The Lyrics In My Heart

Life is short. Laugh uncontrollably and never regret the things that will me happy

Celebrate Birthday with colleagues

5 of us happily moving towards the 5th floor carpark in the Prangin Mall

using the back door to enter the "Town Steamboat Restaurant"

 

The staff was adjusting the gas stove

Irene, we visit here to celebrate her birthday

 

Puan-puan silakan duduk (Ladies, please be seated)@@@

Collecting money for payment. Each people RM 22.90 (buffet steamboat)

 

 

I think the pot was very small, which is not suitable for steamboat

I was not able to try those cakes since I had a limited stomach space after indulging myself in the steamboat

 

Variety of balls

Dim Sum

 

putting butter to fried the chicken wing, sausages, fish ball and so on

The food leftover. 

Town Steamboat Restaurant

Address: 63 Macalister Road, 10400 Georgetown, Penang

Tel: +604 2297273 (call after 5 pm for reservation)

It's time for financial diet

I earned a miserable salary when 6/7/2012 I checked my Maybank account. I jumped to a conclusion that how can I survive for this month and I might go on a financial diet not only for this month but also the rest of the month. Before started working, I had a wish list that need to be obtained by money. Everything was changed with the little miserable salary. My colleagues were inviting me to go for shopping since we just receive the salary. They bought the clothes from here and there. *envy* Miraculously, I didn’t burn cash from my wallet to get myself anything.  I might not involve in the next time shopping outings due to the financial diet and also their selfishness deterred me from shopping with them. * my social life will shrink*.

I was come from the middle class family. My father was a civil servants while my mother is the Home Minister aka housewife. My parents raised five kids. I’m the eldest one. Forget to tell you, my mother not only became the Home Minister but also the Finance Minister. Father seemed liked an assistant to the Finance Minister since all the finance will be in my mother’s hand. My mother’s financial priorities were not "now" but "tomorrow". My mother saving for our education and the mother of all worries- dreaded diseases.

It meant the family live in frugality.  School holiday travelling confined to Cuti-cuti Sarawak via road trips to Sarikei and Sibu. Some of the cities like Kuching and Miri I never stepped at my foot there with my family. Flying to West Malaysia is never existed in my childhood memory. I thought if having the opportunity to fly to West Malaysia during the school holiday it was once in 10 years luxury. My poorer classmates in primary and secondary probably have to sell their kidney to afford to a trip to the country’s capital which they only had seen in the television. I am eager for travelling. *my cerebrum was calculating how many month’s salary that I need to save for travelling*

The reality life forced me almost possible to be frugal. Strong financial discipline must stick in my mind. The little food luxuries that I had currently were some of the mini food outlets in Prangin Mall which in the range of prices RM 5-RM 10.00 per meal.

I might embrace Chris Farell’s philosophy which he espouses in his book The New Frugality: Consume less, Save more, live better. “This New Frugality is not about being cheap; it’s about being smart,” Farell wrote.“…..it shows how putting core values at the centre of investment and fewer purchases, but more satisfying ones.”

Being the payroll executive

**Update on 1/7/2012-4/7/2012**

The old lady woman boss request all the colleagues include me to overtime for 2 days to settle the payroll of the employees because the old lady women will depart to China to negotiate business.

1/7/2012

It is my first time to touch into the payroll world. I feel complicated when I had been assigned to handle the 2 outlets’ employees payroll. There was a list of table that stated the employees’ working time namely P1, P2, P3, P4, P5, P6, P7, P8, P9, P10, P11, P12 and son on. I had to refer back since it quite difficult for me to remember the working time of the employees. After determine their working time, I had to fill their working time into excel sheet. If there is no existed their working time, it meant they had their off day (OFF) or replacement off day (R. OFF) , medical leave (MC), unpaid leave (UP) and so on. My job would be easier since I do not need to care their started working time, ended working time, lunch time, dinner time and so on. My first day in calculating the employees’ payroll was done when I printed the excel sheet of each employees that had the MC, UP, OFF, R. OFF. The frugality of the old lady women caused us had to adjust the margin of the excel sheet in 1 paper. I doubt how could she read the name and the staff code clearly when the paper adjusted in 1 page.

