The Pettiness of Human Being Still Surprises Me
Useful Definitions:
- Bozone (n.): The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little sign of breaking down in the near future. (Mensa Invitational)
- Ignoranus: A person who’s both stupid and an asshole.(Mensa Invitational)
- Dilberted: To be exploited and oppressed by your boss. Derived from the experiences of Dilbert, the geek-in-hell comic strip character. "I’ve been dilberted again. The old man revised the specs for the fourth time this week."
- He’s 404: Someone who’s clueless. From the World Wide Web message "404, URL Not Found," meaning that the document you’ve tried to access can’t be located. "Don’t bother asking him… he’s 404, man."
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I am having a good week. It has been raining so the weather is pleasant. I am spending a lot of time with my sisters and old friends, something that I have not been able to do for the past year and a half. And, my sabbatical is ending so I will be thrown back into the working population again soon. I love not having to do anything but knowing that I will not have plenty of disposable income to spend on my Renoma heels fetish unless I work my tush off makes me nervous.
And speaking of work, I want to rant. Last year I threw in the small fish towel and decided to join the corporate hostile waters, a decision that I was uncomfortable with from the start. However, at that point, I knew I would have to make the plunge if I want to further my career. I spoke to various people, clients included, to get their opinion. After thinking about it for a few months, I decided, okay I will give this corporate thing a try. Besides, I have been managing several difficult MNC clients, I figured it was about time I become part of an MNC myself.
Anyway, long story short, it wasn’t long before I was unhappy. Not with the workload, frankly most of the tasks I was overseeing could have been handled when I was an inexperienced 25-year old. I was hoping to be able something more strategic, that would be able to impact not just the organisation but also the society that we are living in. You think I had my head in the clouds? I did.
But okay, that is not the point of this entry. Even when I realised that I intensely (and please not that I use the word INTENSELY) disliked many of the people that I had to work with (or irrelevant, completely stubborn and out-of-depth people that I had to put up with simply because they are too big for their collective breeches), I decided to stick to my guns, to use an overused phrase.
Then one day, I received an amazing offer from another MNC. After rounds of discussions and some hew-ing and haw-ing on my part, I decided to leave the current employment and go with the new. And, although I would only start my new employment in July and I had part of May and the whole of June to kill, I made up my mind to leave as soon as my notice period was up. I decided I deserved a holiday and a respectable ‘mourning’ period to wipe the slate clean and rid myself of all the bad vibes. All is well, yes? No.
Just last week, I found out that a person from the old job called up the MNC that I am going to join TO CHECK WHETHER I AM REALLY WORKING WITH THEM. Then, rumours started to swirl around with people talking about how I lied about my new employment bla bla bla. Let’s not get into details. Suffice to say, I then received a phone call from my future employer to inform me of the incident. While they laughed it off and told me not to be alarmed about it, I am so f***ing furious.
Firstly, this is what I want to say: I know who you are. Just because I have not retaliated doesn’t mean I am unaware or is blissfully ignorant of your identity. Boy, you are a nothing and you will remain a nothing. Here’s my little secret. I knew you were about to be terminated but someone grovelled and pleaded and appealed to the powers that be to keep you in the company. Fact is you are still working only and ONLY because people took pity on you. Wake up! You and your posse can take your perceived superiority and shove it at a place where the sun doesn’t shine.
Secondly, I know enough that I can’t fight city hall. When remarks such as these were passed with alarming ease, trust me, I will not stick around to wait for the ink to be dry:
- Don’t worry. I will keep all the [race deleted] united.
- If I don’t take care of the [race deleted], who else will?
And thirdly, which is the most important, if you fish-mongers feel so unhappy, dissatisfied and angry about how my career is shaping up although I have no idea why things that have nothing to do with you or your lives would be the main conversation piece in your daily gossip sessions, you can just, quite simply
For goodness sake, I am no where close to Angelina Jolie so being the centre of your collective attention is really unnecessary. Go talk about Akademi Fantasia or the latest Bollywood movie or something for a change. Or, here’s a radical idea. You can start to actually work for a living. How’s that?
And to end, I leave you with my mantra, which happens to be a quote from a very famous physicist:
And you know what, I don’t care what you think. Go do something else now.
