Hitting a brick wall

About 2 months ago, I applied for an internal position vacancy. At first, was told that the hiring manager is keen to take me in the team. But was then told that the COO needed me more in my current position and therefore my application was not allowed to proceed. Which to me was just a tacit way to say I wasn't the preferred candidatez Nonetheless I was fine with that.

However last Friday, I noticed that my application status had been updated to Shortlisted, pending interview. So I thought the block had been lifted. I was in a good mood..

.. until this morning when I saw that the status had been changed again, this time to Unsuccessful. Despite never being invited to that interview. The application tracking system changed, just like that. If that's not a sign of 'hidden hands' trying to keep me ahold, I don't know what is.

It's clear to me now that I'm hitting a brick wall. And the only way out for me is out of this company.

Shirts, pants and a job interview

I'm getting back into my weight loss and skincare routines. I forgot how and why but it's been more than a year since I last ate clean, lifted weights and did my facials.

The most frustrating part is for me, the propensity to go back to the bad ways is too seamless that it only seems natural. Perhaps because it's entirely effortless. But the results of not doing anything are catastrophic that they land me in a terrible state of mind and physique.

Father called last night informing me that he and mother are coming this weekend. Much as I'd prefer lying on my bed, guess I have no choice but to spend the weekend outside.

Anyway, I have a job interview on Wednesday. That's why I'm now worried that not being at the top of my conditions mentally and physically would lower my chances to ace that interview. Went shopping for a new shirt yesterday at Uniqlo. Unfortunately, all they had were slim fit shirts with either button-down or spread collar. Why is that? Some people especially the plus-sized (speaking for myself) still prefer regular fit with regular collar. In the end I had to make do with a slim-fit semiwide spread collar shirt.
Planned to get a pair of slacks too but they didn't have many options for formal pants. Bought 3 pairs of Kando pants before which I think are the best pair of dress pants money could buy so I'm quite disappointed to learn that they're no longer on sale.. I really believe that Uniqlo is really dropping the ball on formal wear.

Now that outfit is sorted, time to do some research for the interview. This is a big one. The job description sounds like an almost entirely new challenge but that's what I'm looking for.

Fingers crossed.

PRU15: Godspeed, YAB Anwar Ibrahim

Finally, having consulted the Malay Rulers, HM King consented and invited Anwar Ibrahim to form government.

It's been an emotional time for a lot of PH supporters. The three decades wait to see Anwar become PM was over.

As for myself who was in kindergarten when the Reformasi movement swept the country and never was a big fan of Anwar, it still felt surreal to see him becoming PM. For decades, we've heard of how great a PM he would make and his failure each time to realise it just became fodder for slight remarks and jokes from all Malaysians who were as invested in seeing if he's ever gonna make it that when he finally did, it felt like our lifelong dream had come true.

Even this time, it didn't look likely for Anwar to become PM since his coalition didn't get the commanding majority in the Dewan. But perhaps with a robust and well laid out strategy, he emerged on top of everybody else. I assume Rafizi being the chief election strategist had been instrumental in all of this. The PH's silence between the election night and Anwar's appointment speaks volumes, especially for Rafizi who had been a permanent fixture on PH's social media channels. Maybe one day, we'll get to learn of what really unfolded behind the curtain and the master stroke that secured the premiership for Anwar.

Commiserations to several figures whose losses I regret, although expected in some cases. Tun M, who were handed a heavy defeat in Langkawi (hope he finally gets to enjoy his retirement). Khairy Jamaluddin and Shahril Hamdan, who should be in line as the country's future leadership. And, bear with me but, Peja Azumu who looks like a guy I could go and have a cordial chat with over a cup of teh tarik.

All in all, I'm just hugely relieved that although many Malaysians may have turned to the right (75% Muslims now support sharia law, up from 52% in 2011), but the government still seems centrist, at least for now.

On one hand, I'm glad that it's not Muhyiddin and PAS resuming their abject failure of an exercise running the country.
On the other hand, I take the happy news with a measured degree of sobriety and concern. Anwar promised a lot of things, sure, but the one I'm wary about is his plan with the GLCs. As an employee of a GLC which has been consistently in the headlines for the wrong reasons, I wonder what the new administration means to me and my career. That's right, I'm just thinking of me, not the rest of my colleagues who mostly deserve it if the worst happens.

But I guess we all have a role to play and to some, a price to pay in the Malaysia Baharu (for real, this time).

PRU15: the (long) aftermath

Today would be the 4th day since PRU15 and we still don't have a federal govt yet.

