More PopMart stuff and update about work...

So I got this from a non-PopMart Blind Box from the same Livestreamer that I got my Labubu from because it was relatively cheap and it arrived today with my second Labubu yesterday evening.

It's from series called the Tuan Tuan Long Pandora and it was going for $12.90 a box, so I got it, and got this yellow coloured head, which was the color I least wanted. My chances of getting this colour was pretty high, it was the last box in the full set and it was either this or the secret, and the secret is like a 1 in 72 chance of getting, so at that point I was kinda asking for it.

Here is my Baba from Labubu V2 series, she cost me $48 because I can't get any from the official PopMart TikTok Shop. This Labubu Plush Keychains are impossible to get at retail price because of how quickly it gets wiped out from the official online and physical stores. 

Baba is cute, but I am surprised at how much I actually like the Tuan Tuan Long over the Labubu. 

It is really adorable in person, the fur is really soft, and because it is round, it is so nice to just cup it in my hands, it's such a perfect size.

I liked it so much I decided to spray 5 spritz of my Baccarat Rough 540 Extrait on it so it can smell expensive, to compensate for how cheap it was actually going for.  That however was a mistake because it started leaving a greasy feel on my palms every time after holding it, and I really don't like the Baccarat Rouge 540 very much to be honest.

With the arrival of these 2 items, I now have another 5 more items left that have yet to arrive. All 5 are plushies because I am a fucking idiot.

This.

(It arrived today, I got Little Superman, I left it in the foil unopened because I just wanna preserve it in there otherwise it will definitely be thrown somewhere and just start collecting dust on it's furry coat)

This.

My second V1 Labubu in the colour Sesame (left) that I paid $42 for. 

And the latest plushies that I got from the Livestream because they were highly sought after surprise drops...

This was from yesterday afternoon....

Crybaby Cheer Up Pendant. $18.90

Resellers are selling this at an average of $50 on TikTok, I got it at retail price, so did I really spend $18.90 or did I really actually save $30.10? 

This was from this afternoon's livestream...

Crybaby Sunset Concert Series. $18.90

Resellers are selling this at an average of $33 on TikTok, I got it at retail price, so I saved $14.10.

I think the rainbow one is kinda cute, very LGBT, but the Sunset Concert one was a series I had originally thought looked kinda ugly when I first saw it, I thought it looked ridiculous and was worst than my first impression of Labubu, so to actually be getting it right now because it's sold out everywhere is really genius marketing from PopMart side.

I NEED TO STOP! I have been receiving packages for PopMart item almost everyday for the past 3 days.

Update:

Just got my hands on another super rare item....

....2 freaking MerBubu from the TikTok Livestream. 

Retail Price $37.90

It dropped twice, I got it during both drops. Although to be fair, 100 pieces were released per drop, so it wasn't as difficult, but I was competing with 1100 viewers for it, so my fingers till performed a rather impressive feat. 

I have managed to find 2 buyers for both Merbubu, so I will be selling them to make some small profit and recoup what I have been spending at PopMart. Sold one to a friend for $50 and another to someone else at $70, it's a pretty good deal for them because the resell market is listing the Merbubu for...

 wait for it

 $250 - $320 per piece.

Insane. I am like a fucking saint to be letting the Merbubu go for less than $100 each.

-----

Anyways, my journey of getting into financial ruin aside, update on the situation at work so far...

My boss is very hesitant to retain Yan, even after I offered to take a pay cut to try and help the company sustain her position. 

I felt responsible for Yan since I was the one who pulled her into the company, so I felt bad that Yan's getting terminated and decided to offer a portion of my salary to help the company retain her.

My boss on the other hand feels bad that I have to sacrifice my own pay for the company to try and retain Yan, so he disagreed with the arrangement because he feels like I would be losing out in that situation. 

