It has been

3 months
3 days

Fresh Faces

Seven people just came in. Or maybe it was eight. They're sitting in front of me, but I can't be bothered to count. Who the hell has that kind of time? I was aiming to finish "S" by today but by the looks of it, not happening until tomorrow at least.

So who are the hell are these people? No clue. So far all they're doing is staring into the void that's in front of them. And looking around. And accidentally making eye contact with me when I look around. And then hating themselves. Sounds like a lot of fun.

Heard they're not even employees. Maybe students. Maybe interns. Ah ha! You! Puny intern! You can do the filing work. I'll file my nails. And blog. And try to figure out what the hell I'm doing filing my nails.

You know I have this strong urge to ask the one nearest to me what they are here for, but you know me. I've always been the shy type. I've got half guys half girls, and all of them look decent. Not a single bad looking one. Goes to show how likely it was I got my job through raw wit and charisma rather than looks. And yes, I said seven people. Means three and a half of each gender.

I take that back. I just called someone and forgot immediately why I called her. Clearly, one whole week of experience is not enough. I shall conquer you one day, short term memory loss!

So after sitting here and nothing for a while, someone came in and told them to go for lunch and come back at 1. I don't even need a punchline for this because it's that funny.

The funniest thing just happened to me. I was dozing off right. And somehow my fourth left finger was resting on 'z'. Feel free to guess.

I need coffee man. Someone get me some.

Poster Girl

Has everyone seen this netball tournament poster that's on the walls of the MRT stations? Man I love that girl. I think her name is Lin Qiuyi. I don't even care where she's from or how old she is. For me, that face is to die for. Especially when it has went through Photoshop in the hands of an advertising agency employee.

So to something more serious: the government's new birth and childcare policies. The bonuses are awesome. Maternity and childcare leave, not so much.

I mean, let's take for example: you are a woman just got married and looking for a job to supplement the income of your new family.

You go for an interview for a permanent position, and then in the middle of the interview the interviewer notices your marriage status and asks you, "How many children do you intend to have?" You start thinking to yourself, isn't that a tad too personal a question?

So it might be not so likely as an actual scenario but you get my point right? Finding a permanent job as a woman is going to get incredibly tough from now on. I mean, can you just put yourself in an employer's position, and just think about what it's like paying someone to not be here for about a third of the year?

I don't care if the government would help me with some of it. Even if it's all of it, I'm still effectively throwing money away. Now that my regular is gone, first thing I have to do is to get my HR department to run an advertisement for a temp. And the temp would come in, and even fast learners have to spend about two weeks to sync in and find out what's going on.

Meanwhile I'm paying for both my perm on maternity and that temp. Then when the temp sets in by the end of the whole of the sixteen weeks, I have to get rid of her because my regular's coming back. Then the regular comes back, spends a week catching up for the last four months, and then proceed to taking her infant care leave randomly and give her colleagues massive headaches.

So say she already gave birth before joining. Kid's growing up, need more income. She comes in, she can take child leave and child MC, and I can't do anything about it because it's a couple of days is long but not long enough to warrant temporary replacements.

Tough being a woman man. But hey, anything they can get to be unreasonable bitches.

Path Of Least Resistance

The title has nothing to do whatsoever with this post. It's just something that sounded cool.

Happy Birthday Gabby! If you're reading this, don't you have something else to do that's actually important?

Wipe that smile off your face, Cat. Yeah? You're smiling now. Don't laugh. It'll scare off my other readers.

I'm officially an office boy. I sit here the whole day handling obscene amounts of paper, typing occasionally, answering phonecalls and listening to Class 95. That's how you know. Your life now revolves around Glenn Ong, Flying Dutchman, Vernetta Lopez and Jean Danker. You're either an office boy or an English speaking taxi uncle.

Now back to sorting out the ridiculous amount of companies that start with "Al".

