Seeing red

Some schmuck scratched our Mini yesterday. Left a deep key scratch on the paintwork just above the rear wheel guard on the driver's side, stretching almost to the door. No doubts that it was intentional. From the groove pattern it looks like the culprit had dug hard, with a key or sharp object, at least twice at the start of the gouge.

Heartache.

My father-in-law managed to polish off most of the lightly-damaged area, but it's still visible if you know where to look. Couldn't do much about the deep bit, that's still painfully obvious (at least to me).

What really pisses me off is that it happened in our own condo's carpark, overnight. According to one of the security guards, we're the second victim, but that hardly makes me any happier. I'd rather not share the misery, thanks all the same.

What kind of jealous freak can afford to live in a condominium and still give in to this kind of penis envy?

(I'm presuming, of course, that the vandal is an estate resident, and the targets are more or less random eye-catchers since we haven't had quite enough interaction with other residents to majorly crush anyone's toes yet.)

Unfortunately scratched is scratched and done is done, and the moron is still at large. If we ever catch him, I'd like to give him a piece of my mind, preferably using a two-by-four. Or a dull key.

Apples and Oranges

It happened in a HDB flat, somewhere in Punggol.

J and I were visiting a couple (literally) of old friends who'd recently become parents. J and the new mother had known each other for years, while I'd met the proud father during my stint in the army ages ago.

Another couple, friends of theirs, had also come along to visit the newborn girl. We'd all met and been introduced before, or so I was told. (My memory was a little fuzzy on this one, so I tried to pass off little nods of agreement. It seems to have worked.)

The two other guys, being in the same career path, got down to talking about business. So polite conversation was made between the three ladies, as it always is during these unnerving little get-togethers (where A knows B and B knows C but A and C don't really know each other, and it would be pretty impolite to B for A and C to ignore each other). Up to a point where the topic turned to houses, and inevitably, to where J and I lived.

"Ohh we went to view that place too, it's very nice", said Ms Visitor, giving us the evaluative once-over Glance. Both of us were wearing tee-shirt and shorts, quite plainly Not Dressed For Sunday. The Glance was followed by a very pointed and calculative Look. I could guess what was coming up.

"How can you afford it?"

I couldn't think of anything pleasant to retort with, so I just sat there with a wry smile on my face, while my brains hastily scrambled to find an excuse to leave.

Later, J would tell me that the woman was a practising lawyer who'd come from a rich family, and that the comparativeness was to be expected from someone with that kind of background.

I really don't know whether this behaviour should be expected or not. But I'd take great pains not to recognize said person in public - it might be catching.

Fazed, Part II-½

Right. Where was I...

Like I was saying, someone got laid off in a way that made me feel really sorry to be a part of the company, although not quite as sorry as I would be with myself if I were in HR.

The day before (and this is all second-hand from other people who were there, mind), he was in a conference call to hand over his work to another employee in a different office. His boss, in the middle of said conference call, suddenly insisted on making arrangements for a follow-up conference call for 9am the next morning. Other attendees felt some surprise at the odd timing, as they were barely halfway through the current discussion, but most passed it off as nothing unusual, and the call proceeded as per normal.

The next day, at 9am, he came into the office, ready to continue with the follow-up call. But to everyone's surprise, he was hauled up, made to surrender all of his work-access tokens and items, and was summarily escorted out of the office! The instruction had apparently come down from higher authority to prevent his further access to the company's systems, and to inform him that he was no longer required to report for work.

What in god-damned hell is that supposed to mean?

We had a discussion with his boss later that day. Without going into too much detail, it wasn't a nice conversation. Too many cotton-candy words and too many hastily-erected defensive statements made it painfully obvious that things had gotten way too personal. The behaviour of the HR personnel sitting in for the meeting did nothing to improve my general (and specific) impression of HR personnel. I left the room feeling rather soiled by the whole experience, and I'm sure I wasn't the only one.

I can't find the words to express the disgust that I feel. "People management" is a mug's game, where bombastic words and pretty promises are thrown around in an attempt to give slaves the impression that the "voice of the people" is being heard. The participation rate this time round, for the most recent HR survey, was a palrty 23% as opposed to 90% previously. Management wants to find out what employees think about the company?

I'm sure there was enough feedback to go around in that particular discussion. I'm also sure that very little will change as a result of this nasty little incident - the same anuses will still be spewing the same old shit.

The bright side though, as I (terribly mis-)understand it, is that the termination can't legally be immediate without any proof of criminal wrongdoing. So my good friend will be enjoying paid home leave for the remainder of his term, and won't have to suffer the indignity of having to dissect his own pride and joy piecemeal to spoonfeed his equally unwilling successor.

Fazed

Haven't updated lately, been either too lazy or too tired to sit down and type. Housework, family lunches, wedding dinners, more housework, household shopping, grocery shopping, you get the idea.

