A.P.P.L.E

After working for one month in a considerably big company, I’ve really learnt the cruelty of the Real World - an “open university” probably known as University of Society. There’s a lot to be learnt and it seems that the syllabus is very flexible and dynamic - changing all the time and you have to cope with it. It’s sort of “Dead-or-Alive” matter.

I’m going to say what I observed for the past few weeks since I first working in the office. Just take K and M as an example. Read slowly, as it might get confusing. Both K and M are colleagues for a long time. But you can feel that there’s something unpleasant between both of them. One day, M made a mistake while typing some numbers for advertisement purpose (which actually can be a serious matter). That was a Sunday, K is not working on Sundays. But K is the leader, so she was told to write a letter to explain what was happening. M insisted that she was only a typist and the checker should be responsible for this, not her (M herself). The checker A was probably having blur vision or something, which made her unable to identify the mistake that M made.

Now, M thought that she is not the only one who must be responsible for this. K thought that she was not working on that day (Sunday, the day that things happened), and of course non of her concern. But she (K) turns out to be the leader…..at the end, during a monthly meeting, they discussed about this to the head. And the story goes on…

From this matter, we can see that…people won’t like to take full responsibility whenever anything concern about bad things. If something concern about Vitamin M and good things, I think each and everyone will put on his/her perfect mask. Scary, isn’t it? Yea, I know. That’s called office politics. The Real World.

The funny part about my colleagues are, whenever one person not around, the rest will talk behind him/her. For instance, when M is on leave, K and the others will be saying things about her (well, most likely negative comments). Same goes for the others… I don’t know if they have said anything bad about me or not..but who cares? I’m not gonna work there for my entire life! And even if I work in another company, same things apply, at least I’m prepared. And once again, who cares? As long as I try my best to accomplish my tasks.

Next chapter

It was 10:02pm. Walking out of the office, I brought along a changing mood from boredom to happiness. It’s a Wednesday tomorrow, I thought inside. It will be my precious off day throughout the week. Walking along the road, down a small stairs to the car park…and heading to my car.

My dear always remind me to standby the car remote control in my hand and don’t wait too long to unlock the door (which I always used to do). With that in mind, I hold tight my remote control and unlock my car when I was approaching it. I stopped. Small pieces of glasses was all over the tar road. I remembered there wasn’t any glasses there before. First terrible thought came in, “Don’t tell me my car…”.

Looked up to my car and WTF!!! was my first expression. It was exactly what I thought in my mind. My car glass window which was beside the driver seat had been broken by some f*cker. I opened the door, staring inside for a moment, and I was so lost! I didn’t know what to do next. My CD player was still in place, but why? Why the glass had been broken? (Later, I found that the f*cker intended to steal my CD player, but failed to do so, as it was kinda stuck there…or perhaps someone passed by and the f*cker quickly ran away…well, those are just predictions)I was so nervous. The first person I thought of is daddy. I called his cellphone yet could not be reached. I called the house phone, ringing and ringing, yet no one answering. I called my sister’s cellphone…no one answered too..I had no choice, I was so helpless. I called my dear. He asked me to calm down but I was afraid, shocked and didn’t know what to do..crying like a baby…in front of some this-doesn’t-concern-me-at-all-looking security guards. I kept trying the house phone, hoping that someone could answer it. Finally, a voice came through my cellphone receiver.

“Hello!”
“Hello! Dad, my car glass had been broken..”, said me, with a shivering, sobbing voice.
“Huh? Where are you?”
“I’m still downstair of the office.”
“What’s the time now?”
“10.15pm…”

And the conversation went on, until a solution came up.
Police reported had been made.
Dad and I cleared the glass pieces from the driving seat.
I drove home in caution…not too fast as I feared that small piece of glasses might fly into my eyes or scratched my face.
I’m glad that one of my colleagues, Mr Tan, accompanied me for a little while before my dad arrived, when he heard the bad news.

—

Today, my off day. Early morning brought my car to workshop.
Now I get back my car and everything is fine.
I’m glad that my CD player had not been stolen by the noob.
I’m glad that non of my belonging is lost.
I’m glad that my dear and friend concerned about me when I was alone in the darkness.
And of course, Dad, thanks for helping me when I was in need, although you were sick last night ><

On the 12th to 17th of December 2006, I went to KL for vacation with my family. I don’t have to work? If that’s what you are wandering…No, I had to work actually. But I applied for unpaid leave. Excluding my off day (which is on Wednesdays), I had to apply for 5 days unpaid leave. Something very cilaka about this company is, 1 unpaid leave will cost you for deducting 2 days salary. So imagine and calculate for yourselves, 5 unpaid leaves..5 x 2 = 10, thus 10 days salary kena potong (deducted) T_T

So after my vacation, I went back to work, which was a Monday. At first, I didn’t feel anything wrong but after a while, I really didn’t feel very well. I could hardly breath..So I completed my task quickly and left an hour earlier. (left earlier, deduct salary again..)

