Competition and Being a Winner

My third born, Wan Mohamed Faiz, is a service adviser (SA) for Kajang MTR Toyota.  A job he cherish and a real 8 - 5 job.  After 5 he is as good as unemployed, no take home job and nothing to disturb him in the night except for occasional enquiries from clients that can't wait for tomorrow.  This particular Toyota service centre is among the few that you can just walk in without prior reservation.  They will handle those with reservations for sure and walk-ins are accommodated equally well.  So Saturday is always a busy day servicing over 80 cars at times.  Regulars are mostly from Kajang, Seremban and even KL.  Being the only Toyota service centre for Kajang, most Kajang Toyota owners know him.  The best part is that his former school is a stone's throw from the centre.  Words soon spread among the teachers 'as having one of their boys' as the SA at the centre and his Cikgus flock to him.  Payback time, I guess.

The family owns a Toyota Unser which has been serving us good since 2002 (gosh, it's already 9 years old!).  Come service time, Faiz will just drive the Unser to his office and have it attended to but not without prior referral to the father of what needs doing.  The go ahead will only come after much question time and cost recalculations.  Faiz is not a man of many words but we like this comment most, "Abah, the whole of Kajang listens to my advice and approves of my recommendation of what needs doing to their car without much question.  You are the only one that don't really believe in what I am capable of!".  Food for thought for the father, but things haven't change much though.  A son is still a son to a father.

For a person barely 4 years with the company Faiz is doing good.  Using the point system he was rewarded with a company sponsored trip to Sydney after his first year of service and a Shanghai trip for the second.  Getting to see the world has been an eye opener for him and he now begin to appreciate better what we have in the country!

Recently Toyota held The Skill Contest 2011 enticing participants with a Tokyo trip.  In spite of the concern for the Japan tsunami aftermath, Faiz went in for the SA preliminary, semi final and finals.  He surprises even himself with a perfect 100% score for the preliminary.  The fire is ignited and he moved on to the finals held on 15 - 16 July with eight SAs vieing for the title.  He got the third placement but was credited as the overall champion.  The Tokyo trip reward was, however, awarded to the first placement finalist.  For his tenacity, Faiz is RM500 richer.  He was home all smiles but couldn't hide the frustration of the near miss.  To add salt to the frustration, the reward goes to a lady SA.  A win could have been perfect as his 27 year birthday gift celebrated today (18 July).  With this experience, you can always give yourself another try come another competition.

Our youngest, Wan Nur Aiman (she's a girl), is not to be out done.  She had been pestering the father to send her for bowling most Saturdays.  Without her knowing, the cumulative scores were registered and last Saturday (16 July), prizes were given out.  She came in second and walked away with a trophy and a big hamper and of course a big smile too when we came to fetch her home.  Should have taken a shot of the hamper but it was dismantled before the idea of taking its picture came to mind.

The competitive spirit must be in the air this month.  Must be the pre-Ramadhan thing where all physical activities will be frozen during the month.  Incidentally, Shaaban takes the whole of July.  The office is also having the Bi-annual Sporting event (15 - 18 July).  Four teams are competing, representing the Head Office, East, North and South teams.  The event is held a KUIM, Nilai; UNITEN, Serdang; MINES, Sri Kembangan and Seremban.  The opening was officiated by the Board Chairman.  The competitive spirit is fascinating and it's great to see people pitching out to make the whole event a full success.  I salute them all.  I was there at the opening and was the guest of honour to be giving away the medals for the congkak winners.  I didn't see any trophy though.  My reluctance to cough up the RM500 for it could be the reason.  Not a stingy person by nature, but I am a firm believer that the sum could be for a better cause.  The club organising the event will have to make do without my contribution.

The four teams in the meet

The Head Office Contingent in dark blue led by Hj. Ghazali

Ballons released to mark the official opening of the Bi-Annual Games

The marathon runners moving out of the stadium

Datin letting off the VIPs

The victory lap for the Ladies 5 km Mini-marathon winner