Strained my neck yesterday. It hurts to glance over the shoulder, had hell trying to park the car. I've been home the whole day, trying to get some rest. At least, that was the intent.

I've just discovered exactly how difficult it is to keep the head in any kind of comfortable position while trying to fold clothes. And the sheets kept getting caught by the wind, knocking the whole laundry-pole-and-stand contraption to the ground. Several times. Ever tried picking up a couple of poles still laden with wet sheets? Not my idea of a peaceful day.

Still, my neck does seem to feel less sore than this morning; it doesn't hurt quite as much but I still have to turn my head slo-w-l-y.

Fazed, Part II
One of my friends at work got laid off. Which wasn't altogether surprising, seeing how management foci in recent months have been on trimming costs and squeezing headcount from rocks. What was surprising, was the manner in which it was executed.

Oops, dinner. I'll get back to this in a bit.

Ping

Alive and kicking. Just tied up.
Gonna update soon I hope.

Weekend warrior

Monday was a public holiday, giving rise to the phenomenom known as The Long Weekend.

And boy, did this one feel long.

Skip the rest of this entry if you fear the mundane. It's mostly narrative this time.

Most of the weekend passed by under the premise of housework. It's amazing how time zips past when you've got a hundred and one things to do. Not just when you're having fun.

Saturday was spent cleaning up the house. J's mum offered the services of her maid, who promptly washed the windows, scrubbed the balcony floor and cleared up the dirt that's accumulated in the rails of the sliding doors. All under two hours, too - I'm impressed. Both of us together would probably have taken longer to finish the same.

In the evening, we headed out to Muji to take a look at their household items. J and I love their stuff, but it's always priced higher than I think is reasonable. That didn't stop us from grabbing a couple of plastic storage thingies.

Sunday was relatively eventful, save for more housecleaning in the morning (does this ever end?). The afternoon saw us headed over to Mark's place in Changi. As we were approaching the turn-off leading to his place, J gave Mark a call to ascertain the block and unit number.

"Hello. Hey, I'm not home yet. Car just ran out of fuel."
What!??
"Yeah. I'm on the highway, opposite the PA campsite. Probably going to walk to the nearest station and buy some petrol."
You just wait there. We're going to get you some.

So I spun the car around and roared into the nearest Shell station, and we picked up a tin can of fuel (around $3 worth), some paper towels, and a small bottle of water. Had to make a fairly large loop to get to where Mark's car was stopped, on the road shoulder along the highway. We later found out that it was the sixth time he'd run out of fuel on the road - he already had a siphon tube handy for the petrol, and his junkyard boot had another two empty fuel cans inside!

The best thing is, he'd just stopped at a BP station to buy food, and didn't even think of topping up.

J gave him an earful. That's our long-time friend and my ex-boss for you.

Later that night, J and I were hauled down by my father-in-law to watch some Chinese charity cultural performance, for which he was a part of the organizing committee. Acrobats and not opera, we were promised. The synopsis didn't sound too bad. So we went into the theatre and sat down with my siblings-in-law.

It was worse.

Right after the third item, J and I made our way out of the theatre. Uggggh. Old-style chinese cabaret singing? With a terrible sound system that made a mockery of loudhailers? Not my cup of green tea. I thought I'd go nuts if I'd stayed in there any longer! My youngest brother-in-law was already fast asleep in his seat, fully-trained (Sleep Anywhere Forces).

We spent some time walking around Chinatown instead. I sampled an egg tart from Tong Heng (yummy) while J had a char siew sou. Ended up in some household knick-knack store to browse, when my brother-in-law called. Apparently my father-in-law had come around to spot-check during the performance, and J's brother gave him some lame excuse about us being hungry and going to find something to eat. Whoops. So we made our way back to the theatre and slipped in before the show ended, having to endure some more medieval madness.

As Hari Raya Haji fell on Sunday, the following Monday (yesterday) was a public holiday. Woke up really early to visit J's uncle and aunt in Pasir Ris (really nice and spacious HDB apartment) before heading downtown for more household shopping. Bought a steam iron and ironing board after deciding against getting one of those Novita boutique steamer-thingies - they're nice but not really worth the money, especially for shirt and pant crease lines.

Dake and partner came over to visit later that afternoon, and the four of us ended up having dinner at the recently reopened East Coast Lagoon food centre. Ordered a couple of chicken wings, and half a duck from my favourite braised duck rice stall. Yummy. Still can't find a drinks stall with satisfactory coffee there, though. I couldn't locate the coffee uncle that I used to order from, and there seem to be waaay more drink stalls around the new centre anyway. Oh well.

Couldn't find any time over the last three days to sit down and write stuff down. I had a few thoughts that I'd wanted to offload, but they're a distant memory now. Maybe they'll come back in the next few days, and I'll remember to scribble them down. Hopefully.