Evening

Mr KE took this photo a few days ago from the back bedroom window. It's warmer now and it's getting easier to get out and about with the Pip. He's nearly 3 months old now and just a little darling.

After winter months and being stuck indoors, I am really looking forward to the summer. Our first summer as a family :)

Killing the Germs

It's been really cold the last few days. OK, not extreme cold like -40 but cold enough for Mr KE to wear his longjohns into work today. I don't mind the cold weather so much; at least it's a proper winter then - not just days of gloomy, damp, drizzling weather. Kills off all the germs too!

Mr KE is back at work and I am now officially on maternity leave. Just a few more bits and pieces to get; I was supposed to get my nursing bras yesterday but I couldn't face taking off all my winter clothes to try them on...gloves, hat, scarf, coat, fleece, jumper, long sleeved t-shirt and short sleeved t-shirt. Then putting them all back on again. Exhausting work!

A Norfolk Garden

Mr KE and I spent the weekend at his parents' place in North Norfolk. His parents live in a Norfolk Flint cottage about 10 minutes away from the coast.

The weather was nice (for September) so I spent some time in their garden and took some photos while the sun was out. I really like their garden because it's really interesting and looks good all year round.


This part of their garden always reminds me of the sea. It looks beautiful, even in September - so you can imagine waht it looks like in high summer. At the end you can see their blue summer house. The summer house is a cosy space with doors that open completely at the front; the whole house is built on a turntable so you can rotate it to catch the sun.

You can also see one of their beloved Siamese cats in the photo.

Another view of the garden. It's divided into sections, almost like rooms.

This a view of the house from the bottom of the garden. It is actually a terrace of 5 small cottages converted into one big house. As one of their relatives said, "You've bought a whole street of houses!".


Their back door. You can see the "flint", which is the traditional building material in the Norfolk area.

August Bank Holiday

We kicked off our bank holiday weekend with a family dinner at New World restaurant in Chinatown, which has been a family favourite since I was a child. I met with some relatives from across the sea and we had a lovely dinner.

My favourite sister :) and her husband were in London and stayed over too, so that was an added bonus.

Then on Saturday, after a full English breakfast, we waved off sister and husband, before heading off to the South Bank...one of my favourite places in London.




We went to see Psycho Buildings, an exhibition at the Hayward Gallery. It was described as "artists take on architecture"...and it was good. There were only about a dozen installations but they were all original and thought-provoking.











Our favourite installation was snappily titled Normally, Proceeding and Unrestricted With Without Title by Gelitin. They had created a "lake" with rowers on the roof terrace on the Hayward Gallery. The best thing about it was that the public could participate; although we had to queue for an hour to participate for about 5 minutes.






I hate small boats so I was really nervous. This photo shows the rickety floating platform that served as the alnding area.

I was also paranoid that we would actually row off the roof...to a 3 storey drop below.

Aaarrgghhh.

Mr KE loved it.






After all that excitement, we had an early dinner at Wagamama.

Mr K-E had Chicken Katsu Curry and I had Yaki Soba (fried noodles). We also had some gyoza (little dumplings) and tori kara age (fried chicken pieces).











Then we were off to see the Wizard, the wonderful Wizard of Oz.

(The summer production at the Royal Festival Hall)










We weren't allowed to take photos of the set, but here's a photo of the Hall before the show began.

Mr K-E had got us seats in the 3rd row (clever Mr K-E!) so we had a great view of the performers and orchestra.

The Royal Festival Hall is a brilliant venue, not stuffy and poky like the theatres in the West End. It opened after a complete refurbishment last year, and it is super-duper. It has proper air-conditioning!! (My number one complaint about theatres in the UK)

Lost in London

On Thursday night I was out on a girlie night with other women from my team. We were defying the credit crunch. Yes, spend your way out of the recession :)

We went to Meza in Soho which a pretty cool place to hang out, although we all thought the food was over-priced. The cocktails were super though, so that made it worth it. In the basement, there is a Cuban place called Floridita where you can dance the night away. I left after dinner but the others continued into the night.

Anyway, we had a really interesting discussion during dinner about our "local communities". There were 4 of us : one Bruneian (me), a Korean, an Iraqi and one Bulgarian. We are all about the same age; two married and two single. One thing we all had in common was that we didn't hang around with people from our "home communities" in London - in fact, most of us actively avoided them.