Yan feels bad that I have to sacrifice a huge chunk of my salary to retain her, but she was willing to be a bit more thick skin in this situation because of her future adulting plans and accepted my offer, but after she can sensed that our boss isn't very keen on the arrangement, she has decided that instead of putting everybody on the spot, she will just start looking for a new job. 

It's really not an ideal situation for anybody, and everyone just feels bad for everyone else.

I even shared with Yan how I had the idea of sacrificing my position for the company to retain her because I feel like she has the potential to offer more to the company in the long run, if she ever find the confidence of becoming a designer again, but she told me if the reason she could stay is due to me leaving, then she will not take up the offer because she will just feel really guilty about it. 

The truth is I am not as noble as she thinks I am being. Sacrificing my position in the company to retain her would give me an excuse to actually go look for a job at a bigger company that I could potentially retire in without having to feel bad about throwing my current company in the lurch whilst it is down, and I can also feel safer to leave the company knowing that Yan will be able to help the business, so that arrangement is just a guilt-free way for me to essentially jump ship, knowing that I won't have to work super hard to tend to the sinking ship, a sinking ship that I know will eventually recover if everyone in the company work their asses off.

But of course, it was just an idea, for me to actually go ahead with it would be another thing. That idea will only work if I can find a similar job elsewhere, I went to Jobstreet and MyCareerFuture to look, it's really not easy to look for a job with a similar scope as mine. 

I thought I found the perfect Interior Design firm that I really liked that was hiring, they marketed the position as Interior Designer, but then when I showed that to Yan, she highlighted that it is not just a Designer position, that they expect the Designer to also be able to do Project Management. 

I thought what they meant when they wrote "able to assist" is to assist the Project Manager to manage the site when required, sort of like my arrangement right now with Yan, where she was the main person in charge, but if there were things that she was unclear of, I could just step in once in a while to assist.

But then "take pride in running projects from design to completion" shows that that isn't the case, that they are expecting the designer to also be the Project Manager. 

I am honestly a bit surprise that this particular company is taking this approach, it is a bit disappointing and no wonder why they are still pinning this on their Instagram page since 31 weeks ago. It's not a very enticing position for Designers because most of us probably just want to focus on design, and pure Project Managers simply aren't going to apply for it because, well, the position is for an Interior Designer.

Those who can do both roles are usually Sales Designer, and if they have 3 - 5 years worth of experience doing Sales Design, unless they are an idiot like me, they are probably doing very well with the commission scheme and will probably not want to be tied down by a monthly salary.

To have to do both roles is very challenging, and if the company is only going to be paying me an estimate $4000 a month, and expecting me hit the monthly sales target to justify my salary, I would rather work this hard in a Sales position and potentially earn more than their monthly salary.

Pop Mart Addiction

I'm have been spending the past few days at work just watching the PopMart Singapore Livestream on my iPhone while I work because they are doing random drops every 2 hours for their Labubu and Crybaby series. 

The products from these 2 series, especially the plushies have been selling out like crazy. I really only like the SkullPanda and Hacipupu series, but because of FOMO, I decided to just follow the live for the sake of potentially getting one of their sold out items.

Do I find this cute? It's alright.

Did I get it anyway because they have available stocks? Yes, because I'm an idiot who likes to follow the latest trend.

The drops that the PopMart Singapore TikTok account does is insanely competitive, the timing is fixed at 2pm, 4pm, 6pm and 8pm, but the host will pretend they have to ask for permission from their bosses, and then claim that until they get the stocks approved, they won't be able to release them, but then the drops will always happen at the same timings.

Resellers know this, so when it gets closer to those timing, the viewers in the livestream will spike from the usual 200 all the way to 600, and someone was keeping track in the chat and pointed out that PopMart will only restock around 30 units per drop, so it literally gets wiped out within a second after the item gets listed.

The most ridiculous time was when the item didn't even have time to be listed as available and it was immediately wiped out. I was still anticipating for it until the live streamer started congratulating those who got their hands on it, it's NUTS.

