There is a secretary in the firm who is selling her wares. Her wares are these homemade lunar new year cookies that are really, well, very homemade indeed. They are being sold at a very homely price of S$16 per recycled coffee powder jar. Pieces of homely joy in a recycled coffee powder jar.

Homely secretary then proceeds to email spam everyone repeatedly with her homeliness and all the wholesome goodness that entails.

Whoever said the office wasn't homely?

Friend: blah blah blah

Me: You actually have common sense.

Friend: Can you stop constructing sentences in that way.

Me: Surprisingly, you have common sense!

* * *

Well sadly, I can't say that everyone has common sense.


Like the counterparty who marked up comments on my blackline document using a combination of track changes, blackline colours and in black. I saved the document as "no integrity".

Thank you for your email.

I am away from the office and will be returning on Monday, 5 January 2009.

Please contact me on my mobile at **** **** for urgent enquiries.

Have a Happy New Year.

* * *

The above is called an out of office message. Which is a polite way of saying I am not around and please don't call me. You aren't actually supposed to call the number. They should teach these things in school.

We get a lot of irrelevant administrative emails.

Friend (who proceeds to forward me said irrelevant administrative emails): Is this the sender you have an auto delete rule for?

Me: Yes. The same rule applies to you too. But don't worry, I check my deleted items folder occasionally.

Friend: B****

I am actually glad for those cold callers from credit card companies. I no longer hang up on them like I used to because now, I actually have money to spend and more importantly, they are the only polite callers on the office line that aren't demanding me to do something send something say something ASAP.

Friend to me in Orchard: No one will believe you if you told them you were a lawyer - you're in flip flops, T shirt and berms. They'll think the bag you're holding was stolen from somewhere.

There have been so many blog worthy incidents but none disclosable on confidentiality grounds.

A: Hey can you pass me the Trustees Act, I would like to learn about unit trusts.

B: That's like looking for lunch company in the Companies Act.

So envious! A travel calendar just appeared in X’s folder…she’s going for 3 wks.

And the partners have redlined it.

Return on 13 April AS FAST AS POSSIBLE

A: My pupilmaster has tasked me to do due diligence ("DD"). It sounds slightly exciting, the Managing Partner is involved [in the project]!

B: If the Managing Partner is involved, it's not called DD. It's called AD.
ABSOLUTE DILIGENCE.

Overheard:

A: Z is so incompetent, did he get a second upper honours?

B: Yes, from Nottingham University.

A: In what? Archery and merry making?

When you are in Financial services...

A: Hey want to go diving?

B: Sure! How about Cayman Islands?

A's email: We have a lot of food outside the boardroom. Pls help yourselves.

B's email to C, D and E: FOOD ALERT!

C's email: Can someone suss out the quality?

D's email: Why is there food. Let's send someone to grab it and distribute it NOW

E's email: I just came back from a lovely lunch...but I might pop around to
investigate this situation.

In the news.

A bikini model has been cleared of wrecking her ex-boyfriend's apartment after the court held that her chest was sufficiently large to preclude her from crawling in through a hole in the door. "I used to hate my body" said Serena Kozakura, "but it was my breasts that won in court".

Somewhere in Singapore, Mas Selamat, a terrorist, escapes from his detention facility.

Meanwhile, in an office somewhere else in Singapore...

A: "Hey I hear the team lunch is going to be Indonesian."

B: "NO! The [No. 2 Boss is buying] lunch so HOW can it be Indonesian??"

A: "Indonesian can be atas* too what."

B: "The most atas it gets is going to be…what, House of Sundanese?"

A: "Oh shit, cannot whack** already!"

C: "I hear it’s going to be at the Rice Table. Cos it’s owned by [anonymous partner's] friend."

A: "Oh no, damn cheapo! How can [anonymous partner] arrange this? She herself doesn’t even eat anywhere with less than 4.5 stars of atasness!"

B: "Ok, I will do EVERYTHING in my power to stop this. You, go and book up the whole of Rice Table. Every single branch! For a corporate function or wedding I don’t care.
And you, go and pretend to have food poisoning.
Somebody also tell her that we can’t eat Indonesian cos that’s probably where Mas Selamat would go for lunch."



