The Feline Territory

I had my Big Break yesterday.

Yesterday was a turning point of one of the most memorable impression i had of myself after having to work almost 6 months in a Division which is so pressurizing you will want to sleep at the office every night just to get the work done.

Not only is the workload out of this world, but the engineering jargons makes some of us feel stupified, and the boss has her high standards of a McKinsey, and being the youngest of the team, i somehow felt like i needed to do more and to get things done faster, the more modern and cultivated way.

For the first time ever, my demanding lesbian boss was able to say "that was a good job", and she meant it wholeheartedly.

Yesterday was my first technical product presentation to the MD and the rest of the big guns of our company. I think the last time i felt that nervous was when i was back in uni and up on the podium stage of UIA, wanting to win Best Speaker for the Rector’s Cup Debating Competition. I was 19, it was late 1999, and i was new and i knew that was a critical moment in my life where i could prove to myself that i had my conscience and self-esteem under cover. I knew that i had to well, and if i did, all good things will follow. I presented my cases so confidently, and on that auspicious night, my team who were the underdogs of the whole debating batallion, became Champions. And i walked away with the best speaker award.

Yesterday, i remembered that moment. Confronted with the most influential people in the company, i presented my case and although all knew that i was the youngest in the whole platform, i didn’t want age, or experience, or gender to get in the way, and i didn’t want those elements to be the judge of my work. I wanted the initiative and the analytical mind, the voice of the customer to win hands down. And i know that i didn’t win Best Speaker in 99′ just to let others handicap me just because i was young, short, new, ladylike and wears makeup like a pro. Instead, i wanted to prove that all these are good assets that you can incorporate into a mind that is willing to learn and able to embrace every knowledge and wisdom out there.

Presenting a strategy to a group of people who are distinguished in their own area wasn’t easy. I was greatly challenged, questioned and almost bulldozed. The MD commented, criticized, noted, but alas agreed to my proposal. It was an hour of expectations, in a room of a hundred people, and i wanted to make an impression.

It was not easy, nothing ever is, it took a lot of guts and long hours of drilling and pushing myself to the maximum potential, but in the end, i was able to prove that age is not a factor, but its instead a winning factor- because being young allows you to make more mistakes and give yourself more ample time to pick yourself up when you fall and learn from those who are better.

I am happy that i was given the opportunity to work in a team which is uniquely diversed, strong in flaws, but also strong in recognizing and fixing those flaws.

Two days ago, i was still an underdog. But today, i feel like a Champion once more, and had a flashback of Rector’s Cup 1999, and the feeling of being a winner all over again.

I’ve been congesting my blog with nothing but my hectic work scenario lately. Hmph. Nampak sangat tak ada life.

Anyways, it had been a whole month of workaholicism and i hope to end this rage against the bosses by tomorrow after my big presentation.

Along the way, there are few things that i have missed out on, and i owe my "Sorries" to some people out there:

1. Sofea for missing her wedding. I really couldn’t make it! I had a super-mega-watt presentation that was very very crucial to my career enhancement. Very very sorry, i saw the pictures and you were simply a goddess.

2. Nawar for missing her open house and niece’s bday. Yup, i owe you big time lady, hope a nice candlelight dinner would do? You see, although it was a Saturday, i had a big corporate meeting to attend (yes, some Board Directors hold meetings on weekends and at midnites…. its insane..) Hope you will understand that i was really really "stucked"….

3. Dena for missing her pre-lude to the big day……..thank you for the invitation, i’m sure you girls had a blast and Nivin must’ve planned everything so well, but my schedule was just so jam-packed….. will be there for the Big Day though!

4. Radin for missing on the makeup appointment! I was stuck in the unruly floods of Shah Alam….. but i will sure be the artist to paint your face for the Big Female Party…..

5. Aziz Bakar for missing your many many phonecalls and hanging up on you whenever i needed to focus on my powerpoint slides. Yes, it was rude, but duty comes before love.

