Her Side View Looks Like Fiona Xie!!

30th December 2005, Friday

On the eve of New Year's eve and the last working day of 2005, the mood here is significantly subdued, partly due to the lack of personnel present as almost 60% are clearing their annual leaves while those left behind like myself are rueing over the fact that we did not get an official half day this year since the eve falls on Saturday itself...
But with such an accomodating supervisor as mine, we are warranted with an unofficial half day with the younger brood would gladly accept and the stoic JxMMy most probably would stay till the sun doesn't shine...

While alighting the train at Bouna Vista this morning, I was half awake after dozing off for majority of the long journey and saw this well-dressed office lady barging into the train as if the door would close any moment before I could go out.
Actually there was this gargantuan fellow whom I thought would be alighting as well hindering my alighting process thus caused the lady and when I took a quick glimpse of her feet, one of her stiletto seemed to had fallen into the tracks via the gap between the train and the platform...
I didn't check out her expression, but it's not hard to figure that she would be filled with both anguish and embarrassment at the same time hoping her Salvatore Ferragamo imitation would not suffer any damage as the train departs.
Although I had made no contact with her or in any way caused her to drop her footwear, I felt a certain degree of guilt not offering any assistance as I descend from the platform, acting as if nothing had happened at all.

Gave a call to CS last evening, enquiring about the data retrieval lobang of his and when we could make a trip down to see this expert to resolve my predicament.
However we had a good 15 minutes chat on how things are going and once more our dear Pepsiman had something up his sleeve to tickle my funny bones...
He mentioned about a secondary class outing which he did not attend but got a big scoop from BH (yes my ex colleague as well as old JC mate) who made an appearance...
It seemed like Chin Beng and Miss Moustache would be tying the knot like myself in the coming year and Nanzhou, our pretty flair boy, Sean came and looked all beefed up and in accompany of his gorgeous beau who BH described had a side profile which closely resembles Mediacorp actress, Fiona Xie..which at this juncture CS snapped and went ballistic as he is also fond of the wonderfull "asset"-bestowed local artiste and visibly green with envy for Nanzhou without even seen this girl yet...that's CS for you, ladies and gentlemen

He is also in douldrums now that many people are jumping onto the bandwagon to get hitched in the coming year and with his girl, QTee breathing down his neck to replicate the process, he is still wondering if she is the one...
This led to me give him a piece of advice regarding the fact that if any woman is sane and tolerant to endure our behavior and antics, they are the one destined to be with us for the rest of our lives...
But even so, he wasn't convinced; therefore let's hope he could find that ultimate enlightenment in the coming year.

Back to looking back the year.. like what Simply Red has been harping before:

Numéro Deux (Number Two in French): The Mass Exodus

There had been a drastic change in the staff roll call in my lab if you haven't noticed by now...
Only months ago you would see the 3 witches (BY, YM & LF) bitching, gossiping and creating a din at their work stations which often drew the irk of P.I.s like Seban and Xia Li Ye; but now the once bustling area is as quiet as a graveyard which I'm sure former critics might even missed.
However their sequential departures are not just isolated in our lab but an institute-wide phenomenon as former lab biologists whom Old Hag always considered as "dispensible" would carved on a crack of opportunity to jump ship to greener pastures.
Just the recent X'mas party, it is evident that there had been an exodus of manpower and aptly replendished (since we are considered consumables) by fresh graduates whom followed their predecessors to hop on to this jumping board for a couple of year of experience...except for people like 大便, JxMMy and Boon Hui from SeBan's lab who had signed on a lifetime slavery contract to this slum...

That was the macro aspect of why the girls left ...
Generally YM left for a job which offer her a good 2.5K to recognise that degree in computing she had while over here after 6 years of slogging, she only has 2.2K per month to content with.
LF had thought a Curtin degree would be her avenue to promotion but was left dumbfounded by the resistance of the HR regarding her conversion which in previous cases generally would be sanctioned.
Disenchanted, she applied for jobs elsewhere but after umpteen interviews, her passive characteristics did not land her a better job. Therefore she asked for a change of lab since the work here had became incredibly dry for her liking and now with the same remuneration and benefits she has to worked twice as much for a newly set-up lab. At least she is beaming with a smile been cooped by work as it is a stage for her to learn new skills and show he seniority since she has garnered 4 years of experience in her inventory.

Then we came to the micro aspect on why they left.
As mentioned, the work schedule over our side had been getting really dry and the condescending nature of our supervisor means that we had been doing the dirty work for everyone else except for ourselves.
For a good 3 months or so earlier this year the girls was basically idling to a state of boredom as all the 3 of them had to do is minimal aliquoting or running of agarose gel as they claimed are "fighting for work to do".

In addition they had been living under the wrath of JxMMy for way too long as time and again, he had overstepped their limit of iolerance till a critical stage that they were abhorred at the sight of him.. even these days when he rarely would make an appearance to where the main lab is.
Our supervisor is well aware of the situation but was oblivious to all these on-goings and was biased towards her love-child; which significantly incensed the 3 of them.
Then came the catalyst that spilled everything over in June which led to BY who had been actively seeking a new workplace all these while, praying to leave desolate place.
Her prayers were answered in August as she was accepted for a job over at our rival institute and duly left in October.
Since then the entire lab seems void of life which BY used to bring about with her blaring laughter.
The new replacements then came in the form of Bobby & Triana in August & November respectively but the camaraderie is not the same as before and the working attitude of these newer ones with the misled of some attachments like Lance drove YM to tears even weeks back to highlight the transition of the workplace with regards to the facade of the manpower and the overall morale...

For the past year I myself had been contemplating more than once with the idea of seeking greener pastures and with my qualifications I think I should be earning more.
But been the least ambitious and the most easily contented, I was held back time and again to move on.
Been the dissent over JxMMy, the loss of great colleagues and the disgrunt over pathetic wage package, there had been other great points which I wanted to remain for years to come including a easy job, a great boss and acceptable benefits...
And with the prospect of a switch to the shared facilities overseen by the HQ and the presence of a wedding to be organised, I might not have that time and effort to go seek a new job, "lie, cheat & steal" to get one and properly assimilate into it...
Well as Utada Hikaru had sung before..."oh baby..wait & see".. hopefully without the "risk" if you know what I mean..heehee

Japanese word of the day: 事務所~ji-mu-sho~(Office/workplace)In 2006 & beyond, JxMMy would still be here, Old Hag would still rule things over and I would still be typing this wretched blog every afternoon...