Valen’s Vanity Square

Hubby keeps nagging on me to take a driving refresh course, so that I can drive and go any where I like. Yeah, right. You mean, send you to work using your company car, then go shopping using your company car, go pick up the dry-cleaned clothes using your company car…

It’s his company car, not HIS car. I don’t want to drive in his company car (a Proton Perdana). It’s huge, it’s heavy, and I’m not the ‘authorized’ person to drive it. I don’t want to be blamed for any damage done to his company car.

If you want me to become your driver, first get me a car. Haha! I will then get for myself a cheap auto insurance before I start driving it on the road.

But it will take a lot of courage for me to drive on the highways! These days drivers are so reckless on the road, slow lanes becomes fast lanes, and cars take over from the left not the right… It’s really dangerous to go out on the road actually, especially for a new driver, like me.

Hubby came home unusually early today. Was it because he wanted to give me a surprise? Did he actually bring me a surprise?

Nope. He came home early at around 4 pm because he felt ill.

Hubby got a gastric attack again. I think this is an after-effect of the 4-consecutive days of meeting last week. Hotel meals were heavy, meetings were stressful, and he didn’t get to exercise. Whenever hubby has a gastric attack, he’ll also have headache and can’t stop yawning. (That’s so weird, the yawning part.)

But he’ll have to go back to work tomorrow, coz there’s MORE meetings to attend tomorrow. That’s the reality of a working life as an employee. Your time is controlled by your employer. Unlike being an insurance agent, you can choose to work from home when you’re sick. If you have a website, you can even offer life insurance online quote. It’s really not essential to leave the house, except for seeing clients and attending meetings.

Oh well, one has to do what one has to do. It’s life…

What do most people do in the beginning of a new year? I guess it would be looking for a new job or new career opportunity.

If you’ve got your bonus in December, great, you have received what you deserved and are ready to move on. If you didn’t get a bonus for last year, because your company decided to penalize your division for not doing a good job (and not because they are losing money or whatever), great, it just says how much your company appreciate you. It’s time to look for greener patches out there.

If you are in Minneapolis, you can do a quick Minneapolis job search online and find mass opportunities. But for hubby, it’s rather difficult to find a job in a similar industry that gives him what he’s getting now. Anyway, hubby’s planning to move into another area, just that he needs time to sharpen his skills and form some networks before he can set off his new career.

So for now, he will just continue to ride on a donkey before he can find a horse. (If you know what I mean, haha!)

My father-in-law is now running a food stall in a coffee shop in the neighborhood. He just started this about 6 weeks ago. He’s now planning to get a car so that he can drive to the morning market, go to work and drive home on his own, and not relying on my brother-in-law to be the driver.

Hubby met up with a second-hand car dealer, and found a car aged slightly more than 10 years and comes with an affordable price tag. Of course, the decision is up to FIL, whether to buy or not to buy that car. Although the car is almost a decade old, its mileage is actually lower than the 6-year old car that hubby’s driving (the car belongs to his company)! This is because hubby travels a lot within the country.

And because of that, the 6-year old car is aging faster than the 10-year old car, haha! Also, there have been problems on and off - gear box problem, engine problem, alignment problem. It seems that every 3 months hubby has to send the car for repair (not just servicing).

Sometimes we just can’t help to doubt the quality of locally produced vehicles. Fortunately, it’s a local car. No matter how expensive the parts are, the price won’t be as exorbitant as the exclusive Ferrari parts. (In my world, it’s like comparing L’oreal on the shelves and La Mer in the selected shopping malls. Haha!) Thank goodness it’s a company car, so that hubby is able to get reimbursement for all the servicing and repairing.

So when hubby needs to get his own car in the future, local cars will be out of the picture.

Hubby and I will be on a short trip to Cameron Highlands this weekend. It’s short because it’s just an one night stay, and the purpose of going there is that hubby has a dinner to attend at the Equatorial Hotel.

It’s not a dinner with friends though. It’s for work! Hubby will be there to do a presentation about his company’s insurance product to a group of potential customers. Hubby is trying to push sales by helping the insurance agents to run this small event thing called seminar selling. While the insurance agents will receive commissions out of the sales, hubby gets nothing out of it. He’s just a marketing staff for the company with a sales quota to meet. :<

In the US there are professional companies that help insurance business persons to secure life insurance or health insurance leads. I don’t think we have such specialized business services here. If there’s such a service, hubby wouldn’t have to work during weekends and after office hours so frequently for the past 2 months!

Anyway, having to work this weekend in a chilly hill holiday attraction with scenic views, it’s not too bad. But I must make sure that I get to eat the famous scone from Bala’s tea house this time.