Critical Smoking session in session

Today I was struck by the simplicity of a statement made by one of the great minds of the past.

I encountered the readings of French sociologist Jean Baudrillard while studying postmodernism in advertising in the UK, and I have to admit that back then there was so much stuff to read I just kind of skimmed his works. But today an artist I met shared this quote from one of his books, "Simulcra and Simulations".

"We live in a world where there is more and more information, and less and less meaning."

I'm sure if we actually pause to think about this statement, we will start to realise that there is so much information out there these days that we struggle to comprehend all of it. He talks about how information actually starts to devour its own content because of how it is staged. There is so much information fighting for our attention that it loses its inherent meaning.

I went online to read more about his works. Then the irony is, there was so much information out there, I actually stopped reading because I got overwhelmed.

Sorry readers, if you were expecting a long discourse on postmodernism and the state of being, I have to admit I just enjoy messing with your minds. However, as a consolation, I have left you with a good quote you can use to smoke less learned people.

When the bottom line may not always be the most obvious solution.

While reading Channel NewsAsia, I saw this article that was posted on the 23rd of January. link

It was about how Minister in PMO Mrs Lim Hwee Hua suggested that Medisave be used for breast cancer screening. However, while speaking at a breast screening event on Saturday, Health Minister Khaw Boon Wan disagreed with the suggestion.

He said "My general rule of thumb is this - anything less than S$100 - S$20, S$30 - please pay out of your own pocket.

"I think Medisave should be reserved for big bills. So let's don't abuse Medisave. This is not to say I'm against (using) Medisave for screening, because some screenings can be very expensive."

His feedback is from this article here. link

I do understand Mr Khaw's logic. He is afraid that people will abuse the system. However, I personally think it is very unlikely that women will abuse the system in this case because really, how many times would women want to get a mammogram. I don't think it's very comfortable, and like a dental checkup, you don't exactly need it everyday. Plus I think they have better things to do.

However, I'm really surprised at how no one has voiced any strong feedback on how they might disagree with Mr Khaw's view. I think it is the result of having sat back and assuming that the government gets everything right for too long. Singaporeans are now like Chew Chor Meng in the following picture.

But I digress.

I actually think that it's a good idea that Medisave be used for this, because it would actually encourage all women to come forward and get screened, especially those from poorer families. This will eventually lead to cost savings for the government, because cancers would be caught earlier. A mammogram costs $25-50 when subsidised, and the cost of treatment from cancer is easily a thousand times that.

What happens when people get cancer and don't realise it is they wipe out their life savings and Medishield trying to treat it, and because it's discovered too late, it's futile and sad. And the most tragic part of it all is, it is often the poor and their surviving kin who are hit hardest in such a situation.

And when that happens, we also end up paying more in taxes because they also use more Medishield and Medisave to cover the costs of their treatment.

I personally think that in looking too hard at the bottom line in this case, the Health Ministry has missed the bigger picture entirely. It would be abuse if the government allowed people to use Medisave for paying for treatment for the cough or flu, but in the case of cancer screenings it is definitely worth the money because the payoff and number of lives saved more than makes it money well spent.

This is probably why ministers are sometimes accused of being in their own ivory towers. And soon, I will probably be asked this question.

Another ranty service related post.

I went to eat at Ishi Mura @ Pomo, which is this japanese themed food court place that sells lots of japanese food together in a food court setting. The decorations were pretty tastefully done, and I had a really good impression of the place. I had to admit that the choice of japanese food there was not bad either.

I placed an order with a stall that sold bento and some other stuff, and went to one of the seats to wait for my order.

Minutes later, my friend who had placed an order at that same store came up to me to tell me that I'd better check on my order because there was a bento set sitting there and no one was claiming it. I was quite shocked upon hearing that, and I rushed up to check, only to find that it was indeed what I'd ordered.

Now, when you're in such a situation you know the food is most probably yours, but it just doesn't feel right to take it away without asking the stall owner. So that was what I did. Despite shouting at him and waving, he seemed totally oblivious to everything except flipping meat and making preparations for the next dish.

After awhile I was like whatever even if its not mine I'm taking it anyway. I was really pissed because first of all, the guy didn't even take the initiative to call me to collect my meal, and he just left it there like it was none of his business whether I ate the food or not since I'd already paid.