Heard an interview with an economist on the radio otw to work yesterday who said that the hung parliament situation is a sign of Malaysian democracy maturing. I'm not sure if our political scientists would agree, but I do.

From my quick checking, hung parliaments oftentimes produce minority governments, which means the ruling party doesn't command more than 50% of the number of seats in parliament. Which given the pickle that we Malaysians are currently in, begs the question, why should we must have a coalition of parties commanding 112 seats?

PH is the single largest party that won the election with 82 seats, compared to PN with 73, BN 30, GPS 23, GRS 8, etc. BN has made it clear they won't join any coalition for now. GPS has so far "left it to HM King's wisdom". Therefore, PH should have the priority to form the government as it currently commands the most number of seats. Which begs another question, why does Istana need to call up all the BN MPs? In fact, why even invite statutory declarations from parties to nominate their choices for PM? Why not call for a dedicated parliament sitting to test the confidence for all the PM candidates? It certainly should have been done.

There are at least 7 countries worldwide that currently have a minority government. Canada, Spain, Sweden, to name a few. The govts are able to conduct business without major issues. We as another adopter of the Westminster system should take note from this. The govt can still present bills in parliament and parlay with the opposition MPs for support. This might be better since Govt will have to ensure the bills are good enough to be accepted by all the people's reps.

At this point, I wonder if the situation is intentionally being dragged out. It does make for a good opportunity for some people to flex their powers and maybe even fit in their own agenda. Sure, it makes sense to take this as an opportunity to prove they remain relevant and influential in the modern times.

But it does not make sense to still not have a federal govt 4 days after the election, while the economy takes the toll from the instability that the election that was supposed to restore stability has caused.

PRU15: the aftermath

Flew home on 18th evening to vote. It was a bit of a nerve wrecking wait at the airport to get the boarding pass since I was using staff standby ticket. The morning and afternoon flights were filled to the brim. Finally managed to get a seat on the additional flight that afternoon which was the last flight from KUL to TGG on that day.

The voting process on the 19th was pretty much uneventful except that the queue was very long. I went in at around 9 and left the pusat mengundi after 40mins.
Flew home the same day because I didn't want to get caught up in the reverse exodus on Sunday 20th.

So seems like we were all wrong on the projections. PN turned out to be the biggest winner, flipping seats from both BN and PH — the latter winning the most number of seats overall. I voted for BN - because PH had zero chance in Kuala Nerus and I couldn't let PAS win. But alas, PAS took the seat with a large majority. I'm amazed at how PN had managed to take the entire northeastern states with them. It's nuts.

As it stands, it's a hung parliament and nobody could form the govt yet. I would have preferred a PN-PH coalition since the differences seem mostly ideological. As opposed to BN which PH had intensely attacked for corruption cases and the same with GPS.

PN-PH also would see two gentlemen from Terengganu at the top. Hadi Awang as President of PAS and Rafizi as Deputy President of PKR. Rafizi might take the lead soon since Anwar had again lost the election as opposition leader.

All this will be in the backdrop as we face the recession next year.

Visit from a PU

Today was one of the most appalling days of me working here.
Received an invitation to a religious talk last Monday taking place at my office by some PU. At first, I thought it was a joke because there's a guy here who has the same name as the said PU. Thought it was just an invitation to a usual office's breakfast session.

And then today I realised it wasn't a joke. They had the event set up at the warehouse floor right where our storemen do their work.

It was appalling to me because one, it was a religious talk that should be kept out of a professional workplace. Two, because it was taking place right smack in the middle of the actual WORK place, on WORK hours.

Not to mention the PU arrived late so the people were left waiting from 10am til almost 11am. And that meant the program that was supposed to end at 10.30 got dragged to 12pm. That's a total of 2 manhours lost times about 30-40 who had to attend.

Talking about attendance, I'm not sure if it was compulsory or mandatory. That's because I had muted the work whatsapp group (LOL). But of course I didn't go. I hid at my old office which is now occupied by a colleague (who also wasn't going).

I just couldn't believe the level that this place has sunken into. The zealots who were also the cuplrits who had run the place down now dragged us a notch lower.

To me, it was abhorrent that the company's resources were robbed in the name of my religion. Especially when many of the staff's complaints including on welfare are being ignored.

If God listens to my prayers, now is the time He should grant me a new job.

PRU15

PH will not win elections again at least for perhaps another decade or so. The anti-malay muslim narrative strikes a high chord among the community. Our social fabric is a patchwork that will take a generation or so to be fixed.

For Anwar, it's complicated. On his own, he's a formidable and credible leader but with PH, he's the best PM we'll never have.

