Hi,

Work
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This time I really have to write ‘coz you knowlah after working - sure got something to ‘kay poh’ about. Before going into that, must give you some ‘briefing’ on my situation. As I feared, just when I first stepped into the company, I was already swept into a programming task. Of course, I’m unhappy about it (I can actually feel my ears ‘burning’ when one of the so-called consulting manager talking about it). Of course there were lots of excuses when I questioned about my initial ‘verbal’ agreement and acknowledgement that I don’t wish to involve in programming. The thing about programming is that once stucked in a programming task with a company like mine, I know there’ll be bound for many to come ‘coz there’s a huge shortage of ABAP/4 developers. And, long-term programming is not a way to earn the big ‘$$$’.

Please don’t misunderstand me - I’m not a money-minded person. It’s just that (would you believe it), I’m hatching a plan to get out from the IT line into something that I know I would love to do (and won’t call it working at all - it’s a dream that may or may not achieve but I’ll try) but don’t have the income to do so. I’ve always loved nature and wished to work in a line doing research in the area of botany/forestry/ecology (I like animals too but then I really hate to dissect animals ‘coz I feel it’s so cruel - then again this thought makes me feel guilty because I eat meat). There’s a vegetarian shop around my area - been faithfully going there when I’m around there. Ha, trying to follow Kasturi’s footsteps.

Anyway, back about the client’s company. You know I keep comparing the place with Samsung and I have good news to tell you. Samsung or you guys is absolutely lucky to have the current environment settings of SAP. Bear in mind, of course Samsung can ‘afford’ to do so. They’ve got two systems - development and productive. One client for development and can you believe it - they’ve got two clients for productive!!?? They also have this difficult situation - they’re running the finance module in one client and logistics module in the other client. Problem arises when they wanted to combine these modules together because of different settings on plants/business area - something like that I think. I do not know the history of the implementation because the PIC also new to company (6 months only) except I know that the Price Waterhouse were the consulting members during the implementation period.

Been there for 2 days and these are what I managed to observe :
1) PIC have very limited knowledge because she’s came in after implementation. Difficult for me because I find it hard to refer to someone when I need assistance. There’s no such thing as IS members for each module (also no team like PI team in Samsung). Everything under that PIC. Previous two SAP IS members already resigned to join consulting firms…. (like melah!)
2) Limited knowledge example - when asked to create ID for me:
a) my ID was ‘TEMP’ - imagine -> I expected something like ‘CONLLTAN’ - ahem! I’m wearing a badge with the title ‘SUPPLIER’ also!
b) my password was funnily created. She entered some kind of password and you know what, instead of giving me the password, she logon to SAP using that ID and reinitialize the password to ‘INIT’???
c) my authority for productive is SAP_ALL and SAP_NEW. Unfortunately, don’t understand FI module if not, sure go ‘korek rahsia’.
3) then checking for developer access key to do programming - which I didn’t have. PIC doesn’t understand. Told her she has two choices - either register me through OSS or get an ID which is possible to do development. Since she didn’t understand anything much about OSS she gave us a resigned employee’s ID. She was trying to change or initialize the password (because we suggested her to do so - she still didn’t understand why the authorization is not linked to the developer access key thing). Click here and there - dunno what she’s trying to do - tak boleh tahan - tapped my finger on the ‘Changed password’ button on the screen. You know what happened? She clicked there and input ‘INIT’ password. So I thought - ‘kow-tim’ already lah. But no…, she relogon using the employee ID and changed the password to company’s name!
4) development system has no data at all. So my initial thought - dielah - how to test properly the program? Have to spend such a long time to create dummy data. But my next comment is even worse.
5) PIC says there’s no BASIS or BC member and she don’t know about transport requests. Habislah…. My senior says what to do - create/change directly in the productive system. I think this statement sums up what I want to say about the company’s seriousness in SAP. I checked later and find previous programmer also perform direct change in live system on customer reports. I believe hot packages are not done on the system (release 3.0F).
6) PP members - get this :
i) they’ve got production orders (order type PP02).
ii) no auto G/R - manual G/R to production order is done.
iii) complete BOM has about 200 - 250 components! Of course, we’re talking about a car-seat production which could be reflecting reality.
7) MRP is not running in the company.
8) There’s a serious problem with Logistics Controlling Info System (eg the famous transactions ‘mc.9’ and ‘mc.a’ is not functioning and causes a short dump. A standard function module is not found in the system. I wonder whether the system was properly set up. PIC look at me, I look at her and you know lah… I have to lodge the problem to OSS ‘coz I don’t know what’s happening.
9) When check with OSS, connection problem - due to network I think. This time I can’t offer helplah but luckily they managed to trace the connection problem.
10) Users attitude also same - treat SAP like key-in duty only. However, SAP did help in reducing the month-end closing period. Their target is 8 working days.
11) Material numbers for the majority consists of totally numbers only like 1000200, 2004530 (lagi teruk to remember).
12) No naming convention except that customer programs do begin with ‘Z’.
13) Valuation class very funny - I don’t understand - have ‘5000’, ‘5001’, ‘5002’, etc with some kind of company name as the description.

