5th PMMS User Workshop FY1011

Last year, I was requested to write an article about this forum which was held in Kota Kinabalu to be published in intranet at our office. But this year, I think I'm gonna pass the baton to the junior colleague to write it. And as for myself, I would prefer to write about the event in my very blog. Hihihi. At least I can opt to be less formal, kan?

Ballroom

The seminar or what we called as PMMS User Workshop was organized at Bayview Hotel, Langkawi from 25 until 26th Jan 2011. The workshop is basically a platform for us, PMMS users to share our best practice to be emulated by fellow colleagues at other OPUs. Not to mention, the award presentations to those OPUs which have successfully achieved 1st ranking amongst 19 OPUs in a number of categories such as Best Performing OPU in PMMS Benchamarking Penetration, Best Performing OPUs in Maintenance Scorecard, just to name a few. To our regret, our company (which is also called by us as OPU) was not listed as one of the winners, like last year.

Event opening  by Performing Art of Langkawi Tourism

There were a few attempts from colleagues and organizers requesting me to be the presenter and the emcee. U-oh! I have presented at the similar forum a couple of years back, there are some other junior colleagues who will be more appropriate to enhance their experience and it somehow justified my declination. And being the emcee of the event would be the burden of nervousness throughout the trip, that I didn't really hmm...fancy  them. Again, I declined it. While doing early shopping as soon as reaching Langkawi, the organizer team requested for my favour to be the 'dulang girl' for Award Giving Ceremony. I guessed I didn't have much more quota of declinations, did I ?  

I always think that the nervous feeling when appearing in front of public didn't really bother bosses who are so accustomed in giving speech to the large number of audiences. Being dulang girl who was quite close to them, I found that the idea is slightly wrong. One of the bosses who delivered the award was literally shaking while announcing the winner! Hmm hmmm..Well boss, we are the same, regardless our positions.

So, the core event of the whole workshop was best practice presentations. And this was one of my colleagues representing my OPU with our best practice.

Aini : Presenter of  our best practice paper

Azim : for another paper from our OPU

Zunidi & KY :The most helpful fellas that I  learnt from on how to WORK

Shahrul & Mun: Emcees  were busy scribbling the scripts

A team building activity was also included in the event on the second day. We were instructed to construct a tower multi column by using straw, satay steak, and plasticine. We were blank initially, the starting pace was very slow. It felt like impossible to build such thing using the given items. Little by little, after a few try and error attempts, we got the momentum and the rest was about teamwork to make it a stable tower.  And we made it, successfully! Yeee ha!

Try and error attempts , felt  soo impossible, initially!

Better shift the tower onto the floor before any of us fell from chair

Another highlight of the event was PMMS Focal Person Appreciation Ceremony. And I was one of them, walking up to the stage to receive the certificate, delightfully.

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Business Getaway in Langkawi; the 99 magical islands

Normally, any meeting or business related trips that I ever attended were in KL. And once in a while there were invitations for meeting which was held at Kota Kinabalu for the same reasons. Recently, I was invited to an annual seminar, and the best thing is, it would be held in Langkawi! Of course I was excited, I mean, there is no way I'm going to be there at this near future, if it is for leisure purpose. 

So, there I was, reaching the beautiful island of Langkawi which  belongs to a cluster of 99 islands off the west coast of Malaysia.

 

Upon arrival in Langkawi I took a ride heading to the lodging. Apparently, on the island, van is widely used  as their so-called taxi service. Meanwhile car rental  services are highly recommended for those who planned to  take a tour around the island on their own at relatively cheap rate, I suppose. A firiend of mine rented Proton Wira initially at rate of RM70/day. It turned out, the car was not available ,she was lucky that day  for the the rental agent has upgraded it to Integra at the same rate!

I stayed at Bayview Hotel, for the seminar was organized at the same hotel. Looking at the reception counter, there was nothing much impressive about the hotel. Until later, we learnt that the Princess of Kedah was also staying there that we have to defer our photo taking session at the lobby to give way to the princess to check out. Hmmm... 

walkway to the room

My room-with chargable wi-fi

 In conjunction with the seminar, my stay in the hotel came together with package of a couple of lunches and dinners.

Pheonix Restaurant

Heavy lunch for a starving guest

The best part about the free buffets was barbecue dinner which took place by the pool side. The view of the city from the top of the building is spectacular. There were so many seafood selections, and after years, I ate crabs - barbecued one! Somehow, eating crab was not a straightforward job, and I had enough of them by the time I ate one and half a crab. Hihihi

First meal before anything else. Gulllpp!

The last time I visited Langkawi was 7 years back for Geology trip. Back then, being in Langkawi was solely for exploring the luxury of rock structures around the island. It didn't occur to me to do any shopping. The pocket money was very limited that doing any shopping was like putting my neck on a chopping board. Heheh..

