First Day of work

“Seriously, don’t have to work so hard, no one hear appreciates our effort anyway.”

“Don’t ever try to adjust the air-conditioning here, if not xxxx will sure make noise.... You can understand why, look at xxxx size man”

“Beware of xxxx, she is super niao (meaning fussy)and always make people do things for her.”

Those were just some of the shocking things I heard today in my first day working for Sta r hub as a temporary admin. But that was pretty much tolerable compared to what I had to endure for the rest of the day.

As I waited for centuries for my supervisor to come to the reception area, a girl with short hair and bright eyes dressed in a red shirt and jeans walked in and asked to meet someone. Just by listening to the way she spoke in English, I was certain she was from one of the more elite schools in Singapore. And her youthful complexion reaffirms the fact that she must be the same age as me, most likely looking for a temporary administrative job too.

Soon after she sat down next to me to wait, I made the first friendly move to ask her if she was going to work here and whether it was her first day. E unice, she said when I asked her what her name was, fortunately turned out be in the same boat as me. Then, all of a sudden, as if my questions sparked an urge in her to talk to me more, this bubbly talkative bunny began lambasting me with questions about the A levels, beginning with how I thought each exam was. Soon, we were talking about our secondary schools, our jcs, and our past work experiences and from there, from some reason we ended in a conversation about our classmates. Odd?

As if to disrupt of conversation, my supervisor Emily suddenly appeared in front of me and started bringing me around the office to introduce me to people and where the pantries, the toilets and the different rooms are. I was then introduced to two people, a girl and a boy who I thought looked eighteen too, but they were both nineteen and twenty-two respectively.

Both of them were really friendly and nice but there was one huge problem- they spoke in CHINESE all the time. Of course I broke their habit by replying to them in English but only if I was speaking to them or asking them something. Then they started telling me all the stories of who to avoid and keep watch and their little dirty underhanded tricks while doing work, it was as though all these things were skills and lessons to be taught to survive in this world. The dude even said told me that we can be very slack because no one here appreciates our work. I can understand why he’s saying this, having worked in a company for people as though u were only slaves to your superiors, meant to be dragged like sacks of sodden old rice from their backs. Yet I cannot accept the fact that he has built up a mentality and lacklustre work attitude, or lack thereof to his work. Why should we care so much about whether others are indeed impressed with your work?

But that said, he’s been such a patient and great teacher along the way, mostly encouraging, though it was funny because whenever he explained to me all the complicated procedures of a segment of a certain report, expecting me to absorb everything, he’ll tell not to worry because I will SURELY forget then the next day, and then laughed. And he kept repeating that line perpetually all the time, it was so downright encouraging.