Sunday, October 23, 2005

Things I do for performance bonus...

Hi all!



Sorry for the late updates, been terribly busy working. Right now damn stressed in work, ie. u know the term ‘pao suah pao hai’?


It’s Hokkien for ‘cover mountain, cover sea’. I’ve been tasked to do everything from teaching, coordinating, babysitting, modifying, to even the occasional courier service to shuttle a thumb drive between 2 lecturers who are too busy to meet each other to exchange said important information. I think it never occurred to them to mix business with pleasure, becos they lunch together everyday and sneak out during work hours to lim kopi together. How I know? Because they were always both never around when I need to look for them urgently.


So 1 lecturer took the energy to first send me an email asking to meet me in his office ASAP, so off I ran, wondering what emergency had befallen, but mostly wondering if I did something wrong.


I was also grumbling a bit, because he was on the 7th floor and I was in the lab on the 1st.


When I got there, panting, it struck me that ASAP apparently did not apply to him, becos he then proceed to make me wait 15min for his Majesty to chat animatedly away on the phone while I lingered, before finally setting me a task to retrieve valuable data from lecturer no. 2.


I was like, huh? Cannot do himself ah? But being a nice and above all, newbie, I shut my small but immensely powerful egg-cussing mouth and agreed sweetly. Since my experiment was to be boiled for a further 5 min, I decided I shall just make a quickie to lecturer no. 2, since he must be expecting me now. So, fast as lightning (about 1km/h)… I left his Majesty to cross the concrete plains to the next building, up 3 floors and knocked on lecturer no. 2’s door, panting heavily.


Oh, Damn! The frigging Prof was on the phone too! When I went in anyways, he gave me the finger - the all-important 1 single chao finger up in the air….


……indicating ‘a moment pls.’…….. (hands up for those who thinks otherwise …tsk tsk…)


I saw that crusty dirty finger full of cookie crumbs from the packet of Oreos he had been handling and tried damn hard to keep my own hands from forming another even more chao-er finger back at him.


I failed. But to my credit, I gripped my wayward hand behind my back to hide it. On the other hand, anyone passing by the window of the office shall witness a rude gesture being directed at them unknowingly…


Peace, I tell myself, and imagined my experiment shrinking in size from too much heat and the lab going up in flames ….


But a further 15 min of chit-chat on the phone hearing the one-sided conversation only made me more incensed…. Guess who was on the line? L no. 1! Who called to ask if I was already there, then started a small little conversation while I strained to keep my forehead unlined and to put my ears on high alert for sirens going off in the distance….


L no. 2 finally deigned to honour my presence with a slow click of the phone in the receiver only when I started fidgeting rudely, tapping my feet.


He turned to me and asked, ‘how may I help you?’


I stared back at him, speechless….


Then ‘Sir, if you don’t mind, Prof XXX, whom u were talking to just now, asked that I collect the data from you pronto.’


And he bloody feigned a look of pleasant surprise!


‘Oh! So he was talking about you?! My apologies….now let me see…where is the data…’


I was hopping around like I needed to find a bush while he slowly rummaged through his PC opening folders after folders to find the cause of all my troubles….


‘Yes! Found it! You have a flash drive?’


What?!’


‘A flash drive, girl, don’t tell me you don’t use it.’


I massaged my temple to give me an excuse to look away from him and to give me time to cool down…


You chao bugger Sir, the other chao buggerr Prof XXX said u are passing me a diskette.’


‘Oh boy, I’m afraid I have none….. Are u ok?’


‘F…no, sir, I’m not OK, I seem to be getting a headache. Stoopid Chao Buggers Running fast does that to me sometimes.’ I massaged harder to keep from spilling more words than I had to.


‘Oh dear, I should get my head checked if I were you.’


‘Yes, you would, you KNN Chao Bugger sir.’ I gave a small squeak at my audacity, but the rejoiner flew pass his head and placidly out the window.


Thankfully, after 5 minutes of rummaging through his piles of papers, stuffed animals, seashells and insects, he dug out a flash drive with an exclamation. By then, I also realised that L2 is not exactly a bad prof, just helpless. I watched him struggle with the simplest task of transferring the word document into his flash drive and offered some tips.


‘No, sir, just drag, sir. Don’t open it, sir!’


‘Wait! Don’t pull it out yet, have to stop it first….


All the while, he thanked me profusely. I wondered how he had been teaching his modules….


I said like 5 ‘welcomes’ and quickly let myself out of the room…and ran like a crazy rabid woman to save my experiment….


Eventually, the data was duly delivered to L1, who without the same incompetence, speedily transferred it onto his own desktop. I was on a warpath and feeling really upset over the experiment, which had turned into an overboiled lump of hard resin. I was ready to leave his room when the bastard called out,


‘Kueh, u can have this back.’


Taking an enormous breath, I turned around very slowly to give my Cool time to catch my running Temper. A mantra of Performance bonus! Performance bonus!! Performance bonus! Dooonnnggg! *temple gong* Managed to infinitesimally twitch the ends of my lips into a teeth-flashing grimace.


Bugger no. 2 Sir?’ *Through gritted teeth*


‘Pls take this flashdrive back to Prof YYY.’


‘Yessir. &%$#@#$


And I managed to close the door without slamming it.



As you can see, there are no eggs being mentioned in this entry…because I’m sure they wont just be smelly already….more like extinct, the way I imagined them to be thrown onto Lecturer no. 1…



Later, L2 would have had heard a series of thumps right outside his wall. If he'd bothered to walk out and check, he would have noticed a few new dents on his newly installed blackboard....


Reason being, all them eggs in the world won’t be enough…


*******************************

I shall be damn busy the next few weeks trying to keep my temper down, so early apologies if there’s no updates and if I’ve not been visiting u guys! Sorry sorry!