Nevertheless, that was my study years.  Stepped into duty free shop, there were stacks of glassware sold at what they say as cheap as half of normal price. Well, those were not listed in my shopping lists anyway. Unlike my married friends who have successfully bought boxes of them. 

The shopping lot were only a few walks away from Bayview Hotel. Most of my shopping items were chocolates and clothes to my family and friends which enough to occupy whole space of my luggage and weighed over 15kilos.

Not enough with the shopping during the day, a friend of mine recommended Kak Yan and I to go Langkawi Fair as she claimed that there were many branded stuff such as Gucci, Bonia and chocolates with duty-free price. We went frantic at the sound of it! We took no time to go to that Langkawi Fair after having the dinner, but it turned out that we had overestimated the place.

There were not really much choices of brand outlets as we expected, actually. Among the many shops was Sembonia, thus I went there to see the shoes displayed with the end in mind just for a window shop. But, this was the result of the so-called window shopping. =)

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Chong Wei won Malaysian Open 2011 while I was dying to see Lin Dan

I have once written an entry about how upset I was when Dato' Lee Chong Wei (LCW) was defeated by Lin Dan during last Thomas Cup. Well as a Malaysian, we ought to be disappointed when our team has lost on our quest to win Thomas Cup.

On the other hand, no matter how arrogance that people brand him, I gotta admit that I'm a fan of that Lin Dan. I think the arrogance persona that he always takes off on the court that makes him attractive in a context of a sportsman, apart from his incredible skills. 

So one sweet evening, Ju. Z told me that LCW will meet Lin Dan during semi-final clash for Malaysian Open 2011 tournament. I was like 'really??' and all I knew a few minutes later, the ticket was already booked for me. Deal is sealed!

While I was having a pleasant Friday waiting for the day that I would see Lin Dan in flesh on Saturday, I was texted by KakZai, just to know that he has withdrawn from the tournament as early as quarter-final. I mean, seriously? Ahh... but then the money was drained,and  I was already in KL spending my weekend for this berpoya-poya purpose, so there was no turning back.

 Proton was the biggest sponsor for the tournament. So there were a number of latest versions of Proton  cars exhibited in front of the entrance.

New car, anyone?

You wanna know which court Chong Wei will play? Lemme show you

The first match we watched was Taufik Hidayat - Simon Santoso clash.  My eyes were wild looking for Lin Dan, if only I was lucky enough to see him watching his team playing. Too bad, only Chen Jin was caught in sight. Nevertheless, he was too far that my camera could not capture his face sharply. But hey, I am not a fan to all China players after all. Hihih. 

Taufik Hidayat in action

The effort to get a seat with better view was a struggle indeed. I bet it will be lot worse if only Lin Dan was playing that evening. I managed to get a spot only at the staircase, for the sake of getting the best view. Some audiences were hmmm.. a lil bit annoying when they simply blocked our view with their big head without considering us at the back. What an anticlimax!

It was almost 3 hours cramped in the crowd, finally it was time to LCW- Chen Long clash. Whoa...both players were making such an entrance, unlike the players for previous matches. It was exciting to be there, felt the thrill to see the superstar players showed up before our eyes, almost 5 minutes after all the judges and linesmen took their seat. All of us were standing up and cheering upon seeing the LCW. And to make it more exciting, Datok Misbun was following behind him.

It was very exhilarating atmosphere, we applaud and cheered every now and then. And the best part of being the audiences was the wave formation by all sporting audiences around the stadium. Whooooaa... I love it! 

And as expected, LCW won the match, subsequently the final of Malaysian Open.  Despite the slight disappointment for the absence of Lin Dan, I enjoyed the entire evening to the fullest. Big Congrats to you Datok!!

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Dictionary simply at our finger tip

Reading book has been my pasttime activities since I was little. It started from a book for kids with large pictures and little pages to novel as thick as Lagenda Budak Setan. Mind you, I have obsession in reading, but they were all in Malay. 

I have been quite passionate in learning English, but I have no idea why I never scored any 'A' for English from primary school even until SPM. Ahh.. so frustrating. Nevertheless reading English book was not part of  my learning initiative for I was quite sceptical whether I could understand the storyline if I read them. 

A few months before graduating in my final year, I had little classes to attend. Out of boredom, I borrowed a few books from the library. Too bad, there were not much interesting Malay books except for some educational books which was the last thing I want to read at that point of time. Haha. So, I picked up some English books from the shelves, read a few line, into few sentences, turned to pages, and now I'm hooked to English books.

And sometimes when I came across nice words and tried to figure the meaning , I wished that I had my thick Oxford dictionary beside me because there is no way I will remember to look for the meaning afterwards as soon as I closed the book. Until one day, Ju.Z introduced me this e-dictionary which can be installed in handphone. This is plain cool! I've been looking for this convenience for years, only now I get it.

