Back from CNY

 First day back to work after the CNY break and I hardly did any work.

The day started off normally, but this time, with my ex-colleague from my last job joining us as the new Project Manager. She was busy doing her onboarding by my boss when I arrived, so I greeted them both and went on with my regular routine of turning on the laptop and then just sitting there and wondering what I am suppose to be doing.

I don't really have any outstanding projects that I had to work on, had already rushed out most of them before the CNY break, so I am currently in a "waiting for feedback from the customer" phase.

Decided that since I didn't have much to do, I would just open my CNY hamper that I had left in the office and distribute it to anyone who wanted anything from it, no one did except for my friend, after her briefing with my boss was over. She took a box of White Fungus and a bottle of Bird's Nest, we then started chatting and about 30 minutes later, all of us gathered for a meeting to discuss about all our on-gong projects, that meeting lasted about an hour. I always found these meetings to be quite boring but it is what it is.

Once the meeting was over, we headed out to have our "Start Work again" Lunch or whatever is is called in english at Kallang Wave. My boss likes to go there because it's a pretty large and quiet mall, so that's where we went and had our meal. Not bad for my friend's first day at work.

After lunch, we had Karaoke, everyone sang some songs including myself. I have been listening to quite a bit of Miley Cyrus recently, so I decided to sing Midnight Sky, but then I completely forgot that the MV is quite raunchy, which was really uncomfortable because majority of my colleagues are in their 50s to 60s, the MV is probably like softcore porn to people of their generation. I still sang the song anyway because it has been my jam for the past month. I have really started to grow fond of Miley Cyrus's voice, was not a fan of hers during her Hannah Montana era because she had such a nasal sound as a kid, but that nasal quality has now grown into a huskier as she got older, so I do find myself listening to her a lot more of her recent offerings nowadays.

The karaoke session was much better than the one I had last year , felt like I was in a better condition to sing, although hearing myself on the speaker was still a very humbling experience. 

Our day ended at 3.30pm and my friend and I headed over to Orchard, she went to take a bus from there and I went to smell some perfumes at Escentials, but not before heading over to the furniture store to just say hi to my ex-colleague. 

Whilst we were on the train towards Orchard, we got to talking about her new job and the initial concerns I had about her future with the company. She was quite motivated to do her best for the company, which was comforting to hear and then we started to talk about our old company a little because that is kind of inevitable.

It's mainly the same old rants that I would have with any of my ex-colleagues from there, but then she shared with me how much our ex-boss draws for his monthly salary and that was completely eye opening. I guess it is normal considering his position as the director in the company, but to draw a salary of $50,000 every month is still nuts to me. I barely have half that amount in my bank account right now after years of working, and that is his 1 month salary. 

Before I left, our monthly sales in the store averages about $500,000 every month.

-$300,000 is set aside for furniture orders. (Since the mark up is about 40% give or take)

-$160,000 for rental (This was the amount my ex-boss shared with us during one of our training sessions)

-$30,000 for staff salary (This is already being very generous)

Profit Margin $10,000

My ex-boss did say that in order for the company to breakeven, the store needs to be generating at least $600,000 in sales, and after doing the calculations, I came up to a $50,000 profit after subtracting all the overhead cost. 

That's how much he draws every month for his own salary. The figure had been there the entire time for us to calculate. 

The company is really just barely hanging on.

Anyways, when I finally reach the Showroom, the state of it is very much same same but not really, no major changes were made, the new items that they have introduced since I left aren't a lot, there were still a lot of repeated sofas and armchairs designs scattered all over the different zones. The company really doesn't see the point in investing money and introducing more varieties, so even though the layout had some changes, the overall feel of the space is still the same. I do like that it's not as cluttered anymore, there are a lot more walking space, which is also a problem I guess because that means there isn't enough items to properly to fill up the showroom. 

Headed over to Escentials after I had a quick catch up with my ex-colleague, mainly wanted to smell one fragrance, which is Creed Aventus, a $320 perfume, I am glad I didn't buy the decants from Shopee because it smells just like MontBlanc Explorer, that was what I wore whilst I was in Bangkok last year, so it brings back memories of my 3 days there.

The dry down for both scent is suppose to be different, but the general scent profile is MontBlanc Explorer, which makes sense since Explorer is supposed to be a dupe of Aventus. I do like the smell, but I wouldn't pay $320 for it.  

Didn't really know what else I wanted to smell, so I left the store and got myself a large Cinnabon before heading home. 

Overall, it was a pretty fun day with very minimal work.