Friendly or too friendly?

I have been working for about 1 month plus now in a new company. Gotten friendly with some fellas while a few wankers remained aloof even when I make the effort to be friends. However, last week I was flabbergasted when I checked my company's email inbox. Screaming out from the list was an email addressed to me by a new colleague I had barely spoken 10 words to. Just had a brief exchange of hellos, names and departments with him the week before. We're from different departments and located on different floors. The contents of the email goes like this (with names omitted to protect the innocent) :

This is the same nerdy guy who sheepishly slipped me his personal contact number a few days before or after the email. I don't remember which one now. Yo dude! What do you mean my head looked luminous?! Like I have a halo over it? What the hell is up with the Feng Shui thingy? And what's with the truth? What truth? Obviously I emailed back and demanded for a satisfactory explanation but he just lied saying he had forgotten why he wrote that in the first place. Yea right! Like how you forget to wash your hands for dinner after you've sticked it in your ass all day?

Now don't get me wrong, I have nothing against being friendly. But being weird? That's another ball game altogether now. Get a life!

I'm NOT interested!!!

Don’t you just hate people who are insincere? We all would have been unfortunate enough at one point or another of our lives to have met people like that. These are the long-lost friends who do not invite you for their weddings but call you up for drinks or dinners out of the blue one day because they had just forayed into the insurance or direct-selling business and are out looking for preys.

I have totally zero respect for people like these scumbags of the universe. Not only are these disillusioned fools insincere in wanting to rekindle those freezing, ice-cold, finger-numbing friendships they have with us but they have a face with the thickness unequalled even by the LENGTH of the Great Wall of China. I can smell their insincerities a mile away and it stinks!

Now even though I fully understand that they are also just trying to eke out a living, I’m unlike some nicer folks who will willingly part with their money and time with enough sweet-talking and fake smiles invested by the Agents of Filth. Don’t ever expect me to be all nice to them and get myself yet another insurance or the miracle wok which can help me become a better cook or every Stepford wife’s secret wish of a super cleaning dish washing detergent or anything else from them as a matter of fact.

Last but not least, if I hadn’t bothered with how well you have been living your life for the past century, whatever possessed you to make you think that I will be interested to contribute even an ounce of energy towards making your current career any better? Please don’t give me all that bullshit about how your product is going to help me improve my life either. It would improve automatically if you would just get the hell out of it. Thank you very much.

Top 10 Signs Your Company Sucks

Top 10 signs you should be resigning from your current company:

10) Company only gives you a tight-ass 8 days of annual leave when the nationwide acceptable standard is at 14 days.

9) Official company emails or newsletters might come in Mandarin when the official language is English and the person-in-charge will tell you he’s "too busy" to translate or that his English is not good enough when you point out that there are other poor souls who do not understand Mandarin working in the same company.

8) You have to sit through a whole day training conducted in Mandarin when the facilitator clearly knows that several others in the training also do not comprehend.

7) You have to work every Saturday, not even alternate Saturday, when even government officers only work a 5-days work week now.

6) Manager sends email to call for a department meeting in half an hour’s time when he’s seated barely a few feet away from his staff.

5) Manager does not talk to you or any other of his female staff unless forced to.

4) Manager gives unintelligible answers when his staff asks him questions. Even vendors are dumbfounded by the lack of grammar or perhaps vocal chords.

3) Manager is such a cheapskate bastard that he pretends he’s invisible when it comes to paying time or that his wallet is filled with humongous rocks even when everyone have made it clear that everybody’s going Dutch on the meal.

2) Manager asks you to sign a contract which the management knows nothing about to bind you to the company for a whole year and you get to have your salaries DEDUCTED if you cannot complete a major company project in the time stipulated in the contract AND work LONGER hours EVERY FREAKING DAY except for Sundays (Remember that you already work till 1pm every Saturday).

1) Manager looks vague all the time but is actually a scheming-plotting-lying coward that cowers and pisses in his pants if he so much as having to face off with another more vocally-inclined manager from other departments, even if that manager is a teeny-weeny bit of a girl who’s no more than 4 feet tall.

Dating Life VS Working Life

If you peek close enough, working life actually has many similarities with dating life. Both starts out with you checking out the potentials. Some might make you pitch a tent in your pants while a fraction of others might be less appealing than watching a snail crawl. You go for the kill and if you are lucky, you get a respond. The first interview is very much like your first date. If your date likes you, you then get to have more dates with him or her till you are actually "hired" for the job.

You start both relationships with high hopes and expectations, full of dreams, dressing your best and putting your best foot forward. You get to know the rest in the family as time goes by and over time, you might slack a bit, put on some weight or you might not. Depends how much you like what you have gotten yourself into in the first place or how well the ship you hopped on turned out to be. Breakups and job-hopping goes hand-in-hand and they're so common nowadays.

If you stick around and as the days turn into months and months into years, you'll feel that all your efforts, blood, sweat and tears should be rewarded with something more. You began seeking for increments, bonuses and promotions, much like upgrading your status from boyfriend/girlfriend to fiance/fiancee to husband/wife. A promotion would mean taking more responsibilities and more people under your wings. For married couples, this would mean having babies or even pets if you are so inclined.

It doesn't end here though. As with every relationships, we need to continually improve ourselves to keep our job or we get the boot. So, the next time you are stucked in a dead-end job or depressing relationship but too confused or lame to take remedial actions, try looking at it from a different point of view. If your dirty, lowly-paid, toilet-cleaning, no-future job is your girlfriend, wouldn't you have not hesistated to dump her on the spot or if your abusive, whiny, cheapskate of a boyfriend is your job, wouldn't you have thrown in that resignation letter in his face and spit on him for good measure long ago?

