Kudos 2007!

It’s time for one of those posts again. The obligatory end-of-year post on the pit-falls and successes of the year ‘almost’ gone-by.

I thank my Daddy God that 2007 was a year of more successes than pit-falls and that most of the pit-falls were eventually turned into successes anyway.

If I had to sum up 2007 in two words, it would be, ‘cared for’. 2007 was a year in which I felt really loved and cared for by my Daddy God. From finding a job, joining a ministry, quitting the ministry, joining a cell group, quitting the cell group, joining another cell group etc. I felt like everything was painstakingly crafted by the One who watches over me. And even when I made mistakes, even when I was going through a tough time, it always felt that He was hovering nearby, ever ready to RUN to my aid. I have no doubt that everything that happened to me this year — all the good stuff and the bad stuff that turned into good stuff — all of it was choreographed by Daddy God. Do I believe in coincidence? No, I absolutely do not believe in coincidence because I know that all my steps are ordered by the Lord and are divine.

Here are the more memorable events that happened in 2007. Snapshots of the year, if you would.

1) The Job Search

The job search literally felt like hell on earth on many occasions. I went through many horrible interviews that led me to question my worth, my communication abilities and even if I was perhaps from outerspace. A few interviewers even made pretty hurtful and belittling remarks. But it was also through this painful process that I learnt a lot in terms of revelations and spiritual lessons. And it was through this that I learnt that all my worth was found in Him and had to be built on Him. I believe this was my training ground.

I started the job search while I was still completing my degree. I met with many closed doors during this time and I kept questioning God why this was happening. I cried to Him on many occasions. He told me that I was to complete my studies and He would give me a job as soon as I graduate. Somehow, I brushed this word aside with my religious thinking: “Of course it’s not God. God would want me to be productive. He wouldn’t want me to JUST STUDY part-time and LAZE AROUND”.

But, as they say, hindsight is always 20/20. Exactly one week after I got the results for my final assignments, I got a job. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that that was God speaking to me. The way in which I got this job is a testimony all by itself, but I shall not record it here. Suffice to say that it is grace and grace alone that I got this job. Lesson learnt here? It’s ok to LAZE AROUND. Haha.

2) Work

Many of you know that I hate my current boss. But, I do love most parts of what I do. And God has shown me His favour time and time again in my working place. From readers writing in spontaneously one month after I joined the company (which has never happened before and which my boss and my colleague were trying to make happen), to grace for the many mistakes I made while working and my ability to cope with my workload, no matter how much was piled on me, I see His grace all over.

3) Family Relationships

This year, relationships with my parents are very much better. And I’m very glad my sister has embraced the message of grace.

4) Joining and Quitting the Ministry

2007 is a year where I really stretched myself and stepped out of my comfort zone. I joined the choir by myself and joined a cell group by myself. It would normally take a lot of courage for me to take this step because I’m quite afraid of new social situations, but this time, I didn’t feel scared at all. Although I later quit the ministry and stopped attending the cell group, I learnt a lot from it. And now I’ve finally found a cell group where I’m quite comfortable with the people in it.

The major thing I learnt from joining the choir and later quitting is that it’s ok to make mistakes. It’s ok to miss God. It’s not a failure, neither is it something to be embarrassed about.

5) Revelations

This is the year where I truly know I’m loved by Daddy God. Truly truly loved. There’s a difference in knowing it in my head and knowing it as I do now. Nothing and no one can convince me otherwise now.

And I am also thankful that the revelation of righteousness by faith keeps getting deeper and more real every year.

Kudos: honour, acclaim

Kudos to You, Jesus. All honour, acclaim and glory to You. Thank You for 2007!

So goodbye, 2007, I had fun, but let 2008 come man!

2008 is gonna be good. Pastor Prince said that it’s the year where the blessings of Deuteronomy 28 will manifest in our lives. And Daddy God told me it’s going to be a year of break-throughs for me. I am excited about 2008! This will also be the year where I will go to Israel with Shih Ling. Amen!

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Never a Dull Moment

Should I be grateful that there is never a dull moment in my job? Well, at least it provides me with fodder for this blog. I’m seriously considering adding a whole category titled: “The Retarded Things My Retarded Boss Does”. Because seriously, she does 100 retarded things in a working day and who has to clear up the mess? Moi, yours truly.

