Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Its been a while......

Just an update on life in general..... I have not been using my computer other than work nowadays..... Hence the dismay blogging frequency......

Life is good..... Charmed and blessed I must say...... No complains so far....... Pray that God will continue to shower His blessing on me and my family......

On the work front..... Its been going well for me in my current role...... 2009 is the year where I have "climatize" to the culture of Shell..... And I think I have impress my line managers as far as I can tell...... At the end of the day, lets just say I am back to my SMU self where I know what I am doing...... I know my job well, and I understand the business much better a year earlier....... In some areas of my work, I am probably the only one who knows it inside out......

You can only add value when you know the business, and I think I am doing alot of that now....... Back in the school days, I always thought a rotation program should be 3 - 6 months...... Shell's 18 months and I use to think that its too long...... After being through it, 18 months is about right...... Whoever says that 3 - 6 months is enough to add value, my rebuttal is that, either you are doing a role which is so miniscule or you are freaking brilliant......

Prolly 99% of the population are not genius hence its prolly the former......

So yeah, Im hoping for a good IPF..... I got something like a B+ equivalent IPL the last time round in 2008, Im gunning for at least an A-/A this time round...... Ambitious I guess, but definitely achievable........

I am going to move to my next role coming 2010....... Wheeee...... My official title is "Port Commercial Manager"....... Doesn't say much but in a nutshell, Im like a little of everything covering Greater China (China, Taiwan, HK), Japan, Korea, Phillipines and Thailand...... From what I understand now, I am going to do pricing for bunker fuels and covering the market in its totality....... Which is cool in my opinion, I have grasp a basic foundation in Marine Lubricants, now Im venturing on to Bunker Fuels....... Afterwhich, I think Im ripe to move out of Marine into some other businesses like Chemicals, Bitumen, Aviation etc......

The new role is cool in the sense that I may be accountable for margin...... In other words, PnL..... Anil once mentioned to me which I think may absolute sense, the best roles are those that you are accountable for PnL, roles that involves cost cutting..... In gist, generating value for the organization....... So its cool and Im looking forward.......

It will also allows me to travel...... I have been told that we will need to make a visit to the above countries to understand the market and to build relationship in those countries...... I have been itching to fly ever since I joined Shell as thats one of the CVP of Shell...... I am one of the few Gs who hasnt fly much since I joined...... Been to KL once and going again in December..... Thats it....... Looking at my peers, I am one of the pathetic ones.......

So in my next role, I am looking forward to these exposures...... Joining the ranks of Gs who complained that; "Ray, you know travelling is very tiring", "Ray, living life out from a suitcase makes you old"........ May be true, but still its something I want to experience while Im young......

Personal front, everything fine and dandy.......

Nat and myself are going to Bangkok this coming December...... Living it up a little I guess by my standards...... Flying SQ instead of budget carriers, staying in Baiyoke Sky (4 star) rather than "Samran Place", a place we stayed in Year 2 of Uni with 4 other friends squeezing in the same room paying 9 bucks a day...... She "slogged" it out with me in my schooling days and I think its time that I can start affording her a little better...... Think same goes for my parents, they have sogged all their life...... Raising us to what we are today....... Its time they lived it up as well......

On reading, well, I am devouring books by the cartload....... reading titles from some of my favourite authors..... Michael Crichton, James Patterson, John Grisham, Malcolm Gladwell (new title: What the dog saw)...... Venturing into some classics like Frankenstein and Sexing the Cherry....... Books older than a centurion...... And new authors like Jiang Rong (Wolf Totem).... New in the sense that I have not read their work yet......

I think I need a proper bookshelf soon enough..... I am stacking them now, and they are already growing to my height...... Prolly 120, 130 over books now...... Which also means that I have spent about 2000 over bucks in my past 4, 5 years...... Money well spent, I must say...... A chinese saying goes " Shu Chong Zi You Huang Jin Wu"...... I subscribe to that...... Though the books I read sometimes doesn't give much value...... Haahaha.......

On golf, not bad so far, I am starting to play more on the courses..... Either executive 9 holes with my pals or 18 holes with colleagues...... The best and only score so far I have kept is 122 strokes in Pulai Springs....... My best game so far....... Trying to get better..... But like what we (LN, Ed, JH and myself) always said, we have a good 30 years to better our game.......

On guitar, its still fun...... Better with some chords now...... Comes quite natural to me...... Since I have been practising a few times a week...... Still sound like shit for some songs, but it gives me great satisfaction when I hear some resemblance of a song that Im trying to play....... My recent favourite is Hotel California, I can strum the whole song, but Im still far from the original song which uses picking rather than strumming....... Trying to play "You Found Me" by the Fray, its really quite shiok when I go into the chorus, the feeling is really awesome.......

Lost and Insecure
You found me, you found me
Lying on the floor
Surrounded, surrounded
...........

Starting to learn some worship songs as well...... My aim is actually to play worship songs for the church once I retired....... So like golf, I have a good 30 years to master my guitar.......

Ok, think that it so far....... Till the next update...... Have a good one, folks......
Cheerios.....

Labels: Quarterly Update

posted at 28.10.09 _________________________________________________________________