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.