I haven't been able to get any items during the regular drop times via my iPhone, I only got that Crybaby Doll out of luck because I think someone cancelled their order, so the stock returned when I was taking a look at the shopping cart on TikTok shop, to which I immediately went to get it and then it went out of stock again, but then every once in a while, it will suddenly be available again, it's really random and it only happens with that Crybaby plushie.

Anyways, since my iPhone doesn't work, I decided to made use of my iPad Air because I wouldn't have to scroll too much to get to the check-out page since the screen is now so much bigger. 

I managed to get 2 freaking items during the "surprise" drop! I had to position my freaking fingers on my screen to anticipate which areas I should click next and it freaking worked! 

A Twinkle Twinkle Plush Blind Box for $18.90.

Resellers are selling it at $30

I do think this Twinkle Twinkle Plushie was a little easier to get because it is not a Labubu, I really don't think it's all that cute, I just decided to partake in the fastest fingers first competition and managed to snag one. It sold out really quickly, so the endorphin rush from seeing my payment get approved was amazing! 

Waste of money, but It's fine, it's like $20. Maybe I will give it to my nephew when he is born.

The second item I got, which I managed to snag literally minutes ago....

 Labubu Flip with Me for $110

TikTok Resellers are selling it for as high as $250

What the fuck is wrong with me?????

I don't need that fucking Labubu Figurine at all, I mean I have grown to like the Labubu series a little, but $110 for a figurine is fucking nuts! I also got another 2 more Labubu Plushies from online resellers at $50 each, so that is a total of $260 that I have spend on just Labubu dolls, and I didn't even open the first Labubu that I got yet because it's a secret and I didn't want to tarnish it.

Again I ask myself, what the actual fuck is wrong with me.

My company is going through lay-offs, I am expected to maybe get a salary cut soon, and I am spending hundreds of dollars on all this useless things. 

I should cancel my Labubu Flip with Me order, but I don't really want to because it's so fucking hard to get, and they don't release this very often. 

Sigh. Having adult money is so dangerous, this is what is going to take over the perfume craze I had last year...

Here is my shelve of bad financial decisions I have been making this month, my current Pop Mart collection, plus some other random stuff, including all my Ariana Grande Perfumes. 

The old addiction meeting the new addiction. 

The Pineapple is a Jellycat that I got from MOMA in New York 5 years ago, didn't know it was a Jellycat and didn't know Jellycat was a thing, but I am glad I did not actually get into Jellycat because those are some expensive plushies. 

This is a display case I got last week because I have plans to get a full set of 12 figurines from one of the PopMart series, I just am not sure which one I want to get yet.  

This figurine inside is the Space Molly, it wasn't my first choice, but I do like how intricate it looks. 

The body is clear plastic and in it are a bunch of tetris blocks because I pulled a Tetris themed Space Molly. 

Anyways, a full set of figurines ranges from about $170 - $190, after spending so much money over the last few weeks on just Labubu, I am honestly extremely hesitant to shell out another $200 for a dozen small figurines.  I shall make that horrible financial decision next month, which could potentially be the last month I will be drawing my regular salary until CNY next if things does improve in the company.

Work just feels depressing to think about, or the lack of enough work because with how things are panning out.

Let the Lay-Offs begin...

Just had a sit down with my boss for lunch earlier this afternoon to discuss the future plans he has with the company and based on the conversation we had, things aren't looking well.

My boss has decided to trim down the current team of 7 down to a team of 4, one of those 4 includes me, but it doesn't include my friend Yan, whom I had introduced to the company to join as a Project Manager earlier this year. Our company's financial hasn't been fantastic for the past few months, we have been losing quite a few jobs, so what is coming in simply cannot sustain what is going out, which is the monthly overhead. 

When my boss told me of his decision to let Yan go, I was shocked because her termination wasn't due to her performance, but because the company simply needed to cut cost. Aside from the company losing Yan, he was also letting the other designer on the team go, we only have 2 designers on board at the moment, that means her (the designer) termination will result in me handling all the design related work.

