review and planning session

well as i mentioned i was away for 4 days to do our office annual review and planning (R&P). this was the first time that our department (PDPI) did the R&P. it was the 3rd time for the other departments, namely, the POHD, PDYN and CMO.

the R&P was on for 3 days only (6 sept. to 8 sept.), while the final day on 9 sept was a social day outing. the R&P was faciliated by dr prema devaraj, an aliran exco member and also i think a director of penang hospice (or maybe it was her father only).

dr prema use the SWOT – strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats – method for our R&P. when we did our review, we had to identify all this 4 areas. then we were asked to list out the weaknesses and threats and see how to overcome/improve on them. and when we did the planning, we take in mind the strengths and opportunities.

the session was not heavy as everyday, after 5.00pm, it was free time. what did we do? one day we had a game and one day we went for swimming (not all).

oh we had good food all the 3 days… and we seemed to never stop eating – breakfast, morning tea, lunch, afternoon tea, dinner. and sometimes breakfast and morning tea is within 2 hours only! wow! i notice always when i attend sessions like this, it’s always eat eat eat non stop.

one of my colleague from POHD, who helped out the fishermen during the tsunami managed to get lots of prawns and crabs for us for 2 days! and he got them FOC! really. he had become good friends with the fisherman and whenever he needed prawns or crabs, he just called one of them up, and they will give him the prawns/crabs without charging him. in fact he said, so many times he had to turn them down when they offer to give him prawns by the kilos FOC! wahh!! if i can get prawns FOC, i will grab it quick lah as prawns is my no. 1 fav. food.

ok coming back to the session, this person who got the prawns free for us, managed to get one extra prawn that is bigger than the other… and he, like my other colleagues, knowing i love prawns, reserve that big prawn for me! how nice of him! he said to everyone “the big prawn is reserved for lucia one ah.”.

do you know how many prawns i whacked? first day it was about 10 and second day near 20! ahh! help! my cholesterol level will be going up up i guess.

well both days we had crabs too and it was the 2nd day eating the crab, that its stupid shell had to get stuck in my throat (see post below).

on 9 sept. friday, we went to the tropical spice garden in the morning and had lunch there. then we proceed to watch a movie. there was only 2 movies available a that time (around 2.00pm) – herbie and shark boy and lava girl. majority settled on the latter, so we went to watch it. argghh!! it was one of the worst movie i ever saw. very ridiculous. i know it is a kiddy show but many kiddy shows are not as ridiculous as this one. nearly fell asleep during the show if not for comments made by my colleague sitting next to me.

during the night, our boss gave us a ‘appreciation dinner’ at salsa restaurant in kelawai road, complete with wine! wow! nice food! nice wine! nice whiskey too! hehe… no lah not drinking the whiskey but it was added to the irish coffee.

after dinner, we adjourned to the nearby ‘redbox’ karaoke. we had a room to ourselves and we (15 of us) had so much fun singing and dancing too! we were there unitl 2.00am.

indeed i enjoy the R&P session. the presentation were all good and many of them were humourous (me too… i made one remark that made them roar with laughter). i learned from their presentation, we had fun during the free time but most of all the last day was the most fun!