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On 16 October 2000, I started work on my dream job at my dream company. I considered myself a lucky ducky, and I begrudgingly accede that I have an ex- to thank for pushing me to apply (repeatedly, continuously, and rather shamelessly) for the job to begin with. But karma has been good to him, we broke up about five months later and he got married, umm, I guess a year or so later and is now a father of two. I’d congratulate him, but thankfully he doesn’t read this blog.

My last interview for the job took place on my birthday. I was antsy all day.

My first day was pretty exciting; I showed up at 10am – my new boss said he doesn’t get in earlier so it wouldn’t make a difference – and tried to fly in under the radar. Everyone was friendly and accommodating, and I didn’t break, kill, or frighten anyone yet. I sat next to the door.

My boss turned up in a white linen shirt (I can’t remember if it’s the one with the big red flowers) and man-pris. And sandals.

My mothership was in his usual black. He was left to babysit me throughout his time there.

The engineers, only the two dudes then – dudette was OOTO, probably meeting my significant-other-to-be – were as different as night and day. They still are.

My first piece of equipment was a Sony Vaio PCG 505CR sub-notebook. I loved it. It served me well, although it was not my MP3 player. I still curse the IT fella who fried it when I think about it and the lengths I took to look after it. I still have the harddisk, bad sectors and all.

Sharkie came and said hello. I forgot we went to JC together until she mentioned it. But she did look highly familiar. She looked different in JC, to be fair.

I tried to stay out of the way of the GM. She was scary. She’s probably lonely.

I don’t think I saw any Singapore Inland Revenue Tax fugitives that day, although I think I did see it last week in San Francisco, on a street corner near the Stockton tunnel. I yelled “pay your taxes back in Singapore” over evening peak hour traffic to deaf ears.

I asked what the dress code was – and was told that as long as I wore something, it would be ok. Just to be safe, on day one I wore a jumper (sans cardigan), dress pants and loafers. I’ve not worn that combination to any job since then.

Throughout my time there, I never interviewed for another job.

There were around 35 employees at that time. I think I was the last person hired that year.

I guess I didn’t figure that seven years on, I’d be in a different continent, doing something completely different. But at least I’ve regained some of that loving start-up feeling.

For years people used to ask me what I do at the Big Why. It’s a big secret. But now that I’ve left the job, I can freely discuss it. There’s no better way to illustrate what I do day-to-day, except to show you.

A day in my office life.

Enjoy.

Some things change. Some things don’t.

Tomorrow, tomorrow and tomorrow.

Parting is such sweet sorrow, but when you gotta go, you gotta go.

I’d like to think there is no deal, no problem, no looking back, no feeling bad, no resentment, no relief, no joy, no heartbreak, no pain, no gain, no this, no that. Nothing. It’s just another day. Just like getting married. Just like breaking up. Just like every other day. It is just some other day.

Like the uneventful way you showed up on the first day.

It’s going to be really tough – to not feel anything. After all, it’s been years, my sweat, tears and youth. But in the grand scheme of things, I guess there are better things to feel something about.

Like polar bears, birds of paradise, penguins, rainforests, pine trees, snow leopards, Hayao Miyazaki films, Daniel Henney, hanging with KF, sleeping in, my friends having kids, my brother’s kids getting in trouble, my Simmons bed, my bad Korean, getting fat, getting slim, getting funnier, getting older, walking in snow, having breakfast in Jeju overlooking the sea with the breeze in my face and my music up to the max.

I’ve had the time of my life.

Things move quickly when there is a date you’re gunning towards. The problem sometimes is I focus so much on that date, that after it passes, usually all that’s left is a state of confusion.

So we gotta p-l-a-n.

What I do pretty well is plan vacations! I need one, that’s for sure. Three days on a beach, that sounds about right to me.

I had one of those days today. A very very long day. Somewhere before lunch I kinda lost it.

But not everyone can say that when they’re having a really, really down day, that their colleagues would rally around them to commiserate and pick their sorry spirits up. Today they had to oblige my indulgent lunch request and we ended up having a really good lunch. And dessert. Satisfying, gratifying, fortifying. Thanks, you lot. You changed the trajectory of a crap day and I couldn’t have done it without you.

For dinner, KF and I ended up at Superdogs at Vivocity. It wasn’t too bad, and they claim their sausages are made of pure chuck. It was pretty good, and reasonably satisfying. He wanted to go to Mustafa after that, but I conned him into coming home first, and after that I got too lazy to leave the house so we’re still here. I’ve managed to postpone the trip for the morning.

In the meantime, I will chill out and get some sleep, and perhaps enjoy my weekend.

I think…

It’s probably a really bad idea, but I think the universe is as vast as it is interlinked. I think coincidences are more than that, most of the time I think they’re signs.

I like to see patterns. I like to think that when lots of people turn up in a restaurant after me, that it’s a good day for the owners. But if lots of people turn up in restaurants after me in several different instances, that I’m good for business.