So, my apologies to all of the above and hope there will be better "quality time" in store for me!

Rush hour has begun. For the past four months, i have been feeling like as if theres not enough time in this 24 hours of my 24 hours to complete a full day.

This week has been hell-ish-ly busy. Its bad enough that i had to do a lot of walking from the Plant to the R&D and to the Planning Division and back to the Marketing Division and then run to the Styling Studio, i also had a presentation after another…. which consist of hundreds of slides that looked like theyre all from either a crappy consultant agency or the fashionable McKinsey.

Anyways, when you enjoy what you do, its all worth it, right? I guess i’ll sit back one day and reminisce this just like how i reminisce those good time in uni.

So the main events of the week has been ‘big’ meetings and ’small’ meetings, ‘challenge’ meetings and ‘mediocre’ meetings and all sorts.

But today, i was in a meeting with a lady from Sales who had a "Shrieking" problem. I thought my confused lady manager swallowed a microphone, but this lady swallowed a mini-compo unit. I ended having a migraine after the meeting.

Early this week, Proton held a meeting for two among the most transformational divisions in the company. ‘Transformational’ not because we had the power to change the world, but transformational because we are responsible for the product line-ups for the next decade.

When placed in such a situation, pressure is always strong. I noticed myself drinking more cofee than ever, and my bosses smoking more ciggie than usual.

But the best part woking under pressure and being in highly pressurised meetings is that mean words dont seem so mean after all. Ive never really heard that many F* words thrown around a room full of adults in my life. But now, i’m very much used to it.

Situations would be as below:

Person 1: What??? Air-freight bumpers RM1 million?

Person 2:  Do whatever, i just need the F****ing car!

Wow, and i was so right when i assumed engineers dont have that much of a vocabulary!! Hehe.

Have you ever met anyone who really is engrossed with his or her work?

I think i have again turned into a nerdy version of myself.

The last time i checked, i was a NERD when it was the middle of the semester in uni, and Yom, Radin and i would be spending very long hours at the library. Either we were really really studying or checking out boys. Yom had a habit of chewing gum while she smash her calculator. Radin had a habit of constantly looking around her surroundings and chanting out loud while she memorizes. I had a habit of rewriting my notes and compiling notebooks and bringing everything under the sun to the library.

I found myself to have that momentum again. Maybe because of the new friends i have working with me. Maybe its the environment. Or maybe an extra-terrestrial influence.

I’ve turned into a workaholic. The thing is, i dont wanna be a just workaholic. I wanna be a smart  workaholic.

The last 2 weeks has been the most hectic of my Proton days ever. But the one thing that keeps me going is perhaps…. in Powertrain terms…. we say, the engine is the heart of the car, the soul that keeps it going. So in common car enthusiasts term, i’d say that the thing that keeps me going is the fact that i am working for a car company.

I wish i was born an engineer with an eye of a critic. I wish i was better with numbers and design, and better with physics than art.

But after 2 weeks of continous, consistent, persistent work, i realized that you dont have to be a car engineer to feel what i feel today. And you dont have to be good with physics or CAD design.

You just gotta fall in love with the industry that you’re in.

One thing i’ve noticed about cars and car companies is that they play with taglines as if cars were majorly personified. Take for intstance Satria Neo’s "Desire has a new name" and Volvo’s "Volvo for life", and not forgetting VW’s "For the love of cars".

I think i have literally becomed one of those people who will one day personify things and create a tagline like that.

And to achieve that, let me get back to work and work my brains out.

We are all over the news again. This time, its the re-examination and the re-consideration of the re-negotiation of getting married to the German carmaker.

What would really happen if they buy 51% of our shares? Is it true we will see a retrencment program more than a VSS? How drastic can the change of management be like? Will it all happen in 3 months like they mentioned to us? When will things be stable again? How do we make things stable again? Is VW the answer to all our insecurities, or is it one foot into a deeper hole?

Why do they say this is colonisation when obviously we are in a lot of trouble.

