Emotionally dying down

A lot of the emotional side of life at work has....pretty much died down. Well...all the old emotional department stuff. First though, I must apologize to Yvette for not being able to add her as an author for this blog. Yes, she is a real person.

Disclaimer: All stories presented here are not purely fiction. Any resemblance in name or character to any real person is not purely coincidence either.

Roland has brought quite a few new stories to the table, and I don't know quite what to make of it. He has been much braver in showing his feelings and me, being the shy non-girly girl that I am, don't know how he can be so brave.

Ok, Yvette? :P I know you want to say something about that last line....leave it in the comments

Anyway, CM has also been frequenting the office a lot, so every day is mostly work and no play for us. It's glaringly obvious that everyone is much more relaxed and happier when CM, Perot and Gavin are not around. This was evident on one evening last week. All three left early and I was still there even though my shift ended 2 hours earlier. Roland and Mark were running around, half the time chasing Yvette and half the time dancing like the crazy people they are. The only other people around were Eric and (*AH! I didn't give him a name!) guy. haha. They were concentrating on their work while Roland, Mark, Yvette and myself were playing around. I was late getting home and was stressed about it, but I was lucky I was with Mark, Roland, & Yvette instead of anyone else. I think I would have left earlier if they weren't around, but I know I would have also been still too stressed. At least, they got me to dance a little and laugh a lot.

Roland randomly took my cold hands and began to lead. I've had to waltz before and remembered how it felt like when someone can lead graciously and effectively in a dance. I was in a kebaya, but luckily had no difficulties. Roland proceeded to want to "hand me off" to Sir Mark, but Mark hid behind the divider, cutting off the dance flow.

Funnily enough, Mark and Roland ended up dancing some weird dance together, hopping and skipping across the width of the room. Yvette and I were amazed at their joviality. Before Yvette could catch them on video, they reached the end of the room and stopped dancing. But...oh, what a sight!

sigh...such crazy times....

calming yourself down

It may be the hardest thing to do on a daily basis, but maybe it has come to that. Maybe I do have to calm myself down daily.

So many things test our limits when it comes to work.

I felt like bursting. All the small things were adding up and pissing me off. I kept quiet as much as possible during lunch for fear of saying something I can't take back.

"If you don't have anything nice to say, then don't say anything" - I'm not sure who said it, but I made it my policy for today

Flashback
I couldn't stop chatting away, telling one story after another to Peony. For some odd reason, it was just the two of us out for lunch that day. Maybe Yvette and Rolana had their own plans. I was driving and talking Peony's ear off about a few non-work related stories.
End of flashback

Well, that was ages ago when we did not have to worry much about gossip or office politics...when all that mattered was getting our work done. Nowadays, the air is laden with gossip and it takes a lot of my energy to not see things in that certain light. Maybe Rolana and Perot needs to take it slow. Thoughts about their actions are filling my head with nonsense and heavy gossip. Knowing that there might even be the slightest chance that something is going on between the two of them makes me more nervous, unsettled and unhappy than I would ever admit outloud.

Saying things and acting it out...calming yourself vs being the counselor for others...well...you don't learn these things in just a day.

boredom on a Saturday

I have found a new loophole in office boredom. :)

It's about 3:15pm on a Saturday. We are so damn bored. Where's Yvette when I need her?

busy days

Now, all our days are rather filled with work. Endless work. It's as if all the machines were protesting too.

Flashback:
Someone brought up the point that we humans end up being slaves to everything we created: like computers, machines (in general), and money. Now in retrospect, we have also become slaves to time. We invented the notion of time, derived from basic and complicated mathematics and laws of nature. Yet, here we are, chasing after time.

As for the machines, there is no doubt that we are now slaves to them. While I sit here typing away in the darkness of the night, I think about how any computer can just crash without warning (no, really); how any car can just stop working before we know it (god forbid); and how we can't stop all this.

I guess that is also why there are so many sayings in English and Bahasa Malaysia regarding humans and their plans: "plans of mice and men oft go awry" (one example)

End of flashback

Good night.

another day, another story

It's Friday, a supposedly chill day, but we were counting the hours. 5pm seemed so far away. I walked in to an empty room and had no time to waste, despite being early. James and Andrew were not working today. I was stuck with Kathie. I always had trouble getting along with Kathie, though. I didn't care much for Kathie's arrival, knowing full well that it'd be funny if she even came on time.

Kathie sauntered in before she'd be "late" and took her sweet time setting up everything for her day's work. To be nice, as Kathie always tries, she asked if I wanted her to get me anything for breakfast. I politely declined.

Before we knew it, the two of us were swamped. I know I couldn't wait for 9am to hit so that we'd have some assisting comrades in the battle against crazy unfortunate events.

CM came today, and it felt like CM brought all the unfortunate events along. Complaints were piling up, but we were all too busy to notice our surroundings. We were like the worker bees, trying so damn hard to please CM, the queen bee.

I was more stressed than I should have been. Just having CM near makes me lose the ability to think straight.

As the hours passed by, I was glad it was Friday. Saturday would be a great relief for all of us. A great day to forget CM and the unfortunate events of Friday. 5pm came too soon and I stayed back almost an hour to finish up work.

Yvette could only look on with a sad face when I turned down her questions after 5pm.

I need to be OFF duty after 5pm.

on the first day

It didn't matter what the temperature was outside. All she knew was she was cold.

As she sat there, moving as fast as she can to keep her warmth, something clicked. It sounded like the air conditioner was turned off. Breathing a sigh of relief, she slowed her pace and adjusted herself. She sat straight up and tuned out all the other sounds. There was work to be done.

She thought about what would happen if the a/c was off for too long. She might start complaining it's too hot. She smiled, shaking her head ever so slightly at the thought of always wanting what she didn't have.

Hey, maybe the grass always looks greener on the other side....


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He remembered how much he wanted everything to work out. He was determined to make things work that day, no matter what the cost. He looked at her crestfallen face. She seemed ready to just give up, after having stood her ground on the matter. A clock tower somewhere chimes once to mark 30 minutes past five, and it cares not who hears it. They wanted to help each other out so badly, but they were both at the end of their wits. Angry at the situation. Drained of all energy. After an exchange of a few semi-harsh words, he didn't look at her as she tried to cool herself down. He continued his conversation with the 3rd party that mattered.

She couldn't help but think of the green, green grass of home and how far she was from it, still. She walked away before she could hurt anyone, letting him have the last word. He knew the green, green grass was calling her name. Home was calling her name. Family love was calling her name. He was a gentleman, so he let her leave.