I didn't really have too much of an appetite after I learnt about the future plans.

A part of me immediately thought of quitting, if the company is in such a bad state that half the team needs to get terminated just for it to survive, do I really want to stay on? Is there any point for me from a career perspective to stay on? Am I wasting my time here when I could be at a bigger firm and climbing the corporate ladder instead?

No, there isn't, the smart thing would be to look for a new job right now and leave when I can, but my boss is a good boss and to leave the company when it is struggling so much would honestly make me a piece of shit, especially when my boss and accountant decided that they would take a pay cut, to ensure my salary stays the same during this period. 

My conscience simply won't let me quit just like that and looking for a similar job in the industry that doesn't require me to do Sales and Project Management is going to be extremely tough.  

I felt so guilty because I felt a bit underserving of the sacrifice that my boss and accountant are doing on my account. We barely finished our lunch because I guess the both of us didn't really have a lot of appetite after that.

Yan also decided to drop by the office to chat with me about her future plans moving forward. 

She had been informed about this the yesterday, so when she came to the office, she just looked really dejected. She had a lot of future plans that she had to put on hold because of this sudden termination and I felt really bad for her because she honestly didn't deserve it. When I say plans, I don't mean plans to buy a new bag or the latest iPhone, by plans, I mean actual adulting plans like getting a house within the next 6 months. 

We spoke for a while about what we could do, my boss joined us a while later and then I decided to sacrifice 30% of my current salary for the company to retain Yan, this 30% will act as her basic salary and she will be introduced a profit sharing scheme that will hopefully cover the rest of her pay.

Both my Boss and Yan were quite shock at my offer, and at that moment in time, I just wanted the company to try and retain Yan, because she is a good Project Manager. My boss was agreeable to this arrangement, but he told me to really think about what I am offering, and the amount I am comfortable letting go, and then counter offered that if I get such a huge pay cut, I can consider coming in lesser days, so instead of working a 5 day work week, I can just come in for  3.5 day, which I thought sounded fair.

It is a painful sacrifice to be earning $1,200 lesser every month, tentatively for the next 4 months, but I guess we all have to make some sacrifices here and there when the company is not in a good situation. This is why it is so important to be a good boss because what you get in return is loyalty from your employees. I am also able to accept the pay reduction because it is meant to be temporary (I told Yan I will take a reduced pay for 4 months), and more importantly, I have worked so much harder for so much less back when I was working as a Sales Designer at ID4, so I am just thankful that I can still be drawing a decent salary every month despite what is going on right now.

Anyways, my boss goes off after a while and Yan and I continued to discuss about how she can benefit from the commission scheme without the company having to feel the pinch, we played around with the numbers to find the best way for her to sustain with the commission system and I think we came up with a pretty good win/win situation for her and the company, so we will be sharing that with my boss tomorrow to see if he is able to accept it, my accountant is also trying her best to retain Yan as well, she claims that the company is still financially able to to retain 1 Project Manager, so hopefully, my pay cut that I offered won't be as severe, maybe from $1,200 down to $600. 

I told Yan I will only be willing to accept the reduced salary for 4 months because we are hoping for the situation to improve after the CNY period, and if the situation doesn't improve after 4 months, then for the sake of our career, we will honestly have no choice but to look for a different company.

Side Gate etiquette rant.

I was making my way home from work today, and after dropping off from the bus, I was walking towards my condo's side gate to enter the apartment complex.

I was walking behind this girl who also happened to be staying at the same condo as me,  since she was in front of me, she reached the side gate first, tapped her access card on the little card reader and the gate unlocks. 

Common Courtesy when you see someone else behind you is to at least push open the gate a bit further, that way the gate will take a longer time to close and the person behind can also come in, and if there is someone behind that person, then we just do the same until everyone comes in for the sake of everyone's convenience,  that way, no one else will need to fish out their own access card from their wallets or bags to tap the card reader. 