Recent developments include:

1. Screaming at me because the number of flyers delivered from a bigshot Telecom company were apparently wrong. She then proceeded to call the bigshot Telecom company and created a big hooha. She did not OPEN THE PACKAGE UP AND CHECK IT FIRST like normal people would. Turns out? The numbers were correct. Did she apologise to me? NO.

2. Agreeing to distribute 9 500 flyers for above-mentioned bigshot Telecom company to various tuition centres in Singapore (100 per centre), without first obtaining permission from these tuition centres. The 9 500 flyers were delivered. But guess what? The tuition centres were unwilling to let us distribute it in their centres.  

3. She told me she wants our free supplement magazine for Parents, hereby referred to us PW to be sensational. For the previous issue, she wanted it to be educational. Just fucking make up your mind already. I’ve never heard of any magazine whose core objective or direction changes with every issue.

4. She told me to make my articles more lively by conducting interviews. I agree that that’s a good way to spice things up and I would do it if there was time. I told her that and she said it’s not a good reason. She said the previous assistant editor, A, went to interview the Prince and Princess of our magazine and the one before her, L, went to school to do some interviews.

Not that I’m finding excuses, but the previous assistant editors had a lot more time than me. Firstly, for A, PW was only a quarterly issue which was only 28 pages thick. For L, PW didn’t even exist yet. Now, PW is a bi-monthly publication about eight pages thicker. Eight may not seem like a lot, but it’s equivalent to four articles and if she wants every article to be sensational, how am I supposed to find the time?

 She also had the audacity to say that I go home on time almost everyday, hence, I must have time. WTF? Does the contract not state that this is my working hours? It’s not like I’m leaving early. And she’s only paying me fucking $1000 + a month, not $10 000. Why should I work after-hours for her. And legally, I’m entitled to OT pay, but she doesn’t give us any OT pay although it’s a requirement by law. Her stupid attitude also does not make me feel like putting in more work. And I finish all my work before leaving. It’s not like I’m skiving and not doing work during office hours. I totally would be willing to work OT if I don’t work for someone like her. 

And in case you’re wondering why I have time to blog, this is the lull period. The editorial content for the next issue has not been finalised. When it’s the lull period, i’m really quite free, but it’s not like I can do anything since the content has not been approved by retarded boss.

5. She’s going to publish a Teens magazine, creatively named “YES!”. She intends to do it with a total team of exactly two people. One graphic designer and one assistant editor/writer. Exactly what she is doing for the kids magazine now. She pays peanuts, hires only one person for each job and expects quality equivalent to the magazines in the market which probably have teams of more than four working on them. Is she retarded or just optimistic?

Other proof my boss is a retard:

One of the so-called sensational topics she wants to be mentioned in the next issue of PW is “latch-key kids”. Except that when she told me about it, she called it “lock-key kids”. She looked aghast when I gave her a blank look. I honestly thought it was some new trend. Only when she explained what she meant did I realise that she was as usual being a retard and had gotten the term wrong.

I honestly cannot stand working with her anymore. She creates messes and expects others to solve it. She even dares to get angry when the problem is not solved quickly enough when she’s the IDIOT who caused it in the first place. She also has absolutely no standards and ethics. I’m almost embarrassed to put my name on such a UGLY and LOUSY magazine. I’ll even admit my work is lousy because how good can it be when one person is doing multiple jobs?

New developments on the workfront:

Idiotic colleague and I have bonded over our mutual hatred of retarded boss. He’s now my ally. He shall henceforth be referred to as Ally At Work or AAW, unless he starts doing idiotic or asshol-ish things again.

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A Combination of Posts

Why It’s Not a Good Idea to Take a Bus From Noel Building to Singapore Post Centre for Lunch:

1. Because the road there is jammed every. Single. Time.

2. Ditto for the road back.

3. Because you will end up 30 minutes late, making it seem like you’re so daring as to take a 1 1/2 hour lunch break, when in actual fact, you spent 1 hour panicking about your late-ness in the bus, 15 minutes fretting over why the god-damned bus is not here yet, and the remaining 15 minutes wolfing down as much burger as you can stuff into your mouth.

4. Because you WILL have to run on uneven and badly paved roads, with your bag and just-bought magazines flailing wildly.

