c’est la vie

 Frankly I still know nothing about wine.

I know a lady who is a wine trader.  She organizes some wine tasting events from time to time.  Last week I joined a "French wine, cheeses, chocoloate pairing" seminor she hosted (you can tell, the reason why I chose this one was because of the cheeses and chocolcates!!). 

It was interesting (from eating and drinking perspective, haha) but I didn’t really get much as there were so many names that were new to me.  I thought I knew a few names but then what I knew were probably 10% of what she mentioned.  I guess the rules of thumb (on pairing) are:

1. to match the place of origin, e.g. wine from Provence matching with cheese from Provence (if you know where the cheese is from…);

2. milder wine to match with milder cheese (and vice versa).

These are the pairs that I liked most:

- Chateau de Plassan 1re Cotes de Bordeaux 2002 (don’t really know much from the name… except it is from Bordeaux right?) matched with Colommiers

- Maury (a dessert wine) matched with hazelnut chocolates.

My friend suggested we should take a course on wine 101 first, in order to appreciate the wine that we tried.  :p

雖然算不上是 Sammi fan屎，但總覺得自她之後再沒有有星味的女歌手。

第一晚的演唱會我覺得比我意料中好看，看鄭秀文的好處是，她的歌你一定聽過，卡拉ＯＫ一定唱過，而且形象好看。朋友說她初段未開聲，我倒覺得除了說認真話時有點口窒窒外，一切還算不錯，而且氣氛好。

老實說，我很久沒看過真正encore的演唱會了。完場時燈都亮起了，panel 的人也準備離開，唯有八成觀眾仍然不肯走，十多分鐘後 Sammi 才出來說了首忘記歌詞的歌，很明顯沒有準備 encore。我覺得比綵排好的 encore 來得更真。

正所謂禍不單行, 繼醫生騙子後, 我再一次破財。

這是我每一次光顧 Zara, 我見剛好換季, 便買了些 basic items。誰知過兩天打算穿一件裇衫時發現衫上竟穿了一個明顯的小洞。除非是電器用品, 我對於一些不太貴的東西, 我大多不會 keep 單, 但 credit card receipt 仍在, 我便帶同裇衫跟 credit card receipt 回去。

店員知我沒有 original receipt 有點不知所措, 便叫經理出來。經理給我的答案竟然是: credit card receipt 雖然可以證明我早兩天曾經光顧她的店舖, 卻不能證明我買了那件 item (難道我買了 esprit 然後換了 Zara 的 label??)。既然是 company policy, 我也沒有強求, 但我拿著一件破了的衣服也沒有作用, 我便說送給她好了。

她有點 panic,  說我不能留下衣服。我告訴她, 就算我現在拿走, 也只會丟在你門前的垃圾箱。

可能我大鄉里, 其實我買的時候, 已經很奇怪店員沒有給我新的衣服 (即是好像在 supermarket , 拿起哪件就是買那件), 店員也沒有 remind 我留意衣服有沒有損壞或叫我 keep 起 receipt, just in case 可以退回。

我見是大型連鎖店才打算拿回去退換, 怎知卻令我十分失望。

前陣子因為皮膚的小問題，頻頻看醫生。明明有 medical cover，都要自己俾錢．．．

話說個案一：小妹頸上生了咖哩雞狀物體，看公司 panel GP，他說是敏感，開了藥草草了事。過了幾天沒有好轉，朋友覺得不對勁，介紹了皮膚科醫生給我，原來是生蛇。因為不是看 panel doctor，當然冇得 claim，算吧。

個案二：小妹手指生疣（即是一粒小瘡），正常是自己會消失，但過了一段時間仍然存在，為了美觀，再看 GP。這次他轉介了皮膚科醫生給我。醫生說可以動個小手術，公司保險應該可以 cover。

第二天，護士小姐打來，告訴我保險公司說要我先付款，再經公司向保險公司 claim，我便答應了。

一個月後，覆診時醫生說仍未根治，要再動一次手術。約好了時間，我再打去保險公司問，他們回覆，是仍在 process。OK，手術前一天，我再問，他們這次的回覆是這樣的：

他們說診所 applied 是他們已經 reject 了，原因是我的疣在我入職時已有，所以保險不會 cover，而保險公司亦不會要求客人先付款的。

問題是，診所之前給我的答案是 procedure 的問題，而不是說保險公司 reject 了！！呢次真係嬲嬲地！

唉．．．．．！！

One good thing about working in big companies is that, they have endless funding in conducting different kinds of training. 

We had a sales training recently.  Which is quite similar to Enneagram - a simplified version about personality.  And it is about four dimensioning: introvercy vs extrovercy; sensing vs intuitioin; thinking vs feeling; judging vs perceiving.

Personality test is nothing new to us right?  Interesting part is when you see how other people reacts to the test.  The test tends to reveal your real (innate) personality, so not the way you do at work.  So happened I had the class with a group of my bosses.  When we are at work, we need to be sociable (to build the network), to be rational (thinking type) in making decisions, and to be organized (judging type).  But in fact they could be introvert, sentimental (feeling type) in real lives and very casual (perceiving type). 

The most obvious phenomenon was when we had an exercise on an mock up "life-or-death" situation.  Those from the "thinking" group showed no empathy at all to those who died while the "feeling" group reacted as if their teammates were really dying.

At the end of the class, one of the managers asked the instructor how we can tell what "types" our customers are if they are not given the test.  Aha, I can tell he is very much a thinking type then - having no sensitivity on other perons’ feeling and behaviour. 

In some of the cases, what you can see is not the real thing.  Just like in the movie "十分愛" (which exceeded my expectation, to be honest).  Some people may look very serious at work (they have to be) but in fact a very kind-hearted persons.