Firstly, let's talk about the food. The HR selected Xi Yan Restaurant among the other short-listed restaurants. It is a restaurant by reservation only, located at Tanjong Pagar area. The cuisines, erm... i seriously do not know how to appreciate the dishes. To be fair, there were a few dishes that were nice (not to the extent of fantastic), but overall was still a disappointment.
Let's just put it this way -- if i were to strike the first prize of TOTO and have tons of money to squander away, i would still give this restaurant a miss. I think this pretty much sums up what i (and my other colleagues too) think of the food there, so i'm not gonna do a dish-by-dish review.
Then what was the occasion for the group dinner? Well, it wasn't for the mooncake festival; it was a welcoming meal for the "biggest shot" of AsiaPac division.
There was a change of management structure (again) for AsiaPac, and there is a new MD for the region. She (yes, it's a "she" for a change!) is a China lady who holds a Phd from Cambridge and had worked in one of the biggest consumer product MNC in high post. Her family came with her to the dinner too. She married an angmo and has two cute daughters. She would be stationed in China even though the AsiaPac HQ is here in SG. Of course, we gotta have an office here for her too, since she would probably spend quite some time here too working with the other Directors.
The most interesting thing about her visit here is less about her but the people around her when she's here. Well, i do not have much comment about her since i've only seen her for the first time and didn't even speak to her for more than five sentences. The most intriguing part is on how the other Directors
Oh, and another interesting incident was that little boss got drunk at the end of the dinner. Big boss had gone back to HK for the mooncake festival, and the other two IT guys didn't join us because they had to do some work overnight. That left little boss and me from our department to attend the dinner.
One of the directors kept coming over to our table and poured wine into little boss' glass and forced him to "bottoms up". Little boss did so, even though he knew that he was reaching his limit towards the end of the dinner. Yet, he still continued to drink, and finally he got half-drunk.
Then after the dinner had ended, i gotta make sure he got on a cab first before going home myself. I walked with him to the street, and he was already walking wobbly though i could tell he was trying very hard to walk in straight line. It was already 10pm+ and it was quite difficult to get a cab at the street where we were at. We waited for more than 15 minutes by the street, when he suddenly started to throw up terribly. It was a mess, and i felt bad for him.
Seriously, i do not understand why he had to drink so much when he already knew that he couldn't take it. Probably it's different for men in the business world. For me, i would not touch a drop of alcohol if i don't want to, no matter whose toast it is, big shot or not. I mean, c'mon, i am hired to do my job well and to deliver results. Drinking with the directors isn't part of my job scope, so why should i force myself to do the things i do not like? Not drinking doesn't mean that i cannot be a great fun during fun times. Why must alcohol be one of the definitions of "having fun"? Well, i tell you, you can have all the fun you want, but the fun will turn into hell the next morning or a few years down the road!
Hmm, i guess that probably explains why i can never climb high in the corporate ladder.
Labels: work