Perhaps Proton is never like the way it used to be? Well, the people are still the same, and the buyers are still primarily the same.

Personally, i think many people have to ponder upon the fact that the market is different the way it is today, very much different than it was last time. We never had such big competition like the Japs invading and the Koreans invading with all their VTECs and VVTIs. And invading cheap. Have we really placed enough tax upon them? Well, we surely have not taxed Zakariya enough, eh?

This whole thing with VW is very much crucial to our country’s economy, because opening up our door to them means getting less money into the country. But Proton cannot be the only thing Pak Lah is relying on to make Malaysia prosper, eh? Maybe he will present more better ideas all lined up in his Ninth Malaysian Program during the next Assembly?

Call it colonisation, but i’d say let the Germans in. Its high time we change the term to the "New Economy". Of course, new GMs like my Perodua-ian boss might need to repack his bag and relocate to ex-company, and i might need to re-do my resume a little bit more, but still, its not about putting up a white flag.

Theres so many good talents in Maxis, but their leaders are a bunch of white men also.

We are not trying to turn Proton into another white men’s playground. We are merely bringing in new technology to automatically bring the company back alive again.

Either that, or i just wanna chnage my Gen2 into a GTI Golf next year?

Hehe

Briteny finally did one of the smartest thing women of her kind has ever done in a very long time. She has always been my favourite, alongside Jennifer Lopez. For those who knows me well, knows me well enough that these two will always be my "idol" (gosh…. i sound so "blonde"…) no matter what happens, who they marry, who they divorce and what they wear

I’m glad Britney finally dumped K-Fed, he’s obviously a loser trying to rip her off her big bank accounts.

And after this, i’m really looking forward to see her making a comeback… hopefully more songs like "I’m a slave for you" and the likes….hahaha.

OK, fine, she wears funny clothes. She’s got implants and she squeaks when she speaks. And she doesnt marry well (who in her arena does, anyway?), and she brings shame somehow to women because of her publicized sex-symbol image.

Buts she’s a superstar, and she works hard at it. And i like her songs, her dance moves, some of her interviews, and her catchy lifestyle which the media makes a big hoo haa of.

A superstar needs to lead a Superstar-ish life, dont they? They cannot marry well, they instead must be super gorgeous and make lots of money in the shortest of time and wear the tiniest mini and the slinkiest top. If not, they will just be a plain Jane… and a plain Jane doesnt get to do roadshows…..

I have a collection of Britney’s videos and songs and buys magazines that feature her on the cover, no matter what they write about her. I hope, in the future, she will slim down her bosy even more, and date guys like Colin Ferrell and George Clooney. Or that guy who played Lucas in One Tree Hill.

The thing about J-lo and Britney that thrills me and totally inspire me is how hard they work. Ive seen interviews of others who quoted these two as the most hardworking women in Hollywood.

So, cheers to the Superstars that makes me buy Vogue magazines when theyre on it.

And, oh yeah… welcome back, Brit…

Life at the office could not have gotten any better.

My lesbian Manager who literally swallowed a microphone when she was young (my sarcastic way of saying her voice is so damn loud, the whole office could hear her), finally lost her voice two days ago! She spent the last 48 hours just squeaking. I said out loud that i’ve never had so much peace in my life!

I tried my best to show sympathy and reminded her to see the doctor and get an MC. Unfortunately i’m not good enough of an actress and she could she me lying my sympathy right through. So she said: "I’ll be back!! My voice will be back!!" Hehe. Then she started squeaking again. Then we called it ‘peace’ by having teh tarik at the company’s Bistro. For once, our minum petang was replaced by complete silence instead of her constant cina apek nagging.

My GM also had a pang of my antiques. Or, to give credit, the antiques of me and my colleagues. He turned 43 today, or was it 44…? Well, anyway, he turned a year older and kept on claimimg that he’s only 30, but the whole world knows thats untrue. With the buck teeth, the smoker’s breath and the grey hair, he looks pretty damn 50 to me.