Although it's nice to meet people from home sometimes, I just don't think it's worth the hassle because (I've found) that they can be the most nosy and judgemental. They will ask you lots of questions, not because they are genuinely interested, but because they are trying to weigh up your income, your husband's income, your lifestyle etc.

As my Bulgarian friend said - the killer questions are : Where do you live? In a house or a flat? Where do you work? What car do you drive?

You can practically see the wheels in their brain turning while they try to calculate your "standard" ..... whether you live in a four bed penthouse in Chelsea (envy) or a one bed council flat in Croydon ( oh dear).

My Iraqi friend added that the worst is when people judge your lifestyle and drag your family into it as well.

This is why you will never find me hanging around in Brunei Hall or tramping around the streets near Bayswater/Queensway. I like being lost in London.

Tough Times

Things are tough in K-E workworld. XYZ Group are not happy with the way that our UK company is forecasting and wants us to sort it out or else! The problem isn't really with the London business unit but with business units in other parts of the country eg Glasgow, Birmingham and so on.

Just to explain, XYZ Group is a PLC and we answer to shareholders and the market. The number one thing that shareholders want is reliability i.e. no surprises. So if you are forecasting 5% profit, you must make 5% profit. If you are forecasting 2% loss, OK that's not good...but if you actually produce 5% loss, that's very bad news. On the other hand, if you forecast a 2% loss, then declare a 10% profit, that doesn't send good signals because either a) you have no understanding of the market that you are operating in; b) you are cooking the books or c) both.


Anyway, the forecasting has been flip-flopping all over the place in the UK business mainly because no-one really knows what will happen in the next 6 months. All we can say is that things are looking dire in some parts of the country. All temporary staff have been laid off in some offices.

In London, we are under a lot of pressure to let freelancers go and support the other offices around the UK. Frankly, we are hardly in a position ourselves to give work away.

On another note, the last time there was a recession in our industry was after 9/11 and it lasted for about 18 months, I think. At the time, I was a junior member of staff and most of the management stuff just went over my head. This time round, I sit in on the resourcing meetings and know who are people next in line to be laid off. It's very strange. I've realised that the more senior I get, the more careful I have to be about what I say to more junior staff.

The Palm Tree

There is a little roundabout at the top of our high street which has been the subject of numerous local "campaigns". The council wanted to remove it and replace it with traffic lights *gasp* which would be better for traffic flow but everyone was in uproar locally...Hahahaha, local politics...

Then there was a public consultation to see what we could do with the roundabout. I remember there were four options i.e. piece of art, village sign, antique lamppost and something else. I don't remember a palm tree being one of the options!



You wouldn't believe the fuss over this little roundabout. Someone has commented on our local forum - why is it a palm tree?? What's wrong with a good old fashioned English Oak? :) You just can't please anyone!

Park Life

We have a few local parks near us but last Saturday Mr K-E and I decided to walk to a park about a mile away. We are quite lucky that this area of South London has lots of parks, but somehow we have never been to this particular one.

It was lovely day, warm and sunny. We had ice cream in the park and watched families picnicking, sunbathing and playing games like football and rounders.

Looking at the photos, it's hard to believe that we were in "inner city" London.

I love London

We spent last Saturday wandering around the South Bank. It was a lovely afternoon and there was lots going on.

Despite all its problems, I really love living in London because of the diversity and wealth of cultural experiences available - free!

Like this dance troupe entertaining the crowds queueing to get into the Hayward Gallery.







This is Appearing Rooms, an "aquatic sculpture" by Jeppe Hein. You can walk through rooms formed by the water jets.

You can see the London Eye in the background and Big Ben too, if you look closely.









There was live music outside the National Theatre and people were square dancing.













There was giant furniture there too, which Mr KE loved.

"Grass" sofas, armchairs and coffee table.
















This is "art" too, but I didn't really get it. Something about music and light responding to human movement.














This is the "Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef".

All the coral is actually crochet, which I thought was pretty cool.









Underneath Waterloo Bridge there are long tables set up with second hand books for sale. I have spent many happy weekends browsing here while Mr K-E watches the skaters a few hundred meters away.

Brian Wilson at Kenwood House

Last weekend we went to Kenwood House in Hampstead Heath (North London) to see Brian Wilson i.e. Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys.


