One month passed since I landed here, and I didn't even had the cance to check out my hotel's pool.
Not because I was too busy partying, tonight was my first one.
So, I got this opportunity to come down here. I was somehow tricked, since the contract was supposed to be 1 year, based in Singapore. I found out after 3 weeks that it was actually suposed to have only 6 months in Singapore and 6 months (or more) in Vietnam. Our purpose in here was only to get the knowledge transfer, then move to Vietnam. Not that I have something against Vietnam, but I didn't signed up for this sh**. But the worst thing is still to come: I have one colleague with me (let's call her Samantha) who is a constant pain in the ass, negative attitude, always complaining. Of course things didn't went the way we expected, but what she was doing is waaaaaaay over my tolerance level.
I met Sam back in 2011, while we were both employed in a French company in my hometown. I thought about this place that it will be the perfect place to retire from. Yet I only spent less than two years in there, my only imprint being that I managed to win the internal football championship. I still have friends in there and still I like to have a chat with them from time to time. Me and Sam we're in different teams, working on different floors, so I got little time to know her.
Life has strange connections, and my destiny decided to choose another company, a Russian one, in which I met, as part of the same team, Sam. She was very rigid, and we barely spoke to each other. I usually make friends easily, but this one was different, so I decided to avoid her as much as possible.
Years passed, Sam moved to another team, and I evolved naturally as a senior engineer, and technical team lead. Until one day, when an e-mail from my manager advertised for jobs in Singapore. At first I totally ignored it, since my realistic goal was to move abroad in UK or Germany, but my colleagues were very hyped up on this, so I decided to submit my application, along with some of my team colleagues. I was very dissapointed that I was the only one allowed to move from my team, but I thought f**k it, it's Singapore! New lifestile, new opportunities, new experiences. While I waited for the whole process to be put in place, I found out that my manager also proposed to Sam to be part of this team in Singapore. She accepted, yet she was terrified about t*******t attacks and m*****s. She was thinking: what if a b**b will go off on our plane? I tried to calm her down, with no success. Anyway I was expecting the worst, and she meet my expectations.
So here we are in Singapore!
When we got off the plane, there was some sort of a health control, and it seemed that somebody in our plane was getting checked in there. Sam freaked out, thinking that a disease was spread into the plane, and we should get medical assistance. She kept on repeating this for two weeks. Of course that I did my best to calm her down.
The first thing that shocked us was the moisture, the humid air, very difficult to breathe in. After we got our luggage, we went to buy mobile sim cards for communication purposes. She bought one, that she managed to loose in the same day.
The hotel was near the Sim Lim shopping center, called BIG Hotel. Ironically, the rooms were extremely small, the size of the bed plus one small bathroom, no place to walk around the bed. Since we were supposed to stay close to one month in there, with all the luggage, it was not a suited place for us. After almost a week, the company moved us to a better place. 8 on Claymore Serviced Appartments. This one was perfect. In the central area, next to Orchard MRT station, big rooms, with kitchen, downstairs a gym and pool. Everything was great.
to be continued...
Not because I was too busy partying, tonight was my first one.
So, I got this opportunity to come down here. I was somehow tricked, since the contract was supposed to be 1 year, based in Singapore. I found out after 3 weeks that it was actually suposed to have only 6 months in Singapore and 6 months (or more) in Vietnam. Our purpose in here was only to get the knowledge transfer, then move to Vietnam. Not that I have something against Vietnam, but I didn't signed up for this sh**. But the worst thing is still to come: I have one colleague with me (let's call her Samantha) who is a constant pain in the ass, negative attitude, always complaining. Of course things didn't went the way we expected, but what she was doing is waaaaaaay over my tolerance level.
I met Sam back in 2011, while we were both employed in a French company in my hometown. I thought about this place that it will be the perfect place to retire from. Yet I only spent less than two years in there, my only imprint being that I managed to win the internal football championship. I still have friends in there and still I like to have a chat with them from time to time. Me and Sam we're in different teams, working on different floors, so I got little time to know her.
Life has strange connections, and my destiny decided to choose another company, a Russian one, in which I met, as part of the same team, Sam. She was very rigid, and we barely spoke to each other. I usually make friends easily, but this one was different, so I decided to avoid her as much as possible.
Years passed, Sam moved to another team, and I evolved naturally as a senior engineer, and technical team lead. Until one day, when an e-mail from my manager advertised for jobs in Singapore. At first I totally ignored it, since my realistic goal was to move abroad in UK or Germany, but my colleagues were very hyped up on this, so I decided to submit my application, along with some of my team colleagues. I was very dissapointed that I was the only one allowed to move from my team, but I thought f**k it, it's Singapore! New lifestile, new opportunities, new experiences. While I waited for the whole process to be put in place, I found out that my manager also proposed to Sam to be part of this team in Singapore. She accepted, yet she was terrified about t*******t attacks and m*****s. She was thinking: what if a b**b will go off on our plane? I tried to calm her down, with no success. Anyway I was expecting the worst, and she meet my expectations.
So here we are in Singapore!
When we got off the plane, there was some sort of a health control, and it seemed that somebody in our plane was getting checked in there. Sam freaked out, thinking that a disease was spread into the plane, and we should get medical assistance. She kept on repeating this for two weeks. Of course that I did my best to calm her down.
The first thing that shocked us was the moisture, the humid air, very difficult to breathe in. After we got our luggage, we went to buy mobile sim cards for communication purposes. She bought one, that she managed to loose in the same day.
The hotel was near the Sim Lim shopping center, called BIG Hotel. Ironically, the rooms were extremely small, the size of the bed plus one small bathroom, no place to walk around the bed. Since we were supposed to stay close to one month in there, with all the luggage, it was not a suited place for us. After almost a week, the company moved us to a better place. 8 on Claymore Serviced Appartments. This one was perfect. In the central area, next to Orchard MRT station, big rooms, with kitchen, downstairs a gym and pool. Everything was great.
to be continued...
