slosh down the pepper!

ROCKET SCIENCE

“Social events will not only be fun but will lead to beneficial introductions. Someone will say something that will influence and alter your life. Keep an open mind – changes will lead to greater enthusiasm.” – TODAY, “Your Horoscope Today”, 16^th June 2006

I hardly flipped the papers nowadays. My boss, who’s sitting next to me, asked one fine day: “Do you know of this blah blah blah fund MAS approved?” She continued to elaborate on the opportunities this fund presented since our company was the first to foresee such an outcome and went on to highlight how my colleague was complimented for assisting the internal business division in gaining a signoff from our top management to launch the product once MAS announced its approval. This means to say, our company could very well be the first in the market to sell it!

Then the following day, she said again: “You heard of the rate hikes?” “Ah?” I was a little stunned. “Oh, you don’t read the papers ...” She acknowledged my deficiency in that area as she continued to explain to me about the recent prediction of interest rate hikes. And today! She issued all of us our new Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) during our monthly section meeting. Yar, the new KPI is more definitive then the previous one but it sure makes a useless kid out of me in the entire team. I seemed to be the most redundant name on the payroll – little projects, always with a mentor in the back scene despite 6 months into the role, ignorant of the systems blah blah blah… Looks like my upcoming performance appraisal in Oct is going to suffer a big hit.

ANYWAY, since I was home by 11.45pm on a Friday night, I decided to do the stuffs I missed doing for a long time, that is, to sit down and watch a TV program without any distraction & to read the papers. And I really did! I watched Beautiful Boxer on Channel U – no internet, no snacks, no msn, only the occasional conversations with my parents – and ran through TODAY while performing ‘release management’ in the bathroom.

It was then I came across the above ‘citations’. Whoa! I was a little shocked! Very true. I just conducted a little meeting over dinner with our newly formed SMRT Challenge Team, comprising of K, A, W and myself. I knew all 3 of them. But K only knew W and myself; W only knew K and myself, and A only knew myself. It turned out better than expected! It was pretty funny seeing K and A misunderstanding each other as they talked about kungfu novels by Jin Yong. Definitely very interesting to see 2 experts in Chinese conversing to 2 idiots in the same language. Of course, needless to say, I belonged to the former category. I also uncovered a lot of myths regarding myself. I realised I was playing netball and basketball in secondary school, didn't wear socks, had an equal number of guy friends versus girl friends... and I guess my prior wonders about myself being non-sportive , sock-liking , had more girl friends had a conclusion that evening.

A little sidetrack, I was early for my appointment since I decided not to go back to Chai Chee Office after my course in Shenton. So I went on a little way around Bugis Junction while waiting for the others to turn up at the MRT station control by 7.15pm. Saw Giordano. Great! They have the comfy khaki pants that I liked and I went in for a fitting. 15% off for people who purchased items on their birthday! Immediately, I bought two. Then half an hour later, I discovered A gave me a Giordano black polo tee! Haha. A tad size too small though. And I got a free 'Firehouse' at Swensens too! The best part was the staff didn't even bother to verify my birth date! Wahaha.

I wonder how much was K irritated by us as we continued in a nonchalant fashion to engage in jokes she couldn’t catch, but I was sure angry over someone trying to stuff the extra copy of application form into my already bursting haversack! Yes, it IS genuine anger. Don’t blame me, I did forewarn that person, but the latter simply refused to believe it.

Maybe I am getting more and more temperamental. I am already amazed that I should get worked up over such a small event which was probably done out of fun. The power of a big group; the conceding of the un-armored self; the grousing of the defeated party.

Yes. This is a very long entry. Incoherently written too. But so what? Don’t make your problem into my problem even though I make mine into yours!

posted by slingwoof @ 6/17/2006 03:45:00 AM