The Initiation

So today, I joined in the morning madness to get to work. Hurry hurry hurry was the theme of the morning. It felt like my initiation to the working world. This is the real thing.

See, previously, I never had to rush with the morning crowd because I live so freaking near to my old office. In a way, it didn’t even feel like I was going to work because of the nearness and because of the location of my old office. My old office was in a landed property, so it felt like I was going to someone’s house, albeit to do work.

For the uninitiated, my company has moved, to a proper office, no less. I’m still in the East, but in a rather inconvenient part. I spent 35 minutes of my lunch hour walking around in search of food. I still didn’t find any. But apparently, there are small coffeeshops and hawker centres about a 5-10 minute walk away. All I saw in my 35 minute walk was factories producing food, but not actually selling them.

Have I ever mentioned I hate taking the MRT to work? I hate the rushing, pushing and shoving. On normal days, I don’t even like taking the MRT much. I checked Streetdirectory on how to get to my office, and apparently it’s a must to take the MRT. So, imagine my surprise when I reached my office and saw bus 28 zooming by — bus 28 which passes by the bus-stop right IN FRONT of my house everyday. Stupidity aside, I’m so glad I found an alternate and better way to get to this place.

Wish me better luck on finding food tomorrow or I may be forced to go on an involuntary diet.

Home Alone at Work

The Dick, also known as the Absolute-Pain-In-The-Ass is on leave. Ahhh… Blessed peace.

Kowloon, Kowloon Hong Kong, We Like Hong Kong…

It may have something to do with the daily late-night dose of rented Hong Kong drama serials. Or with my need to do something crazy-different, just to break the monotony. Whatever the case may be, recently, I have been fantasising quite constantly about living and working in Hong Kong.   

WTF?!

I am not sorry for the vulgarity. It is the only possible response that I can have to something this ridiculous. My idiotic colleague, the one I thought was nice? He has gotten me into trouble umpteen times, pushed loads of work on me, manipulated me to request for things from my boss, and now he dares to make this ridiculous suggestion to me.

Idiotic colleague: Tina, do you have things to do?

Me (all suspicious): Err… Yes, why?

Idiotic colleague: Because I’m going to stay quite late tonight … *mumbles* I thought you can stay and accompany me.

Me (can’t believe what I just heard): Huh? What did you say?

Idiotic colleague: I’m going to stay till quite late tonight. I thought if you have things to do, maybe you can stay and accompany me.

Me: Err… I don’t think so. I’m having dinner with my friend.

Idiotic colleague: Wah lau. Want to die, die together la!

Me: Huh? I already finished all my articles. The only thing I can do now is to wait for the Editor to edit it and send it to you.

I was thinking to myself, “Sorry, I don’t want to die. You want to die, you go and die by yourself lah.”

Idiotic colleague: It’s not my fault that the articles are not sent back. Not very fair to me also (he’s referring to the big scolding he got from my boss yesterday because he’s so behind in his work.)

WTF right?! Why on earth should I stay and accompany him when I have already finished all my work?! And yes, it’s not completely his fault that he has so much work left undone, but it’s not my fault either, so why should I have to die together with him?!?!

True, the articles are delayed partly because I was slow in producing them, and because of technical issues, my editor did not receive some of the articles and thus the whole process was delayed. But I gave him the details of some ads earlier on. He has not done up the ads till now. Also, some articles were returned early in the month which I also passed to him. Guess what? Still not done. So who should be blamed ultimately?

No way will I be so stupid as to accompany him. The previous editor actually napped in the office and waited for him to finish his work. Is that stupid or what?! I’ve finished my work. You didn’t finish yours. No reason for me to stay behind.

And what’s worse is this idiotic colleague always tries to manipulate people to help him, but when the time comes when you need help, he’s absolutely unwilling to help. He’ll say things like “dunno, check with the boss …” How helpful. So, I also don’t feel compelled or even guilty for not helping him. He can die if he wants, for all I care.

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Warning… Lots of Whining Ahead

My boss either thinks I’m very capable or she hasn’t noticed I only have a pair of hands, one brain and one body. She wants me to do three interviews, on top of writing the majority of the articles for our two magazines to be published this month, coordinating with the advertisers and freelance writers, and dealing with all the administrative stuff — all within two weeks, because that is when we will have to send the magazines for colour-proofing.

