Monday, August 17, 2009

all's well, end's well...

The past week has just been non-stop action, if we are to put it into a film, hahaha...

Anyway, job assignments have sent me to Santubong (Kuching), Ipoh, Kuantan and Nilai back to back in a little over a week. As fun as it sound, things didn't really turn out that great.

The job assignments were completed without any major troubles, although some must've been wondering if it's just our luck that some things fall right into place despite some really unexpected misfortunes that happened along the way.

Santubong came first when I departed on Saturday, the weather in Kuching was horrendous and the haze was suffocating. Our job resumed despite the recent H1N1 scare, and on Sunday it was 6am-11.30pm continuous run before I hit the sack. The event itself was close to perfect (from our side at least), until the moment we have to depart to the airport at 5pm. One of the rented vehicles' engine couldn't start, and with our flight's check-in time at 7.30pm (Santubong is one hour from Kuching International Airport) time wasn’t with our side. Speedy arrangements were made on the spot and we ended up renting two tourist MPVs from the Santubong Resort to send us to the airport.

The crazy things didn't end there. When I arrived at the airport (we traveled in 4 different vehicles), one van was missing. After several phonecalls, it was revealed that the petrol station attendant has mistakenly pumped petrol into the diesel-engined van, and will need a mechanic to assist in flushing out the mixed fuel. If you think things couldn't get worse, the mechanic's car broke down on the way to the petrol station. Just managed to check-in everyone but one of our two flights got delayed for an hour and a half (WTF?). We finally get to gather back at the office in KL and reload our equipment at 3am, and then headed straight to Ipoh.

Arrived at Ipoh approximately 5.30am on Tuesday, we’ve got about half an hour to refresh before we began work. Several hours into the job we realized that a baggage was missing from our loading. My colleagues in KL spent an hour or so searching through the office while we ransacked our hotel rooms to find it but to no avail. Finally, we had to get someone to drive all the way to the LCCT and what do you know, the missing baggage was left unclaimed outside the airport.

The assignment in Ipoh ended at 4pm Wednesday, and after a late lunch we departed back to KL. Heavy rain in the city didn't help and after dropping off my colleague at the office I reached home at 9pm for a quick shower and repack my luggage. A burger Ramli was enough for dinner and 10.30pm we began our journey to Kuantan. By the time everyone arrived at Kuantan town it was already 3.30am Thursday.

Work started at 6.30am, and for once everything went without any shortcomings. The assignment finished at 3pm and we got into our cars sped back to KL. Again, heavy rain slowed the journey and lunch was at 5pm in Karak, before reaching KL around 7pm. We finished reshuffling the equipment for Saturday’s event and went home around 9pm that Friday.

Saturday’s work began at 5.30am and it was a breeze handling this job after 7 days of constant traveling (and quite a distance too I may add). Finally got everything wrapped up by Sunday 1am and went home to sleep.

During the entire trip, there were also ongoing assignments back in KL beginning with the Friday before I depart to Kuching, and every single day thereafter until Saturday, hence the lack of manpower. Not forgetting that the office and retail shops were practically open for 24 hours that week as there were night shifts as well.

For all the hectic scheduling, I guess I will have to thank whoever that has prayed that everything went smoothly and well. No major incidents happened and despite all the late night traveling and lack of sleep everyone are safe and sound, and still coming to work these few days with no hints of H1N1 infections (touch wood) despite being in contact with over 15,000 graduating students all over Malaysia during this period of time.

As for me, I slept the entire Sunday and woke up at 7pm for dinner, and slept all the way until this morning.

2 comments:

cLiu said...

for the kuching drama, one word...soi ( hokkien word)

for the whole week schedule, 3 words....wah lau eh (hokkien again)

Lavender said...

i cant stop myself from emphasizing chuu liu's 3 words "WAH LAU EH!" your whole week schedule is such a hectic! and a series of unfortunate too? damn! hahaha... u're right, all safe and sound, thats good. do get enough rest. take care dude. lets go cameron n breakaway from the hectic schedule shall we? heheheh :P