Persecution

This was a bad week for the whole office, mainly because there was an internal mail sent by our new pointy haired boss trying to restrict our freedom. Needless to say, it caused us a lot of grief. We're still griping about it.

Here's a small sample of the oppression of the bourgeoisie upon us. (Yes, if you know me well enough, I swore for 1 hour straight, and drowned my sorrows in very bad Johnny Walker the rest of the night, bitching to a largely unsympathetic industry guy who laughed at my plight).

Office Timings - Monday to Friday: 0900 hrs to 1800 hrs (inclusive of 1 hour lunch break from 1245 hrs to 1345 hrs).

9am?!!! Who in their right mind comes to work at 9am in this industry?! On a regular day, there is very little or no market until after lunch. And then the market starts, and ends at around 2am, when US closes. How about those of us who watch the night market? Who pays our overtime?!!

On working days, staff coming in office after 1000hrs or leaving office before 1600 hrs, will be debited half day leave.

What are we? Mcdonald's?!!

An attendance register will be available at the reception and all staff must enter their signature with time at entry & exit on every working day. The receptionist will make a daily attendance list and send it by email to all supervisors before 1200hrs.

No, actually we're a farking factory!

The manual filling up of attendance slip will be replaced in due course by a computerized system currently under construction.

Argh!! Oppression!!

Under Part IV of the Employment Act, an employee is entitled to 11 public holidays a year. Following are the 11 gazetted public holidays and 2 half days:

Two days for Chinese New Year.

One day for New Year’s Day, Hari Raya Puasa, Hari Raya Haji, Good Friday, Labour Day, Vesak Day, National Day, Deepavali, Christmas Day.

Half day for New Year’s Eve and Christmas Eve

Acceptable in theory, but our operating days should be governed by the operating days of the oil market assessment agency, because if the agency isn't working, nobody quotes, and there isn't a market, and then we're just sitting on our asses doing jackshit. Case in point: today.

All staff going on leave must give ample prior notice on their planned leave dates (preferably 3 months).

In that case, in theory, I should be planning my leave for APRIL next year now! *cry*

This should not coincide with the leave dates of his/her immediate department colleague. Every department has to be properly manned/attended at all times. The criterion for this is that each department has to be manned by at least 50% staff at all times.

If the trading department has 2 traders, 1 analyst and 1 risk, can the 2 traders go on leave?

“Proper notice” [pertaining to leave] means that you call and obtain approval from your supervisor unless a verifiable emergency makes it impossible for you to do so.

A robbery is not a verifiable emergency. Certainly is an emergency though.

If you fail to give proper notice of absence, as explained in this policy, you may be subject to stern disciplinary action, which may include immediate termination of employment.

Ooh. Scared!

All supervisors and managers are advised to make themselves available to attend such calls.

Instead of going for business meetings to negotiate multi-million dollar cargo deals.

For a planned half day leave application from Monday to Friday, working schedule will be as below:
• AM leave - begin work at 1.45 pm*
• PM leave - leaves at 12.45 pm*
• Leave application emails for half days must be stated clearly whether it is for morning or the afternoon period.

In which universe can you get more anal than that?

Today, in frustration, the traders brought the whole team down for a meeting in Conrad Hotel, and made the company pay for it. After the meeting, we all trooped back to the office, to find the pointy haired boss sitting around the trading area, pretending to have a conversation with the Indian chap, though we were sure he was there checking to see if we would return or if we'd gone off work early.

I wish someone would tell him it's not how hard you work; it's how smart.

Twas the Night Before Christmas

I got this from the broker's report. I think he very free.

Twas the Night Before Christmas when all thru the trade house
Not a screen was illuminated, no one at his mouse

The traders were gone
The P&L was sorted,
No risk of big VaR
No markets cavorted

The bankers were weeping about their Q4 results
Showing falling values, fractional bonuses & general tumult
The M&A business was dead & wealth management gone
Who knew that to be long was oh so so wrong?

The principals were off down in Grand Cayman drinking
While I was alone in the office alone but still thinking

With what burst, which was a big massive bummer
This major event that we saw expand in the summer

Despite Paulson's efforts and the many central bankers
The markets tanked, thanks to insolvent wankers.

