1st Christmas in Australia

This is my first Christmas in Australia.

I notice ...

• Shopping centres, outlets are crowded with people milling around and shopping for Christmas presents
• Supermarkets and markets are crowded with wives, mothers stocking turkey meat, seafood, cherries and chocolates - ingredients for Christmas eve dinners and Christmas day lunches
• The main suburban streets are packed with cars making a dash to the shops, getting out of town or coming back into town to spend time with family
• The city streets are strangely quiet and empty with most of the office workers on leave
• Friends and families are having barbeques, casual gatherings, chit-chats in their backyards
• Others are hitting the bars, living it up and having a few drinks

I have within the last couple of days ...

• Attended two and hosted one house-warming parties
• Jumped on a boat trip to Rottnest island with the corporate crew, partied a little and got sub-burnt (despite all the sunscreen I slathered on)
• Involved myself in the mad shopping rush to grab a couple of presents, got carried away and bought myself little presents too
• Spent the quiet-est dong jie (winter solstice festival) ever with my sister, her boyfriend and the steamboat
• Caught up with a friend / ex-colleague I had not seen in months since he decided to leave quiet Perth
• Invited my cousin and husband for dinner and cooked up a Korean feast
• Written Christmas emails to people I like but haven't kept in touch with for a while

I feel ...

• The Christmas spirit and holiday mood is brimming in everyone's backyards
• Happy, excited - like when I was a child expecting the arrival of a celebration
• Loved and blessed and that my fear of a lonely Christmas was unfounded
• That 2009 has been a good year and I hope for more to come

I wish ...

Lots of joy, love, luck and good health for the good people in my life in the year to come

Company Christmas Function... Again?

I attended a meeting the other day and watched as our partner and the client swapped to and forth stories about one of the most important corporate functions of the year ...

the company Christmas function.

Drinks and dinner at the South Perth yatch club, that's where the client is having their Christmas function. I have heard of some others which are having lunches or dinners in ritzy city restaurants or drinks at a tavern or bar. Being the year of one of the worst global financial crises when most corporate expenses are cut and pays frozen - it is a wonder that our firm has still decided to keep ours. But instead of having it at one of the glitzier restaurants of yesteryears, we are going to have a barbeque in a park instead.

The corporate Christmas function is a strange beast.

It is one of the very few events in year (if not the only one) where corporate employees fret about what to wear, whether to buy a new dress, how to do their hair and how much make-up to apply just so they can parade in front of their colleagues - people whom they see each every weekday of the year in their black suits, white shirts, pencil skirts and glasses. It is that one event where people decide they can let go and have a couple more drinks than usual (sometimes more than what is best for them) and do or say things which they would not do or say at any other time of the year (and somehow believe they can get away with it just because it's a Christmas function). And I'm referring to actions that are worse than flirting with that "married with kids" colleague of yours - which is not a good place to start anyway.

Now if you're not careful and you fall into one the following categories 1) wear something overly tarty or 2) do or say something which you would regret the following day after the alcohol wears off (if you remember it that is) - you bear the risk of losing respect within the organisation, or being referred to as the fruitcake (or loser, or other form of crude references) for years to come, or even worse, if the scale of your mistake is too unforgiving, of losing your job.

With the above knowledge and the overbearing pressure that comes with it, how can one truly say they anticipate and look forward to enjoy the corporate Christmas function??

I suppose one way to look at it is to see it like any other corporate event of the year and not as something overly unique. Why worry about it more just because it is an event closer to the end of the year? Why go through the extreme pain of contemplating what to wear to appear like you are actually cooler than those white shirts and pencil skirts? (not unless you are really attending with the aim of flirting with the married man). It is after all, just another networking event and an opportunity to get to know the other people within the organisation with whom you had little time or contact with throughout the year. It is a chance for you to talk to your colleagues about the festive season and all the good things that come with it (religion, family, yummy food) instead of work-related matters. And talking about non-work-related matters is really a bridge to creating closer future working relationships with those colleagues.

It is Christmas and it is time to be jolly, be concerned about the well-beings of people around you and have a good toast to the year to come.

So with this I hope you lots of fun at your corporate Christmas function this year. Stay out of the heat. Dress safe. Drink safe. Party safe. (And don't do anything you'd regret).

Mom's Christmas Function

I received a call from Mom while at work the other day.

"You're always very free on Saturdays aren't you?" Mom asked.

