Wow, the first time in a long time that I've been occupied the whole week's stretch. Shall blog about some of them as soon as I can before I forget. I like having a blog. Kinda reminds me now and then that I do have a life. And unlike some people who blog to live and live to blog, I just do so that I have something to look back upon when I forget. :P Ehhh, wait. I think I've blogged a similar line before. _-_

Just kinda proved my own point there.

Anyway. Shall blog about my last day at work first, since I'm a sucker for chronology. Border-line obsessive compulsive, perhaps. :P

So, yea. 30th May, Wednesday. Middle of the week, and it felt like Friday to me. Woot. Came to work like any other day, and was walking up the stairs to the office when our Editorial Coordinator appeared behind me. He said something which I can't recall now, and I replied, "Last day lah!"

We entered the office to see a glummy-looking Art Director, and our EC said to her, "Look at him! He's so smug!" I replied, "What? What did I do?" So innocently, if I might add. :D

Our AD grinned at us, and work went by as normal. Soon after, our AD came to me and gave me a crap project to be completed by the end of the day. I call it crap project because it's not an easy thing to do, and required a lot of work. Hohoho. Nice going-away present. :P But I know she only gave it to me 'cause our Boss wanted me to do it. Plus I was the only designer with substantial knowledge of JavaScript. Which doesn't mean I'm an expert on it, but that I know enough to get by. Boss could've asked our Operations Manager cum Programmer to do it, but he didn't, and I'm not exactly sure why. Things would've gone a lot faster if he did. But truth be told, now I don't care. Muahahaha. :P

Morning highlight : Our AD came to me and my designer-colleague, and told us she got an earful from Boss because a particular article was not completed. The article has a Flash animation which was given to my replacement to do. She could not complete it, and frankly, I don't think I would've been able to do it either. Flash is totally not my forte. So, the day before, at about 6 pm, the Flash animation was passed to my designer-colleague, who is, in fact, good at Flash. But it was half-an-hour before end of the working hours, and she was doing a different Flash animation. She finished up what she was doing, and all 3 of us designers left at about 7 pm. Apparently Boss had expected her to do overtime work and finish up the Flash before she left.

Which was crap. Previously, we used to stay behind and work overtime just to finish the work. Unpaid. No overtime pay. Recently, Boss had brought about some changes and rules, which includes overtime pay, dinner allowance, and cab fare allowance (if one stays after 9 pm). After which, no one wanted to stay and do overtime work anymore. It's weird, but I dunno why. His pretense of welfare has caused us to not work harder.

I say pretense of welfare, because I am a cynic. Sue me.

So anyway. Usually it's the designers that stay late to finish up work. It's total bullshit, because most of the time (I daresay, ALL of the time), it's the editorial department that screws up the deadline (I'm not talking about you, EC, you know I love ya :P), but they all go home everday right on the dot. Some people might even go home earlier. But in the end, it's always the designers who have to stay late to finish up the work. Why? 'Cause we're at the end of the factory line. Case in point, one of the reasons I was unhappy there.

Is it my designer-colleague's fault that she left without finishing the Flash animation given to her half-an-hour before the working hours are over? And note that we all left half-an-hour later than the working hours end too. It was not told to her that the animation was urgent. And in retrospect, I was told that my replacement was still working on the animation just today. So, wtf? Plus, I must add that I worked half-an-hour OT on my second-last day! :P

As my AD was telling us how she got scolded for that, I kept saying, "I don't give a fuck."

Even though I do give a fuck because it's not fair, and I am slightly sad that the rest of the office have to tolerate a stupid mofo of a Boss. This is the reason why he had several start-ups before, and they all didn't want him in the end. Bloody read the signs, Boss. You're a fucking dumbass.

So, that was my highlight of the morning of my last day! Hoho! I can't believe I am still ranting even though I quit like, 5 days ago! :P And since I know both my (ex) EC and (ex) OM stalk my blog, I'm sure they're shaking their heads in disbelief right now, thinking I should just rejoice the fact that I'm outta there, rather than being pissed off about the situation I am no longer in. Hurr.

