Lessons by taking a break..

Is taking a break really taking a break?

Last week was a full week of school holidays. My wife who is a school teacher had a few days off, finally and so did my eldest 6 year old daughter. My 3 year old daughter of course has not started school but has been with my parents for the last few weeks due to my maid's vacation back to her home country. My parents too needed a break after 2 weeks of taking care of my little one.

I, as the father and husband decided to organise a holiday for all of us. A short 3 days 2 nights local vacation to Penang.

1. Planning is important.

From the planning of the itinerary and to ensure that a mixed and diverse group of parents in their 70s, 2 young kids and 2 adults have a smooth and non-taxing journey is not easy. Driving and meals and lodging need to be planned to space out enough rest and to ensure that the trip is maximised within our constraints and resource crunches.

Since we are going to Penang, I asked around if anyone had any other things to do on the way. My wife wanted to go to Ipoh on the way to plan some stuff for her nephew's engagement in 2 weeks. She is good at art and craft and in charge of preparing the engagement trays. A trip to Ipoh beckoned to order the cakes for the engagement from Nancy Cakes in Ipoh.

We shot off to Ipoh stopping at the famous Esther Appam Stall in Buntong and an order came in from my brother in Ipoh for some Murukku mix in Kampung Kacang Putih. Off we went to proceed to buy some murukku and then to Nancy Cakes for the cake order. Mission accomplished. Both the planned mission and the adhoc order mission.

In projects, we must be able to execute both planned and adhoc requests where possible to satisfy our stakeholders.

I decided that our kids, wife and I should start the journey in a uniform manner and we wore our beloved Elmo t-shirts for the day.

2. Bonding is helped via a common values. Identifying together in an organisation via personal and corporate branding can go a long way in helping an organisation get its identity.

The night before I had to complete some work for some customers and slept only at 3 am and needed to drive at 6.30 am. Without enough sleep, I am fortunate and blessed to have my wife who drove us to Penang.

3. Multitasking can be done to a certain limit only. I need to leverage on others to ensure that the objectives are met

Off to Penang and we arrived safely with very little jam. It was a visit to the famous Cendol and reuniting with my brother and his kids. It was pure joy to see my kids having fun and playing with their cousins.

In the cendol place, there were two cendol places. One on the right with a long queue and another on the left with a shorter queue. Was the long queue caused by the fact that the one on the right was 10 cents cheaper than the one in the left?

The taste of both are more or less the same however the one on the right had a restaurant where great tasting hawker food was available and owned by the same cendol operator.

4. The more expensive option may not be always be better. Always look at the greater value that is available.

My parents are now in their 70s and spending time with all their grandkids really give them a greater purpose to live and to experience bliss.

5. Parents are a blessing and it a great thing to keep them happy.

Having dropped our parents off, we continued to check into our hotels. The kids were thrilled about checking into the Lexis Suites as the place came with a built in swimming pool They have been talking about the vacation for a few weeks ever since I booked the place.

The next day, our brother's family joined is and we started to visit the local aquarium.

It was a great time for the family to enjoy time together.

After that we went around Balik Pulau and were very happy to have the place flooding with durians as it was durian season. We stopped at an Orchard and enjoyed the local durians fresh from the trees in the orchard itself.

Not everyone in our family enjoys durians so while some of us ate, the others monitored the kids.

6. Everyone has different taste and not every program in organisations will be liked by everyone but it is important to be around to network together.

It was then time for everyone to come back to our hotel room to play in the pool.

An enjoyable seafood dinner nearby followed. Not everyone in our family share the same food preferences but we could all enjoy each others' preferences together.

7. It is great to be united while celebrating our differences

Before we left Penang, we visited my wife's alma mater which was her teacher's training school.

8. It is good to be reminded of our journey and our past.

We ended the trip back to Rawang with a trip to Taiping. My parents have not been there for before.

9. Malaysia is full of beautiful places and I am glad to be travelling again.

Overall all of us are mentors in our own journey of life. I am glad that although it was a very tiring trip, I could still find time to work a little while allocating most of the time to treasure our greatest treasure, the gift of family.