards – trading at a future date
Swaps – 2 streams of trading, a near leg and far leg. It could be even or uneven swap
Orders – putting of orders where you specify your own rate, once the market hits your rate, orders get executed as a trade

Aggegrated trading – for fancy trading for bulk trades of high volumes, minimum usually at 1M for an instruction. An instruction can be further broken down into orders, of which the orders further generate a deal. Some basic terms:
Buy & Sell – you are a market taker, taking in whatever rate the market has
Bid & Offer – you are a market maker, if there is nothing to sweep, you can specify the rate and market where you want to put a limit order in.

Market data adapters would be exchanges like Reuters, Bloomberg, etc which are liquidity sources. If a trader places 10M, it can be executed (risk is hedged by the bank) like 5M@1.03 goes to Reuters, 3M goes to Bloomberg @1.05, 2M goes to CME@1.06.

Some more fancy strategies:
Iceberg – as the name implies, you can have a shown amount and a hidden amount when you place your trade. This way the market won’t have a clear perception of what you place.

Sniper – you can put an open instruction at a rate you want. Once the market hits your rates, it continuous snipes for more orders until the instruction amount gets filled.

Just a side note, after working for forex, I get to be asked a common question, so ‘what do you recommend people to trade’. I once get mocked by an outsider folk for not giving a specific currency to recommend. Let me just set the record:
1) the bank’s forex trading application is for high net worth individuals (financial assets not including primary residence should exceed $1M USD) who do bulk trading. I don’t think it is applicable to common people who do small-time trading

2) whatever currency (ccy) you trade, the bank will never lose, it just hedges the risk outside, it will never keep a long position on a certain ccy. It will only earn, and never lose money. So whether it’s 10M JPY or 10M EUR or 10M USD, it doesn’t make much difference to me from my side of the barn. Perhaps it’s not part of the workstream I am involved in. Do not ask me for insider trading tips, if I do have, I’d be quitting job and practicing trading myself.

People tend to over-exaggerate things. Some people would consider trading as the next booming instrument to take over the world’s financial market. Everyone wants a slice of it and dip their a** into it, makes it sound like they are doing something extremely perplex and high-profile. From a practical standpoint, I can say from my few months, trading is like a glorified gambling casino console hehe.

It’s always handy to know a few of the acronyms and jargons and feel like an expert. As they say, when you can’t convince, confuse. :p

Sometimes the sun still shines...

For the first 5 months in the new company, I was such a loser, always worrying I cant understand what the foreign exchange trading application is trying to do. I only see bunch of exchange rates floating for different currencies and changing every millisecond, and when you place a trade, there is so much logic in the strategy how the bank implements it and manages the risk by hedging it to different ECNs (Reuters, EBS, etc). I really DONT know what is the expected behavior, coz I simply dont know where to start. And yes, so many interruptions in life, and even the boss asked me during a one-on-one session if everything's alright with me. Yes, my focus was so bad obviously. And I was not trying harder.

Apart from the usual stuff, the first ever project assigned to me was actually a no-brainer boring integration project. The bank was acquired 2 years ago by another bigger bank. This project was just mainly checking how the transition goes and login scenario should be ok. There were few hiccups and finally everything was resolved.

Come friday (a day before signoff) sometime early May, a major booboo came out. Functionally I have verified it to be ok. Just that login suddenly stopped working with java1.4 and I didnt know when. (I was using 1.6, what the h*ll do I know about java?) Hell it was so humiliating, I wanted to dig a cozy hole and jumped into it and hide from everybody. The harm was done, I spoiled my name. Last remedy fixes resurrected it. The cost of the nigthmare was that all of us extended till 12midnight on a friday and I had to cancel a movie (of which I already pre-booked online, gone to waste), and I guess I would have had harsh feedbacks thrown on me somewhere in the chaos.

With all the forces working against me, I finally realize I had to help myself. It's no excuse that I still dwell on contemplating that this is a totally new field to me (not my usual data warehousing). They say 'hundred times reading reveals the meaning'. With a mind that is set to learn, and again reusing my common sense (thank God I still have a few left), suddenly I understood. Literally like a light bulb igniting.

