BMPIL Writing Challenge - Three Words To Describe My Job

Jun 24, 2021

There are 35 minutes left before midnight. I should be comfortable on the bed and ready to sleep but I can't put this off. Especially not when I'm moving out in a couple of days which might cause me to be busier and probably ending up not being able to write.


I kinda want to put myself to write daily as much as possible.


Some unrelated note. I've been spending the last hour trying to do a new pinboard for my sidebar and I wanted it to be anime-themed but I just can't find the right pictures so I made a chibi one instead. Also, this is actually the fourth-day topic, not the third day. I switch the third topic to tomorrow since the topic was what did I do today at work but I was having today and yesterday off. I decided to change it so it will be written from a more accurate perspective.






Before I go into those three words for today's challenge, let me give a short explanation about my job. This is my first time being a retail pharmacist and I've done this for almost eight months now. It's a chain business and usually in this case the pharmacist will also be the branch manager in which I am. I work according to shift - either morning shift or evening shift and have the weekend off. There are two staff under my supervision. The three words I choose to describe my job would be - retail, responsibilites and social.


Retail


A business setting is nothing like working in a government hospital. My clinical knowledge from my government experience does help but I still need to learn more. I needed to learn more to help me detect the signs and symptoms before suggesting a medicine. There are more choices too. Sometimes I'll discuss with the customer the options that we have and then they can decide which will they try. Of course, I will make a point to show which will work best though. 


These in turn also affected my stock inventory. Even tho it is a chain business, I still have much control regarding my branch stock inventory. For that, I need to know the trend and also keeping a tab of stock movements. 






It also challenges my interpersonal skills as I needed to be able to detect what kind of customer that I'm dealing with and what's the best way to approach them. It's challenging and it keeps me on my toes. But it can be super boring during slow days like during the whole Ramadhan and this PKP. As the customer lessens, the stock movement decreases as well. I just don't have much to do.


Responsibilites


As I am actually the branch manager, I was left on my own managing the pharmacy but I was blessed that I didn't actually do much as others might need to especially the more technical part. The technical parts were all handled by the headquarter - ie utilities, POS system, ordering with the supplier, logistic, and even dealing with a sales representative and do all those researches before deciding a supplier. But that was the technical part, the sales, training the staff, ordering monthly stock (we just sent our ordering to HQ and they will do the rest) and making sure the pharmacy is actually running is under my responsibilities. 


It was nothing like this when I was in the government hospital. I do have my own portfolio but it was repetitive and dull and having no chance in the near future to be needing to do other things. Dealing with the same thing, especially a non living thing day in and day out was taking such a big toll on me. I was on the verge of burnout not because of how tiring the job physically but how it is mentally. This job opportunity came just right on time. The newfound responsibilities gave me more sense of purpose and satisfaction. 


Social


I'm not a social person. My friends thought that I was being funny when I say this because they see me as someone who is easy to be with. But I tend to withdraw from people and only approach them as needed. You know when you feel like you need to talk to alleviate an awkward environment? I can do well in this situation but I usually just choose to keep quiet. This will of course affected how people be around me.


I think of being social as both my personality and also a skill. What this job does is that it brings out a different aspect of being social as I am constantly meeting new persons. Not only that, we've been having some regulars and that requires a different approach in socializing too. Including the staff at the headquarter, more direct contact with the managing directors and also the fact that I have trained seven sales assistant now, all of these unlocks more aspect in my social skill. I have actually taken it as a challenge. 






As of recently, I take it as a challenge to have an individualized approach in training my staff. Especially the younger ones. I used to have this idea that I need to train them all the same way and the slow one should just pick up. I restricted my social approach during tutoring and thought they are old enough for me not to spoon-feed them. I think this has affected how comfortable they are with me. I guess the ones who better suited to that approach are more comfortable with me. But now I tried to understand them better and modeled my social approach differently with the hopes that I can still tutor them effectively and they can still be comfortable enough with me so that we can have a better working environment.


I hope there aren't too many errors in this post cause my eyes are literally blurry right now. I'll proofread this later.



