July 20

~Innovation Competition is NUTS! Sign up at EC Day!!!~

This email subject had successfully awakened the enthusiastic germ in my body.

 

PT A: Hey, Poh Tee, wanna give a try??? SGD 2700 awaits u…

PT B: Oh, c’mon, Poh Tee, seems like you are quite free huh... Joined this company not more than 2 months, don’t tell me you have master everything?

PT A: Go and sign up! Can’t you see it’s kinda fun? No harm to join!

PT B: Oh well, let me consider first. Is my knowledge, skills and creativity competent enough? Better not. Erm... Just give me more time to sort this out.

PT A: You should go, Poh Tee! You can improve your presentation skill, to learn from the process, to increase your visibility… Anyhow there are two kind of popularity; it’s either good or bad, hahaha…

PT B: How to find teammates? I don’t have this kind of “kaki”… Anyone is willing to sacrifice his/her time to take up this challenge? I doubt it…

 

I struggled.

 

 

July 22

Finally, I took up my tiny courage, with a candle-light of hope; called my buddy, W. Somehow I knew W’s answer might be disappointing.

 

PT: W, wanna join me for the competition? I am interested but I need companion.

W: No la, that’s for young blood like you. I support you, MORAL SUPPORT! Cheers!

 

Gosh… All of a sudden, the surrounding darkened. The light really snuffed out. Btw, it’s late. I turned in. Good night…

 

 

July 23

This time, with much care, I lit the candle again. Approaching S. Guess what? S gave me sun light in return. The day has brightened! Everything went on smoothly; we got another 3 incredible teammates, G, M, and H. Fully motivated by S’s words and support given by teammates, just like sipping a water drop when you are dying of thirst, I decided to pick up the role as team leader. Sure or not? In fact, they forced me to… =X

 

Yes! I have committed, into this time-consuming and idea-breaching challenge. Ready to go! First come first serve based, maximum 10 teams. Will I able to register on time?

 

 

July 24

It’s time! I rushed to the EC Day event, to the registration counter, signed up the competition!!! Ha! Got it!

 

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Before I continue, I discussed my feeling for the whole competition process with someone. What surprised me the most is the insight of this process. I think the expression of my upcoming story has deviated. Anyway, I still have to complete it, since I have started this piece of writing, and I don’t like to stop halfway. Kinda persevering huh, hehe…

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Aug 1- Sept 22

I have gone through many discussions with the greatest individuals in my team. Some contributing ideas, some understand the functionality of unit, some trying hard to work the ideas out, I can see most of us really enjoy the process. Oh, nearly forgot about this: G was replaced by P after he left the company. Anyhow, I really appreciate what G had contributed and sincerely, I welcome P to join our wonderful team, the team with the magnificent people in! I like my team, although all of us are from different functional team, but all of us are ready to commit and enjoy the whole process. Besides team work, we still had some teambuilding activities, e.g. movie outing, window shopping, PT’s convo, etc. Haha, so lame, totally off topic!!!  Thanks to S, the EE expert who let me realize that there are still rooms for improvement, as in my EE knowledge and skills. Thanks to P, the daddy of 3 kids who also shared his daddy’s love to us. That’s why I prefer to call him Uncle Lee… J Thanks to M for showing her supreme ability throughout the task. She is really an incredible person who is able to multi-task. While busy organize offsite event, she also able to complete elegantly in her part of this project. Thanks to H, who still shows her concern and support during her sick days. Hope she gets well soon. Of course, thanks to so many colleagues, those who chauffeured me after the discussion.

 

Special events those are worthwhile to share around:

Aug 7 – I brought the project unit back to office. Only my colleagues will understand how special this experience was.

 

Aug 9 – H managed to get another 3 units for us to dismantle, for the sake of understanding the unit functionality and structure.

 

Aug 21 – If I wasn’t wrong, that was the day of first EE discussion. Since then, I stayed back until 10pm almost every night and weekends, just for this project. The feeling is like going back to my UNI time, focusing on final year project. Constructing circuit, reading datasheet, troubleshooting, etc… Ooo… HARD TIME!!!

 

Aug 30 – It was the day we took photo upon organizer request, for the promotion of competition. I wonder why P kept on praising that I looked great in the photo. Maybe he’s hinting me that my real person doesn’t look as nice as in the photo, haha… =D No matter what, I thank the professional photographer C, who is really kind to adjust his time to have the photo snapping session with us. Thanks for his understanding that it is really challenging to gather my teammates at a time, since all of us are from different department, as mentioned earlier.

 

Sept 1 – It was 2 hours after working hour. I sent a mail to my mentor and in a minute’s time, he replied me with this header: GO HOME!!! WHY ARE YOU WORKING SO LATE??? Haha… I guess he was accessing email from home. Well, I understand that ladies are not encouraged to work late in office. I thank for his reminder and concern. Not to worry, I have “body guards” to accompany with and escort to home. I felt fortunate and thankful to all these offers.

 

Sept 14 – It was almost 10pm. Again, my mentor sent me a high importance mail: WHAT??? YOU ARE STILL IN OFFICE??? GO HOME IMMEDIATELY!!!! Guess what, he really told me off at the next day. Hehe… After my explanation, he understood what the actual situation was eventually. No matter what, I am still grateful for his advice.

 

Sept 17 – Cut off point to integrate all feature on the unit. Yet we were behind schedule. I kept nagging. Appreciation to my teammates, thanks for your patience. 

 

Sept 20 – The day when my teammate was too into the project. I received Out of Office AutoReply once I sent him an email. Oh my god! Don’t try this at office! This is really a bad example. Never put the highest priority in these competitions, please.  J

 

Sept 21 – A tiring day. (Offsite matter: still brainstorming my department presentation for the next day. Everything did not go well after final rehearsal. Was feeling quite down as we were running out of ideas. Exhausted. We decided to take the risk: discussion in the next morning, before offsite presentation starts.) Back to project discussion, I felt relieved. Finally, all accessories had successfully integrated to the unit. S was jubilant on the achievement and totally transformed into another character. *Ahem* that’s why M and I decided to visit other teams instead of staying at our project workplace. Haha…

 

Sept 22 – Presentation rehearsal. Since we have so many accessories and we afraid of not able to finish introduce all of them, I suggested performing story-telling in order to link up every accessories. M and P agreed. S was busy with cosmetics of the unit. The time he opposed the idea, it’s too late. We have finished the preparation. It’s ok, hopefully the judges will buy-off this kind of presentation method.

 

Sept 23

~IPMO Innovation Competition 2006~

 Another thrilling experience when we brought the unit for competition.

Sorry, story telling didn’t work out very well. I feel bad about this. Gotta improve my product selling and marketing tactic, and also my presentation skills!!!!

I am proud that all feature works.

Along the process, I demonstrated a lot of my implicit skills that never come across. Sewing! Drilling!

Although we lost the game, yet again, I would like to thank my teammates for giving me the unforgettable experience in completing the project. I am glad that all of us are having great fun all these while!

 

To write conclusion, we need to refer back to objective. Let’s see, hmm… my objective is to win the prize. Oops… (*__*|||)