How far can i push myself? How much more can I take?

I don’t know.

LIGHTS GLAMOUR ACTION!

I went for the interview.
I like the work environment.
I like the boss.
No, scratch that … I REALLY like the boss.
She’s dynamic, funny, twentyish and we get along. That’s important.
More importantly, there’s the Team, the Customer and the Excellent Standard.

I’ve never had an interviewer ask me for a non-scripted answer.
In the end, we talked like friends.

I didn’t want to hope too much, but I can’t help but hope.
The suspense is not killing me yet, but I am already thinking of answers…
For another kind of interview.

Preparing, steeling, I am not thinking of how I can impress a potential hirer.
Rather I wonder how I will tell someone that I no longer think she can provide for me
How will I tell her, the one who groomed me and gave me a chance in the corporate world?
The one who taught me the value of explaining why?

That is why, no matter how I hope for the Lights Glamour and Action
It is tinged with sadness, guilt, frustration
The fact that I will have to turn my back on someone I have learnt to love and respect.

How will I do it? I do not know.
I can only pray that this opportunity comes because I am to take it and that with respect and love I will tread delicately on relationships, and on expectations.

So help me God.

A young woman went to her mother and told her about her life and how things were so hard for her. She did not know how she was going to make it and wanted to give up. She was tired of fighting and struggling. It seemed as one problem was solved a new one arose.

Her mother took her to the kitchen. She filled three pots with water. In the first, she placed carrots, in the second she placed eggs and the last she placed ground coffee beans. She let them sit and boil without saying a word.

In about twenty minutes she turned off the burners. She fished the carrots out and placed them in a bowl. She pulled the eggs out and placed them in a bowl. Then she ladled the coffee out and placed it in a bowl.

Turning to her daughter, she asked, “Tell me what do you see?”

“Carrots, eggs, and coffee,” she replied.

She brought her closer and asked her to feel the carrots. She did and noted that they were soft. She then asked her to take an egg and break it. After pulling off the shell, she observed the hard-boiled egg. Finally, she asked her to sip the coffee. The daughter smiled, as she tasted its rich aroma.

The daughter then asked. “What does it mean, mother?”

Her mother explained that each of these objects had faced the same adversity—boiling water—but each reacted differently.

The carrot went in strong, hard and unrelenting. However after being subjected to the boiling water, it softened and became weak.

The egg had been fragile. Its thin outer shell had protected its liquid interior. But, after sitting through the boiling water, its inside became hardened.

The ground coffee beans were unique, however. After they were in the boiling water they had changed the water.

“Which are you?” she asked her daughter. “When adversity knocks on your door, how do you respond? Are you a carrot, an egg, or a coffee bean?”

Think of this: Which am I? Am I the carrot that seems strong, but with pain and adversity, do I wilt and become soft and lose my strength?

Am I the egg that starts with a malleable heart, but changes with the heat? Did I have a fluid spirit, but after death, a breakup, a financial hardship or some other trial, have I become hardened and stiff? Does my shell look the same, but on the inside am I bitter and tough with a stiff spirit and a hardened heart?

Or am I like the coffee bean? The bean actually changes the hot water, the very circumstance that brings the pain. When the water gets hot, it releases the fragrance and flavor.

If you are like the bean, when things are at their worst, you get better and change the situation around you. When the hours is the darkest and trials are their greatest do you elevate to another lever?

How do you handle Adversity? Are you a Carrot, an egg, or a coffee bean?

I took one more photo, checked it with the corresponding image on the computer screen with a slight sigh. I ran my finger down the list of names with the image number scrawled next to them. With my squeaky pencil, I wearily scribbled the person’s name and department at the back of the certificate, turned it over and stuck the photo on, careful I didn’t get any glue on it.

This wasn’t my Job. But it comes with the Job. Having to clean up after everyone else, having to do all the tasks everybody else doesn’t want to do. Ordinarily, I would have done it willingly had This Other Person shown some little bit of sympathy that I had taken over this unnaturally mindless task. Doesn’t quite help I wasn’t getting the extra percentage of bonus that This Other Person was getting. I like This Other Person – just that when dreams die, disillusion takes over and money is king.

After finishing the third batch of photos, I neatly laid them out in piles on the bench. I straightened the stack of untouched certificates; TheBoss would come into work tomorrow and the last thing I wanted was for her to leave me a “lovenote” to read on Monday: Keep the office tidy.

I tidied up my workspace and switched off my chattering companion – the humming radio. And washed my cup with its undrunken contents.

Casting one last glance at the darkend office, I closed the sliding doors behind me and stepped out of the office and headed down the endless corridor.

It’s the type of corridor you see in movies. Just one long white corridor with nondescript wooden doors. Same old, same old. We rarely saw anyone or heard anyone. Everyone safe behind those nondescript wooden doors.

I walked slowly down the nondescript corridor.

The evening sun warmed away the remants of the freezing office. I finally saw people. Office people all hurrying home with that same expression of passive frustration on their faces. I believe I must have looked the same.

The BFF g-talked me earlier in the day. About my unsettledness.