Basic courtesy.

So this girl pushed the gate just slightly, so it was wide enough to fit herself through it, and once she was through, she extended her arms backward while her body was still facing the front, she grabs the gate, and at this point, I thought she was going to pull it towards her and open it for me to also go through.

She doesn't.

This moderately fat cunt turns her head ever so slightly, makes eye contact with me for just a split second, and decided to push the gate towards me in my face in an attempt to lock me out. 

I was actually shocked

She didn't manage to actually shut the gate in my face, so I was able to push it open before it could lock itself, and I let myself in. 

I know this girl didn't attempt to close the gate in my face to protect the condo residents from the horrible dangers of a non-resident entering their sacred space, I think she did what she did because she is just a fucking cunt.

I hope someone closes the gate in her face next time, see how she feels to be treated like a non-resident despite being a resident.

Or she could just get Covid and become really sick for a few days, that works for me too Karma.

PopMart and Labubu stuff...

 So I have recently starting getting into Pop Mart and got myself 3 blind boxes from the SkullPanda series.

They are now nestled in my CPU because it's lighted and there is space to house them there. 

Am I tempted to get more? Yes.

Will I actually get more? Probably not. Hopefully I won't get tempted to, I mean I did visit Pop Mart another 2 more times since I got my last Skull Panda blindbox and I was able to leave the place empty handed, so my willpower is still not wavering.

The problem with blind boxes is you never know what you will get, which means the more I get, the higher chances are of getting repeats, which is something I do not want because each figurine cost $15. I should have just gotten the full set for this Skull Panda series because all the designs are actually really nice, but the full collection is around $200, not a very financially responsible decision to be making. 

The one series from Pop Mart that has been getting sold out like crazy is Labubu. 

I didn't really get the hype at first because I didn't think it was particularly cute., but the more I look at it, the more it starts to grow on me. 

A huge reason why this series got so popular is because Lisa from Blackpink really likes it, so she was the one who made is super popular. This popularity resulted in stocks constantly getting wiped out at all the Pop Mart stores, so getting my hands on them officially was not gonna happen.

I then started seeing a lot of resellers putting them up for sales on Shopee and TikTok with ridiculous mark up prices. The Labubu Macaron retails for about $24.90 at Pop Mart, resellers are selling it at an average of about $60, the lowest I saw was $39, and anything lower than that is probably fakes.

I got one from a Livestreamer yesterday who was selling it at $39 per box because I FOMO, and she was doing live unboxing to see which colour her buyers would get. 

She had boxes upon boxes of this and when it came my turn, the box that she was currently opening only had one left, I knew I didn't want the green Labubu because I don't like green, and I knew someone else had already gotten it from that box of six, so I told her I will just take the last box since it will definitely not be something I didn't want.

I was going to be happy with anything except green, so the livestreamer took my box, got my permission to open the box and as she peered into the box to look for the little tag that will indicate the colour of the Labubu once she had cut it open, she started screaming out in excitement, the chat was going crazy as well...

... I ended up pulling the secret. The girl who had picked her box before me must have felt really shitty because she literally had a 50/50 chance of getting a secret, but I think she got the Soy coloured one, which was also one of my top colour choices. 

The Livestreamer was so excited she ask if she could open the plastic packaging to look at the actual Labubu doll, I told to tell her I didn't want it open, but I could definitely feel her excitement from actually seeing the tag.

The rarity for the secret colour is 1:72, compared to 1:6 for the rest of the colours, so I was actually really lucky to have gotten the secret colour for my very first Labubu. Not sure when I will actually receive the package since the Livestreamer is based in China, but that's exciting... and that's how you get addicted to Pop Mart. The more practical side of won't be getting single blind boxes for this Labubu series anymore, since I already have the secret, if I wanted the full collection, I will just a full box of 6 to properly complete it, but again, because of the insane mark up this product has been getting, it's going to be around $350 for a full box and I don't like the Labubu series enough to want to spend that much money on it.

