Office Life

My good friend Liz pops into my house last week, she blows out her trumpet, loud enough to cause my neighbour misunderstood that we are having some kind of quarrel, letting go the pressure from the long cook cooker, out pouring her unhappiness at work.

All her arrows sharply pointed at her boss for misbehaving at work, sleeping in the office at the broad day light, nod off in the meeting, building castle in the sky during discussion, doing personal thing in the office, making suspicious call, shows no concern on the decending business trend, and she went on and on non stop without giving me a chance to raise my voice, and all I could catch on her last breath with high pitch tone that sounded abruptly with “He is not carrying out his duty to lead the company, he is just like a wounded worrier that loses the battle !!” Liz cried loudly.

I spring up immediately to make her a cup of Hor Yen Hor tea to bring down her temperature. I can understand Liz' feeling, for which she has worked for 10 years, growing and surfing with the company together, she treat the company like her own, devoted all her passion and interest at work.

Sigh, as friend, I was not able to sooth and help her, lending both my ears is the best comfort to her.

When we actually love our company, we tend to comment and complaint with the hope of improvement from the management, but for Liz scenario, how to tell her boss that he needs to buck up ? he needs to improve ? he needs to lead ? he needs to change ? He needs to behave ?

I supposed it is hard, unless she back stab him to escalate further up.

Ah Mah and ‘Ang Kong’

My mother in law is a staunch believer of Taoist, she pray everyday. In front of all the deities & ancestors, she would seek for guidance, ask to ‘po pi’ (blessing) for health, safety, wealth, or something that seem impossible to us.

My daughter W depends on Ah Mah (mother in law) whenever she sits for examination like UPSR, PMR & SPM. All Ah Mah did was to light up the oil lamp & a pair of electric candles, 3 joss sticks for each deity, she will chant with reasonably voice & tone, loud enough for us to hear, ‘Ang Kong (God), Ang Kong! po pi po pi my grand daughter who will sit for SPM tomorrow, let her have good result, if she request for A, you grand her with A, or better still fulfill her wish by giving whatever she ask for’, I like this po pi request, Ah Mah sounded very much in power and authoritative. Putting her hands together she prays and finally places the joss sticks on the urn carefully. With this prayer, W will have invisible protection with less stress and less panic during her examination.

Just weeks ago, W jumping with joy for scoring SPM with flying colors, forgetting not to thanks the support and blessing from ‘Ang Kong‘, we were asked to prepare some fruits offering to thanks them, Ah Mah did all the usual pai Ang Kong procedure and starts thanking, ‘Ang Kong, Ang Kong, now that W had got the good results, can you ‘po pi’ her to get scholarship and enter into good school, or better still let her get what she wish for, kam sia che che, kam sia che che (thank you very much). I grinned beside, thank you with another request.

Ah Mah playing important roles for everyone at home, she is just like the bridge between us and Ang Kong. In return, Ang Kong will have regular joystick burning, ornament paper, fruits and big feast that comes in steam chicken, duck, roast meat, mix vegetable, rice, noodle, tea, wine and more.

We are thankful for Ah Mah’s effort. Without her, we maybe need to sail thru the turbulence sea. Ah Mah, kam sia che che, kam sia che che…

Extra Classes to Excel

There are plenty of tuition centers near my area to cater for primary & secondary student, almost 95% of the student attended at least 2 or more classes per week. Those do well in academy without tuition are classified as eccentric, extraordinary or genius.

Traffic jam and air pollution are normal scene near tuition centre. Teachers’ supplementary income rise from 4-digits to 5-digits, high tech gadget such as notebook, overhead projector, wireless microphone are used to cater big classes of more than 100 students.

Catching up 2 or 3 tuition lessons after school is a norm, kids are picked up from school and send from one to another tuition class, to save time, eating & changing clothes in the car are made possible.

Competition is rife, tuition centers are all ways out to lull and recruiting more students, advertisement banners of all sizes and colors are in race along the road, flyers are distributed much often to add weight in selling together with newspaper. To maintain good reputation, some centers prefer to pick top performance students, gradually sift out or disqualify the non performance student.

I happened to bump into a reputable tuition center for secondary school. To amaze me that the responsible principal actually acted like a discipline teacher with a long cane in her hand, auditing classes from time to time. She will hop into noisy class, exercises her cane by smacking on the table to wake up or frighten the student, punishing the chatter box by separating their sitting position, confiscating handphone if found any, lastly wind up with 10 mins long winded preaching causing the student to yawn.

Hmmm..... student at the age of 13 ~ 17 yrs is old enough, wondering the appearing of cane will do any help to deter wrong doing? I believe lots of parent welcomes this act, to ensure that their kids are under close supervision. How the student feel being treated like small kid ? I ended up in deep deep puzzle & pondering. Readers, appreciate if you could share your view for enlightenment.