Oat Milk Addiction and 9th Cycle Updates.

Lately, I have started really getting into Oat Milk in my coffee and I can finally understand what the hype is all about. It eliminates the bitterness in my coffee and gives it this nutty taste, which is really nice, so there goes my plan of trying to eliminate coffee from my diet, at least until I get bored of the Oat Milk, which might happen quite quickly at the rate I am drinking it.

Also, report from my 2nd round of Guard Duty last afternoon, it was very uneventful, we had the new guys join for the first 3 hours of the shift, I did not interact with the first active soldier who was doing the emplacement with me at all because he was busy talking to the new guys, so I started reading my Kindle and I was planning to start conversing with him when the new guys leave, but before that could happen, he got swapped out and another person took over, that person is most likely a senior "lao jiao" and the new guys started chatting with him for the next hour.

One way to tell if someone is a "lao jiao" is in the way they are dress, their uniform always looks very loose and messy, the way they walk when they have to open the main gate for vehicles to enter lacks any sort of urgency and the very obvious sign that someone is a "lao jiao" is in the way they choose to entertain themselves during their duty, which is through the blatant use of their phone. 

There were times I wanted to approach him to try and initiate a conversation, but because of how long it had already been, attempting to start one 4 hours into my duty just feels forced, he himself also didn't seem very receptive to starting one and he also didn't make any attempts to start one, so we both just did our own thing, I read my Kindle, he used his phone, at least we both had something to keep us entertained. 

But this sort of awkward quietness is the reason why I actually prefer working with newbies "xin jiao", because they are always much friendlier, they still haven't develop that bitterness that "lao jiaos" usually develop after months of doing the exact same shit, so they are much friendlier and sociable to having conversations, which in turn makes them more proactive in starting one, like what happen with the first guy I did my duty with. He was actively conversing with me, and so I reciprocated by also having conversations with him, also because the newbies are still very regimented from BMT, they will use their phone very sparingly, which means their main source of entertainment will be talking to whomever is doing duty with them. 

Anyways, my next duty will start at 6pm, so I have quite some time to rest before needing to report back to camp again, this time it will be with a different shift, I am not sure how strict their active commander will be, I am under the assumption that he could potentially be a dickhead based on the experience my Reservist Commander had with him when it came to discussing our schedule.

Fingers crossed he will actually not try and find trouble with the ICTs because I would very much like to continue reading my Dune novel and attempt to finish it by the end of this cycle. The active commanders from my past cycle don't touch the ICTs at all unless we did something out of line, like maybe sleeping during our duty or smoking in the emplacement in full view of the CCTVs, but smaller acts like eating whilst on duty or sitting down when we are suppose to stand up is something they tend to ignore, so hopefully, this active commander will do the same and just leave us be. 

9th Cycle - Duty Starts

 My guard duties have officially started and this is the first time I am doing duty with 7 other active soldiers in the emplacement, it's so weird how inefficient the entire system is because even though only we have 7 guys, only 1 is actually doing the duty with me whilst the other 6 are shadowing him to learn the ropes, (they came in 2 groups of 3, each group on a 3 hour rotation), which means they have 6 active soldiers available that they are choosing not to deploy.

If they are "learning the ropes", they can do it whilst being deployed as a Sentry Guard because the Sentry literally has to do nothing but stand there with a gun, that's it, you could have killed 3 birds with 1 stone by giving them the Sentry Duty, you can acclimatize them to the 6 hour duty rotation, they can also learn the ropes from their seniors about how to properly allow people into the camp for a full duty, and most importantly for me and my ICT group, alleviate our workload, 3 birds you can kill, but they are only killing 1 bird with 1 stone. The level of inflexibility they are showcasing here is just mind-blowing.  

You literally have the manpower to lessen the workload of the ICT, but you are choosing not to do it because according to the higher ups, it's "the new norm" and we should get used to it. Like fuck off, what fucking bullshit is this, "the new norm" is not a valid excuse to suddenly increase our workload and make us do duties at full capacity when all the past cycles, we have never been required to do this, let's just call a spade a spade, they just have extremely poor resource management.

Anyways, my first duty was quite smooth sailing, the weather was nice and cooling, I did like that the emplacement was a bit livelier than it would usually be because of all the new guys being there, (although I would prefer they just take on some sentry duties for us ICTs instead doing shadowing like the way they are doing now), so the 6 hours didn't feel too much like an eternity, but this is only the first, I still have 9 more to go and I am under the assumption that the current shift I am with has a much nicer Active Platoon Commander than the other shift, not really sure how much of a dick the other Active Platoon Commander will be because he is the one that our own Reservist Commanders were trying to negotiate with for our duties and the one who didn't want to give in.