It was actually Mr K-E's company summer outing and it was an all-day picnic with the concert at the end. I didn't think I could handle all day in the park (hayfever...sniff ...sniff) so we just turned up for the concert in the evening.

It was a lovely setting; just a shame that it's such a trek from our South London neighbourhood.








We had the usual "English" picnic food - sausage rolls, quiche, chicken drumsticks, sandwiches, lots of beer...all arranged by Mr K-E's work so I can't complain.












Apparently he's the one playing the keyboard.

There were people at the front in deckchairs, but it was more fun in the picnic area.

Mr K-E's Cruise

A few days ago, Mr K-E and a few friends went cruising on the River Medway in Kent. One of his friends has a cabin cruiser which sleeps 4 people and they spent a nice afternoon cruising followed by an evening in the pub.











They had to negotiate a series of locks on the way. According to Mr K-E, it's quite hard work dealing with the locks because you have to open the paddles to let the water through the lock gate.











Then once the water levels have equalised, you push against the big timber arms to open the gates. You really need to put all your weight into opening the gates.










One person needs to stay on the boat to keep it steady because it's very turbulent in the lock when the water is pouring in.











This got more and more complicated as the afternoon went on and they drank more and more beer.....










Most of the way there are no roads nearby, so it was peaceful countryside. They didn't pass another boat all the way.

Hiding Stuff

Today I came home from work to find a card pushed through the letterbox. Hooray, I thought, my Amazon stuff has arrived, I'll go to the post office on Saturday morning to pick it up.

On closer inspection, I was aghast to find that instead of the normal "this package is too large for your letterbox, please collect from the post office" message; the box for "...this package has been left..." had been ticked. The delivery man had filled out in handwriting - in the white box in the garden next to the brown bin.

Aaarrgghh, I ran into the garden and checked in the box and whew, it was was there. BUT...

• where does this delivery man think we are? This is South London, where someone could have seen him hide the package and then run off with it 5 minutes later. Hey, I don't even want to speak to my neighbours, let alone trust them.
• that white box was rubbish that the council hasn't collected. Aarrgghh, what if the council had collected today..with my books and CD in it?

Oh well, I am probably making a fuss about nothing; everything did arrive safely after all. I put on the Justin Timberlake album straightaway. Aaahh, Justin makes everything better.

Noooooo!

I can't believe that Ken Livingstone could lose to that comedy politician Boris Johnson. The Evening Standard has declared Boris the winner but the votes are still being counted. Who are these people voting for Boris? The common theory is that it's the "doughnut" vote, i.e. the people living outside the city centre. Oh, and a small enclave in Kensington and Chelsea.

My support for Ken can be summed in one word : buses.

It's all those bastard car drivers, I'm telling you.

M&S panties and other exotic goods

The weather has been luver-ly....warm and sunny. I've lived in England for too long : I'm blogging about the weather hahaaha.

So, what have I been up to lately? Relatives have been visiting and I have been busy doing stuff like:

1. frantic pre-visit flat cleaning;
2. stocking up on yoghurts, smoked mackerel and other food that Mr K-E and I never usually buy, but that people from Brunei seem to love;
3. doing the rounds of Debenhams, Marks and Spencer etc etc. Plus, adding the fun of buying clothes in cheapo places like Primark and supermarkets.

Forget the museums and galleries. A visit to London is all about the Clarks factory shop, M&S panties and lunch at Nando's.

I'm confused.....

The weather has been completely nuts lately. Warm and sunny - then on Sunday - frickin' snow. Proper snow too, enough for snowmen, which in Central London is generally enough to have a public holiday declared.

*yawn* it's bedtime.

Will blog when I have more energy.

Operations (or What I had to think about today)

Sorry - I've just realised this is a very involved post about work! I'll be back to the dodgy photos tomorrow :)

I had an intense day today at our Bristol office with the other members of the Operations Strategy team. Immersion in operation management strategy all day = exhausted brain.

Just to give you some background:

I work for ABC which is a PLC i.e. with public shareholders. The management board of our parent group sets out the growth and profit targets for each operating company. All the employees are aware of this, but most of us just get on with it and leave the management to the Directors. However, last week I was asked to be part of the strategy team. Eeeek.