Anyways, he took all of us out for lunch at his favourite gerai, that typical Terengganu only wants to eat white rice and rebung… but i did enjoy the sooup gearbox, so thats ok. Actually, it was us "kuli batak" who suggestd that he took us out for lunch, and when lunch was done, his colleague, a big gun from another Auto company came by and we decided to go back to the office without him first. That was our ultimate chance to drive away our boss’s comapny car, and we towed it away all around Subang.

One of us suggested we buy boss a cake. Another suggested flowers. I suggested we just call a stripper and that will do him good. We decided to be kind and get him flowers and balloons. Such genius ended up us parking the car at a double parking araea and received a summon for that!

So we quickly with the flowers and ballons, drove back to he office and threw away the letter of summon in the dustbin.

Once we arrived the office, late and all tangled up, we sang Happy Birthday and our GM said, "You all ni malukan i…" sheepishly. Then he ran off for a meeting with the big guns. We blew up more ballons and stuffed his office with it.

What a day! I would rather spend all my hours doing up slides for a presentation rather than plan for an ad hoc party!!!

I call myself a survivor today.

Today is my 2-year anniverssary in Proton, and like a chirpy cheerleader, i gathered my pom-poms, did a split and said "Hooray".

Well, so much for the pom-poms.

So tonite, i treated my girlfriends to a dinner celebration to none other than the best Kedai Mamak in town (Mohsin, TTDI). They serve the best naan in the world. We talked about work and politics and everything nice. Apparently, one of us has gotten rather interested in a male species who is not available anymore, which is the Married Men category. (Yes, girl… you know who you are…;) I guess, when you lead a routine working life, a good dinner over Teh AIs and the award-winning Mumtaz Naan (named after the legendary Taj Mahal couple) cannot be about work, work, work anymore. It must be about the juicy part of work.

After 2 years, my life did a major turnaround. I literally became one of those irritating corporate executives who gossip about the Dato’s in the company and makes a big deal about colleagues who are a liability to the company instead of of an asset. People like me for my monkey jokes and they hate me for my outspoken rhetorics.

Nevertheless, its been 2 years, so they have gotten used to having me around

Over the last 2 years, I have done many silly things in the company. And out of the company. Among the juicy things are:

1. Went out many many times with a married man in my company.

2. Exchanged many many flirtatious emails and sms to recipocrate the ones sent by married men in my company.

3. Fallen (a big crush) with some of the very intelligent and good looking married men in my company.

Having done all these, i conclude that although some married men can be super-smart, they are also super-itchy.

Now, i would like to shift this blog entry from something out of a bimbo cheerleader’s head into the brain of a great-brainer.

I’ve gone through 2 years of corporate world and life is still up and kicking. I’ve been quite nervous about today. Today is the day i looked back at those days when i was clueless about the working world, and very intimidated into a joining a big corporation like Proton.

But i did it anyway, and i’ve begun to do a lot of things i never thought i’d be brave enough to do, and things does not seem to be that tough at all. Intimidation is just a word.

Now, i have a bigger role to play. I’m no more a fresh grad, but a real working employee. I’ve becomed a nerd at work, looking for career progression, strategizing my aims endlessly every working day.

When 2 years passed, i can firmly say this:

1. I won’t be in corporate all my life. Corporate is just for starters. Corporate is just for now.

2. In the end, i would do what i do best: writing and writing. And face painting.

3. I would write for a beauty column and become one of those writers who criticizes for a living and paint faces as an art.

4. I’d have my own little shop which can do hair, nails, faces and serve coffee till you barf. I will manage my own accounts and do up my own adverts.

5. I’d do makeup artistry and feature wiriting and marry the two.

When 2 years has passed, i dont feel like i’ve aged at all. In fact, i’m thirsty for more, and i’m glad i feel this way, because to realize that i am young, a little cuckoo and ambitious, is actually, completely OK.