Wrecked by Werk
31 Mar 2019
I don’t know if I have already mentioned the agency name or the company name in previous posts, but for legality issues I shall write this like I have never mentioned it before. I worked at a non-financial company that is in listed in the STI ETF. That’s all I am at liberty to say.
So, my actual work contract turned out to be ten weeks long rather than thirteen weeks, or three months. Because the agency’s arrangement with the company I worked at had some hiccups and they had to cut short the contract. And also, the agency was taking a huge cut out of my wages and I realised that there was a disconnect between what the company was paying and thus the quality of work they expect to receive, and the pay I was getting and thus the effort I am willing to put in. And this made me feel quite uncomfortable working there. Because I was wasting a lot of time in the toilet playing on my phone because of my laziness. And in the end, me and the person I worked with didn’t even finish the assignment because our contract was cut short so how can that be enough time???
So, basically my job function was Admin Support. I did stuff like sorting papers, filing, data entry, etc., and a big part of that is removing staples and stapling stuff. Which kind of wrecked my wrists and fingernails for a while. And I think my job position was only created because the company had a huge backlog of project papers that has not been sorted and closed. And when the agent told me that it was mundane and dry, I should have reconsidered, because it is boring. And especially towards the end because one of the computers which me and my partner were using was “condemned”, and basically means that it disappeared one day, and with it all the files inside. And for the entire of the last month we had to take turns using the computer, which means that sometimes there was nothing to do because only one person could use the computer. And I was also very sad and felt like everything I was doing was all wasted because all the important files were gone. And boss couldn’t retrieve it like wtf.
Something. The person whom I worked with for this past ten weeks was a half-century antique, a Muslim, and whose highest qualification was a NITEC. And the pervious person who was in my job position who quitted after her contract ended was a 23-year-old Chinese, also NITEC graduate. Which means I don’t really know but kinda felt throughout the whole time that I was in a job that was way beneath my capabilities and I was basically wasting my time. Even though Singapore truth is that Diploma and even NITEC graduates are more qualified for work than A Level students. And my “antique” comment is an overstatement for her. Because it much better describes the rest of the people in the office. Well I don’t really know, but most of them are Diploma holders who have pretty stable jobs. At least three people I know are older than 62 years old and are thus being let off the company this year. And forced to retire with a mini bonus. And they too left on the last Friday of Mar 2019. Same as me. But a kind of sadness thinking that while my corporate life has just begun with this job’s end, theirs has come to a complete end.
The people whom I go to lunch with (Chinese, which makes eating convenient because we have virtually no dietary restrictions unlike my counterpart.) are all at least twice my age. And many of them are of the “Merdeka Generation”, as announced in the 2019 Singapore Budget, which means that they are very very old. And it was shared to me that most of them have been working at that company their entire working life. As like, engineers and administrative staff. They have been working at the same company for 30, 40 years. Crazy! And they kinda complained about the company and said that it had bad bosses/bad welfare/bad job progression. And a corpulent late middle-aged man was very adamant that I do not go back to that company after university. I don’t know if their job dissatisfaction is due to them not being university graduates? I can never know. Just that they really hated that company and their job.
Anyway, remember I mentioned that I didn’t complete the assignment? Turns out my supervisor has to do it. even though she is already bogged down by her normal work. I recently learnt that she has to bring work home to do, because there were just too many emails to reply to. God bless, she is Merdeka Generation which means approx. sixty years old. And still has to 做牛做马, or work ox work horse, to work very hard. Which is scary and I am scared. I decided against studying medicine or law because I wanted decent working hours. But this is scary. She said that a few days ago she worked till midnight in the office. What the actual fuck. She has so much work, and fucking bless, but she now had to do the menial data entry tasks which we did not complete.
I am sorry for being a slow worker. Even though initially I was quite motivated and worked fast, but then I started to see the pointlessness of what I was doing and started slowing down. I managed to read so many chapters of War and Peace while perched on the toilet seat cover. (also, if you are wondering, I did make solid progress on War and Peace. Yay! And kinda attracted to Russian Lit and Broadway musicals set in Russia.) Sometimes, the other three female staff in the office would come in, do their stuff, and go out, and I would be in there for the entire time, sometimes up to 30 minutes, just because I was lazy. Even they finished shitting I still remained inside. One of the web designers from another department had really smelly shit. I would know because I was inside the toilet for way too long.
As I write this, I am eating my second supper of the night at 1.30 am and I have lost all faith in my sanity.
Someone whom I conversed with, the corpulent late middle-aged man, said a remark which made me really feel like I have no business working at that job. He asked me for my age, and I said I was nineteen, which isn’t false as I am born in 2000. And also, my lunar age was already 20. But he saw through my bluff, and said that since my birthday likely isn’t over yet, in March now, and thus I am still eighteen, which is true. And he proceeded to announce loudly that I am eighteen. Any I have yet to start university. And thus, I have no business working now, was my deduction. Also, they have children, and their children are aged like 29, 39 years old, etc. which makes them more than an entire generation older than me.