The definition is elaborated, not only as simple meaning like a pocket dictionary that we used in primary school.

It is very handy and practical that I can simply browse the meanings just anytime! Even when I read an email from boss with complex jargon, there is no hassle to understand it anymore! Hihihi.. Feel free to browse this site to get this cool application.

Speech of wisdom

A quarter departmental engagement was organized by my colleagues. As always, big boss has delivered his speech to all of us. I like the part when he told us that being senior manager of maintenance department was not what he has planned when he was transferred from Pakistan to current office.

Why? Being in maintenance department, we never been in the win situation. When the equipment are all healthy and maintenance people has nothing to do except for cleaning up and polishing the spanners and tools, people will question

        " korng tak reti wat keje ker?".

But when the plant trips and equipment break down, people will go

"korang ni tade keje ker??"



Hj Big Boss



Those are only  the anologies that he used  for us  to understand the message clearly. Either way, maintenance people have never been right. Somehow, I found it is true, because when we put enormous efforts to our tasks and yet when we didn`t get recognized for the efforts, sometimes I myself can't help from feeling useless. Yes, we cannot please everyone, everytime. Nevertheless, I feel inspired when he went on saying

"......... no matter what job (as maintenance staff per se) you are given, do it at your best. If people say that you achievement did not meet their expectation, you can be satisfied because you have done your best, your conscience is clear."

Hmm..As long as I work my arse off the responsibilities given,I guess my existence in this organization is justified.

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When praying while travelling abroad is such a battle..

Being so-called backpackers, my friends and I opted to travel mostly on our own with the help of local maps and some knowledge from researches prior to the departure. But at the end of the day, Ju.Z will be impromptu tour-guide, for she was the only one who did the thorough research. Other friends were so lazy to do likewise. Hihih.

One of the challenges when we went abroad especially in non-Islamic countries was difficulties to find prayer place.  Yes, we had so much exciting activities waiting for us, but muslim`s obligation is always obligation, no matter how hard it was to find the proper place and to identify which direction the qiblat was.

This picture was taken when we visited Hong Kong Disneyland. When I started travelling , I never thought that performing  solat on- the- go could be this tough.  The most private place we could find around the theme park was the toilet, and surely that was the last place we went to pray. They say where there is a will, there is a way. Out of nowhere, we spotted a vacant restaurant nearby, and we settled there, wished deep in our heart that there was no traces of dog poo around there.

We took our turn to pray while others were watching around, to cover line.  Back then,  we used to bring bulky ‘telekung’ which consumed a lot of space in our backpack.  And for prayer mat, we used rain coat. It was a very desperate attempt, indeed. But at the end of the day, there was a huge relief  was felt  for we have completed the vital obligation before having fun.

The same thing also happened during our trip to Beijing. Despite the large number of muslim populations in the province, the number of mosques are very limited at only certain places. And the last resort was to perform solat after having our lunch in a muslim restaurant.  The small dining room was crammed with tables and chairs, but we didn`t have much choices but to take turn to perform solat alternately.

It was not only that. We also had a hard time to find praying place when we went to  Rottnest Island, Perth.  The time was running out and we have just missed the next ferry to the mainland , thus we have no choice but to perform solat at the island.  The space was not the issue because it is huge, very huge and yet it is an open space. There is no way we would find better place other than seaside to pray. Some of us were praying while others were looking around. The passers-by looked at us strangely at our behaviour. Out of nervousness , we didn`t bother to capture the struggling moments as always.  It was such a battle to keep the obligation, but at the end of the day we had experience worth a lot of lessons to  be learnt when we returned home.

Ok, enough with the hard part of the praying story. This scene was taken after we did some shopping at a Tanah Abang, Bandung. The locals performed solat simply at a corner of the walkways. The interesting part is that they wear the telekung in variations of color.  It might seem awkward if it is seen in Malaysian surau, tho. Nevertheless, we grabbed it from the shop for ourselves to be used for our next trips.

It is very easy to bring while travelling for the size is very small. And, it fits well in this small pouch, together with my prayer mat.

Plus, a compass is also essentials to identify the qiblat direction. After series of trips that  I went, only now I am  well-equipped with praying gears for travelling. But  I guess it is never too late. Huhu.

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Not a good kick start for a Monday

Today I was late to office by one hour due to an emergency. Being me, this kind of emergency happens on yearly basis. Why? I left my car and room keys locked in my room.  

Knowing how clumsy I can be, every morning I will make sure that all essential things such as handphone, keys, working pass as well as my camera are in my handbag before I safely locked my room.  Today I woke up as late as usual, but then I manage to get ready to leave slightly earlier than usual.