"Uhhh... " (I knew she was right, but I wasn't in a hurry to admit to my sad state of life) "Sometimes. Why?"

"My company's Christmas party. We're entitled to bring a guest. Can you come with me?"

I said yes. Well, it's an opportunity to dress up, meet some people and have a free lunch at a nice venue - why not?

I attended the lunch function this afternoon. I put on one of my favourite skirts (knee-length, flowy and floral) and a black top to suit the smart casual dress code and combat the 37-degree heat. We arrived 20 minutes earlier to mingle at the pre-lunch drinks. The hallway was nice and cool. Some of her colleagues were friendly and made conversations with me. So far, so good.

As we were herded into the function room something struck me as odd. Not everyone brought a guest. And those who did, with the exception of mom and another lady, they brought their partners or spouses. So I whispered to Mom and asked her whether it was true that everyone was entitled to bring a guest.

She then grinned at me and whispered back "Initially I thought so when I invited you. Then we were told that we can only bring partners. So I did not tell them you are my daughter." She looked slightly triumphant.

At which point I started to feel a little dizzy. Dizzy with not knowing how to react. What must the other people be thinking? Did they think I'm Mom's partner?? (what the-?) Or did they know what was going on but was too polite to point that out? What was Mom thinking??

At that very moment I felt so ... Asian.

Now if you're Asian you can probably relate to what I mean and how I felt. Asian people, particularly Chinese, have a penchant for wanting the best value out of everything, at whatever cost. We would stand at a stall and negotiate for 15 minutes over a $10 pair of stockings. We would take along the whole family along to a wedding reception to make up for the gift that we prepare. At a continental buffet breakfast we would eat until we can no longer move, and then sneak a couple of apples into our bags for snacking throughout the day.

That's the inherited value of being Asian. And that was how I felt at that exact moment.

I realised I had two options then. One, I could sneak out of the room and tell Mom that I'd come back for her when she was done (and avoid the embarrassment of someone coming up to me and asked who I was). Or I could stay on and try to have a good time, regardless of what others think of me.

I then looked at Mom. She seemed so ... happy. She had not stopped smiling since we arrived. It was close to Christmas, she had worked hard all year round and now she was given an opportunity to have fun and celebrate with her colleagues and with people she loves (namely, me). Everyone around us was having a few drinks and a bit of fun, and generally being warm towards me. I love Mom to bits. I could not just leave. So I decided to stay.

2 hours later I was glad that I did. It was fun after all, despite how unsure I felt at first. I ate a little, drank a little, chat a little, danced a little. At one point I was even singing Jingle Bells along with the live music band performing on stage. Apart from a couple of questioning stares at the beginning no one questioned my presence.

And best of all the petit fours that were later served as dessert were scrumptuous. Between Mom and I we would have had at least 6 of them, together with a cup of mousse.

After all we are Asians. We felt obliged to eat our value worth at a buffet lunch.

What If There's No Tomorrow?

I was halfway writing a post on corporate Christmas functions when I received a call from Will saying that he won't be coming over tonight. A close relative of Will's mate has just passed away. He and a couple of friends are going to spend some time with this mate tonight.

This is of course not the first time someone close to a friend of ours passed away; however hearing this news will always make me feel upset and sad - for the person to whom this happens to but also generally. I have been fortunate enough until this stage in life to not have to lose a loved one, but from time to time I would wonder what it's like not to have someone I love around, ever again.

What if I can no longer talk to Will every night before I sleep? What if I can no longer hear my mom grumble about her workplace woes during dinner time? What if when I am back in Malaysia the next time I won't see my grandmother sitting around the dining table reading her newpapers?

But these thoughts are usually to painful to bear and I would just stop thinking about it altogether.

It would just be much easier to appreciate the people you love when they are around, so that if they do happen to disappear one day, you know you have nothing to regret, and that they know you love them. Would it not be most painful to lose someone not knowing whether they understand how you feel about them?

Will and I have a self-imposed policy (or rather it's his policy which I have learnt to adopt) that the two of us will not go to sleep on any night after having had an argument without reconciling. We have to come to mutual terms or at least be on talking conditions in order for both of us to get sleep. It has worked for us so far (because sleep is my precious) - and which also means that we are rarely in an argument for longer than a day. So tonight before you go to sleep, do something nice for the people you love. Or if you're in the midst of an argument, have an attempt at patching up.

Ensure that you have everything done you can, tonight, before you go to sleep, so that tomorrow by the time you wake up, no matter what has happened, you will have no regrets.