OK, enough profound thoughts in a day for me. I can only go so long without dissing another poor soul. Kidding. You think about this though. Adios!

Bang! Bang! Still Nerdy!

Haven't had the time to blog lately since I just started a new job but last Saturday while wandering around inside the arcade centre of Sunway Pyramid which used to be Sega Universe with my boyfriend as we waited for the movie Batman Begins to start, I saw a guy that was just begging for some space in these pages. Ho ho ho, wish granted boy!

There he was, a nerdy looking Chinese bloke with dark-rimmed spectacles standing right smacked in the centre of the arcade shooting up the undeads. Now what strike me as odd is how he positioned himself while playing the simulation game. He was holding 2 guns, playing both the Player 1 and Player 2 and standing at least a feet away from the gun stand as if expecting the zombies to jump out from the screen and maul him anytime soon.

The next thing he did really made me laughed out loud. He suddenly crossed his hands at the wrist and starts shooting at the screen ala James Bond cum The Matrix. He then uncrosses them and continues shooting and then it happenned again. He tucked one gun under his armpit in rapid fire fashion and kept shooting with the other only to pull out the tucked gun again and shoots only to cross his hands at the wrists again all the while turning his head to the left and checking out some unknown imaginary bystanders.

This crossing-uncrossing-tucking-untucking gun slinging action cycle goes on for a good half an hour in the least and he was gaining a crowd of "fans", most of whom were standing around with bemused grins of their faces. Hard to find a guy who so unabashedly display his complete devotion to a game called The House of the Dead in front of a pool of complete strangers really. Damn entertaining I tell you.

Too bad my camera phone doesn't come with video recording functions.

Complain, If You Wanna Live Longer

Just this year alone, I must have filed at least half a dozen complaints against numerous organizations. I didn't want to but they were just begging for it. How can I refuse?

Case 1:
Went for lunch with my boyfriend at this restaurant and the service was painstakingly slow. It would have been more fun to watch paint dry! Requests went unfulfilled even after several reminders. Sent a complain letter to the owner of the restaurant to voice my dissatisfaction soon after.

Case 2:
Mom bought an air-conditioning unit with a price tag of RM1450 but was charged RM1486 when she paid using credit card. I raised the issues among some friends and majority said that the merchant had a right to do so. I wasn't satisfied as most people simply spew forth bullshit without knowing any better anyway. A call to the local authorities confirmed that charging a customer more than the stipulated price even when they pay using credit cards is an offence. I happily lodge a complaint against them right there and then. The merchant should be hearing from the government boys anyday now.

Case 3:
Stopped by a local branch of Bank Bumiputra Commerce to have my address changed and realized that I forgot to bring my account number along with me. The customer service desk was empty but there was 2 officers sitting nearby. I asked for the forms to fill to change my address and politely requested if one of them could help me check my account number from the customer service's terminal but they told me to take a number and queue up. Fine. After a few minutes of waiting I realized I was running late to get back to the office and walked over to one of the Malay lady officer still sitting there and asked if I can faxed the form over after I had the account number filled in. She had forgetten her own company's fax number it seems so I again politely requested her help in looking for it. Her exact reply was 'Aiyah no need to fax la... you bring over to the office lor...'. What she is really saying is, she's a lazy bitch who's too useless to even just help look for a fax number for a customer. A phone call to the complaint department later soothed my nerves.

Case 4:
My manager had the nerves to tell our Managing Director that 3 of his staff, including me, resigned in the space of less than one year because the project we are working on is a bit too tough to handle. The fuckface was implying that we can't handle our jobs which is a TOTAL LIE! I have since emailed my MD to set the record straight, thank you very much.

Case 5:
Placed a booking for an apartment in February with LBS Bina Group Berhad's sales office's agent and didn't hear from the agent again at all after that. He promised to arrange for the bank loan but he didn't. I had to call and arrange my own loan and by that time I got it done it was already April. The bank agent told me the lawyers would call regarding signing of the S&P documents within a maximum of 3 weeks. 3 weeks passed into May and after a lot of calls to the sales office, developer and lawyers and sifting through the bullshit of the agent, I found out that the agent had done zilch since my booking was placed. A storm brought upon the director of the developer company helped me recover my booking fees and I cancelled the sales with them even when the director cheesily offered a rebate of over RM2000 if I don't cancel the sale. What?!! RM2000 and you think you can buy me over? Yea right! You should go kill yourself for being so cheap! Anyhow, I've lodged a report on them with the local authorities. Go me!!!

Interviewee VS Interviewer

After my graduation I've been to my fair share of interviews. Some good, some bad while some are just downright weird.

Just like the time I spent 2 hours plus of my precious time listening to the director of this particular fucked-up company talk about his passion for flying helicopters. Bugger went on and on about how he doesn't drive when going outstation but instead will just fly here and there in his copter, showing me pictures of his kids, asking me my opinion after showing me brochures of the next helicopter he is planning to buy, etc. Like I'm SO impressed, DUH!

Then there are companies notorious for it's various tests. I've been asked to do tests which lasted 2 hours, programming tests, logic tests, numerical tests, IQ tests and every kinda tests imaginable. I mind that about as much as I mind filling up job application forms. Those are really time-wasters. I really do not see the point of telling you where I was born, you lousy piece of shit.

To be fair, I've met some really cool interviewers too. Some just waived away the need for the application forms and the need to see your certificates. One even bought me dinner while another bought me drinks over the interview process. Not that I am a freeloader, mind you. I didn't threaten to pull a 'bobbitt' job on them if they didn't do so either. Guess some people are simply nicer than others.