Out!


Akk

24 comments:

atelierz said...

Hehee... That's work life lah. Jia you on your work! Yeah! =)

kim said...

So was your experiment ok? Hahaha. My prof told me his building had explosions before. Hahahah..

Zhe Bin said...

I hope you won't be busy with this again! And they don't have clerks or whosoever to do this menial craps meh?

Even if he don't know how to drag, use a lil common sense also know how to copy and paste lor. I think he is hopeless. Then again if he's perfectly normal he won't be like that.

God breast you okay.

Wallace said...

wah girl why u so on the ball?

he say ASAP u don't have to go ASAP ma. take your time, go out buy a coffee and sip it on the way up to his office.

Then if he's on the phone even better, got some quiet time to enjoy your coffee.

And when he ask you to go down and see prof 2, go and settle your expt first ma.

and when u finally meet prof 2, u won't be so flustered worrying about your exploding expt. and you'll get even more opportunities to teach him even more computer stuff, making him even more indebted to you.

so how, your performance bonus?

nadnut said...

aiyoyo. need a voodoo doll?

Unknown said...

is the required data really so hugh that it cannot be send as an attachment on the email from one joker to the other?

Unknown said...

Don't rush when they say ASAP. I guess all their emails have words like ASAP or urgent in them. Don't chap siao them.

If urgent, they will call your desk lah. Still send email.

Ang Ku Kueh said...

vanna:

the thing about profs are that usually they don't know what's the jobscope of their minions and don't want to find out, perferring to stay in their ivory tower like those high-minded shu shengs...strange but true...

li-er:

oh ya, i relac liao. Am jiayouing hard.. :)

stars:

nope, dieded..but ok lah, just started only. anyways, it's repeated today and it works! :)

zhebin:

actually, they are supposed to do this things themselves lah, but haiz...small fry minion mah...must be their legs and hands also.:)


wally:

i should be able to get it, on account of being so 'on the ball'. hehehe....


nad:

i have already...shhhh...:)


mihuatang:

yup! this data cannot email, students can intercept...*hint* :)

lancerlord:

did I tell you my desk no phone? heheheh...difficult to find me at the best of times...and I intended it this way.:)

nadnut said...

nair mind. cheer up! we'll eat away soon! ;)

MyOrangeSweater said...

Aiyoh, poor thing, they are making use of you! Do protest! Can you complain to somebody? Or at least make a plea? Tell them you are not their Girl Friday!

frenieactually said...

ur temper very good liao. I will be scolding them @#$%^&*(

ReneRene said...

dats work life..grossly underpaid, seriously overworked!

Anonymous said...

ahem... let the snake king teach you something.

These are the best opportunities man... if I kena this type of ding dong delivery service, you will find me at Holland Village sipping kopi liao.

When L1 ask where you are, you say you are on the way to L2. Vice versa.

Ang Ku Kueh said...

nad:

okie, i promise to meet u alive and well.:)

lynne:

I know they are making use of me. but seriously hor, they don't actually have a clue wat's happening (see comment to vanna). OTOH, they were my lecturers when I was a student, it's like this teacher karmatic thingy going on, I can't treat them in anyway less respectful! but i'm learning slowly...heheeh..:)

frenie:

in front of them? hehehe...i scolded them here mah...:)


ting-a-ling-ling:

er...i wouldn't say I'm grossly underpaid, so maybe that's why they are making me do so much, heheheeh...

jay:

wah lau! a simple telephone call will fish out the truth liao! it takes only 5 mins of fast walking between the 2 offices! :) but i understand lah. Dun worry lah, u know I know when to skive off mah! ....just that this case has an added botched expt...which made the incident worse. :)

Zen|th said...

Bah.. Things like that happen all the time. Cheer up. =)

Anonymous said...

Fish out what truth?

It is true you were on the way there what. Just that you took another route.

He didn't specify which path to take to get to the other office right?

So techinically, you are correct in your reply.

n said...

hah really atrocious people, exploiting newbies.. slip a banana skin in front of his door or something, or perhaps put some laxatives into his coffee.. :)

barneysaurus said...

Muahahhahahah HA :D!! Eh... if it's of any consolation, I've met such chao buggers too!

And I also damn busy sia.... HELP! I also want PB :)!!!!

Acey Deucey said...

You're becoming a weekend blogger, AKK. *Grin*

Ang Ku Kueh said...

zenith:

yup! if i ever wrote down all that has be fallen me the past 2 days, u'd get bored...:)

jay:

wat's hor-lan wee? sorli, my hokkien not as hor as yourz. :)

derrick:

hehehehe...laxatives? here dun have, but toxic biohazard stuff got a lot!!!:)

barney:

PB?? why not i give u a blackboard? then u can dent it for stress relief.:)

acey:

yes!!! I know!!! *wail....*

Tempest Blue said...

Just goes to show... a Ph.D is more likely to mean 'Permanent Head Damage' than 'Doctor of Philosophy'.

Studying so much is not proof of intelligence. In fact, maybe just the opposite. :-p

Finsology said...

Wahahaha....Eh they should have a PAY STUDENT TO COURIER scheme lah...

Try Yoga to deal with that temper...You go...HU...XI....HU...
XI....Its helps sometimes... =)

Ang Ku Kueh said...

tempest:

oh man, u got that absolutely rite!!!

averil:

orh.....u do yoga? no wonder the nice figure...*seriously considering*

ivanny said...

haha...averil don't do yoga la...lol... yeah i agree with tempestblue...lol...

aiyo ur profs ar... damn troublesome!!! lol...throw more eggs...i provide u ar...lol