Another friend of mine then came back from another stall similarly complaning about their service staff. Apparently, he had ordered a bowl of ramen, but the stall he was collecting the food from had no chopsticks for some strange reason. Instead of helping him procure a set, the staff just said "There, see the next stall got chopsticks. Go and take it yourself."

It was really a pity because the food was actually not bad for its price. It was then I noticed how empty the place was. With service like that, it's hardly surprising.

You have to thank the Internet though. I went to their website and sent a feedback form recommending they fire their service staff.

Weili the vampire (ok, banshee) slayer.

I was on the phone with a particularly irritating interviewee today. Not only was she largely incoherent, she spent most of the conversation talking AT THIS VOLUME.

She was so loud, I held the phone away from my ear, and my colleague sitting across the partition in the next cubicle could hear every word she was saying. It was actually pretty convenient because I just put the phone down and started writing down what she was saying.

I could understand if she was agitated because I was asking her some pretty sensitive questions, but she had no right to wail like a screaming banshee, whilst ignoring everything I was saying in an attempt to actually get her to speak English.

It didn't help that as the call progressed she got more incoherent and loud, to the extent that I actually decided to end the call lest I lose my hearing. I don't earn enough to pay for a operation to cure hearing loss, and I should really avoid listening to incoherent people because my job requires me to make sense of things.

But this was actually the best part. I sent her an email, and on it I put my full name because it is typical corporate practice to err on the formal side of caution. I spent the next half an hour listening to her call me "Lim Wei".

Let me ask you. Which idiot looks at the name "Lim Wei Li" and goes oh, this person's name is "Lim Wei". That's like looking at a person called "Pang Sai Kit" and calling him "Pang Sai."

Pang sai pang buay chut la pang sai.

ER.

I knew Monday was going to be bad, but I didn't expect it to be this bad. I have never once in my life felt close to cracking at the seams, and this is the one day I have to admit I nearly did.

The day started normally enough, just that I was on hotline duty. For those who do not know what that means, it just means that I man the hotline for news that comes in and if there is anything interesting I report to the editor.

One hour into my shift, I got an email from one of my advertorial clients stating that I'd written the ad in the wrong style for them. They wanted it rewritten. It wasn't really my fault because the brief had been vague.

No problem, except that the deadline was the same evening. Then my editor threw me another story because there were no other interns in office. The other 4 were out on assignment. Okay.

Then my editor asked me to follow up on the story I was investigating from last week, and that became task number 3. Then another client from my 2nd advertorial called in and asked if I could edit the article I did for them and send them the final draft by evening. Task 4. And then photodesk comes over and asks me to file another interview for tomorrow. Task 5.

And mind you, I was still on hotline duty.

There was one point in time when the phone rang, but I was on the line with a hotline caller. I ended that call fast, and transferred to the next call which was my interviewee for my advertorial. Then in comes another call just seconds after that was an interviewee for one of my two articles.

Think that's bad? Then my handphone rings, and it was an interviewee calling about an interview I was setting up for tomorrow. Then the photo editor came over and asked me where's your photo caption? I need it filed now. And my supervising editor turns her head over and asks me "Have you checked all your facts? Can I have this story filed by tonight?"

And of course at the end of this whole cycle, the hotline rings again. And at no point in time can I reject a single one of the calls, because interviewees aren't always free to talk, and hotline news often requires immediate attention. And I still had to keep the presence of mind to continue working on my 4 articles/advertorials even as chaos reigned.

I eventually ended work at 9.30pm. It's 11pm now. My heart is racing, my hands are trembling, and I can still feel the adrenaline.

A reporter is a glorified kaypoh

A reporter is a glorified kaypoh. The chosen one, given the rights and access to put his nose in others' business so the nosey parkers out there can kaypoh other people.

Most of the time when I'm out on assignment I am really wondering why I write the stuff I'm writing. It's not exactly news, it's not exactly public service either, it's more like I'm writing it because I know people around me would read it.

Most people have a mental conception of journalists. When I told a taxi driver I was a journalist, he actually started teaching me how to get callgirls in Geylang. He told me I'd need it to go undercover. For whatever reason I don't know, but I am familiar with the sign language conventions they use now. I guess the uncles looking for girls in Geylang are now called "journalists."

If you think about it, they do the same thing. They recee the place, talk to the subjects, learn more about their lives and go around reporting on what they experienced.