I have my handbag in my right hand, my shoes in the other hand (yes.. my shoes closet  is  in my room, hihi) . Out I went , and safely locked the door. All at once I remember the car key was not in my handbag! Darn!

I went to my housemate looking for rescue. Apparently she woke up late and was rushing to get shower. All she could do to help me was to lend me a scissor and left me to sort it out myself. After failing a few attempts to unlock the door using the scissor, I gave up and called the landlord who came to my rescue in previous similar incident.

It took half an hour for me to wait for him to arrive while I watched stunning Giuliana Rancic in her coverage of Globe Award Red Carpet at E!.  And I waited another half an hour to wait for him to replace the doorknob with new one, restlessly. I mean, I`m supposed to be at work by the time, but  due to my clumsiness, I was still stuck at home because I couldn`t go anywhere without my car. Last year he replaced the doorknob with current one, and now I met him again for the same reason.

Coming to office at very late hour caused terrible mood for me to start off work. Haiyoo… 

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I am not a big whiner, but...

A few months after I started my employment, I found myself bored throughout 8-5. This was because I was given so little assignments that I can complete in a short period of time, and it was more to learning assignments.  I was new to the organization back then, so the responsibilities given were very limited. Well, as fresh graduates with overwhelming energy and spirits who just join workforce, we were so eager to be tasked with any assignment, just anything!! We were ready on the gear!!

It is nothing abnormal to fresh employers to have little job in the organization, anyway.  But from time to time  I get carried away with the boredom which led to depression and to some extent, I went to see my senior manager to ask for assignments.. Hohoho..

That was a few years back. As time passed by, the knowledge has increased, and I have come to terms with my works.  Little that I know, I have forgotten the ‘lacking of work’ issues that I faced earlier. And just recently when my sole counterpart, the one I shared the work with has taken her long leaves. This means that I have to cover the works not only mine, but hers too!  And this is the result  when 8 working  hours seems inadequate. Working with netbook, while watching E! News, not Buletin Utama, too bad! Hahahah.

Not that I want to complaint or anything , but frankly, I was having stressful days to cope up with the burden alone initially. Nevertheless, I learnt to  adapt  the current situation little by little. On the contrary, stress is healthy in a way that reminds me to be more responsible to whatever jobs which have been tasked to me. Stress means I have aimed something  which have yet to achieve, but I still have the momentum to pursue it.

 But, come to think of those days when I was having so much free time, it feels like reminding myself

‘There you go, this is what you`ve been asking for!!’

Sometimes we forget to be thankful for things which have been laid out for us  today and fill it wisely because we have no idea of what is coming tomorrow.

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Pleasant Deluxe Stay as Paris Hilton- wannabe

Hang on, citing her name doesn`t mean that I am a fan of Paris Hilton yea!  Hilton KL is situated at KL Sentral, just a few walks away from LRT KL Sentral. I noticed  that the hotel now provides room stay plus breakfast with cheaper rate, unlike previous years when they offered more expensive rate than other hotels around KLCC and without breakfast.



I reached KL as early as 9 in the morning whereas meeting started after lunch. So, this means I have plenty of time on my own, thus I went straight to hotel for early check in. Thank God, there was room available for me.

 


The reception hall

It is a hot spot for Datuk Seri , Tan Sri or even Dato` celebrity visiting this hotel for dining. There was one time when I overheard a waitress who was ushering man with complete suit into restaurant when she whispered her colleague via walkie talkie and asked

‘ni Datuk Seri ke Tan Sri?’

Apparently it is not easy job being a waitress in 5 stars hotel. Hmmm..Plus, I once bumped into Datuk Siti, husband and son in a lift.  And yes, she is gorgeous and glamorous, no doubt. I am not one of her fans, tho.

 



internet via wi-fi, hihi



Previously, the sliding door which separates the room and bath room was see-through that your mate can see you were taking your shower.  I think the hotel has made some renovation to the room that now the door is made frosted, or.....or maybe I was given the other type of room.  






There were plenty of food selections, American breakfast, Chinese, Indians, you name it. And this was what I have for myself. Yes, with two glasses of fresh  juices. Hihihi.





In certain hotels, food are not allowed to be taken out from the restaurant, I mean after having the  free breakfast.  Yes, you can sneak the foods out of the restaurant if you want to, just be careful for  not  getting  yourself caught with bagful of foods, free2 dapat malu kan?? Ok Ok , bagful is too much. Heheh..Well, the interesting part of the breakfast service in Hilton is  that they allow us to ‘tapau’ too!! And they even provide the paper bag to takeaway. How cool is that?? How on earth can I resist that? At least, the fresh fruits there were very hard to let go.hihi..

For business traveller out there, check it out!! 

More luxury pictures, click here.

TQ!! My blogshop is just updated in her.shop.spot