It is no problem for me to write all the articles. It is no problem for me to do three interviews, but my problem is the coordinating part. Arranging interviews with groups of people is tricky, more so if they are kids who come from different schools and whose parents have different schedules. Oh yes, did I mention that one of the interviews involves eight kids? And chasing all the advertisers for the images and text they want to put into their ads? No walk in the park. Oh. I just can’t wait for the touching-up part. The back-and-forth with all the advertisers. How fun.

Maybe if she gave me a timeline of one month, it would be reasonable for her to expect me to be able to finish all the work, but two weeks? Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised because I am dealing with a person who apparently has no brains here.

She is on a bid to liven the magazines up. Not that this is wrong, in fact it is normal and the goal of every magazine, although why she didn’t try to liven things up before I came but insists on torturing me with it, I don’t know. She keeps telling me that I have to come up with more CREATIVE topics and more CREATIVE titles and write more — you guessed it — CREATIVELY. Yes, I admit I am lacking in the creativity department, but some of it is because I don’t know what her definition of “CREATIVE” is. 

Case in point: I just finished an article on herbal cures for stress and sent it to her this morning. She called me into her office and said, surprise surprise, “Tina, you have to write more creatively.” To which I must have given a puzzled look, because she continued, “I give you an example. For example, you write about herbal cures for stress, you can give more interesting titles like, ‘Are you feeling stressed? Try our … …’” Firstly, tell me what about this sentence or title is remotely creative? I must have misunderstood the meaning of “creative”, because her supposed “creative title” is what I define as infinitely boring and completely common. Secondly, that is not really a title. And thirdly, hellooo woman, you are not writing ad copy.

I’d be the first to admit I have lousy boring ideas for topics, but I honestly don’t know what her idea of creative is, and that makes it harder for me to produce ideas or work that will fit her definition. She finds my graphic designer very creative, but I find him lame. So I suppose lame is what she wants?  

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (No spoilers. Only what I think)

I finished reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows on the second day I got the book. No I’m not going to say anything much about it. Suffice to say, it was a disappointing ending for me. It was like some badly written “everybody lives happily-ever-after” Hongkong serial. In one word? Typical.  

Harry Potter Was…

I watched Harry Potter: The Order of the Phoenix yesterday. It was definitely not as exciting as the book, and they changed certain parts, but oh well, can’t expect the movie to be as good as the book. I loved the graphics and everything though.

Next up, I’m going to catch Transformers. Can’t stand all the raving people are doing about the show anymore! I mean I wanted to watch it at first, but sort of gave up the idea already, NOW, it feels like I’m missing out. So, yes, I will watch it.

On a random note, I have to change my habit of typing two spaces after the end of a sentence. It’s given my graphic designer some headaches. I started the double space after the end of a sentence thing because my mother told me it was the proper way to type! Hrmp. It’s not easy to change, but so far, for this post, I think I managed to stick to all single spacing.

Temptation Succeeded

I just sent in my resume for the journalist position.  A couple of push-factors led to that.

1.  No harm trying syndrome.

2.  The draw of news reporting.

3.  The boss came out of her “office” to discuss with us the future of the magazine.  Let’s just say, she’s not a focused person, and in my very humble opinion, she’s taking us down a long long long winding path with many dead-ends. 

4.  My colleague is full of bull-shit.  He just spouted a lot of bull-shit during the “meeting”.  And the fact that my boss swallowed everything, hook, line, sinker, fisherman and boots is testament to her lack of focus.  Oh, she also agreed with everything I said, which was directly opposite of my colleague.  See, no focus.

5.  The detriments of writing for a kids magazine.  See, I keep making lists.  This is like the third post with a list.  Because when writing for kids, things have to usually be in point-form. 

Tempting

I should not have been checking my personal e-mail account during work.  No, I didn’t get caught, but I looked through the job ads for fun (read:  I was bored), and there’s one that caught my eye. 

The position of Journalist for MediaConnect Asia Pte Ltd.  It’s a media company that maintains and protects media standards in Singapore.  The candidate will be in charge of writing features, news, and profiles.  Can you imagine?  No more kiddy writing! 

Truthfully, I am tempted to try.  But the pay is around the same, and it’s in Tanjong Pagar.  Besides, I’ve only been working for a few days in this company!  No no no.  I don’t think I should be so irresponsible.  I usually don’t read the job ads anymore, but I was bored!  See, I shouldn’t have been checking e-mails at work.