I also brought my Kindle along during my last duty, just to start reading again, so we'll see how much of the novel Dune I can finish reading during this cycle. 

9th Cycle - Day 2

 Day 2 of Reservist.

Today was a short day, reported to camp at 8.45 am (actual reporting time is 9.00 am) and I was surprisingly the 4th person to arrive, our commander was one of the 3 who had arrived earlier than me and they were essentially talking about the negotiation that happened last evening, I wasn't actively participating in that conversation so I was just eavesdropping until my friend arrive, then I asked him how the negotiation went because I saw him talking to the other Reservist Commander on my way out yesterday evening.

As expected, the Active Commanders did not want to give in and still expects us to work at maximum capacity, bringing this issue up to the next person in the command chain was also useless because that guy just said there is nothing he can do about it, which makes me wonder if he really cannot do anything or if he just cannot be bothered to. 

There is clearly an imbalance happening and the ICTs are being taken advantage of by the active soldiers, when my Reservist commanders requested to see the schedule of the Active Soldiers, the schedule reflects that they are also working at maximum capacity, but when one of our ICTs went to ask the active soldier who is doing his duty how many shift they are doing, it does not tally at all because they are doing only half of what is reported in the duty sheet. 

Nobody is happy with the arrangement, apparently ICTs from the previous batch who also had to take on the same number of duties as us went to complaint to Mindef, and from the looks of it, no action was taken to rectify this issue because we are now currently in the same situation.

 Anyways, today was focused on doing Rifle Training, it was quick and brief, we completed the whole thing in less than 20 minutes, I went to  use the toilet in the middle of the training and was wondering why the toilet was so small and there were no urinals around, realized I had use the female toilet, that's why it also smelled so clean and fresh.

After our rifle training, we went back to the training room and pretty much just stayed there until our commanders came back with our duty schedule, no change, all of us are clearly being taken advantage of by the active soldiers. We really couldn't do much except complaint to our commanders about how ridiculous this whole situation is and the fact that none of the higher ups are bothering to do anything despite everyones' complaint really just goes to show how much fuck is being given, no action is being taken despite them also being aware of the complaints from previous batch before us, complaints that were send to Mindef and forwarded to them.

At this point, I don't really think we have any other options but to just suck it up, it seems like our welfare as ICTs just keeps worsening every cycle.

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Early Cycles - Always doing Sentry Duty, but it's evenly spread out across different locations, so certain locations are better because it's more secluded and we can  usually be in a much more relaxed state. The ICT Commander then was also a lot better at trying to fight for our welfare, so things were much better. 

We were doing an average of 6 - 7 Duties per cycle, the active soldiers were doing 10 Duties per cycle.  

Mid Cycles - Always doing Sentry, but we are not only doing the Sentry Duty at the main gate whilst the Active gets all the one in the more secluded zones. 

We were doing an average of 6 - 7 Duties per cycle, the active soldiers were doing roughly the same as us per cycle if not slightly more.  

Previous Cycle - All Sentry duty, only at the main gate

We were doing an average of 8 - 9 Duties, I believe only the newbies were doing the same amount or more, the senior ones are only averaging at 3 - 4. 

Current Cycle - All Sentry duty, only at the Main Gate.  

We are doing the maximum of 10 Duties, I believe only the newbies are doing the same amount, the senior ones are only averaging at 3 - 4. 

------

There was always compromises being made during the early cycles, but right now, no compromise is being made, the active commanders are adamant about us taking on the duties despite our lack of manpower, the higher ups are claiming they cannot do anything about it. 

Ummm, that's not true, you can do something about it, you can use your status to get the active commanders to assign the active soldiers to support our lack of manpower, that's what you can do, but you are choosing not to do anything about it because you cannot be bothered. You are being complicit in the abuse of power that is happening. 

I don't believe ICTs should be doing more than the Full Time NSMen, why should we? This is their full time job, not ours, we have already done our part 10 years ago, so why are we now also doing their part for them 10 years later?

The active soldiers might be enjoying this abuse right now, but they forget that they will eventually become ICTs in the future, and their situation could become a lot worst than ours right now if this goes on. 