I think if I talk about something, and then it shows up on tv, that the cosmos is trying to tell me something.

So trust me when I tell you that through my extensive and exhaustive research for meaning in life and work, I’ve finally settled on what I want to do with the next phase of my career.

Yes. I want to be a webelf.

Santa has his elves. I’m sure there are elves in forests. So I want to be a webelf. I hear Neil Gaiman has one. That’s a healthy market right there.

As webelf, I will spend my time figuring out what to do with things, and fighting the forces of webimps.

I think.

on a horse with no name, it feels good to be out of the rain

I woke up this morning, and thought it was Saturday. I went back to sleep. Then my phone buzzed with an SMS from my favourite duck in the whole wide world, Donnie, asking if I wanted breakfast.

Reality bites.

Feeling cheated, I woke my sorry ass up because it was already half past nine.

The rest of my day didn’t fare too great either. After pretty much schmoozing and presentationing and meeting people the last 4 days, I was in bad shape for work. I can’t even bring myself to talk about it.

I am exhausted. I can’t move the needle, let alone tell you what success looks like. I just want to sleep in tomorrow. And look forward to next week.

I’m generally skeptical of anything in the organisation that calls itself a “summit”. A summit is the top of a mountain. But over at the Big Why, a summit is where we aim to gather, take stock, learn and move on.

The ascend to the summit began yesterday for me, with a few meetings and greetings. It’s particularly difficult as an I to do these things, and it’s so tiring. At the end of the day I don’t want to talk any more. Even Mr C gets mostly nods and umms instead of words and sentences (after I’m done dishing my highlights).

But you know what, it is always interesting. Let it not be said that my time at the Big Why was ever boring.

What I noticed at these summits (I’ve only ever been to two, so I’m taking some liberties to generalise) is that we all work for the same company, but we’re all so very different. It’s a culturally diverse company. Our markets are even more diverse.

I’m getting a vibe from these sessions. I don’t know exactly what the “specificities” are, but it’s a vibe from just watching the interaction and connecting them to the discussions I’ve had with various folks I work with. Can’t really put my finger exactly on it, but I’m getting there, I think.

Generalise
It would seem from what I saw today Americans are uninhibited with their views. Europeans are inquisitive. Asians are a rather quiet lot. In fact, if not for the lone Indian who, once in a while chimed in, the East Asians pretty much said nothing.

Which could stem from several factors:

1. Perceived language incapacity
2. Nonchalance
3. Unwillingness to sound contrarian
4. Unwillingness to add noise
5. Introversion or aversion to draw attention to ourselves

Whatever the reason, I’ll generalise my observations, since N’s like me like doing this stuff:

• The people who think out loud, really shouldn’t, especially at an engagement where dozens of other people have to indulge you with their time and half the time they really spend thinking about how to shut you up. With bits of string and a blunt knife.
• East Asians do a relatively poorer job of representing themselves whatever the reason, and somehow come off as nonchalant or bored or both.
• A good presentation voice and pace makes for a quick presentation.
• People like repeating mantras and catch phrases.

I guess summits are fun. After all, the view is different from the top. It’s fun being privy to this perspective, and I will actually try to enjoy it tomorrow. Actually, later today.

In sooth, I know not why I am so sad.
It worries me, you say it worries you
Yet how I caught it, found it, or came by it
What stuff ’tis made of, I am to learn.
And what a want wit sadness makes of me
that I have much ado to know myself

Caught Confession of Pain starring Tony Leung and Takeshi Kaneshiro today, but was a little disappointed. I wish they didn’t dub Tony Leung, it’s so nice hearing him speak Cantonese like the native Cantonese speaker he is.

I’m not a native anything speaker – apparently I’m not qualified to be a native English speaker, I would suppose technically I would be a native Mandarin speaker if I could speak it properly. The same goes for my mother tongue. It’s a good reason to speak less.

My father was a programmer. He worked on software and designed systems for more than 30 years. Since I could remember, he would tell my brother and I about his job. At first I had no idea what he was talking about. Later I just stoned out, since it sounded like the same thing, different sentence. Finally in the last ten years he was mostly just griping about the workplace.

He spent almost 30 years at some large petrochemical company, and the last 6 years of his career just going to the office. He agonised about spending his time at the office instead of doing what he liked, but gritted his teeth and bore with it to prove a point. Looking back it’s probably pretty darn funny, but those 6 years for him were probably the worst of his life.

Despite programming code, and working in front of the computer – various forms in fact – for decades, my father still types with only 2 fingers. It not only is a slow process, it’s painful watching him type. Watching him reply to email takes nerves of steel.

And I suppose the fact of the matter is: just because you’ve done something for a really long time, it doesn’t mean you’re good at it.

I don’t have the nerves of someone who’d stick it out for years to make a point. Most of the time, I miss the point. So I guess my point is, I need to seek change. And so in 2007, I will change my life. I will clear out my closet and organise my life.