2/7/2012

According to the excel sheet, I had to key in the MC, UP, OFF, R.OFF into the goldsoft software. *Lazy to tell the meaning of Goldsoft* The goldsoft software will automatically calculate the amount of the pay that deserve by the employees as long as I understand the right method to key in the figure of all the MC, UP , OFF, R.OFF. I thought the biggest problem that I faced in entering was about the time of recess over, overtime, the time of late because I cannot understand the format of the time. I catch the meaning of the time format that was hour hour: minute minute (HH:MM) after the explanation of the daughter-in-law of old lady woman, Siew Lin/ Shereen. And I also had to remember the price of each number of late, the price of other bank charges because the company relied on Maybank to transfer the salary to the employees. Genuinely speaking, it has many payroll systems in the goldsoft software that need to understand in clicking it.  For example, annual leave, medical leave were under the leave transaction in the payroll system in the goldsoft while the time of late, the time of recess over, overtime were under the OT transaction. Last but not least, miscellaneous transaction will include commission, the late penalty according to the number of late. The 2^nd day ended when I printed the payslip employees.

3/7/2012

The scary time was coming when the old lady woman will check and examine the payslip that we generated based on goldsoft.  She will shout and scream towards the person-in charge that generated the payslip when she found some mistakes. The human is not the robot some mistakes and errors were inevitable. Luckily she was not blaming me when I key-in wrongly the commission of one of the Malay employee. I was impressed with her capabilities in finding the errors of the promoters such as deduct the salary of the promoters if he or she had weekend off day without supporting document. And she will remind us to write down the increasing number of late and the time of late of that promoter in order for her to produce the warning letter for the promoters. Maybe I should salute her in having the potential in becoming the human resource manager. The lesson that I got from her was minor misconduct can lead to firing. After she pointed out the mistakes in the employee payslip we had to correct the mistake.

4/7/2012

It was the internet banking process. I entered the amount of the nett pay in the payslip into the excel salary file when the employees were using the bank payment. If the employees were using the cash cheque, hence I have to give the cash cheque payslip to my colleagues. I had to email the payslip to the personal email of each employee in one of the outlets, Wilayah Cheras Selatan.

Bla Bla Bla

Every night after I’m working, my housemate, the secondary teacher will chit chat with me. Working life? Of course she will ask LOL. Sometimes I will told her the daily happenings to her as well. Like while I was waiting for bus, I found a Indian male Penang was accusing the Rapid Penang bus driver rudely. Bla bla bla. He was not only pointed his finger towards the bus driver while accusing him in the front door of the bus but also in the small window of the driver seat. This drives the onlooker stare at him as well. This include me.

I told her and she made the conclusion like that:

“Ken Leng Nga Dei” （印度底）

Their butt like the chicken brand’s chicken when they show their arrogant (屁股翘翘像是母鸡)

After I heard I almost burst into laughter. She said this is the common adjective towards them. At least I obtained short-term happiness from her when we chatting. 

Opening an Maybank Account

The company will pay the salary to the employees through the Maybank account. Thus I have to open a Maybank Account. Luckily the komtar area had a Maybank branch. I decided to settle the Maybank account in the 9.30am but the staff informed me that the computer system in the Komtar branch was break down. I am really MAD and FRUSTRATED after heard such bad news. She advised me to go other Maybank branches in Penang like Jelutong, Times Square and so on if there was urgent matters that needed to solve.

I had no choice and thus need to use my lunch time to patronage the Maybank. I prayed that the opening account process will run smoothly. My prayer answered and I successfully had a Maybank account. The Maybank staff was using 20 minutes to help me opening an account.  

 Komtar Maybank Branch

Rapid bus Monthly Card

Making the bus Rapid Penang monthly card is the wise choice for me as I will take the bus everyday to work. Processing the monthly card need to have 1 copy identification card and 1 passport-sized photo. Actually it was RM 80 for the first time user of the monthly card but recently the management of the Rapid Penang was conducting the rebate RM 5 for the rapid monthly card holder due to the anniversary celebration. I’m the lucky girl that able to meet such golden period in processing the rapid monthly card.