BMPIL Writing Challenge - What I eat today

Jun 23, 2021

I was planning to write this yesterday morning but since I'm having the day off, I thought that I can just wait until the day ended and then writes all about it. I forgot. haha.


So let's hope I'll write both yesterday's and today's challenge today. Here is the second topic of "Being More Present in Life Writing Challenge" - what I ate today.





I should've taken pictures, don't I? But it's okay, there's a reason why I keep using stock photos and it is because it easily fits into my blog's aesthetic and not because I'm too lazy.


I was having the day off, so I made a point to cook as I needed to finish whatever was left in the kitchen as much as possible before moving out of this house. I guess my current landlord is suffering some loss as she can't rent the rooms to students anymore and now focusing to rent the place as a whole house instead.


I remember waking up and wanted to drink a simple iced 3in1 coffee. I got Aik Cheong one as I kinda like it when I drink it at this Airbnb we went to before PKP starts again. I haven't bought 3in1 coffee for the longest time. I somehow grew to hate this one taste that I can't exactly pinpoint what but still there are times I simply crave one so I bought this remembering that I liked it well when I drank it there. This was one of those times. Also, I wake up feeling refresh too. Not as groggy as I have complained in my previous post.


I cooked some fries as well and that was my breakfast. I wasn't that hungry so I tidy up around the kitchen and also cooked some rice porridge. I literally just put stuff into the electric pot and leave it to cook. The rice porridge had an egg, sausages, carrots, daun sup and flavoured with ginger and those maggi cukup rasa seasoning. Then I had my so-called breakfast and continue to clean some more stuff in my room and also the bathroom. I took a shower afterward and I make another glass of that iced 3in1 coffee. It was around 2pm that I was decently hungry and ate that porridge. I have some A&W that I decided to just finish it while eating the porridge. It was left in the fridge for so long but I feel too guilty to just throw it away.





Then I went out to check out new places. One of them is at this serviced apartment. I love the idea of living in a service apartment but then I don't like the house. The pool looks so nice though. The other one is a landed two-story house that is so close to my work. I already paid a booking deposit for this one. 


I decided to get grilled corn as I was close by to this place that I always go but the corn was undercooked. It was so disappointing and just sad but I still finish it. On the way back, I have this nagging urge to get some more caffeine and decided to just get an iced Americano from Mcd. It was a Tuesday afternoon but there is still a long line and I think I finished a whole episode of Haikyuu waiting for my turn. I feel like I need to make use of the long waiting so I bought Yuzu Cream Cheese Pie as well. It was my first time eating it. The combination of yuzu and cream cheese is good but my days of eating fried pie have long gone now.


I went back home and ate the pie with the Americano while watching Jujutsu Kaisen. I loved this show so much and purposely watching it slowly cause I know I will hate it when I finish it and need to wait another year for a new season. I fried some more fries and have the leftover porridge as well for dinner. I don't finish the porridge but then my brother made a group video call and I tricked myself into slowly eating it while chatting with them. 


I really did drink three coffee in one day. 


In one day that was my day off.

 This is my first day of "Being More Present in Life Writing Challenge".


Since I am currently writing in the morning, I am going to tell you about how yesterday's morning went like. To start off, I actually went to sleep early. It has been forever that I actually feel tired enough to want to go to sleep. I didn't even watch Hotel Artemis halfway through as I got bored and played some games on my phone and felt really sleepy while playing it. I have to tell you guys about the game though. It was this cute shooting puzzle game called Hello BT21 which I stop playing when I change to my current phone. I just forgot about it I guess but I always love this one. It was just the right kind of hard and the characters are so cute. If I failed a stage they will make this disappointing sound and face and it was the cutest thing!





I've been wanting to get better sleep so I bought magnesium. It's a good supplement to help you sleep. It wasn't like I'm having insomnia but it was a bit hard for me to fall asleep and I didn't have much deep sleep too. I've been eating it for about a week now and I realized that I feel so groggy in the morning.  I didn't think it was the supplement because it wasn't supposed to act that fast. It still didn't help me much to actually feel sleepy and want to go to sleep but it was getting so annoying how groggy I feel in the morning. Yet I can't seem to find any other reason that might causing this so I'm taking the supplement earlier before bedtime to see if there's any difference.


