There’s a Party in Kazakhstan (But You’re in a Cubicle)
“Congra……congra-che-li……congra-tu-la-lo-li…..” the guy from Human Resource was trying to pronounce the phrase ‘Congratulatory Leave’. He was going over the ‘Executive Handbook’ with me and this Other Newbie – it was our first day as employees of the organization. “So…the rule is, once you’ve worked here for a year, then say you get married-lah, you are entitled to two days congra….congra-ra-la-to-ree….congra…aiyah, here, you can just read it in the book-lah, haw?” said the HR guy, resigning himself to the fact that he will never be able to pronounce ‘congratulatory’ to anyone’s satisfaction (or understanding).
Customary visit to HR aside, I spent the first half of my first day as a Corporate Citizen making paperclip bracelets in my tiny cubicle. I wasn’t just making your run-of-the-mill paperclip bracelet, mind you; my bracelets were rather intricate with complicated twisty bits. I call the look industrial-office-punk. My colleagues looked at me as if I was retarded. The ones that bothered to look my way, at least. Of course, ‘retarded’ was exactly what I felt like on my first day of work; like someone’s mentally disabled child who had been let loose around the office to run around in mommy’s heels and blazer while destroying company property.
My blazer, by the way, was white-in-color. When I tried it on in the store, I thought it made me look like a fine cross between Nico and Diane Keaton in Annie Hall. But somehow, I walked into my first day of work, looking like I should be balancing trays of champagne flutes and canapés. My white blazer made me look like a waiter. It was just as well since my next big decision for the day was, “Coffee or tea?” I chose to drown myself in coffee since nerves had caused me to lose sleep the night before. All of it. 0 hours sleep. By noon, I was starting to drift off to a faraway land on a plush, velvet carriage driven by five purple unicorns and one deformed reindeer wearing fairy wings. Unfortunately, this was around the time my boss decided to have a one-on-one briefing with me in her office. As she spoke about my official duties as a junior executive in Public Affairs and rattled on about the company’s ‘vision’; I was having ‘visions’ of my own – mostly of the hallucinatory kind – of my army of unicorns doing jumping tricks over her head.
“Are you alright?” my boss stopped to ask me midway through her speech.
See, at this point, sleep deprivation and too many cups of strong black coffee had caused my right eyelid to twitch uncontrollably. My boss must have thought I was winking cheekily at everything she said or something.
She left me with a skyscraper-tall pile of reading materials to go over, materials peppered with terms like ‘Portfolio Prioritization Matrix’ and other corporate babble – things that can sometimes be shortened into neat little acronyms like GLIC, CSR, GRI, NEI, NOI, CPI-X, OMG, WTF, KILLMENOW.
“You’ll probably go crazy from reading all of this but it’s necessary to familiarize yourself with ---“ My boss either said “every aspect of the company’s operations” or “insanity”. If it was the latter, I could’ve assured her that I was quite familiar with it, thanks.
The reading materials worked strongly against my bid to stay awake. I kept slipping into micro-sleep before apparitions of corporate sycophants carrying whips and lashes (and one time, my old Form 3 Science teacher) would appear and shock me back into consciousness. That, and the fact that my cubicle-neighbour’s mobile rang loudly every 5 minutes. And it wasn’t just any old ring-tone. No, her ring tone was the sound of someone yelling, “There’s a party in
So there I was, slowly dozing off in my cubicle when all of a sudden……….
“There’s a party in
How can you fall asleep when there’s a party in
By 4 p.m., I was reduced to doodling pictures of domestic animals on the pad of yellow post-its that the company had so graciously provided for me. Here I go again – wasting company resources. Le Chat!!! El Perro!!! Si Kerbau!!! - I’d label the animals in a variety of languages.
“There’s a party in
By 5 p.m, I went back to making jewelry out of office supplies. This time around, I used stapler bullets. And lots of adhesive tape. It fell apart on me anyway.
“There’s a party in
At 6 p.m, I get a call from my friend, The Koors (don’t ask me why I call her that. I just do) “Are you done with your first day at work? How was it?”
“I’m still in the office-lah.”
“Eh, what time do you finish work?”
“Officially, 5.30 p.m. But no one has left the office yet. I don’t really want to be the first to leave,” I said.
“Hmm…… they’re probably there because they have actual work to finish. Do you have work to finish?”
“No.” I had officially run out of office supplies to waste.
“Then? Go home-lah,” Koors suggested. “What about the other new guy in your department? Has he left yet? No?!!! What’s he doing?”
I peered over my cubicle wall to check on The Other Newbie. He was carefully twisting his telephone cord into flower-shapes.
Elsewhere, in
Tuan-tuan dan puan-puan, I’d also like to take this opportunity to thank the lovely souls who have posted such kind comments and welcome me back to the blogosphere with such warmth and ego-boosting support. I know it takes a lot of strength and effort to read through 5 pages of bad grammar and punctuation. If I wasn’t so frigid, I’d give you a hug; if I was a cabinet minister, I’d give you a government contract but for now, I can only give you my heartfelt gratitude. Don’t be a stranger now ya’ hear?
