Which is more important?

Hubby was reminding me last night about my mother-in-law (MIL)’s vacation in Shen Zhen plus other places in China next week. BTW my MIL is my 20 months old boy’s day-care-taker….So when she’s away, hubby & I will have to take turns to take care of baby instead.

Right after our conversation, we saw on the news that in some parts of Shen Zhen there were lots of frogs coming out from no-where! Apparently one of the signs before the previous terrible China earthquake was frogs & rats all came out from no-where too!

So this morning when I sent my boy, I spoke to MIL regarding this. I was telling her not to go for her vacation next week since there’s this potential earthquake or whatever natural disaster happening there or might happen there, looking at the sign. Then the below conversation took place :

MIL : “err…but we all paid already! Also, I cant be asking all the rest of 18 people to not go, right?”
Me: “Is the few thousand dollars more important or your life is more important?”
MIL : “What if it doesn’t happen?”
Me : “Then great! U can go another time! Do u want to risk your life betting IF anything happens???”
MIL : “err…let’s see what the rest say first lar…”
Me (very upset) : “I’m telling u that u really shouldn’t go, but I’m not asking the rest of your friends to not go, ok? They can go ahead by all means, I don’t care coz they are not somebody important to me!”

Infact the conversation we had this morning brought me to ponder a bit…Is money more important or is health more important? Is money more important or is family more important? If money more important or is life more important?

Handling difficult people at work

Difficult people and situations exist in every work place. These people in particular, sometimes can cause tremendous stress directly or indirectly to those people working with them.

Dealing with difficult people is easier when the person is just generally obnoxious or when the behavior affects more than one person. Dealing with difficult people is much tougher when they are attacking you or undermining your professional contribution.

These people are usually well too arrogant. No matter what anyone says or does, this person will force their ideas on everyone else. There can be no open discussion or involvement. Things MUST be done this person’s way or else.

I just had very good experience working with one of these people in my previous project. His main problem is, he will never listen. And what made it worse was, he’s the “owner” of this project and so he’s like the boss! To him, everyone else are just the supporting actors & actresses, he’s the only person to make this deal happen! He likes to instruct and does not take suggestions (at least not from me). Maybe he does accept suggestion when it comes from someone else and not me, cause to him I’m just an admin person not adding much value to the whole project. So then throughout the period working on this project, I can sense that my work & effort were not being appreciated.

I did have few fights with him, trying to explain certain processes to him, and trying to make him understand the practicality, but he refused to. When he works over the weekend, he’s expecting everyone else to work over the weekend without advance notice. Some of us, being on the job, have had certain expectation to work long hours or even over the weekend, but what about other people involved along the process?

Anyhow, the nightmare is now over, and I really hope I wont need to work with this person again. And from the experience, I did get some tips for dealing with people like this, so am sharing them with u….

1. When you see someone go into attack mode or excess defensiveness, recognize that it is useless to argue with them.
2. Realize that the person is feeling very insecure at that time.
3. Don’t continue to push them because they will only get worse.
4. If the symptoms only seem to occur when the person is under stress, wait until another time to pursue the discussion.
5. If they are always overly defensive or always attacking others, you may need to find another person with higher authority or someone this person respects to communicate the message.
6. Keep your own sense of self-confidence and don't allow yourself to be verbally abused.

Just my 2cents worth…

Global Warming

Did u realize that weather now has changed so much compared to some 20 years ago when we were small kids?

Recently I was watching a tv show that talks about Global Warming and what are the things that many other people around the world especially kids in their early education system, are doing their parts to safe the environment. Having more outdoor curriculum and monthly exchange of used toys (in good condition) are among the few activities happening in many primary schools in China, Hong Kong and Taiwan.

The same tv show also showed how badly the earth has been damaged by the industries, by human being, by global warming! Temperatures, we are told, are to increase by 3.6 degrees by the middle of the century, resulting in melting glaciers, flooding and choked water supplies that will threaten the livelihood of millions. Crops will fail, we are told, disease will run rampant, rising sea levels and intense droughts will create hundreds of millions of refugees, and up to 40% of species will face extinction. Well lots of these facts we do know them, but we just may not have done our parts to contribute to saving the environment…

I’m one of those idiots whom I don’t think I’ve done much, but I’m gonna start now! Since last month I think, I started to nag hubby to not turn on the air-con unless we really can’t stand the heat. I started nagging him to switch off the lights when we don’t really need them. And we also started bring our own reusable shopping bags when we buy groceries from Jusco across the street.

I’m sure there are a lot more that we can do to contribute in saving the environment, so start somewhere if u have not done so. Start some lil small deeds will do…

It’s not as easy…

It has been really tiring for me recently, being a pregnant mum, having to juggle between real busy work schedule and family.

My 20-months old son is really hyper and he runs around the house non-stop! Well, ofcoz that’s quite normal for a boy, but it’s just a bit tiring for the care taker, that’s all…Hubby has been helping ofcoz, but sometimes somehow I felt he’s not disciplining the boy well so I have to interrupt.

Work has been terribly stressful lately, with overwhelming workload and tight schedules. Also, having to handle some really difficult people in the same project, is really causing lots of unnecessary additional stress…

Somehow this pregnancy has caused me some serious sinus problem at night, causing me to have insufficient or very low quality sleeps. So then during the day, I’m feeling extremely tired due to lack of sleep and my body is aching like hell, especially the neck and shoulder…how I wish I could go for a good massage or SPA now…

When all the above add up together, they can be quite killing! I tried telling hubby, but somehow he didn’t quite get it. Infact he’s living in the same house, sleeping on the same bed as me, so even if I don’t elaborate much, he should know what I’m going through…but somehow he doesn’t really show much concern. Maybe the way he cares for me is very different…well he will prepare breakfast for me sometimes, he will help with housework as usual (even before I got pregnant), he will take baby out for cycling & all so I can have some time to rest, etc etc. But I really wish he would offer me a light shoulder massage one of these days, offering his listening ears asking me to tell him about my work stress so I can release, give me a hug & kiss me goodbye in the morning wishing me a good day ahead…