There's No Free Lunch in this World

It's sad.. but true..

Last week me and my colleagues were so excited that we're gonna attend a conference in Bangkok!! It was our first business trip, so we were darn excited about it. On top of that, we got the idea that we were there mainly to network and we do not have to do much except for helping out here and there..

Plus the conference was going to be held in one of the better hotels, like Bayan Tree/ Sokotai/ Hyatt/ Beaufort.. free trip to Bangkok plus stay in a great hotel leh, it was so exciting.. I wanted to go there and shop shop shop.. A free and easy trip for us..

But turns out it's all Bullshit!! Today my big boss ask us in for a meeting and delegate us with all sorts of work!! damn it, for a moment I really believed that we were going for a fun and relaxed trip.. now it's all bullocks..

There's no such thing as free lunch, shit, I thought I was jaded enough to remember that, but apparently I was not.. damn it..

And the worse thing is, my big boss kept emphasizing that the work that we need to get done for this conference was on top of our normal workload!! err.. it's not as if we have very little things to do already. I'm finally in the final stages of one of the projects I'm handling, wrapping it up by this weekend (yes, I'm coming back again this weekend.. argh..)

After this major project is done, I was going to proceed on to my e-learning portal, enhancing the system, updating the looks, designing new courses.. now all these have to be pushed behind coz of this stupid conference..

Plus I have to handle quite abit of things for this conference, have to coordinate all the speeches, have to chase all the speakers for their presentation script, to vet through all their contents, to get all their powerpoints before the conference. Also have to set up a booth from scratch!!! All these have to be done by the end of next month.. only one month's time to plan and conceptualise out a booth that introduces my e-learning portal; and coordinate the heads of 3 departments to get their vision for their departments; choose and invite 4 speakers to talk about 4 creative learning approaches; coordinate all their materials to be printed into a manual.

Then when I get there, I have to set up and man the booth; before each presentation, I would have to make sure the speakers are ready, have all their materials..

And there I thought it was a trip... yah it is a trip, a god-damn business trip where we have to earn our tickets there.

The conference is set on the 9-12th November, but we should be going to Bangkok earlier to get everything done.. so might be leaving on the 4~5th. That's a total of 2 burnt weekends and one whole week of not being able to see Ah Dear!! :(

I dun wanna go Bangkok, I rather stay in Singapore.. I dun like this job at times like this.. :(