This year ABC Group has told ABC-UK-CakeShop (my operating company) that as part of the latest 5 year targets, we have to achieve 5% growth every year and 0.5% increase in profit every year.

That's not easy. 5% growth means that if you are a 1000-employee company, you need to hire 50 new staff a year to grow by 5%. You need to provide enough office space, IT support, HR support, training etc for those additional 50 people. Plus, if natural staff turnover is about 10% anyway, you actually need to recruit 150 a year. There are a lot of costs associated with recruitment - because you don't just want to recruit the next guy on the street. It is estimated that the recruitment costs for each new member of staff is equivalent to one year of his or her salary. HR time, management time, agency costs, handover costs, inefficiency while "learning the ropes", colleagues having to "show you the ropes"....adds up to tens of thousands of pounds in lost earnings.

And most important of all, if we hire 50 additional staff, we need to make sure that our sales income can support all of these guys.

Consider that we need to do this every year....

0.5% profit increase per year is even harder to achieve. This means, year on year, we need to become more and more efficient at generating profit. We can't just charge our Clients more money every year without any added value (they would just tell us to **** off). How can you make everyone in your company produce 0.5% more profit this year than last year?

This isn't just increase in profit but increase in percentage profit. For example, 2008, you have 100 staff. If overall costs are £20,000 per staff member; then £2,000,000 is break even. If you earn £2,080,000, that's £80,000 profit - 4%.

Now it's 2009, you have 105 staff which hits the 5% growth target. Break even is £2,100,000. You earn £2,185,000 i.e £85,000 profit. More money than last year, but still only 4% profit so you have actually failed. Vastly oversimplified, I know - but just an illustration.

One obvious way is to outsource our low-end or back-office work to other countries i.e. reduce the direct costs. Everyone knows about Indian call centres, right? We are already doing this i.e. we have ABC-Manila which handles work for the UK and Hong Kong. ABC-India is also up and running, so soon we will be under pressure to send work there too.

The thing is, that's not enough. We will also be competing with companies from countries with lower costs eg India or China. That's already happened with software and telecoms providers. Within the next few years, we predict that the big players from these countries will also try to penetrate the UK market in our industry.

There are other strategy teams looking at different aspects, but I am in the Operations team which is all about delivery. How we can improve our systems and processes company-wide, how we can produce more for less, while still improving quality.

The UK Ops Director is ultimately in charge of this and it is an immense reponsibility. Operations seems to be today's theme. Terminal Five at Heathrow opened today and the baggage system has gone haywire. BA's Director of Operations has been on the news apologising profusely. I bet he's having a bad day.

Colleagues or Friends?

On Thursday night I went for a few drinks after work with my colleagues to start off the long Easter weekend. Drinking with colleagues is interesting (can't find another word for it) because it's different to drinking with friends. Everyone is trying to avoid the guy with bad BO and you hope you don't get stuck in the corner with the office whiner.

Plus there is the usual slagging-off of people who don't buy their round. Those people are considered scum. OK, a bit of background is called for: in the UK, people generally buy drinks in rounds i.e. one person will buy drinks for the whole group, then another person will buy the next round etc. So over a night, people will take it in turns to buy drinks and if it doesn't even out on the night, that's OK because over time everyone will buy his/her fair share of drinks.

See, it all works well except for "round-dodgers" who are universally disliked. Even though it appears all casual, it is noted. Women can be the worst, I'm afraid to say. They are happy to have drinks bought for them all night; which stinks in this day and age. It might be OK, if you are with your friends, who are generally more forgiving, but let's face it..colleagues are not your friends.

Whose life is this anyway?

It's Thursday night and depressingly, I have nothing to blog about. No exciting foodie tales, no sunny-side-up snapshots, no sexy mama thrills this week. OK, I could blog about work, ye Gods, I can just imagine all my (2) loyal readers rolling their eyes now.

This week has been spent in a series of meetings in stuffy, over-heated rooms. To be fair, they haven't been boring. I usually have to pay careful attention in meetings anyway, in case I have to leap in and defend my corner.

Sometimes I do wonder...what the heck am I doing here? It's almost like I'm living someone else's life - going to work on the bus, eating sandwiches for lunch every day, being all "professional" at work and sending snotty e-mails to people who aren't doing their job, going home to a messy flat and eating McCain's oven chips for dinner. Who is this woman exactly? And how did she reach this point : sitting at big table trying to out-manouevre a load of overweight fifty-ish white guys in bad suits?

