Being the first day at work, I didn’t want to make an impression by being late. Adding to that, I’d no idea how long it would take for me to travel from one part of this island to one part of another island.
Hence, there was a need to ‘test water’. Waking up at the time when the rooster was still dreaming about being henpecked just didn’t agree with me. It had been eons since I’d to wake up so early, aside from times to ‘open the dam’ before I drown myself in sleep.
The only plus side I got from getting to work so early this morning was that I managed to get a seat on the train before the rest of the morning zombie crowd started to pack the train at the next station.
I took that as a sign from Uncle Zhou (Chinese god (?) associated with sleep) to grab a short shuteye. 40 minutes and a transfer later, I reach Habourfront station, near Sentosa.
You know the motto ‘a good deed each day’? Well at Habourfront station, an old man asked me for direction. Feeling charitable from my brief rest, I did my good deed of the day by pointing out the exit to him in my barely passable Hokkien.
The thing was, ten steps after stepping away from the old man, I realised I’d pointed the wrong exit to him. But hey, exercise is good for health. At the very least, the wrong exit was at the same side of the road as the exit he should have taken. So I guess it was still a good deed done. In any case, we should look at the intention behind and performance of the deed rather than the outcome. I’m sure all of you agree with me wholly.
Anyway, my first day at work was quite productive. My main contribution was helping to convert the air inside the office into carbon dioxide. That was a tough job nobody else wanted to do a lot of. Sacrificing myself, I had to compete with many air purifiers in the office. My nose and lungs definitely put in a lot of hard work today. Then again, I didn’t really expect much on the first day.
Other than that, I also managed to go through last year’s documents on the Nation’s Countdown Party'04. 3 thick files of it. I wouldn’t divulge more on this in case I get the cuttlefish treatment. But I would say, I was quite befuddled by some of the steps and choices made. Given the brand, Sentosa, I’d expected more quality.
Tagging along for a site survey for this weekend’s Aquabike competition, I didn’t really see much. Except a familiar crop of curly hair on the way back to the office. That crop of hair belongs to the best contractor in Singapore and JB. And some say Batam. I suppose he’s donning a beach boy image in the new season.
Hmm…if we combine curly hair, wobbling mole, hairy chest, red speedo swimming trunks and yellow boots. Definitely will become every girl’s beach hunk. Mediacorp sure can use me as an image consultant.
For my initiation, I was brought to the country club for lunch. That meant an hour’s worth of pay digested and expurgated out not an hour ago just like that. Tomorrow, I’ll be catching the lunch bus out of the island.
The afternoon was spent in the same productive way in contributing products to the atmosphere. Time was taken out to be parade myself to other departments. Names, department locations and administrative procedures were quickly erased from my hard disk as they were introduced.
I was surprised to run into one of my army mates in the office. He’s engaged as a temporary staff till end December. Me till end March. He’s given a reasonable monthly pay. Me, a measly hourly pay.
Bummer, we both murmured to ourselves, each envying the other for different reasons. In days to come, there’ll be more catching up to do.