Met up with MM and SB last Friday. It was not as if we had not met up for a long time (in relative terms, yes, cos they were away for a 1 week plus course, which was in contrast to our meeting with each other every other day..). Here and there, we talked about various stuff, and of cos, there was the argument which left me huffing away (and then huffing back).
The toll of work is getting to me. To be exact, it is the emotion dissonance that got to me. I guess this is the work-hazard of those in the ’service line’.
In my case, I must keep my cool all the time, despite all the ridiculous reasons my recipients gave me for the rules they broke, despite all the sweet talk they gave in order for me to give them the ‘privilege’ to break rules, despite the walking about to search in, search out, supervise… despite all the running around whenever some alarm went off, despite having to keep a special eye to some recipients who could not take care of themselves (Baba: How long has he not eaten? Me: eh… I can only confirm since Thursday… *sweatz.. what if I remembered wrongly??*).
The list goes on and on…

Oh… And did I mention that I touched the most number of holy books (bibles top the list) in the past 2 weeks than in the whole of my life before that? I even once held a bible for the 1 hour I was supervising sick parade. (Me: What the… *flips the bible and fished out a bookmark made from a magazine cut out of a bikini babe* Recipient: Sir, sorry lah… Me: Say sorry to God, not to me…)
Let me see… There’s the Bible and Qur’an, English and Chinese versions. There’s the Tafsir to explain what the Qur’an was saying and there was this word-by-word explanation of the phrases in there. There’s the Good News Bible and the Daily Bread. There are books approved by the Programme Branch and those approved by the religious authorities. Most are text versions and those with pictures must not have the depictions of God or Jesus unless otherwise ‘chopped’. But usually won’t approve cos… I must go ask why.
I am the horror-censor cos I do not allow cleavages and bare thighs. I do allow low cut pictures IF they do not have cleavages. I hate HK magazines cos they are full of cleavages (who and who zao geng and who and who used what to enhance their breasts) and I love Malay magazines cos the female models inside are ALWAYS fully clothed. I will use a marker with a translucent ink, so that my recipients know there was cleavage underneath that ink, but too bad I spoiled their viewing pleasure.
Back to the original topic.
MM and SB were taunting me for sending e-mails to confirm the dinner, and to send e-mail to Mr Teh even though it was confirmed he would not show up. They were saying things like: I was so busy that I barely had the time to sit down and check email, and then you still spam my mailbox…
hmmm… I did defend myself, but they continued with remarks like: You OT 2 hours cos you spend your time sending all these e-mails mah!!
oh… This one I could not really confirm.
Cos you see, I send e-mails in between movements when I had breaks. I used sending emails as a form of breaks, just like during exam periods in the past, I used blogging as a form of break from studying (much to the disgust of most muggers). Some people drink coffee or cook maggi mee during their breaks. I sat in front of the PC to act busy when in actual fact I was checking my mails. 5 minutes later, I would be out of office again.

Actually, I am not them (or anyone else), so I cannot really know what they meant by ‘busy’ and how they managed their time. But my philosophy was simple: No matter how busy or tired I am, I make time and effort to connect with people whom I cared enough to connect with.
The carpe diem theory, or in layman terms, assume that you are going to die the next day theory, applies to every moment of our lives. If I am going to die the following day, being busy right now for the next 10 hours does not mean that my death will be postponed by 10 hours. If I had to finish 10 hours of work before I die, then I make sure that I pace myself so that I can fork out time to make a phone call to those who mattered so that I could still hear their voices before I die.

In all earnestness, I would like to clarify that I work as hard as anyone out there (even if the OT I clocked every time I was on morning shift does not count). My effort to connect is not a symptom of my lack of work, but my reason to take a break from work.
I do not have the luxury of having 2 full days of weekend every week. Even on my off days, there is the possibility that I could be recalled for work for up to 8 hours (Thankfully that possibility has not turned to reality just yet). Being on standby 24/7 actually made me treasure my time out of work even more, and let me feel grateful for all the good friends whom I still am in contact with.
Let’s all be grateful for the things we have.
p/s: I did not walk out of the dinner date cos of the taunts mentioned here, it was something else.
pp/s: That ‘walking out’ was one of the methods taught in anger management.
ppp/s: I would be on a stay-in course for the next 1 week plus (my turn now), so I can only reply sms at night (just like now) and will not appear online on weekdays.
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