We were really just complaining to the wind at this point because our own commanders really can't do much if  the higher ups are not willing to step in and assist.

By around 11.15am, we were all dismissed to prepare for our upcoming duty for the next 10 days. 

The only upside to this schedule is that all my duties are during regular-ish hours, so I don't have to worry about having to readjust my body clock, treating it like going to work everyday for 6 hours might make the whole ordeal maybe a little more bearable.

One guy was complaining about how unfair this system was yesterday, brought up how he is expected to do more than he is getting paid for (because we are expected to come to came every single day for the next 10 days and he was expecting to get at least 4 days off in lieu of his weekends) so he went to talk to the higher up and he just went missing today. 

Update :

That ICT who spoke to the higher up has returned in the group chat and apparently the higher up told him that once again, there is nothing he can do about the situation and everyone should just suck it up and accept this as the new normal. 

And you can prepare to suck on the multiple complaints that Mindef will be receiving from us about the way this is being handled.

I am loving how vocal that guy is right now in the group chat, this is exactly the kind of person that we need to make change happen, although I am afraid that by the time any change is made, we would have already been taken advantage of and completed our cycle fulfilling the ridiculous amount of duty they have thrown to us. 

9th Cycle - Make Up Training Day 1

My 9th Cycle officially started today and as per usual, I was one of the first few to reach the airbase, on the way there, I also almost rear ended into a car on the highway, not really sure why I almost got into that accident, either because the car in front suddenly brake or I was also driving a little too fast or a combination of both, but it was very close.

Since this was the first time where I know my Reservist buddy won't actually be with me, I wasn't feeling particularly optimistic about this particular cycle, as I was doing my in-pro, I started scanning through the list of guys coming in, saw a few familiar names, but didn't really look very closely to see the full list. I then went to the training room to wait for everyone else, then about 15 minutes after I had settled down, two guys that I did my Sixth Cycle with, one of my favorite cycle if I were to completely ignore the work related stress that came along with it, walked in one after the other, I knew one of them was coming based on the list, but I didn't know the other would be here as well, so the one I didn't know would be joining us immediately said Hi to me and we started chatting away, not too long later the other one came and I was very happy that the 2 people I know were from my Sixth Cycle group.

The day by went as per usual with every other Reservist cycle, we started at 9.30am, by that point, almost everyone had arrived except maybe 2 to 3 guys, so the encik started to give us a quick briefing of what to expect, what his discipline standards are, then we were just made to watch videos after videos till we could be released, it was really fucking boring as per usual. We broke for lunch at 11.45am and because there wasn't any utensils provided, my friends and I had to use my fingers to eat my lunch and because we weren't used to it, we looked like babies playing with our food. 

After lunch, we had more videos to watch, and then near to the end, our Reservist Commanders shared with us the plans the Active Commanders have for us regarding our Guard Duty plans, and the main gist of it is that they are taking advantage of us ICTs.

I volunteered to go to the ulu camp, so I will talk about that arrangement...

Originally, the Active Commanders wanted to give us 2 emplacements that we will be guarding completely, this means when 1 Reservist personnel is done with his duty, the one taking over will be another Reservist personnel, none of the active soldiers will be doing that emplacement, and just FYI, the emplacement that we are being assigned to are the worst one because it's sentry duty.

Each duty is 6 hours long, that means per day, there will be a total of 4 duties that we will need to rotate amongst ourselves per emplacement, assigning us 2 emplacement will mean that we will have a total of 8 6-hour duties that we need to fill in a day.

Due to manpower issue on our end, because this time we literally only have a third of the regular platoon strength, we only have 4 guys assigned to the Ulu camp, as compared to the past when we would have up to 16 guys. 4 guys are not going to be able to cover that 8 duties per day requirement, it's actually impossible because that would require us to work beyond the maximum capacity, we will have to report to camp every 6 hours to do a 6 hour shift, just to break down how ridiculous that will be..

Assuming we start our duty at 12 Midnight.

12.00am - 6.00am - Duty

6.00am - 7.00am - Travel to Home

7.00am - 11.00am - 4 hours to sleep and have lunch

11.00am - 12.00noon - Travel to Camp 

12.00noon - 6.00pm - Duty

6.00pm - 7.00pm - Travel to Home

7.00pm - 11.00pm - 4 hours to sleep and have dinner

Repeat for the next 10 days.