I don't wake up super early or whatsoever but I love morning. Waking up feeling fresh and awake is just how I've been doing since forever. I hardly sleep in even on off days. So feeling groggy is so annoying for me. I even make sure to take my allergy medicine or dizziness medicines, the sleepy ones, hours before sleep so that I didn't feel too groggy when I wake up the next morning. 


Wow, this is some detailed explanation about grogginess but it is important!! #lol. It has affected few mornings and even affected my day as I feel sluggish until evening! Plus, it was the challenge pon and I did feel this way for the past mornings.


Anyway, back to "today's morning", I am still feeling groggy but a bit better probably because I went to sleep early. I woke up around 8am. I'm having my menses so I wake up later but this is still quite late because my body usually simply wakes up somewhere around 7.30am. I even forced myself to wake up or else the grogginess will make me fall asleep again. I wake up at 10am the day before for god sake!


I decided to go out and buy some nice fulfilling breakfast and do some grocery shopping. I usually just ate whatever I have at home or just coffee but I thought moving around and a big breakfast would help this grogginess. I ate nasi dagang with Frenche' Roast instant coffee that I added a teaspoon more coffee into it just to feel more awake. It helps a little as I do feel a bit more awake and not so sluggish at work but it is still so annoying because I usually feel activated when I get my morning coffee. 


I'm so into Frenche' Roast cold latte but specifically with HL milk and few cubes of ice. This is truly the invention of the year. The nasi dagang was perfect per usual. Some stupid and self-conscious story though. The two customers before me were speaking in Kelantan dialect with the seller and when it was my turn it went like "nasi dage sa? lauk ike?" and I don't want to sound stupid in Kelantan dialect, not when I'm this groggy, so I make sure to answer "haah, nasi dagang satu lauk ikan". I swear to god the seller look at me like confused or something for a good two seconds. The next customer was also speaking in Kelantan's dialect. How many Kelantanese are here anyway? 


When I went back into my car, I noticed that my tudung sarung's awning crumpled a bit like those kids who can keep the awning nice and perfect cause they were kids. I wonder if the seller actually notices that I was not fully awake.


It was Sunday. I usually have my off days on Sunday but since I'm training new staff, HR asked me to change my off days to weekdays instead. Jokes on them because somehow, this PKP shows an even reduced number of customers on weekends. It's maddening because learning about retail is mainly about how you attend to customers. This is better done by doing! I can't have them be "doing" much if I don't have customers in the first place. 






Since it was Sunday, I decided to simply wear this stripy t-shirt and black pants with a flower print shawl. Should have gone with square scarves actually. I have also defrost the chicken and half-cooked it so I can cook it quicker for dinner. I cooked dinner more often lately since pharmacy has to closed by 8pm. I've been postponing the chicken because I was too lazy to wait to defrost it. I decided to bring my laptop to work so that I can write if I got some free time but I forgot it on the dining table. Found a dead cat on my porch. I think the mother was this cat that we sometimes feed. I guess this is how she repays our kindness? I still didn't buried it. I guess I'll do it tonight. 


I left my porch gate's one side open because I don't feel like closing it and I have this feeling that I would hate to open it when I get back to work today. It was one of those days. It was opened inwards so I didn't really bother anyone. The housing area is gated and guarded so it was safe. But my housemate return to pick up her stuff and decided to close the gate properly so I still have to get out of the car, opened the gate, get into the car back and parked my car. 





Being More Present In Life Writing Challenge

Jun 19, 2021




Living alone and not being able to hang out with my friends kinda makes me feels detached from life. I went into work, went back home, eat something in between, sleep and repeat. Even sleeping feels surreal. Then during off days - trying my best to gather whatever left in sense of taking care of myself to do my laundry and tidy up around the house. I do make a point to do more cleaning around the house since finishing any cleaning-related task always makes me feel good.