The following 3 days was the peak of my learning curve. I was testing the 'engine' and criticizing every logic that I can possibly break and question. Engine is the execution engine meaning the core, the heart of the trading application. Limits, fillkills, maker/taker, bid/offer, all of it. Orders placed using icebergs and snipers strategy, quite challenging. I think even my boss was surprised how in the earth did I manage to catch up suddenly (and I hope he should know by now not to assign me any no-brainer projects anymore coz it is where I usually screw up!). I actually dont know. I just had one thing in my mind back then: Kelangan ko na talagang bumawi. Finally put my name out of the 'useless people' list.

I was glad the saying 'you cant teach an old dog new tricks' probably doesnt hold true all the time. Back in HP, I remembered there were experienced folks hired. And yet it was taking them so long to pick up a new system. And these are the people who would always prefer doing the 'admin work' and not really wanting to learn the functional/domain knowledge of an application/project. I realize I am not really meant for a talkie job nor a people person :p. I'd rather quit corporate world, quit IT, and do something else if I'm totally useless..

That's it. Hope to hear less rants from me about work. And I dont think I would be keen to shift work focus again, it's not always lucky that I can adjust to a new environment.

Sometimes shit has to happen to jerk us back to reality. :)

7th!

Just realized this when I saw a fellow P&G batchmate's fb status.

Happy 7th! 7 years of corporate slavery. Cheers.

Last Words...

This summarizes what I've been doing in IT. Of all the people I worked with, I would say this is definitely the best group, everyone is technically capable and work ethics is superb. (I wont talk about process-oriented or management tasks: that is given).

And what is more awesome is to receive praises from these experts - similar to hitting 500K in Bejeweled Blitz hehe. During the last day (btw I'm proud to say i didnt cry!), one of the leads commented he has no idea how I managed to do these things when I was never in a single BRD (business requirements discovery) session and I also dont do ETL/OLAP development. I said I was just guessing from what I see. 'but your guesses are always correct'. So fun. :D (thank GOd I probably didnt have much booboos).

So that's it, I'm leaving this behind to do something else. Scary. Back to 0. Still the same goal: I want to retire!!! :p

Funny that I actually took time and managed to write down something related to work. DWH/SQL/data - whatever it is, it has become a part of me for the past 6.5years. I might not be vocal or expressive of things I appreciate. For the last time, I give credit when credit is due. Thanks for keeping me company and making me happy.

P.S. The time I speak the truth might be the time I bade goodbye. *sobs*

Data Checks (2 of 2)

Some more tips on analyzing incoming source data (referred as IFS in the telco project that I handled). Datawarehouse in a Nutshell: garbage in is garbage out. From a quality standpoint, throw away all the garbages before any app moves to production. The earlier it is detected, the less headaches, the cheaper. This again is part of the KT manual I created.

1. Most common issue is PK/integrity checks.
If there’s only one PK (natural key) stated in IFS specs, then IFS should not have two entries with the same natural key, this would result in Oracle constraint error during loading.
Product Code Desc Product Type
1 Class A 001
1 Class B 002

Possible course of action:
1) It could be source issue. Ask for Regen
2) Recheck data model. Maybe there’s a need to check whether natural key is defined correctly. There’s a possibility to explore addition of another new column, (eg. Product Type) which should be part of natural key to determine PK.


2. Not null columns.
Whatever primary columns or columns defined as not null in IFS specs, these columns should not be null in IFS.
Product Code Desc
1 Class A
Class B

Possible course of action: Ask for Regen


3. Unknown codes in Fact Tables
Logically, whatever codes submitted in Fact files should be present in Code tables, or else this would result to lookup failure:

Fact IFS:
Month Product Code Amount
200910 1 500
200910 3 400

Code IFS
Product Code Desc
1 Class A
2 Class B

Possible course of action:
1. If unknown code in Fact IFS is valid (product code = 3), then Code IFS should have regen.
2. If unknown code in Fact IFS is invalid, then Fact IFS should have regen.
3. Or customer can decide that it is ok to keep it as is.


