Three Days of my life

Was nagging Ken on why he spent so much time on Facebook instead of paying attention to me. Other people's life are interesting, he said and showed me the stuff. You mean people actually read these uneventful daily activities? Yah, Ken said and challenged me to write a typical three days of my life. Someone will find it interesting, he said. ok so here goes:

DAY 1

Woke up to the sound of the alarm, nurged ken and stumbled to the bathroom to wash up and hurried to my in law’s place. “Sweetie pie!” we shouted from behind their gate because the door bell has malfunctioned again.

Quick but chatty breakfast with constant interruptions by Megan who insisted on sitting on my lap, blocking my entire view, then guiding my hand to the spoon and directing the food to her mouth.

End of breakfast equals start of playtime with Megan with her current hot favorite building blocks and cooking set. Bursting with energy in the morning means trying to escape the house with a quick goodbye is not an option. Ken and me had to quietly filter out while she was not looking.

Real office action starts at 9.30am and sometimes I wonder why I needed a desk. “YY, can you spare a minute”, “ YY, can we discuss this..” I will be walking around everyone’s desk, pointing at their screens, checking drawings, red-penning all plans, crossing out 50% of mood boards, squatting at the library examining fabrics, trying to hear what people are talking about on their phones and telling them off for their tone or their lack of precision on what they are requesting. Then comes the project meetings which some say is good, while others say is a whole lot of lecturing, depending on how you see it.

Ah shit, 1pm, meeting at client’s office. Forget about lunch guys, lets go. Meeting, introduction, explaination, discussion, neigioation. I desperately need some water. Wrapping the meeting up at 3pm means we are already 30mins late for our teleconference back in office. Please get some lunch to eat back in office, I told my guy. Video conference with me eating and munching at 4pm is an unglamourous affair. HR knocked on the door, whispering to have a minute. “You post phoned the interviews again, YY. What day are you free?”

Back to studio. What the F are you guys doing? Presentation ready? I am leaving to the airport in 20 mins and I want to see everything NOW. Designers scrambling. Needed the loo. Sat on the WC to continue an SMS war fighting absolutely unsupportive support department for the fifth time.  

I am leaving NOW!!!! Where are my things!!!????

Luggage, laptops, folios, presentation booklets, materials all in cab. “T3 please”. Finally had a chance to read my emails on my phone, had not opened my laptop for the day nor sat at my desk. 80 emails!!! This is going to take some time. Sms Ken to say I love him and bye bye.

In flight… work or rest? Was handed a stack of documents to read. I chose rest. Exhausted and brain in overdrive. Needed a break. Slept. Landed at 11pm. Stupid airport transfer not in sight. Called hotel and they claimed no no no, we did not request for transfer. Damn, should have killed support while I can. Reached hotel at 12.30am. Showered but still boiling with anger. Start to work on emails and my long list of unfinished work. 3am, tired and hungry, ordered room service. Ate. Slept.

DAY 2

6am. Alarm rang. Met my designers in lobby at 645am. 2 hour drive to god forsaken location for 9am meeting. Bearly eyed and still not awake. Everyone chatted about the latest gossips in the car, then all fell asleep. 

9am meeting – counted a total of 34 people. Shit, another one of those huge meetings. Putted on an extra cheery mask, smiled and say hi, oh my god so nice to see you again…. Meeting started with me talking for two hours straight then answering questions for another 2 hours straight. Dying of hunger after the first round, regret not waking up at 5am to find breakfast.

Whole morning of delicated presentations mean lunch had to be a multi-tasking affair. Bonding sessions with client, operator and consultants are usually fun. But admist the laugher and jokes, you can see everyone trying to check their BB for all the calls and mails they missed. I saw three missed calls and a death threat sms from a client’s PM.

You know, clients are generally nice people but somehow they always have a spoliter of a scum PM who almost always know next to nothing about hotels or construction. Information they diepense are usually 99% wrong and all they know about is protecting their ass against the best interest of their bosses and their projects. Much of my time is spent dealing with such low life form so that my team can do the real work. Ah and this particular bottom feeder who sms-ed me loves to send me death threats. 

Ignore scums, what else on my phone?

Ten plans to approve, four too big for my 3G to load, three too crap to worth commenting, one too complex to read from tiny screen and two ok to proceed with comments. Two contracts needed to be drafted and issued… Damn need two hours… One brief to be issued by this week… Damn need two full days. Finance asking for Q2, Q3 forecast and oh need to look at aging report…

Ah a client hasn't paid and I need to squeeze in a day trip to be a debt collector!!! 

Meeting resumed and me and my designers, X and Y started to subdivide ourselves and take on multiple roles at the same time. I took on architecture and my split personality tackled operation while my alter ego try to explain to the client on the best way forward. X started re-drawing the plans in order to combine what owners and client wants while Y fend off the HVAC and structure guys and strangely being hounded by landscape. Everyone talked at the same time and consultants who are not talking are waiting in line for their chance.

Suddenly interrupted by the lawyer who wanted my 5 minutes on contractual documents. Clause 2.5.4 needs some work.. ok this sounds more than a 5 minutes discussion… Anyway glad to leave the typical war zone. Blah Blah Blah 7pm. End of meeting. Waited 30mins for a taxi in crazy chinese traffic with 20 kg of presentation materials in tow.

Exhausted and ready to die. Dinner was our only redemption with much needed alcohol to nurse my headache. Call from unknown number. Hello? A client’s representative knew we were in town and wanted to meet NOW… wat the hell. Suddenly our dinner looked further and further away. The guy talked for over an hour… round and round… so exactly what do you want? I asked, ready to end the conversation. In the end, he wanted us to bribe him…

Ultra late dinner with the team. Bitch Bitch Bitch… BITCH BITCH BITCH…. Now you know why people in my industry are so bitchy. If we do not bitch to release stress, we will explode and die.  In a calmer state, I called Ken to check out what’s happening at home and his travelling schedule for the following week.

11pm. Time to break up. Back in our hotel rooms, the guys will start drafting the meeting minutes and email the to-do list back to BKK and SIN. I will start to sketch up revisons for tomorrow’s discussion. 1am, received call from Chris who just landed in town for another meeting. The crazy guy wanted to meet to discuss a pitch stagergy despite only sleeping for 20hrs for the past one week. Met in his room at 2am, discussed till 3am. Hungry, ordered room service, ate. Slept at 3.30am

DAY 3

7am. Breakfast and checked out. Everyone too tired to even bitch.

8.30am. Meeting. Present revised scheme. Everyone happy, discussed schedule, fixed next meeting date. Called support to work out my schedule for the next two weeks. War ensured but what do I expect? Fighting support is like wrestling with a pig. You achieve nothing except to waste your life away. 

Traffic Jam on the way to the airport. Nasty flight back but at least not delayed. Reached Singapore at 5pm. Felt like vomiting and desperate to go home but somehow went back to office. Never a good move. Grabbed by a designer who wanted just 20 minutes. Turned into a tearly session and needed my mothering. I looked at my watch, its nearing 7pm. SHIT.

A typical three day is finally nearly over. On my way to see sweetie pie and Ken. Call from mum. Reminder that I haven’t seen her for over a month. Call from best friend asking if I am free for dinner. Great idea, always wanted to visit her but thought she may be too pre-occupied with her new born so maybe next week after her gal passed the one month mark. "my baby is three months old already" she replied… Oh my god. Shit...

Back home, I  chased Megan up and down the house till bedtime. I fed her and Ken read her Three Little Pigs. After Megan slept, Ken and me spent some time catching up in the living room before he started to pack for his flight tomorrow. 

So this is it, a very typical three days of my life... worth reading?