PS. And corporate Christmas functions will have to wait ...

Highlights of the Week

A couple of events worth mentioning this week:

Event # 1: I re-found my favourite necklace!

I have a habit of buying necklaces when I travel overseas. I love necklaces - I have always believed that no matter how dull an outfit is, you can always make it look fashionable through the right necklace.

There was this necklace which that I bought in Malaysia a couple of years back. It was a blue chunky necklace, made of flat round pieces of stones linked together. It was my favourite and I loved to wear it especially with my work attire to make things a little less dull. However it broke last year when it got stuck to a chair and I tugged at it (don't ask me how because I couldn't remember). I was so devastated that I kept the broken necklace for weeks even when I knew it was not mendable!

I was at a shopping centre in Leeming a couple of days back to do some banking. And of course, being at a shopping centre for the first time I couldn't help walking and browsing around to see if there are some hidden treasure stores which I have not discovered before.

And there it was! Right in the middle of an aisle store - a necklace that looked exactly like the one I once loved and broke (only a slight shade darker). Now this was being sold at about twice the price I purchased it for back in Malaysia, but the storekeeper convinced me that it was made of some precious stones and was well worth it. Needless to say I didn't need too much persuasion and I paid for the necklace, even just for old times sake.

Here I'm introducing my rekindled love...

Event # 2: For anyone who has read my previous posts - welcome to a new theme for my site!

I like my old theme; I spent some time designing it and I thought the final product had a forlorn, melancholic and wistful feel to it (which I hoped reflect my personality). But after a couple of weeks blogging and reflecting through my posts I realised I am not as wistful and forlorn as I would like to be; but instead my posts tend to be more quirky and contemporary. Therefore I have decided to use a theme that match my posts, as opposed to trying to re-engineer my posts to suit my theme...

Realisation:

On Customer Service

I am not usually big on make-up, but there are certain products which I live for and am convinced make a difference as to whether I feel confident, or the lack of, on any particular day. Like the Faceshop metallic range lipstick, in red-orange.

I first came across the lipstick when I visited a Faceshop branch in Melbourne two years back. Tried it, loved it, finished it and the next time I was back in Melbourne, tried to look for it but realised they no longer carry this line. Various attempts of searching online and within the Faceshop branch in Perth did not return any success.

Therefore imagine my ecstasy when I located the exact lipstick in a Faceshop branch in Myeondong, Seoul - at one third the price I bought it for back in Melbourne!! Happy me was in a good mood and was ready to make some additional purchases to celebrate my find. I went up to the sales lady, whom I realised quickly was Chinese and not Korean (much to my relief) and tried to ask her a couple of questions in elementary chinese regarding another product.

She turned around, looked at me with her disinterested slit eyes, and ... to my horror, turned back and completely ignored me!

Now by this stage I was seething inside and decided to leave the store having only purchased the lipstick and nothing else (I would have left empty-handed if I had not been looking for it for 2 years).

Looking back at that incident now makes me wonder ... what do retail shop owners look for when hiring a staff?
There are two broad aspects of skills sets which an employer would generally look for in an employee - technical skills e.g. accounting or engineering knowledge; and transferable / behavioural skills e.g. friendly attitude to a customer. Technical skills are something you can learn, although depending on what industry and role you are in, the timing to learn these skills can take from 2 weeks to 5 years. Whereas behavioural skills, I believe, are not something you can necessarily learn within a time period, no matter how long. These are inherent within a person, or if not, there has to be a (huge) willingness from the part of the employee to want to acquire these skills. E.g. how do you teach someone to be friendly?

I looked back to my uni days, when I was an international student trying to look for a part-time job with little prior work experience but a very humble attitude and extreme willingness to learn. In many occasions I was discounted for a job in a restaurant, or a cafe, or a retail store due to my lack of experience. Now I question if I was an employer myself would I be making the same judgement? How long would it take for someone to have taught me how to handle the cash till as opposed to someone trying to teach me how to be nice to a customer?

At the end of the day, if you are a customer, would you have walked away from a store because a perfectly experienced employee has been rude to you, or because an perfectly polite employee is a little slow in bringing you what you need?

I am upset that I had not purchased 5 more of the Faceshop lipsticks and another 2 bottles of BBcream, but as a customer my integrity would not have allowed me to make that decision. Given another chance I would not even have bought that lipstick - maybe.