4. Different Cases/Forms that cause mismatch during lookups
As pointed in above point#3, logically, whatever codes submitted in Fact files should be present in Code tables, or else this would resolve to lookup failure. However there are times that manipulation is needed in ETL side to make the join to be successful. Eg: functions like: UPPER, LOWER, TO_CHAR, LTRIM, RTRIM, SUBSTR, ABS, etc.

Fact IFS:
Month Product Code Amount
200910 101a 500
200910 000203B 400

Code IFS
Product Code Desc
101A Class A
203B Class B

Closely looking at the values, the values do exist but not exactly in the same form. This should tell you that these are not really lookup failures.

Possible course of action:
1. Agree with client who should change which and what should be handled in ETL in their side or our side. Other than the agreed things, then whatever that still fails lookup is considered ‘valid’. Revisit the logic when more data has been loaded. Document such to have reference in the future.


5. Volume of Data
The volume of data should more or less be consistent. If a fact file contains 3M records on a daily basis, then it shouldn’t fall too low, eg 100k records. For additional info, data volume is tracked for several other purposes. This is usually checked in SIT.

a. One is for tracking performance: comparing ETL processing time against different IFS files having different data volume.

b. Another purpose is for is tracking compression (in comparison to aggregated tables), this is to check whether compression targets are met or not. If targets are not met, then there is a need to revisit design. Some columns might not be suitable to be part of the group by clause.

Possible course of action:
If IFS file suddenly has too low rowcount, it has to be informed to client to check from their source. This might need IFS regen from M1.


6. Other Common IFS Issues:
• Duplicates - same entry of exactly same records are sent twice.

• Default values. Default values as indicated in IFS specs are not followed. There are also cases where agreed values are Y or N, but in actual IFS, it is showing null values, X values, etc.

• Missing footer record. ETL program from M1 side has to be completed, and thus trailer record will be populated.

• Column length too long.

• Missing or Additional column in IFS

• Extra spaces for data some columns in IFS, special characters.

• Invalid filename

Data Checks (1 of 2)

Sharing some techniques. I drafted this one time when I was asked to do some 'knowledge sharing'. It's actually just common sense and some room for imagination to cater for 'intelligent assumptions'. :)

Scenario: Amounts do not tally.

1) Open the report in UAT instance. If specific account number or cust is given, search for that number. Replicate the issue for those accounts/CIFs raised, you can bring in other fields into the report (eg Sector Code, Sub Product Type, etc) if you need more information.

2) Check how the amount is calculated. The amount field can be an OLAP variable, look for the specific table.column in ETL that is used and do the calculation manually. If it’s a direct fetch from EDW, then query the database.

3) Next is to query the source itself. If it’s a lookup field from another instance, then look for specific join conditions in actual ETL mapping. If let’s say all your amounts are null but in Raw has value, then something is wrong in EDW. Either it’s an ETL lookup issue related to data, or requirement itself is wrong.

Eg: Issues:
- All debit fields are null because debit stream lookup to VBM in ETL in incorrect
- Some FD Credit balances are not matching and consistently lower in OLAP than in Raw, because VBM lookup in ETL has a component for renewal counters, and this field appears differently in VBM and GFDR and has to be padded with 0.

4) It could also happen that for some of the accounts match, some do not match, and there is no data format (trimming, padding) issue or ETL lookup error. This would mean that some of the filters (in either ETL side or OLAP side) are not proper

Eg: We had issues wherein we actually have to modify the filters, upon investigation that something is consistently wrong in our side. Sample issues:
BO: add filter to include Accounts Closed within Current Month. Remove filter on Receipt Status is Closed
ETL: remove filter on sub product type = GT.
Net, it can happen that requirement itself is incorrect. There are times when we cannot fully rely on what is stated in signed off mapping specs/report specs.

5) Another way is the comparison of total number of accounts. In this project, we normally go by account. Get the total number of accounts in OLAP vs the total number of accounts in Raw.
- It can happen that there are MISSING accounts from Raw but in EDW we take them in.
- Or the other way around, there are EXTRA accounts from Raw but in EDW we don’t have. With this, then you have to extract the accounts that are missing/extra, justify why it is or it is not there in EDW. Then do analysis and find a pattern where possible.