PN has proven to be a viable alternative to BN, already performing better than PH in the last 2 state elections. But being an alternative, people would still vote BN first and only go down the list if they have reservations with BN e.g candidate problems, and Zahid. For me, Zahid's premiership of this country is only a disaster waiting to happen. Left to his devices, this country will be dragged even further down with his pivot to Islam (his twisted version). We could see even more Jawi signages across the country. Heck, even official government business could be written in Jawi.

All said, I say BN wins with a simple majority. If it doesn't get the 112 seats on its own, GPS would be more than happy to supply.

Meanwhile, I believe it's time for PKR to have a new leadership and for it to run on its own.

UKM

It's only the second week at UKM and I'm already being left behind.
Didn't manage to catch up on the whatsapp group activities through the weekdays so I only had the weekend to properly do it.
Missing out on multiple notices already. Not even well prepared to attend the classes this week.

Was actually looking forward to learn Microeconomics and Maths — the subjects I like the most. But so far, I couldn't keep up with the teaching.

I'm determined not to let the tragedy of my diploma happen again. Was slacking off in a big way (because of work commitments), that I failed to graduate on time and had to take a semester off. I was lucky enough to realise the negative trajectory I was on and managed to muster all efforts to ensure I still at least get CGPA 2.75, because most of the bachelor programs require that as minimum. I was off mark by a bit, luckily on a positive margin, that I finally ended up with CGPA 3.00 — which qualifies me for all of the programs.

Anyway, I can't slack off no more. Time is running out.

random

this will be incoherent

Learnt last week of ICAEW's CFAB. Because I had finished my Diploma in Accounting (DIA) early this year, I am eligible to apply for exemptions for 5 out of 6 modules to get the CFAB. Still have to sit for the Accounting module exam, which I presume to be difficult.

CFAB holders can apply for the designation of Business & Finance Professional (BFP) by ICAEW. I don't know if the designation matters and how much if it does, but the cool part is BFP designated persons can affix the BFP letters after their names. That alone is enough to interest me.

Calculated the cost for CFAB, all the module exemptions + Accounting module exam + registration fees will cost GBP 663 (=MYR3,565.34 ). Worth it, I thought. Plus maybe another GBP 75 for the ethics test. So roughly around MYR4k in total.

The problem I later learnt is that, CFAB holders need to have 12 months working experience to apply for the BFP. And most importantly, there needs to be a sponsor, who must be a member of IFAC in good standing. In Malaysia, MIA and MICPA members are eligible to be sponsors. Now the problem is, I don't know any MIA/MICPA/ICAEW/ACCA/CIMA holders at my workplace. I need to reach out to maybe somebody in Finance who can help me with that.. if they're willing.

Saw my former boss' Linkedin page and I was surprised to know that she is an FCCA.

If only she's still my boss, then I could've asked her to sponsor me instead.

Thought to myself that if only I had finished my Diploma earlier and knew of CFAB earlier, then I could very well do that.

But for now, I have to make do with just getting the CFAB and work on the BFP later.

These Covid Times

Woke up Sunday 4th September with a debilitating fever. Tried to relieve with a few pops of panadol. By night, the fever got so bad I had to go to clinic. Reason I didn't go much earlier was because I wasn't sure of the SOP for fever during these Covid times. Doctor confirmed the fever - 39.4C! Asked the doctor if I had to take covid test, she told me only if I had been in close contact with a positive case, which I didn't. But she said that I should do the self test on the 3rd day of fever and if the result was negative, to come back for a blood test - suspected dengue. Nonetheless, she gave me a 2 days MC.

On 6th September, I did the self test. And confirmed, I was positive! Immediately reported the result on Mysejahtera and informed my boss. So there I was, serving my House Surveillance Order from that day until 12th September. In the period of isolation, I was torn between attending to work at home or just letting myself have a rest. To be frank, I had been slacking off at work for the past few months. A lot of work got mixed up in ego and politics that I just withdrew and letting go of a lot of things. Well, everything actually.

Anyways, I was getting in and out of emails during the period and just let people know that I was Covid positive and that I couldn't do much work except for some light stuff. 

It's a bit of a shame because on the days prior to my covid, I was trying to catch up on all the books that I had purchased and subsequently didn't read. Had managed to finish 2 books - The Color of Inequality and Parliament Unexpected. Both on the topics of economics and politics respectively, the 2 areas I much enjoy. Being down with covid just made me so lethargic and disinterested in things that I spent most of the time laying in bed trying to sleep.

Interestingly, at the time, online spending got crazy. Bought 3 books from Shopee, 1 book from Carousell, and even a semutar cloth which I wouldn't know when to wear. 