Another event that made me feel this was that my Muslim colleague in the same job as me, was working because she needed the money to support her family. Her husband worked likely a low pay customer service job, and her 23-year-old daughter was on and off jobs. And she really needed the meagre pay we were getting. And is currently desperately looking for a job. Maybe not too desperate, but actively looking because she needs one. (Here, I am reminded of a joke I recently heard. Finding a job is like finding a girlfriend. Easy if you already have one or else you seem too desperate.) And unlike me who can still ask my parents for an allowance, albeit with much shame and embarrassment, if need be, she can’t. And she is also in remission for breast cancer and the follow ups were expensive, thus she needs the money. And if I may bet, the 10k SGD in my currents account at one point in time recently, is larger than her emergency fund. I mean, I wouldn’t bet on it, but I can have a certain degree of certainty.
Also, 20k or even 10k is way too much to be having in my bank accounts for someone who is still able to have parental support. I should be investing my money instead, I am over 18 and I have a CDP account.
Also, I read up and realised that “living in your parents’ basement” is not a relevant phrase in Singapore, because for one the high cost of living and high rental means that most people end up living with their parents until they married. And secondly the presence of land scarcity means that most poor people like us live in apartments which have only one story and no basement to speak of.
Last thoughts: I think these last 10 weeks made me much more tolerant of others if anything. I did learn some functions on Microsoft Excel but it is minor. Not much of hard skills which I learnt but much of introspection. So, there’s this guy who I went to lunch with, and he smokes. I don’t know how many a day, but at least once a day because every day before driving to lunch he will be seen with a cigarette and the smell floods the entire place. Initially after the first week I had decided that I cannot keep going with the group for lunch because all the second-hand smoke is killing me. But soon I realised that its not that bad. Even though he smokes he’s pretty hygienic which is quite surprising. He brings a pack of tissues around too, and the car is very clean barring the stake cigarette smoke residue occasionally which makes my head hurt. And his nihilism and dark humour kinda resonates with me so, like joking about death, I don’t think I haven’t heard it. So, while I personally will never smoke, I am so much less hateful which is a good thing, I guess. And also, my Malay partner legit eats office lunches with her hands. Which is quite a scene. But well I’ve seen it, I guess. I have also become much more tolerant of people talking bullshit to me ha-ha I can just ignore them lol.
I guess I will be ending this reflection here. I want to write my next post about money matters. I think I will write it soon. But then again, I always write on a whim and don’t really follow through with plans so.
I don’t know if I have already mentioned the agency name or the company name in previous posts, but for legality issues I shall write this like I have never mentioned it before. I worked at a non-financial company that is in listed in the STI ETF. That’s all I am at liberty to say.
So, my actual work contract turned out to be ten weeks long rather than thirteen weeks, or three months. Because the agency’s arrangement with the company I worked at had some hiccups and they had to cut short the contract. And also, the agency was taking a huge cut out of my wages and I realised that there was a disconnect between what the company was paying and thus the quality of work they expect to receive, and the pay I was getting and thus the effort I am willing to put in. And this made me feel quite uncomfortable working there. Because I was wasting a lot of time in the toilet playing on my phone because of my laziness. And in the end, me and the person I worked with didn’t even finish the assignment because our contract was cut short so how can that be enough time???
So, basically my job function was Admin Support. I did stuff like sorting papers, filing, data entry, etc., and a big part of that is removing staples and stapling stuff. Which kind of wrecked my wrists and fingernails for a while. And I think my job position was only created because the company had a huge backlog of project papers that has not been sorted and closed. And when the agent told me that it was mundane and dry, I should have reconsidered, because it is boring. And especially towards the end because one of the computers which me and my partner were using was “condemned”, and basically means that it disappeared one day, and with it all the files inside. And for the entire of the last month we had to take turns using the computer, which means that sometimes there was nothing to do because only one person could use the computer. And I was also very sad and felt like everything I was doing was all wasted because all the important files were gone. And boss couldn’t retrieve it like wtf.
Something. The person whom I worked with for this past ten weeks was a half-century antique, a Muslim, and whose highest qualification was a NITEC. And the pervious person who was in my job position who quitted after her contract ended was a 23-year-old Chinese, also NITEC graduate. Which means I don’t really know but kinda felt throughout the whole time that I was in a job that was way beneath my capabilities and I was basically wasting my time. Even though Singapore truth is that Diploma and even NITEC graduates are more qualified for work than A Level students. And my “antique” comment is an overstatement for her. Because it much better describes the rest of the people in the office. Well I don’t really know, but most of them are Diploma holders who have pretty stable jobs. At least three people I know are older than 62 years old and are thus being let off the company this year. And forced to retire with a mini bonus. And they too left on the last Friday of Mar 2019. Same as me. But a kind of sadness thinking that while my corporate life has just begun with this job’s end, theirs has come to a complete end.