Not me, surely? I'm the girl from Kampung XXX ( a small neighbourhood in Brunei) who eats chicken rice for lunch and drives to Gadong to work every day. I'm the girl who has breakfast with her Dad and loves to eat deep fried fish with soy sauce and rice. I'm the girl who doesn't have any interest in domestic affairs; goes to HuaHo with her Mum after dinner and just pushes the trolley around. I don't even put the food away when we get home, I just slink off to watch TV in the air-conditioned living room with tiles on the floor. I'm the girl who likes to hang out in Booker International and buy magazines on Saturday afternoon.

My real life is starting to feel a little bit unreal.

Act in Haste, Repent at Leisure

Friday afternoon was the most exciting afternoon at work for a long time (possibly ever!) for all the wrong reasons.

At work, we are quite slack about lunchtime drinking. It's not encouraged but it's sociable on Friday to go for a quick pint or two with your colleagues, so the management turn a blind eye. Most people are responsible and know their limits. The accepted rule is that if that pint turns into four or five or even more, you suddenly realise it's three-thirty and you are smashed....don't come back to work. Just ring your colleagues or your Boss, explain the situation and go home...or sit in the pub all afternoon. As long as it's once in a blue moon and you haven't got a critical deadline, it's fine.

The main thing is - don't come back to the office drunk.

Anyway, on Friday we all trooped down to the pub for lunch and a few beers. After lunch we all drifted back to work, some later than others, but by 3:30 we were back at our desks. Except for Ollie, Steve and Bill who were still drinking. It was Ollie's last day (so he obviously didn't give a damn) but Steve had an important piece of work to complete that day.

When Steve doesn't show up by 4 o'clock, his line manager Anton rings his mobile to ask when he is coming back. It's obvious that Steve is drunk on the phone so he's told - look, you've had too many, don't come back to the office. OK. Just go home, or stay in the pub.

Steve suddenly takes it into his head that "nobody can talk to him like that" storms back into the office and starts to berate Anton. Our Boss tries to get it under control and lead the clearly drunk and slurring Steve into a meeting room, but Steve isn't having it.

He starts to rant and shout at Anton saying who do think you are? I'm not just a stupid XXX! I have an MBA, man (cringe*cringe*) I have a first class degree man! (cringe*cringe*) What have you got? HNC?

For the rest of us, it's painfully embarassing: watching a 40+ year old man self-destruct in front of your eyes. A few people try to lead him to the meeting room, but he keeps shouting and making a scene until finally the Boss has enough and says OK, that's it. Get your things. You're out.

By now Steve realises that he's really fucked up, he starts to cry and says stuff like I have three kids man. I love this place man. My life is in ruins man. I really liked working here....

Finally we had to call security to get him out. As he left, he asked the Boss - will I still get a reference? The Boss didn't answer.

It was horrible watching that happen. Like a car crash in slow motion. There is no way he can come back to work now. I bet he felt like an idiot on Saturday morning.

When things like this happen, the management take it very seriously. Steve could try to sue the company for unfair dismissal etc etc so I will probably have to sign a statement on Monday. *sigh*

Careers from A to Z

A few days ago I spent a morning at a school in South London, representing my profession at a careers fair. I set up my "stall" neatly, stacking up my brochures and freebies (mousemats, pens and postcards) in an inviting fashion on a rickety school desk.

I was placed in between the Army and the London Ambulance Service, which I found slightly disconcerting. Is just me, or is the idea of the Army distributing recruitment information to 14 year olds really disturbing?

Anyway, it was a good experience. It is an inner-city school so the kids were not your clean-cut, freshly-washed, smartly-dressed variety. The hairstyles alone are blog-worthy. In a way, I felt that these kids actually benefit more from this type of thing compared to, say, a 14 year-old in an expensive boarding school.

After chatting to a group of 3 very "street-smart" girls, I asked if they had given any thought to their futures. One of them replied, "Oh, I want to be a barrister".

"Really? That's great," I said, impressed.

"Yeah. Or a beauty therapist," she continued.

I can't help but be amused. Do you think she got past "B" in the A-Z guide to careers?