I thought of the oil market's previous problems
like Aerochem, like Metro, and Amaranth & Enron
with created past trouble, and bad debts to send on

But this was the new Recession I saw, right here on my lawn
That gave us this volcano & pushed devaluations on
Down from the roof, at the end of this year
Making more danger than global warming to reindeer.

Who can know what the next year will hold?
Bigger busts, bigger doom & lo and behold,
Bigger government, more rules & sovereign investment
More dollar excitement & probable divestment

Out the office I walked into the December night,
Wishing all Amerex customers thank you,
Merry Christmas,
and to all a Good Night!

Insomnia

That's right. I can't sleep. For the life of me, I've been trying!! Until yesterday I've never had insomnia ever in my life, even in the thick of exams. And now, 2 days in a row, and quite out of the blue, I can't sleep.

It isn't that I'm stressing out about anything in particular, nor that I did any sort of vigourous exercise just before bedtime (yeah it's the truth, stop winking already). It isn't even because I'm upset about anything. I do have quite bad cramps right at this moment though, but it isn't close to being all that bad as to keep me from sleep.

I am stressing out a bit from not being able to sleep and hence not being able to wake up for work tomorrow, or being not so sharp, or whatever. And admittedly my rib bone is hurting a bit from somehow jutting out against the springs of my bed. And I am hungry despite eating dinner at 11pm.

I'm rambling!! I desperately need to sleep!!! HAAAAAALLLLPPPP!!!!!!

Food!!!

Yes I know. It's been a while. I haven't anything interesting to report really, or anything that can be read in this medium that wouldn't render me sackable, I mean. Heh heh. Work's been alright. Frustrating, but this is meant to be a happy post, so I shall not elaborate!

So anyway! I picked up ice cream making! And revisited my old cookie skills (which are WAY rusty!).

My guinea pigs are still alive as we speak.


Angie, with my cranberry and mango cookies! And pork floss cookies too. All quite lau hong, sad to say! Will work on it! ;)

Adrian! Hamming it up with my durian ice cream! He wants more bitter durians!


Next time, I'll be more conscientious with the posts (right) and put up more pictures of the food rather than just eating it all up.

Epitaph

I was reading an interview with Max Lucado, in which he quoted an epitaph that impressed upon him many years ago.

Sleeps, but rests not.
Loved, but was loved not.
Died as she lived, alone.

Among the myriad of possibilities, I wonder if she wrote that epitaph for herself in a moment of sorrow, or if a silent observer, documenting her sad existence, chose those words.

The world tends not to accomodate outliers very well: the socially awkward, the unpopular, the loud and rude, the quiet and withdrawn. Most of us damn ourselves with the decisions we make; the people we choose to be. And more often than not, in real life, the stories don't end the way they do in Disney films. The hunchback doesn't get the beautiful girl, the beast doesn't get the beauty, the prince doesn't arrive in time to wake the sleeping princess, Mulan doesn't save China (although, yes, that's a true story).

So I wonder. I wonder who the woman described in the epitaph was really like. I wonder who she is and how she lived. I wonder how she loved. I wonder if, like me, she was socially awkward. I wonder if she was a loner. I wonder if she had a nasty temper. I wonder if she's just like me - completely not in control as my life careens desperately and dangerously off the course I had prescribed.

Perhaps there is something to be said for a complete dependence on a higher Being. But, God, that would mean letting go!

Behavioural finance?

I don't get today's oil prices. As we speak, oil is trading at 1.58 below close, at 99.60, a 6-month low, the day after hurricane Ike hits Texas, the United States' largest oil production centre. This happens the same weekend of Lehman's impending collapse and the renewed fears of the US credit market. This is an excerpt swiped from Reuters. I'll just quote pertinent bits so I don't get sued for any sort of infringement.

On oil
"The oil market is selling off because the early indications show Ike didn't do as much damage as feared," said Chris Jarvis, senior analyst at Caprock Risk Management. "That said, this sell-off could prove to be a bit premature, since it could be a while before things get back to normal."