The people whom I go to lunch with (Chinese, which makes eating convenient because we have virtually no dietary restrictions unlike my counterpart.) are all at least twice my age. And many of them are of the “Merdeka Generation”, as announced in the 2019 Singapore Budget, which means that they are very very old. And it was shared to me that most of them have been working at that company their entire working life. As like, engineers and administrative staff. They have been working at the same company for 30, 40 years. Crazy! And they kinda complained about the company and said that it had bad bosses/bad welfare/bad job progression. And a corpulent late middle-aged man was very adamant that I do not go back to that company after university. I don’t know if their job dissatisfaction is due to them not being university graduates? I can never know. Just that they really hated that company and their job.
Anyway, remember I mentioned that I didn’t complete the assignment? Turns out my supervisor has to do it. even though she is already bogged down by her normal work. I recently learnt that she has to bring work home to do, because there were just too many emails to reply to. God bless, she is Merdeka Generation which means approx. sixty years old. And still has to 做牛做马, or work ox work horse, to work very hard. Which is scary and I am scared. I decided against studying medicine or law because I wanted decent working hours. But this is scary. She said that a few days ago she worked till midnight in the office. What the actual fuck. She has so much work, and fucking bless, but she now had to do the menial data entry tasks which we did not complete.
I am sorry for being a slow worker. Even though initially I was quite motivated and worked fast, but then I started to see the pointlessness of what I was doing and started slowing down. I managed to read so many chapters of War and Peace while perched on the toilet seat cover. (also, if you are wondering, I did make solid progress on War and Peace. Yay! And kinda attracted to Russian Lit and Broadway musicals set in Russia.) Sometimes, the other three female staff in the office would come in, do their stuff, and go out, and I would be in there for the entire time, sometimes up to 30 minutes, just because I was lazy. Even they finished shitting I still remained inside. One of the web designers from another department had really smelly shit. I would know because I was inside the toilet for way too long.
As I write this, I am eating my second supper of the night at 1.30 am and I have lost all faith in my sanity.
Someone whom I conversed with, the corpulent late middle-aged man, said a remark which made me really feel like I have no business working at that job. He asked me for my age, and I said I was nineteen, which isn’t false as I am born in 2000. And also, my lunar age was already 20. But he saw through my bluff, and said that since my birthday likely isn’t over yet, in March now, and thus I am still eighteen, which is true. And he proceeded to announce loudly that I am eighteen. Any I have yet to start university. And thus, I have no business working now, was my deduction. Also, they have children, and their children are aged like 29, 39 years old, etc. which makes them more than an entire generation older than me.
Another event that made me feel this was that my Muslim colleague in the same job as me, was working because she needed the money to support her family. Her husband worked likely a low pay customer service job, and her 23-year-old daughter was on and off jobs. And she really needed the meagre pay we were getting. And is currently desperately looking for a job. Maybe not too desperate, but actively looking because she needs one. (Here, I am reminded of a joke I recently heard. Finding a job is like finding a girlfriend. Easy if you already have one or else you seem too desperate.) And unlike me who can still ask my parents for an allowance, albeit with much shame and embarrassment, if need be, she can’t. And she is also in remission for breast cancer and the follow ups were expensive, thus she needs the money. And if I may bet, the 10k SGD in my currents account at one point in time recently, is larger than her emergency fund. I mean, I wouldn’t bet on it, but I can have a certain degree of certainty.
Also, 20k or even 10k is way too much to be having in my bank accounts for someone who is still able to have parental support. I should be investing my money instead, I am over 18 and I have a CDP account.
Also, I read up and realised that “living in your parents’ basement” is not a relevant phrase in Singapore, because for one the high cost of living and high rental means that most people end up living with their parents until they married. And secondly the presence of land scarcity means that most poor people like us live in apartments which have only one story and no basement to speak of.
Last thoughts: I think these last 10 weeks made me much more tolerant of others if anything. I did learn some functions on Microsoft Excel but it is minor. Not much of hard skills which I learnt but much of introspection. So, there’s this guy who I went to lunch with, and he smokes. I don’t know how many a day, but at least once a day because every day before driving to lunch he will be seen with a cigarette and the smell floods the entire place. Initially after the first week I had decided that I cannot keep going with the group for lunch because all the second-hand smoke is killing me. But soon I realised that its not that bad. Even though he smokes he’s pretty hygienic which is quite surprising. He brings a pack of tissues around too, and the car is very clean barring the stake cigarette smoke residue occasionally which makes my head hurt. And his nihilism and dark humour kinda resonates with me so, like joking about death, I don’t think I haven’t heard it. So, while I personally will never smoke, I am so much less hateful which is a good thing, I guess. And also, my Malay partner legit eats office lunches with her hands. Which is quite a scene. But well I’ve seen it, I guess. I have also become much more tolerant of people talking bullshit to me ha-ha I can just ignore them lol.
I guess I will be ending this reflection here. I want to write my next post about money matters. I think I will write it soon. But then again, I always write on a whim and don’t really follow through with plans so.
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