behind blue eyes

9am
im in the bus on the way to work (tardy i know)
next to me sits this white guy, roughly 50 years of age
hes obviously a banker, continuosly on his handphone, spouting such lingo as ‘spread’ and ‘derivatives’, giving orders to a broker to buy and sell.

Hes wearing bermudas, a shirt and loafers.
Not your typical attire

With a clipped British accent, he asks me for the time.
Upon hearing my response, he says, in what is definitely the line of the day,
“9am? Right time to knock back a cold one if ever”

as if by magic, he produces a can of guinness (a harsh stout beer) from his briefcase.
and not even a small can, it’s a long can.
He chugs the drink and simultaneously becomes redder and redder,much like a lobster getting sunburnt.
He begins to resemble santa claus more and more
He chugs the can as if it were water on a hot day.
And to be frank, I admire the guy for his attitude

Discounting the fact that he may be a borderline alcoholic (seriously, its 9am), you gotta give him props for his nonchalance and refusal to keep up appearances.

I mean, im pretty sure hes raking in the money.
But what impressed me was his laid-back take on life
Taking the bus, dressing down, doing as he wishes.
Makes you think sometimes,
what you want to be in twenty or thirty years from now

An uptight, formally dressed, monotonous drone who is obsessed with money and appearance and is embroiled in corporate politics, leaving no time for the kids and slowly drifting away from your wife.
Or someone who can wear loafers to work and knock back a cold one at 9am and not give a second thought about what people think.
My choice is pretty clear, what about yours?

im out.

the wretched

Sorry for the lack of updates, been a bit busy with work

Lifes been going pretty decently, getting the hang of my job etc

Today im gonna rant about CAP/GPA.

The grade point average that is used as a yard stick to measure your academic success during your time in university.

in my opinion, it is given far too much weightage.
Seriously, the importance people give it is just pathetic.

Its like, It becomes the be all and end all of all conversations
Students decide whether or not they want to be friends with you or have you in their project group, based on how high your score is.

How pathetic.
I had thought I had left all that petty nonsense behind in school but lo and behold, even the MNCs make an issue out of it.
“you cannot apply unless you have _ _ for your degree””
so annoying
so youre telling me that the 2 digits will determine where I end up in life?
Thank you Singapore for encouraging this kind of detrimental behaviour and side-lining the majority of uni-students from any lucrative jobs.

I reckon the CAP system should be abolished.
Yay.

Also, why the hell are taxis so expensive, especially to get to shenton way?!

Seriously wtf
Am I being picked up in a maserati that I have to pay $17 to get to work?
Whats so great about the CBD that theres a special surcharge.
Seriously, its pretty ridiculous.
The taxi rates themselves are higher than ever before
Add to that the erp gantries which seem to operate 25hours a day
And voila, you have a new way to bankrupt the corporate staff
Don’t even get me started on daily parking in the cbd (ie $50 at least)
Great stuff

Anyways I need to go and attend another god forsaken meeting
One where I don’t comprehend the majority of topics and am forced to nod vigorously when looked at.
When youre unsure, just smile and nod.
That’s how they do it in the big grown up corporate world.

im out.

replace toner

work has gotten pretty busy off late
hence the lack of updates

i can safely say im growing accustomed to life in a bank
whether or not its my thing - in the long term - remains to be seen

i was reminded Of why I was annoyed at the people in my office, a microcosm that accurately represents the culture in singapore’s financial hub.

As I went over to the photocopier to collect a note I had printed, an annoying female accountant who can barely speak any English, stood there scowling.

I flashed-back through my adult life and tried to recall if there was any way in which I had offended her; perhaps hit on her daughter, or overtaken her on a highway.

Nope.zilch.

Yet there she stood, with a face sourer than a human-lemon’s sweat.
Seriously, I didn’t even know how to respond to her face.
Its like, I felt ashamed and embarrassed, but I didn’t know for what.

As I collected my single sheet of paper, which was right after her gigantic stack of papers, she continued to scowl. She seemed to have printed a book or something;
captain planet would’ve had a cardiac arrest.