So in the spirit of wanting to actually feel good, I have also been wanting to write random stuff daily just to get my writing's gear moving. Writing makes me feel good. I've always wanted to write random stuffs happening in my life just to get this sense of presence but when I'm actually on my laptop, I just blanked. To help me with that, a writing challenge is surely the best way to go. Not to mention that I also love reading this kind of writing. Sometimes I will do random blog-walking to find these kind of blogs that share their daily lives. This is actually the main reason that makes me stays in the blogging world.


However, since I can never find any decent writing challenge that I like - I'm making one for myself. It's going to be a 30 days challenge and it was meant to be written day by day. No skips whatsoever. Some of the topic will be repeated just to have some sense of comparison.


I'm loving this challenge so much alreadyyyyyyyyyyyy.






Notice - If I'm writing in the morning, then I'll write about the said topic that happened on the previous day. If you want to do this but you're not a working person, just change it to whatever thing you're doing currently. Like if you're just staying at home, just change it to what did you do at home today. The main idea is simply to be more connected to your daily life.


Day 1 - How today's morning looks like before going to work?

Day 2 - What did you eat today? Do you like it?

Day 3 - What did you do at work today?

Day 4 - Three words to describe your current job

Day 5 - My current Netflix's watching list

Day 6 - A detailed explanation of how your night went - by the hour

Day 7 - Your current morning drink

Day 8 - A recap of the last three days outfits

Day 9 - Any fictional characters crush? Discuss!

Day 10 - Phone check! Whatsapp wallpaper, phone's wallpaper and phone's lock-screen. Why did you choose those?

Day 11 - Check your Instagram and tells a recap about 10 latest IG stories from peoples you've followed

Day 12 - Current skincare products used

Day 13 - How today's morning looks like before going to work and compares it with Day 1

Day 14 - Any good thing you've been doing for the environment

Day 15 - How grocery shopping looks like for you?

Day 16 - Shares us three of your most played playlist (either Spotify or Youtube) that you 

Day 17 - Your last day out before PKP restart again

Day 18 - What did you do at work today?

Day 19 - Throwback your academic background - put some insight on how you remember yourself back then

Day 20 - Your favorite desserts/snacks - include favorite shop or brand

Day 21 - All about laundry

Day 22 - Your current monthly bills - DON'T SHARE HOW MUCH IT ACTUALLY COST, just tells what it is

Day 23 - What's in my bag and my car #lol

Day 24 - A recap of the last three days outfits

Day 25 - A short review of the last three movies you've watched

Day 26 - Ten public Twitter's account you've followed - you can choose who you want to tell about and tell us why you followed them

Day 27 - Your favorite singer/band - go madly in love

Day 28 - Hair care!

Day 29 - What did you eat today?

Day 30 - How are you feeling after writing all of these?








Six Months Into Retail and Having No Friend

May 4, 2021

I had a major problem at work and the problem still persist until further notice. It was frustrating especially when I'm being taken advantage of and I'm really not having a good Ramadhan too. It was tiring too and even more tiring to try to be more positive that I just stop thinking positive and just go with the flow. It wasn't helping at all that my friends who happen to work with the same company as me hardly responses to my venting and now I get this nagging feeling in me that simply questioning our whole friendship which has lasted a little over a week now. Am I simply overthinking this and being dramatically insecure? Most probably. Does my friend deserve me to be like this? Well, not really I guess? Plus they might not even notice since we didn't live close by. I can gather enough reason to avoid meeting them. There are some other personal issues that I rather not disclose here but I guess everything is taking too much of a toll on me. Plus, I'm hungry.


This is me venting.


We are in the last 10 days of Ramadhan. It feels surreal especially when you're working  2pm to 10pm about four to five days per week and having no friends to hang out with during the weekdays. I don't even have time to hang out during the weekday as my free time is in the morning and I spent it "conserving" my energy to work my evening shift. I think mid-Ramadhan I just give up and sleep after Subuh and just wake up late. I get to spend the second weekend of Ramadhan going for iftar with a friend of mine. I spent my last weekend at my aunt's house where I sleep, eat, and watching tv shows. But being back to my work is literally a slap to reality. 