It's nuts, so of course the Active Commanders can't force this upon us and they require us to only do a single emplacement instead, but even doing a single emplacement is nuts because we will still be working at maximum capacity. 

When I was doing my Guard Duty during my earlier cycles, we were only given a total of 7 6-hour duties to do for the entire Reservist Cycle, 7 is the maximum number, and this was during a time when the active soldiers had severe manpower issue and they were all working at maximum capacity, even with our help.

During my last cycle, we were also doing 7 6-hour duties, and at that time, I came to find out that not all the active soldiers were working at maximum capacity, in fact, the older batch were doing only half of what the Reservist is doing, which is fucking ridiculous because I personally feel like our maximum duty should be their minimum, so if they have people that are only doing 3 rounds of duties, then the ICTs should be doing the same number or less.

Doing Guard Duty is their full time job, the Reservist personnel have already done their time when we were active soldiers, now, our role should be to help alleviate the workload for the active soldiers, so they can have enough rest between each round, our role should be to help you take on whatever duties you cannot do, not to take over your duties completely. 

This arrangement is also similar with the main camp, naturally none of the Reservist guys were happy about it because we are clearly being taken advantage of. 

When this was brought up to our Reservist Sergeant, his response was …

"The active commanders told us that the batch before you guys were actually made to do significantly more duties, so what you guys are getting is already a better deal."

… just because someone else was offered a hot pile of human shit by Santa Claus doesn't mean I should be grateful that he only gave me a bag of hamster shit, shit is still shit, we are not going to be grateful to you because you decided to treat the other party worst. What fucking logic is this? 

After that, our commanders went back to try and strike a new deal with the active commanders for us, but I am not very optimistic about the outcome because our commanders just don't seem to have a lot of coaxing power compared to the very first commander I had for my earlier cycles. That commander from my earlier cycle was actually really good, he would always negotiate a better deal for us first before telling us about it instead of just accepting whatever the active commanders are requesting.

I have a feeling what this current commander did was went in and ask  the active commander what they wanted us to do, instead of setting a boundary from the very beginning and telling them that we only have a limited number of manpower, so we can only do so much. A boundary should have been in place from the very beginning to prevent this shit from happening.  

Anyways, the commanders took a while, so by the time they were back, I was already on the way out of camp and didn't end up getting any updates. I am very tempted to actually bring this issue up to the higher ups so they can actually do something about it. 

Alchemy of Souls - Draggy AF

Just finished watching this K-Drama called Alchemy of Souls and it was such a drag. The only reason why I watched it in the first place was because it had the "weak but actually secretly super strong" main character trope that I am a sucker for.

The main premise of the story that they show from the trailer is about this main female lead who is an extremely skilled and powerful assassin who switched souls and got herself stuck in the body of a weak person, all that happens within the first 15 minutes of the series and so for the next 20 episodes of the show, I was just watching in anticipation for her to finally get her badassery back to kick some bad guy's ass, but the writers really dragged that shit out and she doesn't show any hint a her original powers until Episode 18, which doesn't last long and then after that, the next 2 episodes, she is back to her powerless self again, gets mind controlled by the main antagonist, reverts back to her powerful self again but under mind control this time, and ends up killing the Main Male Character and offing herself in a lake. Luckily I was bingeing the 1st Season because it was already fully released by the time I got into it, otherwise I think I would have been really annoyed at how the story was playing out if I had been waiting for it to be release at the glacial rate of 2 episodes per week.

Well, season 2 started a month back and I ended up experiencing the need to go through the glacial rate of 2 episodes per week and it was so fucking draggy. I guess because I had to wait for new episodes, I was able to really get  immerse into each episode and just catch every single draggy AF moments and moments that just felt like lazy writing, whereas with Season 1, I was just bingeing to get to the end, so certain issues that I might have had with the show escaped my radar a little.

So the premise of Season 2 is set 3 years later and the Main Female Lead is now an amnesiac after she was saved from drowning in the river, her appearance is completely different because I guess they had contractual issues with the first main actress, so they got the original actress who was playing the badass assassins' in the first 15 minutes of the first season to take on the lead role, and they were able to have a good reason to explain why she looks different in the storyline, so I was okay with it, and the Main Male Character resurrected and is now an emo-boy because of the shit he went through... or because of what went through him, the Main Female Lead's sword.

So what everyone was looking forward to in Season 2 is for the Main Female Character to get her memories back and fall back in love with the Main Male Character so he can stop being so emo, we were also expecting her to become the kickass assassin again just because she got her original appearance back and the show claims she has "divine powers" now. 