Spectator Sport

So I was on my way home earlier on, and I whipped out my DS for some Tetris. I started playing the normal marathon mode, and then at I think it was Ang Mo Kio or Yio Chu Kang, some girl who boarded that stop was standing in front of me. I was looking down into my handheld, and then from the corner of my eye I saw her looking as well.

And now I'm technically performing. I'm playing, but now I also have a spectator. She would stare at it for a while, cocking her head a couple of times in reaction to some of the things I did and then would look away when she had to move for people getting off and stuff.

I was also listening to music on my handphone at the same time, and around when Motorhead's Ace of Spades came on I started messing up. I missed a couple of blocks, reacted too slowly to new ones. So I was about a third filled when a seat opens up and she sits down.

Buckethead's Jordan started playing and all of a sudden I was clearing house. My screen cleared up by the time I reached Woodlands, but my new fan was already on another channel.

Attention's a hell of a drug.

Posting On The Job

So the gorgeous Lady Luck decided to give me a very light peck on the cheek, I now have work! After three whole months of slacking (among other stuff) I now report to a location every morning once again.

It's a simple admin-esque job at Yellow Pages. It's not bad. Pays decent, looking at the location (it's hardly city area). Which means a short journey time too. If all goes well I'll be here until the end of October, maybe even later.

My first job is sorting out faxes and emails. A lot of the letters have been done, and only about eight or nine left. But those are the big ones. It took me the whole of the first day to sort out letters "K" and "P", and the letter "T" through yesterday and until about an hour ago. Now I'm at "A", and I'm not even finished with the initial letter block sorting yet.

I'm seeing so much paper my eyes are getting paper cuts. I only learned about answering calls and stuff yesterday, so I'm answering calls now. But if you call Yellow Pages you'll never find me. Never. Forget about it. Shoo.

I totally overdressed on the first day. I didn't know, obviously. I was wearing a blue shirt and black pants and shoes I hate walking in. Then I come in and the other two were wearing T-shirts and jeans. So I come in yesterday with the same. Hurray for "Dress Code: None"! As for footwear, anything that doesn't cover the whole of a man's foot is considered inappropriate. Anybody intelligent enough to figure out the chills from an air-con environment wouldn't even consider flip flops.

I was on my way back yesterday when I came across this incredibly cute girl. No, let me finish. She was with a couple of friends a guy and a girl, and then they started talking about how the two girls don't touch the holding poles and bars because how "so many people touched it before". I was about to roll my eyes when the train rocked a little and one of them ended up on the handle (yeah, nobody touches those) and the cute one pinched the pole. With her thumb and index finger. Like picking up a bug. Or saying a very cheesy "Okay".

By the way she talks with a bit of slang. That's all I'm saying, that's all I'm saying.

I should mention how I much I will begin to hate the morning MRT crowd. It's a pain in the arse I tell you. Especially since that stupid Bishan thing. Now everybody squeezes on the train at Bishan, then it's damn near impossible for me to secure a quick exit at Braddell without some heavyduty excuse-meing.

Oh lookie here. An hour and a half before the day's over. I hope it goes really, really quickly.

Starspotting

****

So I watched Jack Neo's latest movie, Money No Enough 2, yesterday evening with eleven other Judokas young and old (making it the largest personal group movie outing I've ever been in), and I'd admit I wasn't prepared for what it brought me.

It was, like most of Jack Neo's movies, filled with inside jokes that can only be shared by Singaporeans, and the performances of the cast were outstanding (despite the lack of proper appreciation by the audience I was with).

What was really special about this movie was when, halfway through the movie, when a CG F1 race was about start, I noticed something very familiar on the big screen. When you see it in the trailer I included above the race has started, so let me just show you the screen shot.



I'm not sure if you'd notice it, depending on who you are, so let's zoom in.



If you're still confused, I'll put it in perspective.



Holy shit it's Voon! How the heck did he get in there?! He even has a girlfriend for fuck's sake.

I have to say that he is the first person I personally know who has made it to the big screen. I am so proud.

Excuse me while I contact him for an autograph.