I'm an ambivert. So although it is still comforting to be living alone, I still needed company at some point. I also need PKP to end so I can take my much-needed break from work.


My thoughts are all over. 





There are things I'm still so grateful though. Like I went out with my cousin and she knew good places to shop and I got to buy this beautiful pajama set and pleated shawl that was so cheap. She even treated me to this cute cat cartoon printed mask from Watsons and I finally get to buy a good serum to include in my skincare. I finally meet my sister last Saturday and it was just so good seeing a family during these times. I got to play with my other cousin's cute twins too. The twins have started to be more comfortable with me so now I can hold them without them crying lol.


I do love working in retail pharmacy despite feeling this exasperated. Getting to interact with customers and the challenges that come with managing it is so refreshing and rewarding. I just hated the fact I have so many evening shifts and that since we're new, we didn't get much customer so it gets bleak at times. 


We are understaffed so I had to do a full-day shift for the first time last week. I dreaded it so much but thank god a friend of mine came in. He wanted me to teach him stuff since he's doing locum. It was nice seeing him after so long and it gets the time moves faster. There are finally peoples applying for the vacancy here but I'm not sure how soon they can start working but I'm just grateful knowing there's an end to this. Also, my skin is doing a whole lot better too and I'm excited for my facial session this Thursday. We also get free chocolate moist cake yesterday!


A friend from my old hospital is coming to stay with me for a couple of days since she's doing a locum after Eid. It kinda worries me because I've been so used to living alone but I know it will do me good to break the monotony so I'm also quite excited. My sister is booking an AirBnb for us to chill during Eid as we can't go home. I'm so looking forward to that too.


It has been six months already. I'm starting to become more familiar with this new place and becoming more familiar with the routes altough I did get lost yesterday trying to find KK Mart. I learn better from mistakes anyway.I tend to talk too much which makes me feel like I'm overcompensating so I wanted to work on that. I notices that I get better now at explaining stuff to my customer so that I appear more confident.  My newest staff has this childish and a bit ignorant behaviour which also exhibited on my last staff which I dreaded so much. I was so grateful when she was quitting but I can't keep on hoping that the staff that I'm not in favour of to just quit. Now I'm learning to be more accepting and trying to  work around it. I decided to take it as a challenge in order to get me more flexible in training my staff.


Now, I'm just trying my best to do my fast and waiting for Ramadhan to end so I can correct my sleep schedule and not feeling drained all day long. If anyone reading this feels the need to judge me, don't. You'll just sound like those anti-vaccines peoples that are so stupidly ignorant it hurts. 


No, scratch that. Those peoples does not hurt me. It makes me feel like hurting people-

Why Did I Bought Matebook D 15 by Huawei?

Mar 17, 2021

I bought a new laptop rather impulsively last November. Coincidentally the old computer that had just been installed at my new workplace was on the verge of a total malfunctioning. It was one of those "the stars have aligned" moments although one of the most important reasons I wanted a new laptop is just so that I can have a better experience watching Netflix. 


It helps a lot at work too.


Anyway, we already got a new laptop at work, so, there's that.






I got myself Matebook D 15! It was such an exciting purchase after my thorough research especially since I put a budget of 2.5k. That has really limits my choice considering the specifications that I want. This post was originally supposed to be a review of the laptop but I feel like reviewing a laptop needs to be more informative so I thought I will simply do the "why's" I finally ended up buying it. Plus, this way it will reflect better on my needs from the laptop. 


If you're here to learn more about this laptop (it kinda weirds me out knowing there will be random peoples reading my blog instead of my blogging friends only), I think you needed to know what kind of person who's using this laptop just so you can get a better understanding of my view. 


I mainly use my laptop for Netflix and blogging. I hardly use it for work since I did all my work on my work laptop. Having said that, work stuff mostly only needs me to go online and probably some Words and Powerpoint which is still achievable with a basic laptop. However, I do need it to at least be able to run some basic video editing software because I sometimes do simple video editing. I think that was it for background information, lets get on to the main points!