As with season 1 however, the writers really DRAGGED that shit out and they only gave the Main Female Characters short snippets of her memories back, which she mistakes for someone else, like for literally 6 to 7 episodes, they would tease the audience with 

"...oh, here is a core memory for her to remember, will she be flooded with her original memories after this?"

... spoiler alert, she fucking doesn't, she just keeps thinking they belong to someone else until episode 8 when she finally realizes it's hers, after which she doesn't tell the Main Male Lead she is who she is because she feels bad for killing him in Season 1, so they drag that shit out for the entire episode and the Main Male Lead only finds out about her true identity in Episode 9, literally with only 2 episodes left that is meant to have the 2 Main Characters get back together again and then also to fight off the main antagonist. 

They get all emo in Episoide 9, both feigning ignorance to her true identity, it's like so fucking stupid, all that built up that had been created for 8 fucking dragged out episode, and when it came to that moment, the both of them just agree to each other that they will pretend not to know who she is.

Like FUCK OFF! 

He had been emo-ing for her for so long and when she is finally there, instead of bursting with emotions, he is just repressing and telling her even though he knows, he will pretend he doesn't, and she also does the same shit, she knows he knows, but she pretends he doesn't, like fuck off.

It's like the writers were dangling that carrot in front of us the whole time for us to chase, only for us to finally bite into that carrot and then we find out it's just a turd that had been painted orange.

That's just one of many issues I had with the show. The pacing is just horrible, they were retconning so many shit on the fly, side characters were also making really odd decisions that I couldn't wrap my head around, like for example..

We have 3 characters in this scenario that I will explain..

Mommy Bitch - a powerful mage who is in charge of storing sentient artifacts in her magic cave.

Kim - the maidservant of the Main Male Character who is like a mother figure to him

Kim Husband - another powerful mage that is betrothed to Kim

So horrible pacing of the show has led to the main bad guy indirectly destroying the magic cave that Mommy Bitch has been guarding and now all the sentient artifacts are trying to escape, Kim happens to be there as well because she was visiting Mommy Bitch to ask about where the Main Male Character went to, and just to add on, Mommy Bitch and Kim have no friendship with one another whatsoever, they are acquaintances at best. 

Anyways, the cave starts to collapse and Mommy Bitch has to go stabilize it, so she ask Kim to assist her to enter the cave together because she had been injured after she got wrecked by the main antagonist, so Kim assists her in and then the Cave starts getting really unstable, Kim Husband then pops into the scene and realizes that Kim is in the cave with Mommy Bitch, he then panics at the entrance of the cave and calls for her to get out.

We switch scenes to the inside of the Cave and Mommy Bitch is doing her magic to prevent the Sentient artifacts from escaping, but what is Kim doing? Well, she is just propping Mommy Bitch up like a tripod, that is literally all she is contributing to the situation, so Mommy Bitch ask her to leave the cave otherwise she will die as well.

Kim then thinks for a while and ask Husband Kim to use his magic to seal off the cave while both her and Mommy Bitch are inside, everyone is crying in the scene and it is suppose to be heart wrenching but all I am wondering is...

"Why the fuck are you staying in the cave with Mommy Bitch, you have literally no relationship with one another, you guys are acquittances at best, like what is the justification of you being willing to die with her in the cave? The entrance to the cave is literally still wide open, just leave!"

It makes zero fucking sense, I mean one can argue that it's in her character's personality to do that, but that is the kind of lie you will tell yourself to hide the fact that the writers just wanted to make things sad for the viewers, so they lazily wrote this scene in to evoke that emotion. Well, it was badly thought out and makes zero sense to me, that scene was what made me realize that this show's ending was going to be like what the final season of Game of Thrones did for the entire franchise, ruin it, the only difference is that Game of Thrones was good for the earlier season, what this final episodes did for me for Alchemy of Souls is highlight all the retconning issues that I had with the show since the first season.

What would make sense for that scene is that Kim assisted Mommy Bitch into the Cave, but the main entrance ends up collapsing, so they both get stuck inside with no way out and without any chance of escaping, Kim then decides to help Mommy Bitch as much as she can by becoming her fucking tripod. Husband Kim isn't able to do shit while he is stuck outside and all he can do at that point is seal the cave with his magic to prevent the Sentient Artifacts from seeping out, Kim then tells him to do it since she had zero chance of getting out anyway, so he does it and everyone gets sad. 