I currently work in a perfect job. Cushy, comfy and I end on time (I try). TheBoss’s portfolio was passed, “excellent work” said one reviewer and promptly crowned her TheWorldMasterAwardInMakingOtherPeoplePrettyStylish and this was all thanks to TheOneWhoBustedHerAssTryingToFinishIt (me). Pay raises are sporadic, but when they do come, they can jump more than 30%. Bonuses are fat, so fat you could use the money to buy a cow with. The Boss’ MiniMe-s are paid ridiculously and obscenely for doing EIGHT days of work. EIGHT DAYS. I come to work 10 hours a day, every workday rain or shine, and I don’t get when they get for a day’s work. I’m jealous, but I’m also wondering if this could be me – if I stay long enough.

There’s much to live for in this place. and much to be dead about.

I’m growing increasingly itchy for adventure. *I want Lights! Glamour! Action! I want to see the world before I die!

But The BFF had to echo the well-worn spiel that goes on every time I entertain thoughts of taking off from My Cushy Job

Responsibilities, Tradition, the ScaryUncertainFuture.

I am getting married next year after all. My family’s in future debt. I need the money. I don’t to introduce change in my already very changing life.

I look at the girl smack up against me. She’s got that look on her face. A look which saps the living energy out of me. I see The Office Building zip past the window, it takes me 20 minutes to commute home. I see the scores of people on the train who are probably barely any older than me and looking like they’ve nothing to live for.

I need to live, surrounded by the stench of other people’s dead dreams, I am horrified that though my flesh lives, my spirit dies a little everyday until one day I wake up and I don’t care any more.

I need to want to do something. I need to love waking up in the morning and going: I am going somewhere and I’m doing something.

VaVa met me last night. She’s the one who’s right now holding my key to the door out of Enternal Administrative Doom.

I’ve spoken about this to a few people and I have had mixed reviews – but I just want to try. If I eventually find out I made the wrong choice, I live with it, as I always have.

I just don’t want find myself dying, sticking photos of strangers on empty certificates and being paranoid that I’m getting glue stains on them.

I can feel my heart beating faster already.

I didn’t.

When the light stopped blinking and the lights turned green, I saw the horde of cars coming up right behind me and I knew – THAT’S IT.

The nice grandfatherly tester seemed unfazed but once he kept his clipboard, I knew … I knew … Good bye first time license ….

So true enough. I didn’t pass. Wasn’t expecting to anyway. Hit too many kerbs in the circuit, nearly mounted a kerb, was supposed to turn right but didn’t foresee another car parking and there I was, for a good 2 minutes, stuck in the middle of a junction. No one from the opposite lane could proceed and I couldn’t reverse.

The whole driving test was about 20+ minutes but it was the most harrowing thing to do in my life. I’ve already signed up for the next round … in 6 weeks time. Any tips anyone?

So many things have happened over the past month or so but let me just do a quick sum-up while I wait for my hair to dry and have to go to bed.

1. I had a seriously bad bout of flu which deteriorated into tonsilitis the week my Perth trip

2. I nearly faint after taking an antibiotic jab to get well

3. 2 days after I’m well enough and I’ve been to Perth for Amanda’s wedding, being her bridesmaid and now I’m back!

4. Aquina Patina is coming together. The postman came knocking at 930pm! I didn’t know VPost operated till so late. I thought I lost some purchases, but they’re all coming. I can set up shop soon!

5. With the setting up of Aquina Patina, I have to be more organized in my personal life, work and the shop. Organization is very tedious but will be immensely useful in the long run. The first thing I have to do? Answer all emails and SMSes within 24 hours – just like any good service person.

There’s more to this sketchy little blog post, especially about the wedding, but I have to go sleep now. I hear my dad outside my door grumbling that I’m still awake.

I plan to blog more often. I always say that, but let’s see how I can keep this up. Part of my organizational plan!

I guess I stopped writing for a while to get my life back on track after the dengue scare and having to catch up with 2 weeks’ worth of work. February passed by rather quickly didn’t it? Before you know it, July will be here already! I’m looking forward to many highlights over the next few months, so time will pass even faster. There’s my Perth trip for Amanda’s wedding in April, my sister returning home in May, my driving test in June (which I want to pass on the first attempt!!) and my first year on the job in July. I love it; they give everyday a little something to look forward to.

Well, before I get started on my work, I actually dropped by to share something that caught me unawares this morning. When I realized how much it affected me, it was a huge reality check.

I just found out that a close friend I hadn’t spoken much to in the last 2-3 months had gotten a job in the industry and company that I’ve been secretly wishing to get into. My first thought was, “Dang! I wish I was the one who got the job in XX Company. Man, I’m so jealous!” And the more I thought about it, the more resentful I got. The more resentful I got, the more disgusting I felt.

Can you believe it? Today started as a beautifully cool morning, I was feeling rested and I unplugged my earphones so that I could focus on God more. So while I was feeling all holy and near God, an email comes and BAM! Just an innocent one liner, and I’m feeling like such a loser.

I quickly took myself outside of the impending self-pitying funk. From previous experience, if I let my thoughts spiral out of control, I’d probably have a stinking bad day and a horrible self-esteem to boot. To be honest, there’s really no point regretting that I didn’t score with XX Company, I didn’t even try hard enough to apply for a job there! But I know the power of envy is ever present and real.