Brilliant Screen


My old laptop is very old. I had it like 10 years ago and my only goal is for it to be able to run Words and Powerpoint. The screen wasn't as bright and if you're watching movies with dark cinematography, you'll end up watching your reflection most of the time. So this is my main concern and since I don't know anything about display technology, I went directly to a PC shop to have a look myself. The screen was bright and the color was brilliant. Not to mention the screen is 15.6 inches! It was so satisfying. However, I'm not sure how it will look like under the sun which I have been aware to be not so good from my research. I'm already using the highest brightness indoor. There's another model that has a greater display which I have forgotten which but it will cost me at least another RM700 so I settled with this to be the best within my budget.






Thin and lightweight



Lightweight is more of an added bonus for me. I know I'm not going to be bringing my laptop to places but I don't want to feel like a strain if I want to use my laptop while lying down. Plus being lightweight also means I'm getting a thinner laptop which is what I needed more. I don't mind if it's heavier. Just make it thin. I want it to be portable and feel comfortable with it. This laptop is a big win in that section being only 1.53kg. I can simply pull it out and flip it around and thus feeling more portability out of it.


Good processor


This is important since I do want this laptop to be able to at least do some simple video editing. I usually use VSDC and was hoping to maybe use Photoshop or something. I might not ever actually do any of those but I want my choices to be available. This was such a big setback for me because I was looking for at least an intel core i5. There are probably other Intel processors that work for me but these things are confusing so I just settled that it must be at least an intel core i5. That however is quite costly as well. That was when I learned about AMD and how Ryzen 5 is on par with intel core i5. This laptop uses Ryzen 5. So I'm currently sitting at 8GB RAM and 256SSD which is good for me especially since I usually only stream shows instead of downloading or gaming. I have a vague memory that the processor can be upgraded but the storage can definitely be upgraded. Ryzen 5 won't be that good for gaming but it might work out better with Ryzen 7 provided that you get more storage of course. I think there's an advanced version of this model that comes with  Ryzen 7 and 512GB SSD.


Fancy design


I've been living with an ugly laptop for 10 years. The design was quite nice during the old days and I even get those fancy laptop stickers that totally rocks but the time has changed. Matebook D15 is definitely a catch in this point since the design tries to mimic Macbook. Metallic built, minimal design, that fancy Huawei words, sleek keyboard, 87% body to screen ratio and my utmost favorite is of course the fingerprint reader unlock option. It just looks so cool. However, the webcam placement is on the keyboard. There is an extra button between F6 and F7 that will pops out of the camera when pressed. You'll end up with a low-angle video, but I don't ever use those, so I don't mind. But the quality is still decent.


Cheaper by RM500 


The average price is around 2.5k which fits my budget accurately. I was planning on buying it at Lazada provided it must be from a shop that I can directly go to if I have any problem. I found a seller based at Plaza Low Yat. I think there's another seller which cost a bit more but I can get some good gifts as well. I was really only aiming for the backpack. However, since it was 11.11, the Plaza Low Yat ones got a major discount and it ended up only cost me 2k! I saw the discount notice before 11.11 and thought to myself that this is too good to be true but it indeed is and that was how I ended up buying a laptop in the middle of the night. The packaging was good albeit the seller sent it out a bit late.





Other miscellaneous reasons 


The battery lasted longer than I have anticipated like I can still watch two to three episodes of anime on Netflix with battery saver mode on and as I have said before, I always use full brightness mode. It uses a type C charger so it is a whole lot less bulky and I can use it to charge my phone as well. I was worried earlier that a type C charger will make it longer to reach full charge. I usually just leave it charged for few hours or so. Since it has that battery protection thingy, it will stop charging automatically when it is full. But I never leave it overnight or anything. The sleek keyboard is not only cool to look at but also has a  good feel to it. There was some heating complaint but I've been writing this for almost two hours already on my lap and it was fine. The sound was loud enough and it doesn't break even when I'm using VLC on full volume. 



 That was it. Feel free to ask me anything if you want to know more.