The Day After

It's about 1.45am.
I'm in the dark hall,
with my face illuminated by the monitor's light.

Giving myself product training for the new role.
It's fan-fucking-tastic.

There's a gazillion products to go through,
and I'm only on the 2nd main product;
their sever editions.

Gotta love deliberately vague descriptions!

I'd say about 80-90% of what I'm learning
won't come in handy for the role.
Not really.

But hey, even if only 10% of it helps me to succeed,
that's more than fine with me.

Lately I've realized that my conversational skills
have got even worse.

Yeah, yea I know... I know...
I talk about this (more like bitch and whine and moan) from time to time...

And I'm sure you're sick of it by now.
So please... accept my sincerest apologies...
in the form of this lighted TNT and stick it up your anus.

You're welcome.


I've got to hit the ground running with this new gig.
No other choice, as far as I can see...

The marriage is happening on the 8th of Dec,
and to be honest, (and extremely fucking lame),
I'm excited.

I'm excited to be a husband...
to have someone by my side,
to have FINALLY have sex...

But yea,
it wouldn't be complete without apprehension.

Like the month before the most important match of your life.
You've trained for this.
You know you're gonna kick ass.

But doubts persist.
Nervousness will not just disappear.

And you know what?
That's a good thing.

Fuck it. It is.

Makes me more aware of the pitfalls,
or complacency.

Always be on the quest to improve yourself.
ALWAYS.

It never stops.
Life isn't static.

The clock is still ticking for me,
but hey, while I'm still here, I'm gonna pretend there's no self-imposed deadline.


My aunt passed away 2 days ago.
Well, not technically my aunt.
She was my uncle's wife. Does that make her my aunt?
I'm too fucking lazy to look it up.

There is no actual grief.
A hint of sadness...
resignation...
even hope.

She came from a generation of people from my father's side of the family,
who had treated my family in such a horrible way.

I'm no longer angry...
but this happened.
And anybody who views it as a good or normal thing is either
fucking stupid,
mentally-challenged, evil,
or all of the above.


They pressured my mom to give up my little brother to her,
RIGHT AFTER SHE GAVE BIRTH.

I mean holy shit.
What a bunch of saints, eh?

Apparently my uncle had problems
producing a 'normal' child with his wife...

So they figured there was absolutely nothing wrong
with TAKING AWAY SOMEONE ELSE'S CHILD.

The more I learned about this over the years,
the more pissed off I got.

They had shunned my mom those first years...
Either because she wasn't a Pakistani, or rich...
likely both.

So they forced her to give up her child,
then changed the name originally given to him.
Motherfuckers.

Got to admit,
I was also pissed at my dad for not standing up to them.
He's supposed to be this badass,
who doesn't take shit from anyone.

And he didn't...
except from his own family.

This resulted in the kid growing up confused,
feeling rejected...
hiding the fact that he had 6 other siblings...

He would later come to see
my uncle and his wife as his actual parents.
No surprise there.

I gotta say though,
my dad's side of the family sure had a knack for
creating decades-long grudges.

A part of me wanted to confront ALL of them.
But this was years later,
when they'd apparently fully-accepted my mom (but my brother remained with my uncle).

Re-opening old wounds would've solved nothing,
and brought only more pain.

So I let it go,
though a small, persistent part of me still harboured resentment.


Until recently.

My uncle passed away years ago,
and his wife was slowly being overcome by cancer.

When last I visited,
she was so weak, she could barely speak...
a far cry from the strong, vocal woman she used to be.

And my mom.
My mom... CRIED for her.
Genuine tears...  she kissed her,
and spoke kindly...

Despite all the pain this woman had caused her.
Was STILL causing her.

All of that didn't matter.
Here was another human being in pain...
a human being who had taken care of her son, no matter how that arrangement came to be.

She truly felt empathy...
there was such intense sadness.

My mom is truly one of the most caring, loving people I know on this earth.
Her actions may be poorly-executed at times,
but there must be no doubt of her intentions: almost always in the interest of others, rarely for herself.

If she can forgive her,
who the hell am I to hold a grudge?

What is my suffering compared to hers?

No. It truly is time to just let things go.

This is another brief stop,
on my path to becoming a better person.
She has opened my eyes, and not for the first time.

How can I even begin to thank her, I don't know.

My brother is married now, with a kid on the way.
I can see the loving bond between he and his new bride...
and her family.

Though we will never be close as brothers should be.
I will be happy for him from a distance.
That is good enough for me.


Things have changed.
My cousin married a Filipino who already had 2 kids...
and he now has 2 more with her.

As far as I can tell,
they have been accepted with open arms.
Such a difference compared with the generation that came before.

My brother's wife isn't a Pakistani herself (I think she's Malay).
And that's fine, too.

Soon, I will be married to a Korean Russian.
And if anybody has problems with it, let them stew in their hatred.
They will not interfere with my family, I will make sure of this.
But at the same time, I will not hold a grudge.

I don't know anyone who would have a problem with it,
but if anyone does, and years later decides to sincerely make amends,
that person will be more than welcome in my home.

I'm tired now, and there's still a lot of reading left to do.

Fuck off, children.

Well enough of that




















 

Risks

It's about 1am,
and I'm eating cheap, instant noodles of a brand I've never even heard of.