Anyways, she suddenly growled, “if it says REPLACE TONER, then the last person must REPLACE TONER leh. I saw you are the last one horz so you must get the toner”.

I was like…what? But that means going all the way to the stationery place and its so cumbersome and argh

She looked at me expectantly, as I stabbed her face in my mind.

She had literally waited there for some poor sucker (exhibit A) to come along and bear the responsibility of getting the toner and installing, which was obviously worn out from her over-usage.

I lumbered and got the toner I returned, she was watching over me like a hawk to ensure I finished the task she should have done.

So what did I do?
Well, I figured that she was going to use the printer again very soon, so I installed the toner upside down.

Genius.

So she went back to her place oblivious, and I went back to mine.
Soon after, as I watched the photocopier intently, she did indeed return, only for the copier to ask her to, oh the irony of it all, “REPLACE TONER”.
Mmmm.
So she thought the toner was spoilt and went all the way to the stationery place to get one whilst I told the IT guy (a lovely geek who is a fellow arsenal supporter) what had transpired.
He smiled and facilitated the whole thing by telling the lady she should not be wasteful with toners and next time, check if the toner was installed properly.
I wish I could’ve taken a picture of her face.
I would blow it up to 100x its original size and put it on her house wall.
Or get it tattooed on her back.

Awesome.

Ok back to work.
Take it easy party people.

Im out.

semi-charmed life

Well
Its Friday and everyone is basically counting down to 6pm

Like seriously, Friday after lunch, majority of people don’t get any proper work done
Sure, they’ll pretend to be doing important tasks and act all busy.

Like right now, as im typing this update out, my colleagues think im working uber hard and working feverishly on a job-related task.
Ha!
If only they knew…

i propose to make fridays a half day.

any takers

:-(

People tend to spend more time chatting with one another, visit toilets more frequently; anything to make those last few excruciating hours pass by ASAP.

The moment the clock hits 6, every single individual’s brain shuts off.
They all yearn to leave the doldrums of the office

And then it’s the weekend, that more than welcome respite from boredom and dullness.

On another note, I was in the bus this morning on the way to work and at a particular stop, this impossibly old man, wearing a shirt with no buttons whatsoever, shabby clothes and torn slippers, and dragging a bag of cans, lumbered on board.
Because the majority of the bus was filled with well-dressed corporate slaves, they uniformly cringed their noses and turned away.
The poor man limped his way till he found a seat at the back of the bus; shabby and shunned as ever.
But what really took the cake was the behaviour of two corporates sitting right behind me.
Wearing ties and holding branded briefcases, they whipped out their handphones as the man passed by and openly took pictures of him.
After this, they discussed which one of them should upload the pictures onto stomp.

How sad is that?
Taking pictures of an impoverished man and posting them online, reeks of a cruel streak coupled with a gigantic inferiority complex.
I have not seen such a pathetic display of immaturity and cruelness in a while, hence the urge to write about it.
If I could, I’d make a bull gore the two of them, then ‘stomp’ on their heads (terrible pun).

I also watched lady gaga live a few days back and let me tell you, she was on proper drugs and was slurring the whole time.

Nasty.

and the nonsense she was shouting:

"follow your dreamsss"

"lady gaga hates one thing in the world: MONEY" (nasty.)

total waste of time money and effort.booo.

The weekends ½ hour closer, hell yes.
Sayonara suckers!

Love to all.

boy wonder

right where it belongs

After an amazing weekend away from it all, im back to the daily grind.

First off, bali was pure magic.
The place the food the beach the people the company the villa
Simply incomparable.

It broke my heart to leave the island paradise to return to working life

After a hectic day of traveling, I took a short snooze and then made my way to watch nine inch nails perform.

Saying they were amazing is like saying financial accounting is ‘not bad’.(hint: if anyone finds it necessary to torture me in the future, lock me up in a room of financial statements and ask me to audit them. you will find out any secret I may be hiding.)