The next day, I was told that the ads I did had some problem. What kind of problem? Well, I don’t wish to repeat myself here, but just to let you know I’d made mistakes during work. GREAT SCOTT!!

—

I learnt that, people will not always take the responsibility if there is something wrong, even he/she has to. According to M, our head leader K is a person who only care for herself. If we have any problems telling her, she will not do any action to assist. But is that true? After some time of coorperating with leader K, I think she is still okay but not too bad…Once again, this is office politics…and I will have to tell myself “Welcome to the Real World!”.

How is it like in the real society?
I was always been told that the society is how realistic and so forth…
It’s time for me to explore it myself…
How I feel about it..??
To be continued in the next chapter..

First day at work, I felt so left out and isolated. To avoid being late, I reached office around 1.15pm. Being nervous, I had no choice but to be independent and asked for help when I first arrived at the office. I looked for the manager’s secretary and she told me to sit down first while waiting for the manager to arrive. I was waiting….waiting and waiting until I nearly pissed off. I sat down for nearly 1 hour, no talk, no nothing >sifu will make more sense. She will be assisting me for the next 3 months (my probation period). After that, I will have to handle my own task by myself. Moi has a loud and clear voice, teaching me with patience. I’m glad that she didn’t get mad at me when I was confused by all the things that I need to do.

It’s a Chinese newspaper firm, so I will have to type a lot of Chinese characters. I used to type Chinese characters using pinyin method. But I was told to learn another method which is Cangjie or 仓颉. It will definitely take me sometime to master this input method. Because to me, it is complicated. But if I can really master it, I could have typed faster because sometimes, I don’t even know how to read Chinese character that I need to type. In Cangjie, it doesn’t matter about the pronunciation but the shapes of the characters. And here emerged another problem. The firm is using Traditional Chinese. I don’t have a problem reading Traditional Chinese characters, but I have problems in writing them. So you think I just need to type but not write, so what’s the deal, yea? Nah..if I just need to follow the shapes that given in the paper and type it out, that will be easier. Sometimes..the ads are written in Simplified Chinese character. Then I have no idea how the word looks like in Traditional version.. Get what I mean? Argh..don’t understand what am I talking about? Nevermind, that’s not important.

Everyday, when I reach office, I will have to ensure that all ads to be published the next day are all with me. Check whether the ads come with the order bills, else I must ask for permission before I can arrange them into the layout design. Then later, I will have to arrange all the ads. Sometimes, need to “design” new coming ads too. Why “design” with “” ? Because the design here is more like arranging how the words will appear in the ads…the font face, font size, layout etc. Nothing much to deal with graphic design. Why not?? Because there’s another department called the Graphic Design department, handling all ads that need graphic design. Why am I not working there? Because there’s no vacancy in that department yet…so that’s how my fate goes.. Nevermind, I’ll just try to fit myself into this new environment and learn things bit by bit.

Oh, by the way, the software that I use for doing all my tasks is Adobe InDesign..Chinese version (which I was not used to it at the beginning..all menu is in Chinese)

Read more in the next coming chapter…

I was asked to go for a “walk-in” interview without knowing what post I was interviewing for. Not until the interviewer, which is now my manager, told me my job specification and so forth. =.=

It was 29th November 2006. I went for this interview. I was told that my job is to arrange and design the advertisements which will be published in the newspaper later. Yup, I went for an interview in a local Chinese newspaper firm. I was asked a lot of questions regarding my qualification and the interviewer told me that it’s a waste of my talent/qualification for applying for this post. And I answered him with a smile, “It’s alright. I’m here to gain experience and I’m willing to work from low position.” (which I later found that it was quite LAME ) Actually, I did this for a reason. “Giving face” to my father as he was the one who asked me to try out this post.

After talking for some time, he told me that my working time is from 2pm to 10pm. At first, I thought inside my heart. What the hell? That’s late…and for nearly 1 year, I’ve been meeting my dear everyday during noon. And now I have to work at this time? The interviewer asked me, “Can you work at this period of time?”. I hesitated for a little while, and answered, “Yes, no problem.”

So, I would be working on 1st December 2006, which was precisely 2 days later after the interview. That was fast!! But why? Because they are in need of employee for that post.

Only until some time, I know the name for my post. Sounds nice in English but so sweat in Mandarin. I’m an Advertisement Layout Artist, or in other words…广告排版员. (Direct broken English translation will be “advertisement arrangement worker”)

So, what things I do everyday?
Review on the next chapter.
^^