On financial
U.S. stock futures and the dollar sank late on Sunday as the first official trades of a new business week took place while talks to sell Lehman Brothers <LEH.N> faltered, shaking confidence and pushing dollar-exposed investors towards safe haven U.S. Treasuries.
"It appears that Lehman will file for bankruptcy and the risk of an immediate tsunami is related to the unwind of derivative and swap-related positions worldwide in the dealer, hedge fund, and buyside universe," Bill Gross, the chief investment officer of Pacific Investment Management Co (Pimco), told Reuters. Pimco oversees more than $812 billion in assets.
Uncertainty about the health of the U.S. financial sector was running high with the fate of the 158-year old investment bank Lehman Brothers still unclear. In addition, a takeover of Merrill Lynch & Co <MER.N> and huge asset sales by American International Group <AIG.N> were being talked about in markets.
Britain's Barclays Plc <BARC.L>, which had appeared to be the frontrunner to take over Lehman -- excluding its bad mortgage-related assets -- pulled out of the bidding early in the afternoon, according to a person familiar with the matter.
That raised the risk of a Lehman bankruptcy. Lehman hired law firm Weil Gotshal & Manges to prepare a potential bankruptcy filing, the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday in its online edition, citing a person familiar with the matter.

I think the only explanation that would make sense for the crude to be this way is demand destruction. Either on the refinery side, or the consumption side. There seems to be no other explanation.

Mensa Invitational

This is arguably one of the funniest emails I have received, ever!

The results of the Washington Post's Mensa Invitational which once again asked readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing one letter, and supply ing a new definition.   The winners  are:
 
1. Cashtration (n.): The act of buying a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period of time.
2. Ignoranus : A person who's both stupid and an asshole.
3. Intaxication : Euphoria at getting a tax refund, which lasts until you realize it was your money to start with.
4. Reintarnation : Coming back to life as a hillbilly.
5. Bozone ( n.): The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little sign of breaking down in the near future.
6. Foreploy : Any misrepresentation about yourself for the purpose of getting laid.
7. Giraffiti : Vandalism spray-painted very, very high.
8. Sarchasm : The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the Person who doesn't get it.
9. Inoculatte : To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.
10. Osteopornosis : A degenerate disease. (This one got extra credit.)
11. Karmageddon : It's like, when everybody is sending off all these really bad vibes, right? And then, like, the Earth explodes and it's like, a serious bummer.
12. Decafalon (n.): The gruelling event of getting through the day consuming only things that are good for you.
13. Glibido : All talk and no action.
14. Dopeler Effect: The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly.
15. Arachnoleptic Fit (n.): The frantic dance performed just after you've accidentally walked through a spider web.
16. Beelzebug (n.) : Satan in the form of a mosquito, that gets into your bedroom at three in the morning and cannot be cast out.
17. Caterpallor ( n.): The color you turn after finding half a worm in the fruit you're eating.
 
 
The Washington Post has also published the winning submissions to its yearly contest, in which readers are asked to supply alternate meanings for common words. And the winners are:
 
1. Coffee , n. The person upon whom one coughs.
2. Flabbergasted , adj. Appalled by discovering how much weight one has gained.
3. Abdicate , v. To give up all hope of ever having a flat stomach.
4. Esplanade , v. To attempt an explanation while drunk.
5. Willy-nilly , adj. Impotent.
6. Negligent , adj. Absentmindedly answering the door when wearing only a nightgown.
7. Lymph , v. To walk with a lisp.
8. Gargoyle , n. Olive-flavored mouthwash.
9. Flatulence , n. Emergency vehicle that picks up someone who has been run over by a steamroller.
10. Balderdash , n. A rapidly receding hairline.
11. Testicle , n. A humorous question on an exam.
12. Rectitude , n. The formal, dignified bearing adopted by proctologists.
13. Pokemon , n. A Rastafarian proctologist.
14. Oyster , n. A person who sprinkles his conversation with yiddishisms.
15. Frisbeetarianism , n. The belief that, after death, the soul flies up onto the roof and gets stuck there.
16. Circumvent , n . An opening in the front of boxer shorts worn by Jewish men
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