Perhaps being curious is human, but trust humans to turn it into a multi-million dollar industry complete with armies of runners, editors to decide which story kaypohs want, and a production line to churn it out so people can pick it up and read it.

Remember the news values you learnt in school? They are irrelevant. When you're out there, the acid test for news is really simple.

The first test is, "Is this something the wet market stallowner would read before he uses the newspaper to wrap the vegetables?"

The second test is, "If you were to choose between reading this news and the Nanyang Chronicle, would you still pick the news?"

The third test is, "If you were stuck in the toilet with the newspaper and no toilet paper, would you use my article or someone else's to wipe your bottom?"

The last is, "Why did the chicken cross the road?" Nah, I'm just joking the last doesn't count. But if you see a chicken crossing the road call me, unless its past 7pm. If that's the case, please DON'T call me. I still have a life.

Weili's workplace rules.

You don't really experience how time becomes meaningless till you actually start working. Each day melds into the next as you're caught up working. You go home spent, you sleep, and the next day you haul your sorry ass back to the workplace.

Every morning I feel like I'm being forced into work against my will, but I think its probably just because the pay's not high enough and there aren't enough hot babes in my workplace. I have come up with a new workplace rule.

Weili's workplace rule #1: When there are hot babes, they will happen to work in the office next to yours, in the next building, but never in your office. Because life sucks that way.

The one thing I have noticed about my workplace is, it is not a place that facilitates social interaction. Somehow the cubicles between people demarcate territories, and any interaction between distant cubicles takes place online, even when it is really not too much effort to just walk over, say hi, offer a few words of conversation and genuine human warmth. Maybe its because I'm an intern. When people actually walk over, smile and strike up conversation, the next two hours are a sorry example of what happens when you can't say "No".

Weili's workplace rule #2: When you can't say no, people love talking to you, because everyone loves a yes-man.

"You can do this article for me yes? Oh, and I need you to interview this person for me after that. You can do it yes? And after that, I have this list of 100 people to call, so you'll have to stay back after office hours. Of course you can do it yes?"

Yes. Yes. It's all yes. Fuck.

It takes some getting used to, when conversation almost always consists of pointed questions. I'm not really sure what to make of it, because I don't really enjoy working in a place where every other sentence is a precursor to more agony. As it is most office conversations of the harmless kind take place on IM. The only person I really talk to in the office is the intern next to me. In that case we only IM when we want to say something about our bosses, because you do not say stuff like "dammit she gave me work again" when she's just sitting in the cubicle opposite.

Weili's workplace rule #3: Do not LOL or grin stupidly at your screen when you are IMing or your boss will come over and look. Chances are, the joke is on him/her.

The last workplace rule is probably irrelevant, but I've realised it anyway. Having tried out the toilets at both the New Paper and ST sides of SPH, the TNP toilet bombs. It stinks horribly, despite TNP having a much smaller staff than ST. I'm convinced it says something about the power relationship of TNP and ST.

Weili's workplace rule #4: You can tell how much your company values your department by how nice the toilet is.

But the TNP toilet is still better than the one for guests in the lobby. That toilet has exactly all of ONE cubicle. And the flush doesn't work.

Don't work for reception.

Bad ass kid.

2 days into internship

Just two days into internship, and I'm already familiar with the biggest highlights of the day for all employees worldwide - Lunch break, and knock off time.

I'd love to be one of those people who can claim that work energises them, gives them a sense of purpose, adds colour, variety and a dash of spice to otherwise mundane lives, but who am I kidding. I grumble every morning when the alarm goes off 2 hours too early, I find myself sleeping on the train on the way to work, and before I step into the office I have to constantly remind myself that friday is coming.

I spend one hour before lunch thinking of what to eat for lunch, because there isn't any place remotely nice that I can eat at within the allotted time for lunch break. I have to listen to people complain about their lives when I'd honestly rather be somewhere else. I find myself going to the toilet way too often just to kill off a few more minutes because I have too many to kill anyway, and the coffee in the pantry sucks but nobody bothers to get a nicer instant coffeemix.

It's unseemly but I find that I'm quickly developing the lifeless pallor of people who have worked in an organisation for too long. You know, THAT LOOK. The look of "the best years of my life are behind me", "I'm working because I have too many bills to pay", "life is a drawn out long slog", with the light in the eyes long extinguished from endless hours of mindless drudgery.

You know what happens after you sit in that office for 20 odd years? You become Sumiko Tan.