By the way, it's been a week since covid and thank God I got better. Was a bit concerned since I wasn't boosted. To be honest, I am doubtful of the vaccines. Mostly due to anecdotes from friends and friends of friends (no further than that), but the adverse side effects from vaccine, even if not entirely true, had converted me. There are around me an increasing news of sudden deaths. I am not sure of the vaccination status, but they must all be at least been 1-dose vaccinated.

I truly believe the authoritiies need to do something to seriously address this. It's really not a good look especially when it feeds into the narrative of the antivaxxers to further convince people of their case. 

Job Interview

Had an interview today for an internal opening.

Took a half day leave even though it's just an interview at the same company.

Interview started at 1430 hrs and lasted the full 30 mins. I was up against 3 panels. One from the Human Capital, another was the GM, COO's office and his executive officer.

After the customary introduce yourself question, came the hard part. They asked me what was the toughest problems I had so far in my current role (which is also on acting basis, btw) and what I've done to overcome them.

"Communication improvement"

"Driving and listening to staff's problems openly and honestly"

And of course, no mention that we actually had a manpower backup from another department because I worried in admitting so, he'd see me as being too dependent on the easy fix (adding manpower) which is counter to what the management is overall trying to do - optimising manpower and improving processes.

I tried so hard to say things my bosses would like to hear to the point I was basically lying. I felt dirty. 

The GM was not amused. He knew too well how it goes in our department and called me out as saying the same thing he's heard from other people in the department.

I honestly didn't know exactly what to say. He also asked me if I would be open to talk about the actual problems my department is facing, and I foolishly said I would, but in the right forum.

The long and short of it, I blew it. No creative answers and answers that sound too dodgy.

I desperately need a new job, to the point that I state upfront to any potential suitor that I'd be fine with taking home less than what I do now. But today has been a sobering moment.

Not only I realise now I am utterly unprepared for a new role, I'm also starting to see that I may not have done enough in my current role. I can't quantify what I do, no clear goal be it daily or weekly or monthly, and also I can't exactly put in clear terms what I have achieved.

This is such a bad way to start the weekend.

FT Liverpool 3-1 Wolves

Saw the game last night with a City friend.

Personally, I didn't have any illusion of hope that we could snatch the title from City slipping up. It's just impossible when you're up against a Guardiola. Even if we were level on points tally with a GD of +1, it's enough distance for anybody to catch up with City. Yet it was fun to join in the chants for Quadruple and more especially to try to outdo Utd's Treble.

So what now?

UCL is 5 days away and I must admit I'm not fond of our odds. With Thiago out and our midfield currently looking wobbly probably due to exhaustion of being in 4 races at the same time, and against Real, a team so associated with winning UCL, I'd give ourselves a 50-50 chance.

But yet again, we're one win away from being the first English (or Scouse?) side to win an EFL-FA-UCL trophies in the same season, so why not join in the fun and start dreaming of the Treble? It could yet be done.

YNWA

Crunch time

Work has gone from terrible to awful. Drained at this point with all given and virtually none taken.

Two days ago, I had an impromptu chat with an SM at my place. He's a head of another department but I had been told that my department would be merged with his and he's gonna stay as head and my current head will report to him, probably with a slight bump in title but not as the chief.

Anyway, the chat got into a host of topics which I appreciated very much since I don't get to talk with my current colleagues about macro stuff as the conversation always is about the day-to-day.

For context, I've been actively looking for a new job since I feel that I'm fucking up the one I have by my incompetence and mainly my inability to work in such a high-stakes but 'low-payout' environment. I don't make it obvious at all though and although everybody else is also hunting for a new job I'd claim that I'm a company man who will stay with this company whatever happens. It's a lie I tell with a straight face.

But the SM might have caught whiff of my intention since he kept saying about how he had valued me as one of the key people in this department. Went as far as laying down his plans and how I would be an important piece of the puzzle - IF I stayed.

I really would love to stay but if I got a proper job offer, I'd still leave as much as how great I actually found his plans were. BTW. a proper job offer to me is one that offers the same of what I'm getting and it's gonna be a stable, reputable company. One that actually invests not just in the business but also the people.

For the last 30 months, I have been saying to my team that things will get worse before they get better but every day feels like it's worse than the day before. We don't see a bottom yet. Chances are, I'll myself hit the bottom first among other things. I can't afford to implode yet.

But all in all, it's good to know that there's somebody high up actually acknowledging I've done good - or at least tried hard to do so, and how I can still yet be a star player, if I can stomach a few more terrible quarters. Or perhaps, years?

As usual, time will tell, I guess.