 Rapir Penang Counter near the Komtar

 Receipt

Take a break and have a try!

My colleague, Courtney brought me to the Takin, a mini Japanese Restaurant in Prangin Mall (3^rd floor next to the selling condom outlet) to enjoy our lunch. According to Courtney, the green tea in here is nice to drink because it was homemade. However, the noodles in here were using the instant noodles. I was quite satisfied because the price is reasonable. I also like the ambience of this mini Japanese Restaurant. 

Takin

 Black pepper fish fillet rice (RM 4.90)

 Satay Chicken Rice (RM 5.90)

Me and Courtney

I'm baaaaaaaaaaaack!

The company that I worked for

 

Hi, you must wonder where I’m going after my one week virtual disappearance. (Not going to post anything in the blog). Excuse me, I’m started to work. Y.A.Y, I’m being the employed category. 

It’s very easy to get this job. Last Saturday, I just called the person-in charge that I wish to apply for the clerk position. The person-in charge just requires me to come for interview in the Monday afternoon around 3 or 4pm. The person-in charge was not going to interview me because she was late for coming. Apparently, a man was replacing her to interview me. After 5 minutes later, the man agreed to hire me. Frankly speaking, I did not have the sense of happiness when he agreed to hire me. I cannot understand why I had feeling like that? I had applied wide variety of HR executive and assistant but there is no response. I consider this job (forget to tell you, it’s a clerk position) as a starting point for me to gain the working experience in the office field.

Currently, I’m in appalling predicament whereby all the problems emerged from the abyss. Is this one of Buddha’s challenges to me as a noble Buddhist to test whether I am capable to loop over obstacles from my archetypal life? Chanting the Buddha text helps spiritually but I still doubt that am I strong to face the uncertainty future in my life now. Facing the circumstances ahead of me has definitely made me weaker both physically and mentally. I admit that I could not face my own weakness and not courage to utter my current job to my old friends. I have to show to friend around me that I am strong and capable to find a better job which is suit my academic qualification. 

My family members still support and encourage me from times to times. They seemed care and concern about my job, my feeling and my thought. Every time they phoned me, inevitably I will voice out my thought and they just listened to my ranting and worries all the time. I should convince myself to be strong even though it is an endless difficulty ahead of me. Perhaps it is the time I learn to grow up independently?

Strolling around the Komtar

 Checking blood pressure and BMI counter

It's my turn

Counseling counter. Since she ask me the purpose of taking her photo and I just said as a memory. Hence, I choose to unrevealed your face

Free toothpaste

Accidentally found that there is a free checking towards the blood pressure, heights, teeth in the Komtar area which is near to the Popular Bookstore.

Without hesitation, I shift to the checking counter and fill in the various forms.

When I taking the photo, the nurse was teasing me and said: “still want to snap photo”. I just smiled.

After checking my heights, weights, blood pressure, my BMI is normal.

And got free toothpaste after checking my teeth.

Exploring BJ Penang

 Exploring BJ (Bukit Jambul) by using RP 302. It costs me RM 1.40 to come here from Jalan Bukit Gambir (my residential area). I found that a lot of RP bus will pass-by and it brings the convenience to the frequently bus passengers. I also need to transit the RP bus (307, 401E) to Queensbay Mall from here because there is no direct bus from Jalan Bukit Gambir (RP 302) to Queensbay Mall. Only 302 come across Jalan Bukit Gambir

 Various shophouses especially Hair Saloon

 Shophouses again

  Kompleks Bukit Jambul

 This apartment namely BJ Court which is very very near to Kompleks Bukit Jambul

   Mydin is located in the lower ground of the Kompleks Bukit Jambul

 Interesting name of this Kopitiam

It should not mean Chou Yang because it still not operate its business although 10am. There is no sign of customers in there.

Do you ask me will I move to BJ court? My answer will be definitely “No” because there is a lot of foreigner labors like Indonesia and so on (dark skin color people) in there. A Malay girl which is the Penangites told me that their hostels provided by the employer are quite near to Bukit Jambul. That’s why many Indonesians could be found at there. It is dangerous if go to Bukit Jambul during the night.