Like that chain of events would make sense to me because there is no fucking reason for Kim to stay in the cave with Mommy Bitch at all unless she was literally stuck in there with her. Like why would you make the decision of choosing to stay with Mommy Bitch so she won't die alone over your Husband's grief from losing you, it makes no fucking sense! 

Anyway, they didn't actually die, turns out they were saved last minute and the show had a happy ending, fucking pussy ass writing, they actually rushed the fight scene at the end as well, which was also fucking stupid. The show was talking about how the bad guy was going to release this fire bird that will cause massive damage to the lands, but then that fire bird gets killed within 5 minutes by the main character after it gets released, the main character just shoots an arrow "filled with magic from some mystical lake" in it's neck and it dies, talk about anti-climatic. 

Overall, I will rate this show a 4/10, had a promising premise and likeable characters, but the show was just completely bogged down by pacing issues. Season 1 aside because I was bingeing that so I don't really want to comment to much, but with Season 2, you had 10 episodes to play with, and you drag out the first 8 episodes with meaningless back and forth between the 2 leads playing hard to get with one another, and then squeeze all the main overarching storyline progression into the final 2 episodes,  I guess my expectation for the show was way too high because when I went to reddit to check everyone else's reaction, they were all happily eating that shit up because the writers gave them a happy ending.

Really, are our standards for K-Drama really that low?

Upcoming 9th Cycle again....

In about 2 weeks time, I will be going for my 9th Reservist Cycle, which is a make-up for the one I had missed out a few months ago because I got Covid.

Car rental payment has been made and my the documents required to apply for a Temporary Vehicle pass with my condo has been submitted, now all I need to do is make sure I don't catch Covid again because I am also expected to go for my very last Cycle at the end of the year with my Reservist Buddy.

My Reservist Buddy got the call up for his last cycle first and asked around in our group chat if anyone else will be joining him, I figured since I haven't even started my Make Up Training yet, it is unlikely that I will be joining him, which I was a little bumped out about, but then 30 minutes later, I get the call up and I was actually quite happy about it. I think my camp is really putting me on the fast track to clearing my NS duties once and for all.

Our last cycle will be 3 weeks long, the last time we had to go through a 3 week cycle was due to an Airshow back in 2020, that cycle was one of the most relaxing, but also extremely stressful cycle I had to go through, relaxing because I got to spend 95% of my time in the air-conditioned bunk with a bunch of reservist buddies, either sleeping or playing Mobile Legends together, and stressful because the renovation project I was managing during that cycle had so many issues, my anxiety levels during those 3 weeks were probably at the highest they had ever been, I really wanted to just throw in the towel and quit then because it was really that fucking bad, and I really had my tiler's worker to thank for doing such a shit job, that worker who was assigned to that job was the same one who was assigned to Sly Fox's project, which was also another anxiety inducing project back in 2018.

When I think back to my Interior Design days, all the projects that gave me the biggest headaches have 1 thing in common, they are projects that are riddled with tiling issues. Those problems are not always the most straightforward to rectify. So many of my anxiety back then could have been reduced significantly if I had just engaged a more competent tiler instead.

Anyways, speaking of career related things, my Manager has just officially tendered her resignation earlier this week, she has had it with the company giving her so many shit to do that is outside of her job scope and I think being assigned to that delivery project that we had been working on together was really the straw that broke the camel's back. 

A lot of us front of house staff will most likely not take her resignation very well because she has really been a very vocal voice for us during her stint as the store manager to the upper management, she has played an important role in making sure that our welfare is taken care of, she throws small birthday parties for everyone when their birthdays are around the corner, makes sure we get funding for our year end Christmas gathering, and when the store hit our sales target 2 times in a row, she made sure that the company rewarded us by treating us to an expensive dinner instead of just dropping us a "good job guys!" text message in the company group chat, gestures like the one she has done really does make a huge difference in the way the employee will feel and when she leaves, I am very sure all this will disappear with her, upper management will probably step in once again to give us all those useless sales training that is rooted in theory, and those training will once again be given by unqualified individuals from Upper Management who have zero sales and front of house experience . 

After having experience this job with a proper store manager around, I'm not sure how I feel returning back to working in an environment that didn't have one. It's like back at ID4 when a group of my colleagues got relocated to the new outlet, the office suddenly got so quiet because everyone who were left weren't sociable, it wasn't until months later when another rowdy bunch join the company did the office start to feel fun to be in again, sadly the rowdy bunch all left the company to join a different one together, so based on what my ex-manager has told me, the office is back to it's quiet period again. 