Apples and Oranges

Here goes a simple sample for a datawarehousing project from a bank. (note that this is just simple current accounts and fixed deposits, we're not even talking about equities, derivatives, bonds or forex).


In a dwh project, usually there will be some existing reports from old system to be compared against a new EDW. EDW will consist of ETL (processing source data and implementation of all data transformation) and OLAP (reporting layer where further filters and metrics can be applied). With this, data accuracy will be challenged and it's troublesome to find which part exactly has data gone wrong. Sometimes numbers can be critical, especially in banks. These numbers appearing in the report are read by Marketing or Sales people for their forecast, or even CEOs. A cent lost has to be digged out.


In layman's terms: my edw has 20 apples (15 are apple pies, 5 are apple muffins) and 30 oranges (10 are orange pies, 20 are orange muffins). Existing report shows 30 apples and 30 oranges. Somewhere data has gone wrong, it maybe during tagging of pies and muffins or it maybe there is a certain formula for classifying what is a valid apple and a valid orange. Literally comparing apples to oranges. (I hope it gives a better idea now) :D Depends on the type of project, if numbers dont tally, normally it can NOT go into production until the culprit is found. Or sometimes maybe the existing report is actually wrong. Or sometimes the business requirements are not correctly captured. Endless possibilities.


I'm actually not a SQL expert. I can only do simple queries and subqueries, not the too fancy ones. Think about it, it's quite fun to do those intersect, union to extract the correct data that you need in order to find the culprit.

All About Work

So many things happened when I got back to work this year from vacation. Just the following day, the company I'm working for got splashed all over the headlines of SG dailies because of corporate fraud of which CEO has stepped down. Shocking as it is, its presence in 40+ countries, the 50,000+ associates worldwide, all suddenly came into a big dilemma. Will we survive this kind of scandal in times of recession. Whew.

January payroll got delayed for several days. From sana may increase... to sana hndi ako matanggal.. to now.. sana may sweldo ako this month. What a mess. Wehehe so far didnt sound as bad as it is, good thing I'm still paid.

More than half of those I worked with were already sent back somewhere else or asked to resign. I was a bit anxious last January because my banking project was ending soon and I dont know what's taking so long to allocate me back to telco project. Note on bench on few days = greater chance of bye bye. I purposedly dropped by the other office of my PM, I really wanted to know if they're allocating me back. Somehow when I was there, I couldnt find the words to say and just left without even asking. I'm such a coward in asking when I'm not confident to get a definite answer. Let it be, talk to me when you're ready :(

A few days after, finally they're chasing after me. Client wanted me back. As in 'namedrop'. Whew so I joined the meeting the next day and the clients were glad to see me. Someone from the client said 'hey we missed you'.. and I answered 'thank you' (what a dry answer hehe. I should have answered 'I miss you all too' :p) It felt good that somehow what I'm doing is 'value-add' and gets appreciated.

Crazy company with crazy policies. Lame timelines by project managers who want to cut down cost and expedite progress = burnout associates. Banking project was actually not officially over and I was pulled out for telco. See what were the excuses made by my PM in banking project - leslie cant join us anymore because she's sick, she took Medical Leave for one week, then she went to Manila. Then what? #@#$ I dont like these crazy lies.

Anyway, important thing is I have a project now that will be running for quite some time, I'm still 'safe'. It's really a matter of luck and staying power. Like one of my favorite lines, I dont necessary have to be the best. but I want be to irreplaceable. You wont easily find someone like me or someone to replace me. Probably it's my common sense that is not so common that is earning me the credits. I may not know if a solution will work, my job is to say 'something is wrong' and point that out hehe.

