Date: 13th February 2007
Name: Mohamad Halim Merican
Job title: Group General Manager, Impiana Hotels, Resorts & Spa Company: Impiana Hotels & Resorts
0600
Thank you GOD for giving me another day, no matter what the day may turn out to be like??!! Kiss the wife, wake the kids – which could be a challenge, get my usual morning hugs from the kids. My son comes first always being the elder. Get ready to leave for work
0700
Have a home-cooked breakfast, normally a sandwich with Kaya from Hai Ping, which is a local coffee shop in Kemaman, Terenganu or else about get my fried beehoon for RM5.00. Breakfast, which is prepared most the times by my wife, is spent with the kids. I ask them whether or not they have completed their homework and tell them whether or notI am coming home for dinner.
0720
Drive to work, which takes about 20 minutes. Listen to the radio (Breakfast show on Mix FM) after switching from the CD to Radio. Kids love to listen to their favourite tunes before starting school. Look at those in the next car and see if there are any interesting people to look at.
0745
Work begins. Connect the laptop and download the emails, check on the performance of the hotels (five to be exact, in the group of Impiana Hotels & Resorts). Chat with the secretary before going through the to-do today list. Run through the meetings list for the next three days to come and see if the necessary documents arein place.
Around 930am, receive call from wife to check that I am ok and wish me a good day at work.
1000
Meetings are normally scheduled to start at this time onwards. Meetings would not exceed one hour and a half.
1300
Back in office and sign documents, cheques, etc…. Look forward to the next
best thing – lunch! Deciding where to go for lunch could be quite a chore and I round up my group FC and senior project manager as the usual lunch suspects! If that fails, lunch alone at my favourite beehoon soup at Wisma Genting …. The chap there usually gives me extras. Over lunch, my colleagues and I share gossips. Talk little about work. Most of the time about the Friday drinks session. Otherwise enjoy the people around the surroundings
1500
Most important meeting in my day’s calendar. All meetings are important, but singled out, then it would be those with chairman.
2030
If all is fair, leave the office. Hard to say what time I could actually leave work. I am never confident that I could actually go until I end up in my car. Before leaving my desk, have my one glass of Dewars 12-year with soda (sometimes the “one for the road” becomes two or three) and thank and bid the doorman “Good evening”. On Fridays, group FC and I would end up at either at Tulips bar at Wisma Cosway for our “unwinding session”, where we have a good, clean male thing. Nothing extraordinary, just unwind.
About 2100
Back at home. Take out my back-pack from the car, remove shoes and wait for my hugs from the kids and wife. Clean up and laze on my sofa before the TV. Dinner and laze again until the TV ends up watching me instead. Most of the time, I would tuck in the kids – mandatory with my daughter. Spoilt.
Between 2400 and 0100 Clean up and have my shower. Set the alarm clock, rotate my pillow and occasionally try to get the wife to come to bed at the sametime…