Anyway, I brought my Lumix FZ-5 that day 'cause (1) it was my last day, and (2) the OM was thinking of getting a Lumix. I wanted to show him that Lumix's image quality is almost sub-par, and doesn't do its Leica lens justice. Hurr. :P

I passed my Lumix to our OM to play around with. He took shots of mostly our EC 'cause they are BFFs. Wahaha.

Me with our Editorial Coordinator. And no, I've never asked why there's a poster of animals put up there.

A vulgar pic of our EC. That is, if you have a dirty mind. If you don't, then this is just a picture of our EC, thinking of snipping of his tongue with a pair of scissors. :D

Then lunch! Lunch is always a blast with all the bitching, whining, complaining and then trdp;br yp ;rsbr yjr vp,[smu. (Hohoho. I love using codes in my blog entries. Lemme know if you figure out that last line.) This time around, we went to Burger King at my request. I wanted to go to BK 'cause there's a Royals shop nearby and I wanted to get a Dark Chocolate Truffle cake for the people in the company on my last day. :)

Here's a picture of my (ex) Art Director turning around in puzzlement when our Operations Manager called out to her. Haha. She threatened to kill me if I post this up. :D :D :D And yah, apparently everybody knows about my blog. :P (A generalisation 'cause the 3 newbies + the Boss don't appear to know.)

And here are our kawaii designers. Hurr. My replacement on the left, and the Designer-Colleague I mentioned above on the right.

Funny thing happened just now. I was editing the picture above (colour-correcting and the such) at about 9 pm, when the D-C MSN-ed me saying that her and my replacement were still in the office doing overtime. There was an... "Occurence" in the afternoon and she was totally pissed off. And of course, Boss made it worse. Tsk. Anyway, I thought it was quite the coincidence that she would MSN me at the same time I was editing the picture above. :P (That statement is supposed to imply that I don't care about the "occurence" 'cause I'm no longer a part of it, but I am annoyed that it happened. I shouldn't be. _-_)

There we all are (sans D-C)! The heart and soul of the company, if you ask me. :) That's the Operations Manager cum Programmer on my left. Without whom the company will crumble. :D In my opinion anyway.

Back in the office, after lunch.

The 1 kg Royals' Dark Chocolate Truffle cake that I bought for the office. If you've never tried it, you just gotta! You can get the 600 grams version for about 20 bucks or the brick-shaped version for about 7 bucks.

I copied the lunch pictures to our network drive and our OM put up this picture as his wallpaper. With the folder of the lunch pictures right on top of the mouth. Hahahha.

Here's a shot of my desk! As messy as ever! If you're wondering, that's StarCraft II's artwork of Protoss' Zealot Dark Templar on my desktop. :D

Last shot for the day! Not really, but last shot for this entry, ok? Me and my (ex) Designer-Colleague, with the McLaren F1 in the background. :D The hardest-working, and most under-appreciated people you'd ever meet in your whole life. *Cue cynical snickers*

After some time of goofing off, it was back to work. With my (ex) OM's help, managed to do a version of what Boss wanted (the crap project I mentioned above), which wasn't time-consuming and impractical to implement. Wow, managed to actually do something on my very last day! Hohoho.

Boss MSN-ed me to pop in his office before I left. I replied, "Sure". I popped in, shook hands and he asked what I planned to do after. I think I displayed all the textbook signs of a criminal lying when I answered. The looking up to the top-left and everything. Hurr. I laughed and answered, "I don't even want to think about it right now. Still... Waiting." Which was half-true. I had received the rejection letter from NUS, but I was appealing against it, so technically I was still waiting. Granted, I only appealed the night after, but hey, I wasn't going to tell him that.

He then asked if our AD had told me that they might call us back if they needed help. I said yah. He said that we can talk about the rates and such on another day. I said okay.

My (ex) Art Director did ask me that. She asked, "If I need your help, will you come? For me?" It was kind of an awkward question for me, so I did what I always do when I'm uncomfortable. I laughed and made a joke. Kinda Chandler-esque. I laughed, and said, "For you, anything." Hurr.

But I'm not expecting any calls. Plus I'm thinking of excuses to say right now so that I have them ready if they ever call. Hahaha. :P

Erm, hi Art Director! I'm really going to die on 10th June, huh? :P

She invited a bunch of us for lunch at her place on 10th June. I bet she's going to try and poison me or something. I am ready! Bring it on!

Wahahhahahahhaa. :D