I am very tempted to return back to Interior Design again, but the one thing that is really pulling me back is the financial instability that the job carries, hopefully the perfect job opening will appear in front of me soon.

Anyways, I digress.

So my last cycle will be happening this year, it will be 3 weeks long, I am very happy to be able to complete my National Service duties so quickly, I have friends who have barely even completed half their cycles.

The car rental for that last cycle is gonna be expensive, I might just consider renting it for an entire month if that is the case, who knows, maybe by then I would have returned back to ID and will be in dire need of a car to travel to my project site.

Kio Sai.

Woke up feeling like absolute shit today, had a very bad night sleep after I decided to slap a copious amount of body butter on myself to "moisturize" and "soften" my skin. 

The problem with putting too much body butter on your arms and legs before you sleep is that your skin won't be able to absorb the excess, and what ended up happening was my legs and arms just felt really sticky the whole night from it, it was really gross. I actually really liked the smell of the body butter, but after last night's fisaco, I have come to associate that feeling of stickiness with it, and it doesn't help that the body butter smells really sweet, which adds on to that feeling of stickiness even more.

I got the body butter from a local business on TikTok, the creator actually sells sugar scrub balls, which I was really fascinated with, so I got one bottle of her sugar scrub balls and added in the body butter as well since I figured why not. Been using the body butter daily ever since, but I just went a bit overboard last night.

Anyways, sleep was horrible last night, kept waking up because my legs felt so sticky when they were rubbing against one another, and so did my hands, I had to get up multiple times to go wash my arms and legs and then towel dry them after just to get rid of the stickiness, which was really surprising to me because of how long the body butter just lingered on my skin the entire night without being absorbed.

I went to work feeling like crap, it wasn't really feeling crap because I was tired, but I just felt like crap in general and I can't really pin point why.

First thing I had to do at work today was prepare an Accessory List for that condo delivery project I was thrown into, which is a fucking joke because I was placed into that project to help with the delivery, not as a stylist to shortlist accessories for the space, but I did it anyway, and when I send it over, the response from the condo management side is...

"Could you propose other options for the vases, flowers and scents again?"

... Vases, Flowers and Scents is pretty much 95% of the list, that means they wanted me to redo the entire proposal, but because my company doesn't work with any accessory brands, aside from the ones that I had already prepared for the Condo Management, I had nothing else to present to them as an alternative. I then replied to the email to tell them that I have already given them the full selection from our store's catalogue, that if they don't think it's what they are looking for, they should go and source on their own. This isn't the first proposal our side has send to them, my ex-colleague who was originally in-charge of the project had already proposed to them 4 times, and all 4 times they were rejected. Naturally, when they rejected my proposal, I figured that there is no point, if what we were proposing isn't what they are looking for, then it would just be a waste of everyone's time to continue with this pointless endeavor.  

The condo's upper management called me up afterwards, really frustrated with the situation and we essentially had this back and forth whereby I was telling him I had nothing else to offer in terms of accessory selection and him responding back...

"We got your furniture from you because we were planning to get the accessories from your side as well, now you are telling me you don't have any other options for us? That's not the way this should work., you know we have spend a huge sum on your furniture, we could have easily gotten furniture from other places, but we invested in your brand and this is very disappointing."

... and I was just as frustrated as him because once again, I was attached to this project to assist with the delivery, I did not come in as a stylist. I then tried to explain to him that we had very limited options but it just wouldn't get through.

It was so frustrating, but I wasn't necessarily frustrated at him because I understand he is just doing his job, that him being placed in his position is really unfair for him as a consumer because the project kept changing hands. This project was originally handled by my ex-colleague, after he left, another colleague from an entirely different department took over, but then that colleague also quit soon after, and it's only after that did my manager and I get dragged into this mess by our upper management to deal with this shit.

It's a fucking mess.

  

Like this is the way my company works, very very messily, upper management will just leave their employees to drown after throwing them into the deep end of the pool. I'm so thankful that my Manager is reliable enough to deal with all that shit, but of course, her reliability is also at the expense of her mental health because she is very much at her breaking point with this project.

A few companies have been reaching out to me to go for job interviews, maybe it's time I start actually setting aside some time to go attend a few of them.