The end of living as you know it

Sometimes you wonder what happens after university ends. Its called work, where sell your time for money, while doing repetitive banal tasks to justify earning your keep.

"Here, photocopy 200 of this."

I looked at the thing that was supposed to be photocopied. It was one of those company memos that the cleaning auntie grumbles about having to clear from dustbins everyday. It feels great knowing that you're the source of her misery, especially when she's one of the nice people who smile at you every morning.

Being young and innocuous, I guess I'm more likeable. I had the urge to shred it because no one reads it anyway, but I was assailed by a sense of kiasi-ness. Since HR pays my salary, it kills by my hand. Makes you all crusty inside when you realize the things you do for money. Stay long enough, and you become ... Krusty Krab. All crusty and crabby.

Actually, offices are really similar to hell. And I can prove it. At lunchtime, the gates open, and a bunch of hungry ghosts flood out. I bet the people who came up with the hungry ghost festival were bored workers from long ago. You can almost feel the collective sigh of relief the moment people step out of offices. When I did it myself, I could seriously feel myself being lifted from the ground the moment I stepped out of the door.

Nothing of the ascension to heaven variety, and I didn't grow wings, but I felt like I had my life back, and that for one hour, I was not accountable to the office for anything.

It can also get pretty boring in offices, hence something called office politics comes into play. Politics are what happens when 3 factors come together. Insecure people, too much time, and contracts that prevent you from leaving. It would be hell if it wasn't so darned cold.

A colleague once told me, people sit next to one another, but they don't talk. They shoot arrows through the email system. Its a warzone, with arrows flying all over, and the occasional dagger looking to plunge into some unsuspecting person's back. I took the liberty to look at photographs of their company retreats. Unsurprisingly, the people who bitch together stick together.

Hence, its good to be the temp. You're insignificant so you don't get drawn into the line of fire. And people love to bitch to the temp, so you know all the gossip. Sometimes I wonder, how do you people even work together? Then I remember, oh yes, money.

Excuse me...

Yesterday while I was on my way to watch the Samba kings at the "soon to be torn down" National Stadium, I met this strange old man. I was drawing money from the ATM, and after I left it he suddenly approached me from the side.

Naturally I was like WHOA WTF ROBBER! But I saw it was a white haired old man, so I let down my guard a little. After all even a skinny young guy like me can take down an old man. Unless he knows jujitsu or qigong or something I don't know about. But I doubted that he could execute it anyway. Hurhur.

Then he started talking to me. You know, when an old man talks to you, its an excruciatingly painful process. Because firstly, they speak very softly. Secondly, their words tend to clump together. Thirdly, there's a lot of air wheezing from his mouth. Fourth, they tend to stammer. But worst of all, you can't tell them to speak louder or more clearly, because its very rude and its obvious THEY CAN'T.

So after listening to him for about 3 minutes, I gathered that he wanted me to call his friend Gregory because he, Wilson, was waiting for him at Simei MRT. After that, without waiting for me to say "Yes", he started reciting the telephone number. Eight-three, double two...

EH JUST BECAUSE YOU THINK YOU OLD MAN I WILL DEFINITELY HELP YOU IS IT!

Actually at that moment I really wanted to run away because firstly, I had no idea who this guy was, what if he was a scammer? Or some crazy old man. I mean he was clad in all blue pyjamas, like some guy who just escaped from a hospital. Secondly, I was running late for the match. Thirdly, I don't want to call some strange guy for you! But because I am such a kind person, I decided to do it anyway. If only so he would stop wheezing in my face.

So I called the number, and at that moment I was half expecting a China national to pick up the other end. I swore that if I heard a China national pick up the other end, I would just run for it. But it turned out an Indian female picked it up. I went "Is this Gregory?" and immediately after that I felt very stupid. So I repeated myself and went "I would like to speak to Gregory please".

Eventually, a normal sounding guy picked up the call, confirmed that he was Gregory, and that he knew this old man called Wilson. And he said that he would be there soon. Honestly, he sounded like he was at home. I could hear his TV playing some Bollywood drama.

"He's on his way, he'll be here soon." That's all I told Wilson, and after that I quickly took my leave. I never did tell him about his friend still being at home. That wouldn't be too nice.

What's in a name?

A few weeks back, the Sunday Times ran an article about people with unusual names, like Florenced, Bright and Lingual. You can just see the bad jokes coming. You really wonder what the parents were thinking when they named their kids. Did they not see the lifetime of ridicule, or how people would do a double take whenever those poor kids had to go through self-introductions?

I mean, Florenced? What is that, a verb? Oh I got Florenced by a Florence, hence I'm Florenced. It would actually be pretty funny if it wasn't somebody's name. Pretty funny according to me, because I created it. Feel free to disagree.

As for Bright, your kid had better be smart, and all things sunny. I'm going to quote from the article here on what Bright's teachers used to tell him. "Oh look at you, you didn't get an A, you're not so bright after all." And even his friends were unrelenting. "Don't worry, if it's dark, Bright's here."

As for the one called Lingual, its just sad. I mean like I saw that "Bye... Lingual!" joke coming from a mile away. But even for those with more conventional names, that joke still applies. I had a friend called Chi, and people would go "Bye Chi... Bye!" If you don't realise why that's funny, go read it out.

And in the army, when people had to put their names on name tags, I saw a few very comical ones too. Like S A Tan. If your surname is Tan, please do not pick a name for your kid that starts with S and A.

But nothing struck me more on the impact of a name than yesterday when I attended NTU's convocation ceremony as paid help. In other words, to stand around doing nothing while earning 7 bucks an hour. Thank you NTU, next time got such lobang please call me. But that aside, during the convocation ceremony, I seriously LOL-ed at some of the names. The indian professor not only mangled them, he turned them into something else.

I remember clearly waiting with bated breath for the long and difficult names, just to see what the professor would do with them. He never disappointed me. There was this block of two indonesian names, Kusumawidjaya and Tanudjaja. He went like Kusuwi-jajaja and Tanudy-jajaja.

And whenever he read a long Chinese name, he would skip certain parts. So an Elizabeth Phua Ping Ping would become like Elizabeth Phua Ping. But somehow, no matter how long the indian names were, he always got them right in full. Which was pretty strange to me because I found some of them even harder to pronounce than Tanudy-jajaja.

But one name just took the cake. There was this particular name that I heard and seriously just died. The name was Goh Shi Ting. Pretty normal, don't you think? Guess what? The professor read it as Goh Shit-ting. Yes, seriously, on your convocation, "go shit-ting" on the stage. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. I mean, it was so funny but I felt so bad for the girl.

All I can say is, when you pick a name, ask your indian, malay, hokkien, and whatever friends to read it out to you and make sure they don't break out laughing.