Coffee, Panadol & Cigarette

My 20 years old young helper was with us for 10 months now, we went through chicken & duck talk, miscommunication, surprises & culture shock before we can come to the present stage of understanding.

After she had completed her routine, she would come round to tell me tales of her village, her brought up. She would pour out her true feeling towards her family, her divorced husband, relatives and her friends. I must be motherly enough for her to behave like a daughter than a helper. I am also trying to empty out her sad soul so that she can work whole heartedly & happily for two years.

At her young age, she had developed some habits that annoyed me, first was her addictions to coffee, 1 mug every 2 hourly or 8 mug in a day. Anything less will cause her to have severe headache, and panadol will be replacement of coffee. Lately, she had cut down coffee intake to 2 mugs, but the panadol increase to 8 tablets daily. Oh yes, too much coffee will cause constipation, and she need banana, papaya or medication to help in easing or ‘pang sai’.

Secondly, she was a chain smoker, there was once, she hopped in front of me, putting two palms together begging for 1 stick of cigarette, ‘Madam, please please, I just need one stick, maybe it will cure my headache, please lah, madam.’ She knee down and begged. “NO” was the stern response, she was a bit upset and said, “This is god will, Jesus disallows me to smoke, Jesus uses madam to guide me.”

Sigh… will I be able to tame her wild soul that she had suppressed for months? I doubt and started to bit my nails ….

Working Life as a Secretary - Contd Part 3 Final

Thing turns sour when the stalker came to know about the police plot. I am planning the worst, started to think of how to co-ordinate funeral ceremony & pek kim collection.

I am suspicious on all the incoming parcel, maybe bomb was attached in it, and I would be blow off together with my boss. I avoid walking with boss for fear that the gunman gun me down wrongly. I brought my own water for fear the pantry water was poisoned.

To my very surprised that the phone went quiet and my boss still alive and working everyday, the police no more showing faces. I am like riding the roller coaster up in the peak and suddenly dropped on the ground. I was puzzled and started my back lane investigation.

Later, some news leak out that the whole things took over by our HR Manager, the bargaining went on and we had the good deal of paying 4-figures instead of 6-figures ransom.

Our HR Manager was asked to bring the cash in newspaper wrapping and put into brown envelope. He was asked to go to a few destinations to wait for calls, later, he was asked to go to Komtar car park.

“Mr xxx, now that I can see you in 2nd level car park, walk in between the white cars, drop the money down to the ground floor, don’t look down, walk away and don’t look back. I will give you a call to confirm the ransom”. This was the instruction given by the stalker on the last move.

While I am busy typing my meeting minutes, unexpectedly I received the call from the stalker, my heart pumped 100 times faster, but this time, he was in joyous mood, he thanked me for the co-operation, and sorry for all the troubles he had caused. He passed message to my boss, saying that my boss will be ‘protected’ and everything was over.

True, the whole thing back to normal, my boss was free of mental harassment, but he wasn’t ready to stay any further and went back to Taiwan for good.

Here ends the final part of my life as a Secretary. Interesting ? Perhaps not, I am stressed out during the 6 months period.

‘Thing’ that haunted me for years

When I was in primary school, we gathered and whispering about the long hair white gown woman in the toilet. No one had ever seen her, but my classmate said, ‘my friend saw her’, and another friend confirmed that her friend’s friend saw her too. Since then, we went to toilet in group, avoid using the cubicle next to the locked cubicle, which we believed that something was inside there. More so, some blood stains on the floor makes us believed that she did something to the student. No matter how, I will not do my big business in the toilet for fear of meeting up with her.

During secondary school, our classroom was 20 feet next to the Chinese cemetery, where we can see clearly the names on the tomb stones, our classroom was dim and cooling, could be caused by too ‘Yin’. After the final school exam, the teacher was busy marking the paper, we were playing the coin spirit game (Ouigi Game) at the back. White sheet paper was prepared, “Home” was wrote in the middle of the paper, the rest will be some wordings, numbers, and depending on what question we asked. We will had our index fingers put on the coin and start calling ‘spirit coin, please come out, spirit coin, please come out’, the spirit coin would move and we were excited to raise questions. Sometimes, the coin moved so fast that made us feel scared and we signal each other and sent the coin back to its home. At times, some passed away celebrities liked singer or film star would join us in the game.

I was away to put up in hostel during my college time, I was terrified to stay alone in a room, I would keep the music and lighting on for 24 hrs. Avoided ghost story movie, ghost story book, ghost related conversation. No drinking at night to prevent walking in the corridor to the toilet, I would not answer or look back if anyone calling from behind during night time. No mirror after 12 mid night.

The fear kept inside me for years, I will not look into rear mirror if I am driving at night, my house lighting will be turn on at 6:30pm or even earlier, my house will be painted in white nothing but white, once a while, I would sprinkle salt in every corner of the house to chase away the bad vibes. To my kids, I never mentioned or frighten them with ghost, they were much much more braver, they sleep alone, walk in the dark, and foremost, never believe in ghost.

Two years back, I went for hypnotherapy to get rid of the illusion of the long hair white gown woman that haunted me for years. Now, I am much braver than before, and the therapy serves the purpose.

Working Life as a Secretary…. part 2

I was shivering upon reaching my boss, telling him about the 4 coffins he needs to prepare. His face was black with char burned smell.

Police was invited to join in and made things more complicated. My phone was installed with recorder machine. I lost the privileges of spot checking my husband where about, teaching my son on mathematics, giving recipe and coaching my maid how to cook.

Some gossip and reliable source told me that boss was being stalked and asked to pay RM100K for his life. The whole thing was run by a syndicate that targeted the expatriates in Malaysia.

My duty as a gate keeper had provoked the anger of the stalker, I was warned of my in-out safety, feeling disturbed and wanted very much to move my home next to police station.

After a few weeks of ding-dong, negotiation had came to the stage of settlement, our HR Manager impersonated by police to hand over the ransom, the Hollywood play cast came into the real life, a few check points was planned, but in between the police failed to answer some questions correctly whereby the stalker called off the plan.

Immediately, I received the ferocious call in the office, ‘Your boss is asking for trouble by involving the police, get his wife to collect his death body soon !!!” my ear was deafening by the loud slammed on the phone.

To be continued…. Part 3 final