Tastes pretty good, actually.

So it's been a while.
What made me return?

A pretty bad interview earlier today, at TripAdvisor.
Now it wasn't horrible, and people did not end up running from the building screaming from their lives.

But still pretty bad.

Started WITHOUT asking the interviewers how they were.
I never do that these days.

Yet that is exactly what I did.
And it was a harbinger of sorts, of things to come.

Didn't know what the role was about,
the sources of revenue...
mumbled about my sales techniques, barely getting to the point...
Not just sales techniques, but one or two other things as well...

I thought I was confident.
But for some reason, I  mispronounced many words...
and in some cases, was actually at a LOSS for words...

Lack of focus is one thing.
But damn, man.
It's like I lost a huge chunk of my vocabulary in that hour.

Couldn't articulate my thoughts clearly.

And what really sucks?
I would definitely have loved to have given the role a shot.

But hey, live and learn.
Sometimes you get bad days.
Identify the mistakes, and move on.

I've made mental notes
about speaking slower when I'm tired,
being more focused,
and increase my brevity.

Also, right afterwards,
it occurred to me that I seemed... over-eager.

GODDAMMIT.

So yea... I've learned and will move on.

But it still pisses me off.



So the interview.
Ah yes.
Why did I go for an interview, you ask?
You sweet, curious, innocent young cocksucking potato-cunt motherfucker, you...

I just lost my job.
That's right.
After about 2 years, just like that.

The official reason?
I didn't hit my target. That's it.


About 6 months ago, when I was on a different team,
Dharma and his cuntwhore Patrick tried to do that...
giving a list of petty, bullshit reasons, except for results because hey,
as far as the client was concerned, I was doing great...!

That's right.
They couldn't touch me on results.
To this day, I don't know the real reason why they wanted me out.
That is how fucked up it is.

Was it a power thing?
Did they just hate my face? I mean I can understand if that's the reason.
I am pretty fucking handsome.
Shut up.

So I was transferred to another team.
Now here I thought yeah, a fresh start.
BIG MISTAKE.

There was a reason why, not long after Julien took over,
about 90% of the original team left, including the Team Leader.

That spineless French cocksucking weasel.
Doesn't take responsibility unless it's for something that went well.

I should've know the day I started.
No access to any of the systems for a whole goddamn week.
No proper training.
In fact, his brilliant idea of 'training',
was to have the Sales Support Coordinator (the person who handles the data),
to present some slides.
That's it.

Oh and by the way, the SSC doesn't even do sales.

Speaking of data, what we received was fucking horrible.
And the way the opportunities were divided amongst the reps
was beyond stupid.
I could go on and on...

The new director Peter wasn't exactly the sharpest tool in the shed, either.
Reneged on his word to sit with me early on, to see firsthand the issues I faced;
Julien had basically jettisoned all my suggestions, that fucking moron.

So 2 weeks before the end-of-quarter,
what does this new, hotshot director do?
Asks me how I can improve my number.

If he really had any experience dealing with the Channel in Australia,
he'd know 2 weeks is NOTHING.

In fact, some partners technically end a week earlier,
and spend the final week processing orders.
You know what that means?
NO NEW ORDERS.

Fucking clueless motherfucker.

So the team didn't hit the target,
and I was about 700K off my forecast.
Now you might say hey, that's pretty bad. You're bad!

For those of you who thought that,
kindly bend over and stuff your empty heads up your assholes.

I 'lost' a few hundred thousand...
because they were closed by the other reps.
When a deal is consolidated, only the parent opportunity will display the amount.
The other opportunities are labeled as being closed for ZERO dollars.

So for the rep to whom the parent opportunity belonged,
WELL DONE YOU CLOSED SO MUCH MORE THAT EXPECTED!!!

And for the rep looking after the child opportunities,
TOO BAD, SUCKAAA!!!

Even if both of you worked on it.
So the deals weren't 'lost', but according to Julien, they were.
How the fuck that makes sense, you tell me.

He threw me under the bus to save his own ass.


Ah well.
At least I'm out of there.

But now  I've got to deal with my old friends:
Racist cunty whorish Singaporean Chinese employers.

Of course there are exceptions.
Wileen, who hired me 2 years ago was one of them.
And there are a few others.

Oh no, we are talking about the majority.
Not only are they stupid as hell, but they are fucking racist to boot.

Way to go, Singapore Education System.
Effective indeed.

It's hard sometimes even getting an interview.
Eventually I'll get a gig. I hope.

And when I do,
the plan is to take IT courses; I've narrowed it down to Cisco and Microsoft.
10-year goal is to become an IT Architect, possibly upgrading to become a Cloud Architect.

Why that?
IT Architects are in high demand, and this demand is expected only to grow for a long while...

So when I achieve it (or whatever is the equivalent at the time; gotta be flexible!),
I'm moving overseas permanently.

Man, I'll be so happy to leave this shithole.
Now the Chinese are complaining about competition from foreigners,
yet they are still blind to the fact that the local minorities have it even worse.

Oh no.
They'll whine and bitch and moan, but when given a mirror,
suddenly go into denial, with dumbass responses like 'Racist got in US also mah! BLAH BLAH BLAH'
or 'You racist too!'

Fucking idiots.



Well enough of that