*atas - high class
** whack - chalk up an exorbitant sum

A: I believe in putting in reasonable effort for reasonable results, that's why I'm a banker.

B: I put in maximum effort for maximum results.

A: That's why you're a lawyer.

C: I put in minimum effort for maximum results.

A: Then why are you working. Just marry a rich woman!

Got this off Skadden Insider and had a good laugh so thought I'll share it:

We're sad to see that Skadden's former summer associate celebrity, Jonas Blank, has left the firm. You'll remember Jonas (Duke undergrad, Harvard Law) from the summer of 2003 when he mistakenly sent an e-mail meant for his friend Melissa to an in-house distribution list of about 40 attorneys. To refresh your recollection:

“I’m busy doing jack shit. Went to a nice 2hr sushi lunch today at Sushi Zen. Nice place. Spent the rest of the day typing e-mails and bullshitting with people.” Jonas did, unfortunately, have a bit of work to take care of (corporate-finance deal; yawn), so he needed to “peruse these materials and not be a fuckup.” But he couldn’t complain; he was, after all, a summer associate. He signed off, “So yeah, Corporate Love hasn’t worn off yet… . But just give me time.”

Of course the e-mail was forwarded (quickly) and it made the rounds through the legal community. Skadden thought of scolding those of us who sent it on to friends outside the firm until they realized that some partners had done it as well. Jonas quickly sent an apology (with a spelling error in it) and forever more became part of big firm summer associate lore.

The e-mail of course didn't affect his career with Skadden. He was offered a job and spent a few years at the firm. But on March 23, 2007, he left. Sometime in April he starts as an associate at Richards, Kibbe & Orbe in New York.

Good luck Jonas.

Update:

We forgot to mention what Jonas wrote in his farewell e-mail: "This has been an experience I will never forget. Thank you to everyone who made it possible."

Oh Jonas, you made it a pretty interesting experience all by yourself.

Thanks to T for this.

A magazine recently ran a "Dilbert quotes" contest. They were looking for people to submit quotes from their real-life dilbert-type managers.

Here are the top ten finalists:

1. "As of tomorrow, employees will only be able to access the building using individual security cards. Pictures will be taken next Wednesday and employees will receive their cards in two weeks."
(This was the winning quote from Fred Dales, Microsoft Corp. in Redmond, WA)

2. "What I need is an exact list of specific unknown problems we might encounter."
(Lykes Lines Shipping)

3. "E-mail is not to be used to pass on information or data. It should be used only for company business."
(Accounting manager, Electric Boat Company)

4. "This project is so important, we can't let things that are more important interfere with it."
(Advertising/Marketing manager, United Parcel Service)

5. "Doing it right is no excuse for not meeting the schedule."
(Plant manager, Delco Corporation)

6. "No one will believe you solved this problem in one day! We've been working on it for months. Now, go act busy for a few weeks and I'll let you know when it's time to tell them."
(R&D supervisor, Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing/3M Corp.)

7. Quote from the Boss: "Teamwork is a lot of people doing what I say."
(Marketing executive, Citrix Corporation)

8. My sister passed away and her funeral was scheduled for Monday. When I told my Boss, he said she died on purpose so that I would have to miss work on the busiest day of the year. He then asked if we could change her burial to Friday. He said, "That would be better for me."
(Shipping executive, FTD Florists)

9. "We know that communication is a problem, but the company is not going to discuss it with the employees."
(Switching supervisor, AT&T Long Lines Division)

10. One day my Boss asked me to submit a status report to him concerning a project I was working on. I asked him if tomorrow would be soon enough. He said, "If I wanted it tomorrow, I would have waited until tomorrow to ask for it!"
(Hallmark Cards Executive)

Friend: It's ironic. Project 'Holiday' coincided with both Christmas and Chinese New Year.

Chinese New Year Visits

Friend (who is a pupil in a law firm): ...anyway a lot of relatives think I earn 10K a month.

Friend: that's so WTF!!!