Prologue

In a moment a year has passed, a tremendous year of joy and tears. A year of many challenges that brought many changes. From the comforting bliss of my home to a city full of madness but also full of possibilities, from loosing weight to gaining it back, from graduating uni to taking up a crappy course meant to short change the Rakyat’s money, from a Jusco cheap labour to now more professional but even cheaper labour at Accenture, from driving to everywhere to now walking and taking to buses to anywhere.

The Story of a Boy

Sounds pretty bad huh? Not really, not until you hear the whole story,
So here goes, the story of a boy, called Nick. Nick came here as an immigrant, being homeless and all, his “Cimui” took him in as a refugee, fleeing from the boredness of his home town hoping to find excitement, career and who knows maybe even love. So little nick went job hunting eyeing those tough to get jobs, not wanting a boring job in any small time firm, thinking he has all it takes (he actually does, just a matter of time before all is unleashed, than a tremble will resonate across the corporate world). He landed a job with a big multinational, but little did he know that this Japanese multinational is not his cup of green tea. Being so happy that he was given the title of “management trainee”, he moves out from refugee camp and found himself a place. Sharing his apartment with a multimedia guy and a fitness buff who also happens to be a fitness trainer, After orientation, all seems good and bright, After few weeks only did he know what actually management trainee means in Jusco, It means multi-purpose do-it-all cheap labour, so cheap he had to carry stuff and at the same time do stupid documentations. The hours were long, the pay so little (RM1450 after epf), neither was there overtime or any other attractive remuneration.

He knew he had to get out. So he started looking or a new job, a few calls he did get, but before he could go for any interviews, he heard of a course fully paid for by government where he’ll learn all the “latest” language and framework, so he resigned from his job and took up the course. But still in doubt if he had done the right thing, since they were a lot of grads that are unemployed. Only recently he conceded it was the right decision, everyone in his batch has resigned (the last one this December). Excited he was about the course, only later to find out that his class had inexperienced lecturers who doesn’t know shit bout what they’re teaching. Worst still he was put into a class which was ahead for a month, furious he was, but soon took it up as a challenge to play catch up, even though he did catch up, he never mastered what he learned up to his own expectation. So along came his first project, he came up with a great idea and pitched it to his team, they liked it and made him project manager, excited he was little nick, he wanted to build a “perfect” application, so he worked hard, delegated some of the part which he thought was less critical. They were co-operative people but some were not so good in programming, some really didn’t understand his grand design. So what came up was an application half of his expectation. Never the less, he didn’t blame his team because he knew they had put in their effort, he reckon his mistake was he never monitored their progress enough or clearly communicated his expectation.

Then came the second project, he was rudely pushed into another group by his lecturer, than again determined not to let that keep him from trying to build another great application, he again came up with a great idea, he pitched it to his lecturer and then to his new team, they too think it was a great idea, so the current manager suggested he took over as project manager, but they was a problem with one of the group members, he was power gila, and insisted, he be made project manager, due to nick’s concern the project will abruptly screw up if the Mr. power gila became PM (It is rumored that Mr.gila is a Syok sendiri racist pig), so he used a few tricks in his book of nick ( for e,g the book of Screw with me, you die ; the book of F*ck off asshole and etc).He manage to rally a majority support for him to become Project manager. Determined not to make the same mistake, he articulated his design clearly in documents ,from class diagrams to database schema, than delegated the work out, opting to do the core of the application himself, but to his dismay, one group member never finish her module, Mr. Power gila deviated from the design and had his own variation of the database schema, and he never finished his part too! Frustrated he was that he felt like whacking them all. But he told himself, he tried his best, circumstances were not in his favor. From that day onwards, he swore he would try his every best not to work with incompetent people.

So after that, it was almost the end of his course, which required him to undergo a 3-month internship. He was accepted into Accenture as an intern and was placed on a database-warehousing project. On the first day he was excited, he met the team, all seem like very competent people, second day, he was thrown a task and given a deadline, than another task. He made quite a few silly mistakes, annoying his supervisor, than after that, it was all “self study” assignments, which made him bored, so bored, he actually wrote this piece, than he was given the responsibility to organize the team Christmas party, the pressure were on, because they would be invited guest, and the project manager insisted the party to be near perfect. But luckily, the team was pretty helpful, particularly one adorable cutie called D and his supervisor called O. And the story goes on……to the year of 2006



People Behind the Scene

VJ – a friend he met in Jusco, who resigned one week after nick and now working for one of the big 4 audit firms, regularly meets up with nick to have a nice chat bout finance and business stuff.

Cimui a.k,a not so straight buddy – The one who took the refugee in when he first came to KL and help him get in tune with crazy life in KL.

Hostel mate – too many to list , most of them Sabahan , and 2 Chinese, one a self centered assh*le he disliked, but soon moved out.

The gang – his bunch of home town friends whom he did a lot of crazy things with and share the same dream, but sadly he never really got to meet up with some of them for year of 2005, most of them scattered down under. Except one who is in KL but sadly exiled to semenyih.

The adorable cutie (D) – his newfound friend who he would bug when he has nothing better to do.

Mum & Dad – personal banker of nick, providing services such as cash on demand

Ka Che- his most matured close friend he usually rant to about anything and everything

Chie chie – Another one of his more matured friend who he sometimes do lunch or dinner with.

Sara – his musical friend who he always planned to go watch Philharmonic orchestra with but never realized

Steph – his kch fren who came to KL for love, once almost drove around the entire south side of KL looking for a famous mamak, but never found it.

Cindy – his long lost high school friend whom he often regards as the most goodie and nicest gal he knows.

Uncle – his real uncle who was in KL working as senior manager at one of the big 4 until he recently resigned and move down under, regularly takes little nick out for lunch or dinner when he was in KL.

And etc –If i didn’t list you; it’s not that your not important to me, I’m jus getting lazy.


Prospectus for the year of 2006

All in the year of 2006 seems better for nick; hopefully he will get a good job that pays well. He will be getting a car, finance by his personal banker on the condition he gets a job. He will than move out of his ratchet hostel and find a nice place to stay and continue trying to make his dream come true, he is truly bullish about the years to come.




To end this long winding Annual report, I would like to quote from myself in one of my blog posting dated July18 2005:

“Do you have a dream? i have , i dream about it everyday, sometime with disappointments , sometime with hope, sometime with emotions , sometime with excitements. I dream not of an event or an achievements, but i dream of a journey, a journey of fulfillments, a journey till my last breathe. In my dreams, i see the person i dream to be, the decision i will make, the emotions I will feel, the people around me , the character that i am , the things i will do, my believes and even the challenges i will face, As i gaze upon the city nightline, it struck me that i struggle to find myself in this bustling city, where for many pride and materialism is a relieve from cruel reality, yet it is a city so diverse with many inspiring people, the action seems so near yet so far, I vow to live my dreams day by day, but i know that all is in the hand of god. Many of you who are close to me will partially know what i mean, what my dreams are, and some of our dreams cross and weave together. I call upon you my frens,no matter how far apart, live you dream day by day, so we might weave our dreams together into a grand dream we all share.”

©2005 Nicholas Loh , Copyrights Reserved, Do not copy or redistribute , private content.
For legal reason, this work shall be considered as a parody or fictional and not factual in nature.


Happy New year and may the year of 2006 be one great year for all


Cheers,
Nicholas Loh