On that note, I’m still with my present job but mindsets have changed and I will stay as long as God keeps me here. When it’s time to go, I will know it.

If most of us are ashamed of shabby clothes and shoddy furniture, let us be more ashamed of shabby ideas and shoddy philosophies…. It would be a sad situation if the wrapper were better than the meat wrapped inside it.  ~Albert Einstein (What an absolutely brilliant quote!)

Yes, that’s me … many many years ago… like 5 years ago? I say many because I definitely look like I belonged to another era. Hehe! This picture was taken in 2003 at West Coast Park (I think?) It was the third year graduation outing and for some reason all the boys in our batch weren’t there! Ahh… the memories of yesteryear. I remember that I was so involved in Campus Crusade that I’d always go to the CCC room after class, above Canteen One, on the third level, in Ngee Ann Poly, to find someone to talk to, or just chill.

I’ve just had dinner with some of those people in the picture. There was Eileen on the far left, Lijing (second from left) who joined us at the last minute, Calyn (next to me) and Cheryl who didn’t come. Likai, my ex Campus Director and Sharon my senior also joined us.

Felt really nice to catch up with people I hadn’t seen in ages. I miss being able to talk about our ministries, and share the hard parts as well as the rewards. It really made today, a day that began rather badly, end off well.

I’m now enjoying the last bits of my sudden 2-week hiatus from work and I’m very reluctant to go back on Monday.

I keep reminding myself that work is not all about my personal satisfaction, there are a lot of factors that make up job satisfaction.  I remember being asked the same question at the Mass Comm interview and  I said, “Nothing can be totally fun and glam, there’ll be the boring bits and  you have to take them both. I’m sure I can learn something in the boring lessons to help enhance my total Mass Comm experience.”

That may have sounded rather glib, but I kid you not, I really believe it. I honestly don’t mind the boring mundane bits when I’m doing anything  because there will be the bits where it makes it fun and worth my while. Just as long as the boring mundane bits don’t become more than the fun worthwhile bits. Or the depressing disillusioned bits are tougher to bear than the emotionally satisfying bits.

I’ve held off  talking about it publicly but I think I trust my blog readers to empathise and sympathise than to question my choices. I’m glad there are just the few of you who know this blog and know the position I’m in. I’ve chosen to talk about it here and now because the “older people” I’ve chosen to talk to have made it more stressful than helped elevate my anxieties. I’ve prayed about it, cried about it – I’m tired of feeling like an emotional wreck for the last couple of months and I want to do something about it.

I like to think of myself as an optimist, someone  who goes at something with gung and ho and regrets nothing. I still don’t regret what I’ve chosen to do, but I am quite surprised that only 7 months on, I’m feeling like it’s time for a job switch.

If there’s one more thing I believe, it’s that anything can be too good to be true. My dream career that literally dropped onto my lap is becoming more of a chore and a burden to me than something I really want to do for the rest of my life. On top of that, there are the depressing, disillusioning bits that are harder for me to bear.

I am not suffering excessively at work, the Em isn’t maliciously evil or anything, my colleagues are sweet and all, but my gut tells me that this just isn’t right for me. It’s the same fear that I felt just a month before I came home from Melbourne and I was standing at the crossroads between this and another job I applied for because I knew I’d love it. The only problem? I worked for an NPO before and this was another NPO.  In terms of career advancement, I wasn’t about to go anywhere.

This, on the other hand, would give me a leg up. Never mind that it was just a tiny company, even tinier than my old company, but I would be exposed to the real corporate life, I would have the opportunity to know and rub shoulders with real corporate people.

However, 7 months on, I feel like a caged bird. I have never known to sit still in one place for 8 hours on end and just type away at my computer. I’m infamously bad at administration and yet I’m assuming a job scope that is all just about administration. I am supposed to develop programs, but I pretty much do everything else from data entry to IT support. I have no contact with the outside world, apparently phone contact is supposed to suffice, but who yer kiddin’?

More so, what hurts me most is when I know nothing I do ever pleases the boss (the perfectionist) or me (the bigger perfectionist). I cried in front of the boss during my performance appraisal because I believed I didn’t contribute as much as my boss said I did.

Sigh … it’s not a pretty picture. With so much complaints, it should be easy to go isn’t it?  But I’m finding it so hard to scrape up enough courage to do anything!

She’s invested a lot of her time in grooming me, training, explaining to me why things work the way they do. She’s given me a lot of say in what goes and what doesn’t and criticizes me constructively for what I do wrong.

She’s not evil like I said … but she’s not everything I hyped her out to be.

I’m very tired about the whole thing. Very very tired about thinking so much about it. But this is my first biggest challenge in my work history … I wonder how it’ll pan out? Can I last till July when I have fulfilled my verbal commitment of staying for 1 year? Shall I just submit my letter in May and give her the required two months notice without any prior negotiation for anything else? Or shall I speak to her about a career development and salary review even before the review comes in July?

Should I find a job now and submit my letter as soon as possible, disregarding the fact that I’d promised her I’d work a year?

URGHHHHHH