I actually dont know how it all started. I came in 23 months back. Do all sort of tasks. I dont know what my role is actually, as they say I'm an all-rounder. I analyse data, crunch my head out in data recon, perform testing, interact with users, get requirements, documents, sometimes even develop some easy programs, and also include those times when I'm a secretary preparing meeting minutes and preparing updates and presentation slides for my PM. As long as it's something that I can do or learn to do and within working hours, I dont quite argue. Finally few weeks back, I was glad that when a counterpart was going against me, my ever strict project manager yelled back and said 'she's my lead in this project, she has identified so many bugs, do what she said'. Wow it felt so good - affirmation. Finally I know what I am :p. How can I possibly land a lead role in SG??? Now I dont have to do so much dirty work myself but rather ask people, push people to do things for me. And oh my English seems to get much "broken" now dealing with more KL and SG folks. Sample: phrases like 'I not yet checked' instead of 'I havent checked'.

I just got to realize I prefer being a consultant rather than managing something. I dont really like much the feeling like the world is on my shoulders. This additional role didnt get me any added benefits, but more hassles due to dealing with incompetent people. Probably I'm not really born to be a career woman. I'd probably be happier managing something that has a direct impact on me, eg managing my own business, my own crew, etc. This is one heck of a headache. SIT comes and my schedule goes crazy as well. Leaving office at 930pm for 1 week is too much. Then come Saturday and I rest and have to feel guilty because they expect much more. 'I want you to be on top of everything'. I hate it when my weekend time gets stolen by work. Due to a pinch of martyrdom, okay fine I dragged myself to office today (Sunday) to check how things were going.

For some strange reason, I still havent applied for permanent residency. Blame it on my stupid stubborness for sticking to what I intend. I have this feeling that if I apply for PR, it will be much harder to give up the easy life here. But now this stupidity will cost me much suspense. Anytime I do get retrenched, I will have to find a job in ONE month's time. Okay fine, crossing my fingers, let's bring it on. :p

At the corners of my mind, probably somehow I have set 'the day'. the end date hehe. I'm still confused, I really dont know. But somehow I just know I have to go back to my real home... :)

Good Job

For once, I feel good.

It's been quite long since the last time I received any feedbacks from work. Since I set foot here, I already cancelled out any expectations careerwise, whatever about work. I still don't have any long term plans here so why bother office politics and kiss-assing deeds people are putting up. Simply put, I just dont care much. Keber, wala akong paki. :p

I think this is a better approach, prepare for the worst, hope for the best. Other than that, no need to give a d*mn. All I care about is that I hope I won't commit fatal booboos that will prompt people to fire me :p

Early March I was given a task in this new telco project that was actually not part of my scope. Well it was of no basis, but just simply because the people involved in the project were too busy and I seemed to be the least busiest :p I was given tons of things to analyze (nieks I was confused) The supposedly person (Indian) who should help me out is an OC friek, he was dictating some queries for me to write. And then he told me 'You put an inverted comma'. I was stuck. What? Yeah inverted comma. After few seconds he seemed impatient, went to my pc and pointed to one button 'Here is the inverted comma'. My golly??? It's the apostrophe! Crazy terminology.

Anyway, that started my first time to take-home work. I spent a few puyat nights to organize those stuff. This seems to be a 'hot' project among the top management. I sent them the analysis as instructed. And I got a comment 'good job Leslie' :p

Naks ang haba ng buhok ko. :)

and the busy days are yet to come. Bahala na, I just hope I will still have time for my leisure classes,.. and if it's not too much to ask, I hope I'll get a raise! Hey I'm turning 1 year old in this company soon. Time flies!

Truth about Projects

This is funny, but sometimes true. Enjoy reading!



I specifically like the business consultant image. :)

Work Pitstop: Joketime?

There was a newhire today in the office who will also be doing almost the same kind of work that I'm doing. ... and I was asked to orient her and give her the detailed list of tasks.

What?! It's just my 3rd week. Hindi ko pa nga sure kung ano dapat kong gawin, tpos ituturo ko pa sa iba. Hehe joke? Cge lang, walang sisihan kung may mali akong maturo. :p

Working in SG!

For IT people who are considering to work in SG, here are some tips.

Hunting: Post in jobstreet, jobsdb and monster. Check for agent contacts.

Resume: If you're given the job description, tailor-fit your resume to suit the reqts, you have to pass the screening at the very least to earn a phone interview

Interview: they normally hire people outside SG for their technical skills. For those working in pampered environments, unfortunately the bibo skills in managing, leading is not that 'mabenta'. Usually 1-2 rounds, max of 3 rounds would be enough.

