Isn’t Hello polite enough? / Save me

This blog post has two stories, since my blogging brain is currently undergoing massive overhaul. Bare with me, please. Thanks.

The second week of work has come and gone like a bat out of hell. Or worse, a Jerry Springer show. On Monday, I came in hoping to do some work. Anything at all. But it was wishful thinking. Again, I was reduced to looking as though I was handling a million clients but in actual fact I was reading a gossip blog. Yes, I have been turned into a slobbering, gossip-crazy nut. As far as gaining information on the company and other whatnots, I literally have to drop eaves just to find out basically anything at all.

A typical work day would have this scenario: I ask the team a question regarding the work I’m supposed to be doing. Their reply, well, since you haven’t gotten all your access IDs to the system, showing it to you right now is akin to showing a baby how to arm wrestle. With a crocodile. A shrug of the shoulders and I’m once again left to my own devices.

This is the first time I feel like a total con. I feel like I’m deceiving my colleagues but I know it isn’t true. But all the same, I feel guilty. Even my boss is nonchalant about my being about as useful as an orange in a ketchup factory. After all, he only joined the company a few weeks earlier than me and he still doesn’t have all the necessary access authorisations.

Everyone tells me the same thing: enjoy your “honeymoon” while you can because once you have work, there’s nothing else but work. You’re going to be cranky. You’re going to be scolded at. Heck, you may get your ear pulled if you keep committing the same mistake over and over again. But I know it’ll be worth it.

I really do.

PS: I got screwed from the big boss in UK all because I said Hello instead of sounding like a smarmy salesman. Where’s the justice?

Save me

The building façade was orange; unlike the customary pristine white you’d normally associate buildings of this nature. The open-air carpark provided scant shade for my untinted 14-year-old car so by the time for us to leave, it would be hot enough to bake a cake. I no shit you.

Hospitals don’t scare me. They intrigue me. Morbid, aren’t I? Let me explain. I have never been one to be afraid of death, because if there’s something more terrible than death, it has to be Indian sweets, which takes the sweet to a whole new level.

A not-so-close relation to the family had fallen ill recently and my family decided to pay the person in question a visit. This being a private hospital in a rather upscale area, the amenities were equally upscale.

When I reached the ward where the ill person was, in another room was a premature baby born only the day before I came. If you look carefully enough, you could make out the baby’s tiny, tiny hand.

I’m not religious, but I said a small prayer to the gods above that they let this child grow up to be a nice person. Or at least a better driver in the next, oh. 20 years from now.

As I left the hospital, I couldn’t help but think of my own mortality. I workout almost other every day and I try as much as possible to avoid eating them “unhealthy” food. The discipline it takes to make me stop eating the vastly improving Malaysian food culture could make Shaolin monks green with envy.

The main point I’m trying to make is this: do I want to be bed-ridden for the rest of my life or do I want to go out before everything starts to fail?

At this point in time, I just want to be healthy and happy. And I think I’m doing a great job of it.

This is Chris, signing off.

PS: You know you’re very old when your 10-year-old cousin says, “Who’s this man?”