Whew…. what do you think? I dunnolah - here I am - on a programming stint but there’s so much to consider as well. Must get back and talk to boss but I wonder if they cared?

Anyhow, the great thing is about the working hours. I have flexible hours - as long as I come in by nine and can go back the same time as them. Their working hours is from 7.20am till 5.10pm because they don’t work on Saturdays. I have to go back at 5.10pm because transportations is hard to get around the area - so I’m actually ‘tumpang’ cars of people working there to some public transports area. By the way, I’m stationed in Shah Alam! I go to work at 8am by taking a cab from my area. So I reach the company about 8.40am. Going back is about 5.20pm but quite hard to get cab unless I call one of course. Well, I don’t mind taking public transports although I can claim taxi fares from company because I enjoy taking public transports like buses, commuters or LRT (except that it’s not so flexible of course). But the time to get back takes more than one hour due to traffic congestion.

Aside from work, I’m enjoying my ‘freedom’ over here except that I can’t bring my car from Seremban. My landlady is nice - I can take boiled water from her anytime. I don’t have to share toilets. My friends are near. Already been going out each night with different sets of friends. Of course, this will ‘cool’ down because we’re just ‘celebrating’ my arrival in PJ. After that, I will set out to see what I can explore in my new place.

Gatherings
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This CNY period, I had the most number of gatherings among my circle of friends in my life. There were gatherings with some ex-Form 6 classmates, ex-secondary classmates, ex-housemates, ex-primary classmates and today later, ex-coursemates.

For those who haven't met for ages, firstly greet each other than we'll start with the usual round of questions like 'where are your working now?'; 'what's your job like?'; 'are you married yet?'; 'attached?'. Sometimes some of us will hit bouts of silence whereby we'll be trying hard to come up with topics for conversations.

Business cards, phone numbers, email addresses and even homepages were exchanged. Comments on how someone has changed (mostly talking about physical appearance) or how some has not changed. Then of course, we'll be recounting the good old days (not to mention those bad old days as well).

Meeting places will consists of someone's house, town area, restaurants and of course the mamak stalls. Warm emails and telephone conversations were felt this CNY period also.

For the ex-6-Formers, it was our first gathering but we only had a few members attending. We found out few of us are working in Singapore and we know roughly half of what the class members are doing at the moment.

With my die-hard friends of secondary school classmates - Wen Szu, Mai Cheng and Siew Chin (plus husband), other than house-visiting, we watched 'Prince of Egypt' and without the couple, we went for 'Gorgeous' (the title make sense - why can't they do a direct translation like 'Glass bottle' or maybe even take the Police's famous song - 'Message in the Bottle') and 'You've Got Mail'.

EC, it was absolutely great chatting with you again and I look forward to it again.

With ex-housemates, it was like our usual gatherings 'coz we do meet once in a while. Of course I do appreciate us making time to gather especially when we're working nowadays.

The highlight of gatherings definitely goes to my ex-primary school classmates. This group is totally a die-hard DKMS gang. I guess we've got so many feel good memories of our old alma mater that we never tire of recounting the memories. Each year, some additional memories are bound to surface especially this year with Nisah joining us 'coz she still remembers a lot. We had good conversations and spent about 2 and half hours chatting away yesterday night. We're very keen on getting in touch with other ex-DKMS members and we're even having a secret project whereby once finished, I'll tell you all about it.

That's about what I wish to 'kay poh' now 'coz I think I've written a lengthly one.

Regards,
Li Li