General types of IT work:
Project Managers - there are technical PMs and process PMs (usually the PMP-certified). For both, the minimum requirement usually is at least 8 year work experience. PM job here is not the pampered type in Phil, here you managed resources, budget, timelines of a project but remember culture is different - mostly Indians, Filipinos, locals, etc. PMs I know here are usually 'puno sa konsumisyon', mahirap pasunurin mga tao lalo na ang Indians. :)
Business Analysts - Minimum requirement again is at least 5 year exposure to a specific industry. Most mabenta are: banking, insurance.
Quality Assurance - Process QA, testing QA, documentation. You have to know several in-demand languages, most common of which are SAP, Peoplesoft, Informatica, Cognos, Datastage, Java, etc. Unix and Oracle have become baselines.
Developers - programmers. Same as the statement in QA.
Others - sometimes you get some systems analyst roles, support roles, but they are not as common as the 4 ones stated above.

Job types:
Contractual - 80% of the time. Check the terms if you terminate a contract. Usual bond is 1 year and if you fail to finish it, sometimes they'll require you to be working for free for 1 month or 2 months (notice period). And oh, we're talking KKs pesos going to charity here.
Permanent - 20% of the time. But they say you can haggle more in a contractual position (however you have to take the risks that they can also terminate you once a project finishes, by then you will only have 14 days to find a replacement job, or else you have to go back to Manila)

Pay:
Normally you'd be given an offer based on your years of working experience.
Average monthly expense is roughly 1500SGD (kasama na gimiks yun 1.5K, kung ndi ka magastos 1 or 1.2K should be fine), so dont go lower than 2500SGD at the very least. Usual range is 3K-4KSGD. You can also go as high as 5.5K (extremes), depends probably on your skillset and your bargaining skills.
Tax - in my case is initially 15%. After 6 months it will go down to 7%. Most of the time you have to file your own tax. So you get the whole amount every month.

Watchouts and Horror Stories:
Almost no training and orientation whatsoever. Remember, they hire you for your skills so they expect you to know everything (which is kinda crazy.). In my case, I was told on Day2 to QA a project that will be released on Day4 to user environment! Hehe buti na lng may tumulong sa kin, dasalan na lng ito. :) So far I only encountered this one.

Below are horror stories shared by some friends:
You actually have to have an employment pass to be able to work in SG, and this is tied to your employer. If you plan to quit your present job but your employer or sometimes your agent (contractual) does not want you to quit, iipitin ka nila. If they wont release your EP, there's no way you can work for another company because you have to surrender your old EP to process a new EP. (But there's a new PEP coming up meaning Personal employment pass, which is not tied to a certain employer anymore).

They say people here are generally workoholic, uptight, unforgiving. Different races have different work habits. Even if you've tried working with different races for multinationals in Phil, somehow there's still a huge difference.
A friend related sort of pinapahiya ng boss (Indian/local) everytime whether he does or does not commit a mistake. He was told to resign dahil they dont need his service. Another one related pinapagalitan na cya during his first week, even for small reasons like coming late to office.

Another one told me he dislikes attending meetings, para bang parati cyang sinusubukan kung may alam cya sa ginagawa nya.

One said the Indians wont listen to instructions given out, they sabotage your plans.

Anyway, still look at the bright side. 3 things probably to look forward to.
Saving is easier.
Learn a lot in life and work
Work-life balance. In my case, I arrive 930am, lunch break 11:30-2pm (they have long lunch breaks), then leave before 7pm. Latest probably is 730pm.

What to Expect in SG!

Here are some of the things you need to know if you plan to stay in SG:

Weather:
Everyday is moderately cool. Sometimes it rains, but no strong winds or typhoons whatsoever. The sun sets very late, it's normal to see sunlight even after 7pm.

