Value Management Workshop

On the third day of CNY, I received an SMS from a colleague informing me that I was required to attend a workshop today. And it wasn't until this morning that I found out the workshop was about "Value Management."

But what do I know about "value management"? 

Were they going to teach us how to shop with the tax payers' money? I asked another colleague. Turned out, I was partially right. But that's not the highlight.

The highlight, for me, was how well-fed we -- the participants -- were during the entire workshop. 

Immediately after the "Introduction to Value Management" was a tea-break. There was the almost endless free-flow of beverages -- coffee and tea with kuih bakar and little fried spring rolls sprinkled generously with sesame. Then after a couple of hours of justifying what we should or should not buy, lunch was served. 

There were curry chicken, spiced fried potato, Kong-Poh squid, and stir-fried mixed vegetables. For dessert, the caterer had prepared for us oranges, watermelons, honey dews and two aluminium tanks of water and iced orange juice. 

If you had attended any regional conferences in Japan, you would realize that this workshop was a feast! From experience, it was very rare for the organizers to provide even the lightest meal to its participants for regional conferences or workshops there. You'd be lucky if there was a little glass-doored chiller stacked with tiny cans of beverages at any events. Most of the time, the participants were left foraging for food during lunch break. Or any breaks for that matter.

And once I was lucky. A drug company decided to give away elegantly packed lunch boxes in exchange for our undivided attention to listen to the finding in their latest medications. 

By late afternoon, just in time to rouse me from my sleepiness, the caterer came in with fried prawn cakes (a personal favourite of mine and I had two servings no less) and a modified version of kuih seri muka with, again, the drink-all-you-might coffee and tea.

I might not have appreciated the principle of value management today but the presence of food and drink during the workshop, or any conferences that I'll attending from now on, will be something that I value very much.