5. Because when running wildly, you will most likely trip or narrowly avoid twisting your ankle.

6. Because, after all that, when you arrive back at the office, you realise no one is around and no one really cares.

What I Have Learnt from Working

I know most people write such posts probably after one year of working. So what? Maybe I’m a fast learner. Ha ha. Actually you can take what I’m going to write as nonsense.

1. The customer is always right.

2. The boss is also always right.

3. Making the only person ALWAYS in the wrong — Me.

4. When you have NO original idea, just repeat what your colleague said. After which, when your boss makes any good comment, you must nod vigorously, agree whole-heartedly with her and thereby claim all the credit for the idea that WAS NOT YOURS IN THE FIRST PLACE.

5. Never use big staples for only two sheets of paper even though that is the only stapler you have because you will be forced to listen to a monologue from your boss on cutting costs, economies of scale (except that she said it all wrong) and you will be forced to un-staple the thing and re-staple it with the proper-sized staple, thereby wasting more resources.

6. It is not alright for you to do things last-minute, but it’s perfectly alright for your boss to dump a last-minute advertiser on you, 2 days before printing. It’s her prerogative. As a boss, not as a woman.

7. Blogging [insert non-work-related activity] is best during work hours.

8. Although the guilt is one hard feeling to deal with.

9. You can deal with it by promising you’ll work doubly hard, tomorrow.

10. Or, you can think of all the times you had to take shit and crap in your job and feel self-righteous. I. Deserve. This. Break.

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My Colleague is an Idiot and an Asshole

I have been co-existing (yuck) peaceably with my colleague for the past month or so (except for a very minor incident where he subtly insinuated that I was lying and I snapped at him.), but today, I am convinced that he is an IDIOT and an ASSHOLE, with absolutely no notions of gentlemanly behaviour. Ok, since we’re living in the era of equal rights, let’s be fair and not talk about gentlemanly behaviour, but this ASSHOLE has no CONSIDERATION either.

About a week ago, my boss suddenly had a fit of irritation which she felt she must deal with by micro-managing every. single. thing. we. do. including our lunch time. My pig of a colleague likes to have his lunch as early as possible because he will DIE without food for even one minute. So he has his at 12. I generally am not hungry at 12, because it’s only been three hours into the workday, and I like to take my lunch later so I can feel happy that I only have to work four more hours after lunch, instead of five.

To cut a long story short, one day, I left for lunch at about 12:30, actually because my boss called me at 12:15 to do something for her immediately. When I came back from lunch at 1:30, my boss said in a rather nasty tone that both of us should try to have our lunch at the same time, so as to minimise the hours people are unable to contact us in the office — which is a totally STUPID thing for her to say — because if my colleague has his lunch at 12 and I have mine at 1, the office will always be staffed and we will not have to tell anyone not to call during lunch hours. But there was no stopping her crazy, insane need to vent her irritation by micro-managing, so both of us, the colleague and me accomodated her.

My colleague said he HAD to go for lunch at 12. I told my boss I was usually not hungry around that time, to which she sighed loudly. I then back-pedalled (cheap push-over that I am) and said that it would be alright if I went for lunch at 12 also. To which, she back-pedalled (insane person that she is) and said I could have it at 1. So now, our lunch hours are fixed — his at 12, mine at 1.

Except that, he will quite frequently ask me if I want to go for lunch earlier, when it’s inconvenient for him to go at 12 because it’s i.e. raining, or he’s too full because he gobbled down a bak chang 1 hour before lunch or some other inconvenience that his stupid sissy self can come up with.  Firstly, if I want to go for lunch early, I wouldn’t have asked for the 1 pm time-slot. Secondly, if it’s raining, I will get drenched as well. Do I look like I’m waterproof or STUPID? Thirdly, if you ask me to go for an earlier lunch because you have work to do, I will generously agree, but his reasons are all non-work-related, so I don’t see why I’m obliged to agree.

So, my answer to his question almost-every-single-day is, “NO!” To which he will say, “Wah liau“, like I’m being the most unreasonable bitch ever when he’s the one being an ASSHOLE.  Stop. Bugging. Me. Idiotic Asshole.

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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.

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Home Alone at Work

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

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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?  

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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. 

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