Phone Interview

A lot of people asked me "Do you miss those days when you are an engineer?"

This is what I would tell them.

But honestly speaking, I do. Sometimes.

Being an engineer at one point is like a dream came true.

Unlimited meetings, learning new things each and everyday, not to mentioned get paid every end of the month without delay, that's nice.

There were indeed a few occasions that I felt like I really wanted to go back and put my engineering helmet on again.

During my away trip in Brunei, I received a call from Malaysia.

It is not a norm that I would pick up international call while I am away in another country, especially if I am away for a vacation or leisure, knowing that my bill would make me looked like Jacky Chan at the  end of the month.

But somehow I just did.

It is a call from one of the multinational oil and gas company, ShXXl (Due to privacy issue I decided to keep it as a secret for the mean time)

I remembered I have a few application rejected during my time as an engineer. The email normally sound like this:

"Dear Hung Yew,

Thank you for your interest in a career with Shxxl and for taking time to submit your application.

Your experience and qualifications have been carefully reviewed, but we regret to inform you that your application has been unsuccessful on this occasion...."

But for this time around, the voice on the other end who introduced herself as the recruiter.

"We are pleased to inform you that you were shortlisted for our pre-screening via phone interview on the 17th September"

"The interview would take as long as 45 minutes"

45 minutes?

I can't even imagine talking to my fiancé on the phone for 45 minutes. She will definitely think that I am cheating on her.

Imagine that during the whole 45 minutes you will be bombarded by endless questions based on your technical knowledge, experiences and your qualification.

But I guess this may only happens once in a blue moon so I agreed to attend the phone interview.

Come 17th September I am damn well prepared.

A couple of nights before I went through the sample interview questions and answers.

I googled "How to prepare for an interview like a pro".

"Best interview questions and answers".

And then when I started to google for "1 million Free Air Asia shit." (Sorry supposed to be seat), I knew it is time to go to bed.

Luckily enough, 70% of the questions been thrown to me at that day was expected. As for those unexpected question, the best way to do it?

Pretend to be like them. They asked you A? You go through B,C and D before going back to A again.

If you know what I mean.

As for the outcome, I will only know it next week.

Until then, stay tuned!


 

Missing for two weeks

Slept at 3am, woke up at 5.30am.

It has been quite a routine for at least two days last week.

Yes, I have just came back from my cousin's wedding in Brunei.

It was in the month of May if I remembered correctly when I was about to depart to KL via Brunei. I was having lunch with my aunt and all of the sudden this conversation popped out.

Aunt: Are you free on the month of September?

Me: Ya, I guess so. Since I am quite flexible in my job already.

Aunt: I need a favor from you, can you fly in to join the group of brothers for Evelyn's wedding?

Without hesitation I nodded.

Since I can come back to visit my family also, I think why not?

That's the reason why I have disappeared for the past two weeks.

And I am back, for now.


 

My Debut in Phnom Penh, Cambodia

For at least once in a year, my football team will organized a soccer friendly match with team from overseas.

They have been to China, Macau, Indonesia, just to name a few.

Why I said "they" is because I have never joined them for those overseas friendly match before due to work commitments and etc.

As for this year I begged to differ.

I love to travel, and I treated soccer as my second-life. If I was born in England, UK, I might just ended up with this.

 

 

Playing for Manchester United.

 

I don't know why, some of my friends told me that Shinji Kagawa does looked like a twin brother to me.

 

Well, I think I am better in term of looks.

Anyway let's go back to the topic.

We took Air Asia for this trip. The weather was fine all the way until the final minutes before we touched down and that's when I came across one of the scariest moment of my life.

The whole plane was shaking so bad and literally free-falling from the sky at one moment and everyone was screaming on the top of their lung.

That's the exact look on my face at that moment.

How I didn't pee in my pants, I don't know.

Our arrival was greeted by some of the familiar faces and we were immediately whisked away to our hotel for the next two nights.

During the journey to the hotel, I noticed that there's someone looking at us from the van window.

A young street beggar.

After 15 minutes of driving, we reached our destination - The Casa Hotel.

This hotel may not be the nicest but it is quite affordable at USD 35 per night. Not to mentioned that for party-goers, there's KTV lounge and discotheque just within the hotel compound itself.

After a wild night out with your friends, the last thing you would have wished for will be puking and sleeping on a busy street in Cambodia.

The interior view of this hotel. Quite a value for money.

After our dinner, we went for some beers and went back to our own room to prepare for the match next day.

The match was organized in the "Olympic Stadium" in Phnom Penh on the eve of 31st August.

Our opponent was the Angkor Beer team.

How they got their team name I don't know.

We brought the Malaysian flag for this match to show our patriotism to our country, when we couldn't be there in our homeland to celebrate our independence day.

We started the game well, I missed a couple of chances, and scored the first goal for my team after the goalkeeper miskicked a back pass from his team mates.

I nicked it, turn the goal keeper and scored my first "international" goal.

For the first 30 minutes we were basically running out of breath as the weather was so hot, hotter compared to our Malaysian weather.

We were leading 2-1 all the way into the final 15 minutes of the games and then the disaster strucked.

The Cambodians managed to scored three more goals in the final minutes to make it 4-2 victory for them.

It is a shame that my first "international" trip have to be ended in defeat.

In the next post, I will share more of my Cambodian trip photo with you guys as I haven managed to upload it yet.

Stay tuned.