The level of showmanship that trent reznor and gang exuded was something I have never seen before.
Over the years, Ive seen my fair share of concerts.
Rage against the machine, beastie boys, the roots, nerd, slipknot, death cab for cutie (twice), the prodigy, fatboy slim, paul oakenfold, slayer, coldplay (back when they weren’t crap), avenged sevenfold, third eye blind, eve6, asian dub foundation, incubus (twice)etc etc

But nine inch nails have, in one effortless swoop, displaced all these performers as the one band that really blew me away

From start to finish, the energy and verve they displayed, along with the panache and precision of a well-oiled machine was truly a sight to behold.

Trent reznor is a true musical genius who is respected by anyone who can play or sing a note.
I mean seriously, there was one point during the concert where he set a complex loop on his digital mixer (a technological marvel no doubt), played the piano ever-so-elegantly, sang in perfect harmony with the loop in the background and played the guitar perfectly.
I mean seriously, the man is a musical god.

The lighting was amazing and the songs were hard and non-stop. They played several anthems and I found myself gravitating towards the mosh pit as the night wore on, eventually ending off with a pretty bruised rib.

The concert was not just a musical performance.
It was a welcome escape for people from all walks of life; be they jaded students, disgruntled office workers, the old, the young and everyone in between.
It was a chance to be part of Nine Inch Nails’ final tour (hence the tour being aptly title as the ‘Wave Goodbye’ tour), their first and last performance in Singapore

And it was a chance for the audience to shout, en masse and with all their heart and soul,
“Will you bite the hand that feeds? Will you stay down on your knees?”

Thank you trent reznor and nine inch nails for not performing like a bunch of spoilt celebrities (hello incubus).

A great way to round off the holiday.
Now its back to work.
Focus boy wonder.
Only three more days to the weekend.

hiatus

Getting real tired of this rut, so im off to bali for the weekend
Have fun slaving it off suckers!

slow motion

''The man whose life is spent in performing a few simple operations has no occasion to exert his understanding or to exercise his invention.” – Adam Smith

5 things I hate about work-life

5. The fake small-talk when you’re stuck with a colleague in a lift – “How was your weekend?” “greaaat, how was yours” “wonderfulll” and as my luck would have it, the lift will take abnormally long to travel and will stop at every floor, even if nobody pressed the button outside or inside. FML.

4. The ridiculous lunch crowds – I mean seriously, the crowds remind me of the way humans run along busy streets when their cities are under attack by evil aliens, a la war of the worlds/ the day after tomorrow, etc). In this case their only weapon is their (you guessed it) nasty “reserved for:” tissue packets. Good luck freakos.

3. The pretending to do work when you have none – I mean, lets say you’ve finished your work ahead of time. And you submit it to your boss.

Two possible scenarios can occur:
a) Your boss piles more work onto your recently-emptied plate. You hate your life even more, cancel dinner plans and carve your boss’s name into the underside of your table. With your nails.

b) Your boss says “hey you, good job. Go and do your own thing till its time to leave”.
Awesome. You sit down, read a book and get some much-needed relaxation. Your co-workers however, are busy sending gossipy emails to one another about how lazy you are and how they’ve seen snails with more ambition than you. Good times.


2. The position of my computer screen - as I sit here, next to the entrance of the office I work in, I realize that every single person who enters the office, or even tries to enter (thank you glass door for your unnecessary transparency) has a leisurely glance at my screen. Hence I have been practicing mastering the art of “alt-tabbing”.


1. The dreary, monotonous atmosphere – everyone is quiet, hitting away at their keyboards (very audibly) like they were synchronized percussionist robots. This kind of atmosphere can have only one possible effect on me: the slow, inadvertent dozing off and VIOLENTLY jerking back to being awake.


Later bathing in the afterglow

Two lines of coke I cut with Drano

And her nose starts to bleed

A most beautiful ruby red

(third eye blind – slow motion)

Aite that’s it for now, feel free to comment/tag,
Counting down to Thursday (hell yeah)