One is enough... for now.

Speaking of Livestreamer, I feel like this Livestreamer that I got my Labubu from is one of the more ethical ones, even though she is still making around a $15 profit for each doll she sold, and she was selling a lot, I have come across streams of some local livestreamers actually doing a roulette system and essentially letting their viewers pay for a slot to get a chance to get a Labubu blind box.

That is insane!

When you get a blind box, you are already sort of gambling because you don't know what color or desuign you are getting, but what some of this livestreamers are doing are adding another element of gambling to that gamble, and it's not cheap! 

For every single box of Labubu, they will allow 6 viewers to partake in the roulette system, and what is so scummy about this whole thing is that you have to pay the livestreamer $15 to take part in this roulette, this $15 is not refundable, if you win, then great, you are able to get the Labubu for lower than the retail selling price, but if you don't, then that's $15 gone, just like that, and you don't get anything out of it, there is no consolation price, you are just $15 poorer. 

$15! That is fucking expensive for 5/6 of the participants to be getting nothing in return!

This means the livestreamer is essentially selling each blind box for $90 and what is so baffling is people are actually willingly participating in gamble.

If you are a Livestreamer who is doing this, you may be a smart business person, but you are not a good person.

"As if scalping isn't bad enough, let's introduce this roulette gamble as well and let paying folks have a 16.6% chance of getting a Labubu."

.. it's so scummy. You are already scalping by hoarding all the Labubu from Pop Mart to sell, but then to introduce another element of gambling on top of that scalping.

I remember coming across this one livestream that had 2 male host and one of the host had the very "generous" idea of letting all the losers take part in a final roulette of a few dozen people at the end of their livestream, so at least they will still have 1 last chance of getting a Labubu. I didn't stay long enough to see how many people ended up being in that final round, but it was definitely a smart way to ensure your viewers don't leave the stream because they have no choice but to wait to the end unless they decide to forefeit their chance.

iPad Air arrived!

My new iPad Air has arrived and it happened to coincided with the delivery of the cover and screen protector from Shopee, so I was able to set everything up yesterday.

Decided to go for a glossy screen protector this time round instead of a matt one like my pro and the screen just looks so much sharper and crisp, the fact that it is a 13" iPad also makes the whole screen experience so much better.

Setting up the new iPad was honestly such a breeze since everything from my iPad Pro had already been backed up to iCloud, so all I really had to do was key in my Apple account and then just let the iPad Air do it's thing, all the apps and the layout of those apps were as they had been on my iPad Pro once it was done. The only thing I had to do was to re-login into Netflix and Amazon Prime. 

Compared to my 11" iPad Pro, the 13" iPad Air definitely felt a little too big for comfort. When I see my iPad Pro, I just feel a bit sad that it died such a quickly and prematurely because of my Owala water bottle.

Had I not bend down to pet the dog, the iPad would have still been alive and I could still be considering upgrading my iPhone 14 Pro to the new iPhone 16 Pro. (I might still do that, so I shall see how impulsive I am)

Such a waste, and the fact that the Apple Pencil Gen 2 does not work with the new iPad Air is such a scummy move from Apple. Even though I did technically get the Apple Pencil Pro for free thanks to the education discount promotion, to actually physically own a functioning Apple Pencil but not be able to use it is just such a waste.

My iPad Pro has also officially breathed it's last breath, the water has done it's job and completely short circuited the entire tablet, now I can't even turn it on anymore. 

The fact that my powerbank, that was actually completely submerged in the spilled liquid from my Owala water bottle, and that I had to literally shake water out from its port, is still completely functioning, but the iPad Pro isn't is surprising.

Rest In Peace my very first iPad, you did not live very long and I blame Owala and my family dog for it.