Transportation:
MRT - most convenient, a lot of stops has a mall beside it. The more famous lines are the Red line (where Orchard is), Green line (most of the offices are in this line), the Purple line (going to Sentosa)
Bus -good airconditioning system. They have this button in several poles for you to push if you want to alight. Be sure to tap in and tap out your Ezlink card, or else you'd be charged the whole trip.
Taxi - very safe. Though fares can go double after 12midnyt.
Get an Easylink card, it can be used for both MRT and buses, (I think even taxis).
Dont eat inside an MRT or bus, you'll be penalized!

Food:
Hawker - is everywhere. The cheapest option. Each meal would cost you 2-5SGD. The most common of course is the Hainanese or Roasted Chicken rice, Asado rice.
Food Court - all malls have food courts, around 4-8SGD
Restaurant - all set meals will definitely go higher than 7SGD, averaging 10+ to 20+.
Types of food: Chinese, Indian, Malay
By default: usually they will put sauce on top of your rice. (which I prefer hehe) But I always just order 2 dishes (meat+veggie) for rice toppings, so if you order 3 dishes they're also going to pour the each type of sauce all over and it's not so desirable to see/taste sauces overlapping.
Take-out is take away or ta pao. Dine-in is for here or having here/eating here.
There is no tissue provided, bring your own.

Rental:
HDB - government owned, averaging 400-600SGD per room. A whole unit with 3 bedrooms would cost 2K.
Condo - averaging 500-800SGD per room.
All rental fees either HDB or condo have been rising since last November.
All units for both HDB and condo are furnished (most of the time), there should be a washing machine, sala, beds, closets, some tables and chairs, aircon, water heater, sometimes even TV. If none, negotiate for one.
When you start renting, the rule is expect to pay 1month advance+1month deposit + additional 50% of the monthly deposit for your agent's fee. Assuming it's a 3bedroom condo worth 2K for a 1yr contract, each person will be shelling out (2500*2.5)/3 = 2084SGD per pax. It's on contract basis usually tied for a year or 2 years.
It's not so easy to move out, the ethical rule is that you find your own replacement. Your housemates wont be paying for your share.
As much as possible choose housemates of the same race, for convenience, less adjustments.
Normally, no maids, so do your own chores, laundry, ironing, cleaning and cooking.

Shopping:
Orchard - huge chain of malls
Bugis or Chinatown - for tiangges
Bargaining is not 'in', pirated stuff are not allowed.

Race: (roughly)
50% local Singaporeans
30% Indians
20% Filipinos+Malays+Chinese(Mainland)+etc.

Culture/Traditions:
Disciplined, no singitan in queues.
The elders are called 'uncles' and 'aunties' (for tindera, drivers, etc)
Singlish (singaporean english) - 'can can'.. they like that expression meaning 'pwede'.

Cost of living:
Food and Transpo: Low
Rent: High
Pampering stuff: High as well! Cheapest haircut sa tabi-tabi by unknown barbero is 10SGD. A facial or spa will cost 80-100SGD. Dental check-up or tooth extraction, medical consultation - at least 50SGD.
For your 'start-up cost', bring enough money to tide you over your first month. 50K php should be more than enough. If you can stay in a friend's house, then 20-30K probably should be fine.

Hope this helps!

P.S. I'll write another one about work.

Last Few Glimpses at Work

Probably it's true that it's hardest to quit a first job, especially for one that you stayed for quite a long time. (just like a relationship? :p)

Sharing 2 images below:
My last online ST window! haha you wont see wong.l.7 online anymore (w/c makes me curious who are those 6 people with wong.l before me?!- is it a common initial, anyway am4487 signing off)

This was taken on my last day in office with some of my teammates, Mar 23, 2007 Friday. My goodness, my eyes were so PUFFY the whole week (nasobrahan sa iyak, oopps tama na yan hehe)

Some of my fondest memories and challenges:

- resiting of work

- most toxic moment: handling 9 projects at the same time when my teammate went on maternity leave. that's roughy 2.5FTE I think.

- quarterly rewards thingy, i'm gonna miss organizing site LTss. :)

- the dm cal and the CI program.

- one of the fortunate few to have tried different roles/teams (within the same bundle nga lng). FTS,DQ,GPOS Asia & Legacy, SI QA. :)

Hmm cge pwede na grumaduate! :)