Day 3 It's a newspaper story till it happens to someone close to you

Today we had an early mark and finished by 3.30pm - thank goodness. It started off good. We had one of the managers from Cadbury Schweppes (from yesterday) give us the first talk on Occupational Health & Safety (OH&S) issues. I reckon it's usually quite a boring same old topic that people take for granted but his talk reminded me how important it is to have them in place wherever you work. Safety is very real and important. Even if you're a visitor to a place (supermarket, hospital, hotel)..do you know where to go if there was a real urgent evacuation? What if the emergency doors don't work?

He told us about someone he knew personally who died 2 years ago due to a work-related accident when someone accidentally pressed "start" on the forklift. At the funeral, the children questioned how this could have happened to their father.

Anyway, the talks after that were okay..most bordering on boring..or speakers just speaking too fast. And I'm not the only one who thinks so - the guy beside me was doodling and drawing away. I told him later on that I knew he found it boring =P coz i felt the same.

One thing i took away from this course - the amount of paper used to print out all the presentation slides for each talk for us!! Just using one side of the paper and sometimes just 2/3 slides per page and some slides just have no content you know. Like the last slide. "Question time".

But I did learn something from the whole course of course..and meet different people. So it was good! =) and got to break out of the routine of work.

okay, happy weekend!

and rain, rain, please go away!!
but thanks for washing my car =P

Day 2

Today was pretty interesting and i actually paid attention in all the lectures - and the talks were all about Good Manufacturing Practices, HACCP, cleaning and pest control. A couple of the speakers were just so funny..even after they made the funny comment, I still felt like laughing awhile later when I thought about it. THat's how funny. And at least they tried to make their presentations interesting. I think I understand a bit more now what my brother does as an auditor. Even though he audits company accounts, every auditor is someone independent of your company who comes and checks if you're following the procedures and rules. So the first speaker was talking about his role as a food safety auditor and when he goes to audit food factories (eg. meat, dairy, non-alcoholic drinks etc), there are so many things he looks out for and how he goes about it. The whole process..and how they don't just look at the processing plant but everything about the whole factory that affects and could compromise quality and safety of the food product - e.g. the toilets for factory operators: he even checks if the taps, soap dispensers, toilet flushes work. It was quite interesting and he had funny stories to share. Anyway he's guest lectured when I was at uni before..and he still is pretty funny.

It's pretty complicated -just so much that goes on to maintain quality,safety, hygiene of a food company - the technicalities behind it to even put those procedures in place and maintain it. And the importance of following them lest the auditor finds out and slaps us with a non-conformance. Where I work now, there are quite a number of procedures in place that we have to follow but listening to what the speakers had to say today especially the "auditor", made me realise how important it is to be "procedure-obedient" and how important those procedures are for the safety of the general public and just livelihood of the whole company.

We visited the Cadbury Schweppes factory after lunch - hardly any of the lines were running, so there was little real action to see but we did get to have a little tour in the factory.

Factories - those machines are pretty amazing. How in the world did people even build them and get them up and running. It's like constructing buildings too.

Anyway, factories - not for me. Glad I don't work in one!

a bit of a Memory Lane - it comes back but moving on..

Today I had to drive out west about 30 km for a beverage course. It was like attending a whole day of lectures on different topics (9am-5pm)- and this is going to go on for another 2 days ..but tomorrow after lunch, we get to go visit the factory of Cadbury Schweppes - think this would be interesting! The lectures were ok, my concentration span dwindling after lunch. But honestly, I expected more from the last speaker since he was the technical manager of another huge beverage company. Maybe it's just me who thought he was mumbling, not pronouncing words loud and clear, speaking too fast, moving past slides so fast ...etc

Anyway, what I really enjoyed was meeting new people and just talking to them and being friendly. One lady working for a company I usually call to ask for fruit juice concentrates, when i asked her how many kids she had, our conversation led to her telling me she was going to celebrate her 25th anniversary soon - but to the 2nd marriage and we even talked a bit about how she knew her 1st marriage wasn't going to work out etc..and she's a grandmother at 53!

When I drove home, i tried to take all these back roads...was trying to remember the way my friend used to take 2 years ago whom I used to get a lift to work. I got lost a few times and ended up finishing the last leg on another route but it worked anyhow and I'm going to try again tomorrow! Getting lost at least helps me learn more roads.. =)

was looking again at the photos my cousin took from her stopover in M'sia 2 months ago - and i must say that I really liked all the photos, especially the ones of my mum..and I must admit that i looked at them a few times over and over again at work the day Michelle sent them.


My mum looks quite young, don't you think? She is 52. maybe coz she's short too..hehe...(shortest in the family). you don't mind if I post them here, Michelle? anyway too late..i've posted them =P

i kinda miss her.

2 best friends

TWO FRIENDS WERE WALKING THROUGH THE DESERT.
DURING SOME POINT OF THE JOURNEY, THEY HAD AN ARGUMENT; AND ONE FRIEND
SLAPPED THE OTHER ONE IN THE FACE.

THE ONE WHO GOT SLAPPED WAS HURT, BUT WITHOUT SAYING ANYTHING, WROTE IN THE SAND

TODAY MY BEST FRIEND SLAPPED ME IN THE FACE

THEY KEPT ON WALKING, UNTIL THEY FOUND AN OASIS, WHERE THEY DECIDED TO TAKE A BATH

THE ONE WHO HAD BEEN SLAPPED GOT STUCK IN THE MIRE AND STARTED DROWNING, BUT THE FRIEND SAVED HIM.

AFTER HE RECOVERED FROM THE NEAR DROWNING, HE WROTE ON A STONE:

'TODAY MY BEST FRIEND SAVED MY LIFE'

THE FRIEND WHO HAD SLAPPED AND SAVED HIS BEST FRIEND ASKED HIM, 'AFTER I HURT YOU, YOU WROTE IN THE SAND AND NOW, YOU WRITE ON A STONE, WHY?'

THE FRIEND REPLIED

'WHEN SOMEONE HURTS US WE SHOULD WRITE IT DOWN IN SAND, WHERE WINDS OF FORGIVENESS CAN ERASE IT AWAY. BUT, WHEN SOMEONE DOES SOMETHING GOOD FOR US, WE MUST ENGRAVE IT IN STONE WHERE NO WIND CAN EVER ERASE IT'


LEARN TO WRITE YOUR HURTS IN THE SAND AND TO CARVE YOUR BENEFITS IN STONE.