Express update

Yes, apologies again for disappearing once again off the face of the earth and reappearing again to unleash a barrage of verbal diarrhoea. So much has happened since the last time I blogged, which I embarrassingly mislabelled the year Michael Jackson was born.

So in a nutshell, this is a summary of what happened the last time since I blogged from Tokyo.

After Tokyo, I came back on a Saturday afternoon only to fly off on the very next Sunday to Bangkok for a workshop. I would love to go into the technical details of the Workshop on the Applications of Nanotechnology in Foods organised by the Asian Productivity Organisation but I wouldn’t think that would be a topic of great interest to you guys. All you need to know was that firstly I was representing Singapore at the workshop and secondly, I had a great time although the ultra busy schedule was taking its toll on my health.

From Bangkok I then flew off to Manila, Philippines for my dear friend’s wedding. And I got to meet up with my dear mate, Matthew Lyons there.....so that was great fun too. Manila surprised me. I never really thought much of it, wasn’t really a place I had in mind to visit. But I tell ya, the people we met there were fabulous, friendly and beautiful. Shopping is a somewhat different experience there, especially when you have to go through a bag search, metal detectors and a smiling armed guard to get into the mall. And I finally understood the true meaning of good service there. Fridge out of beer after a drinking session with your mates at 3 am? Finished your last cigarette at 4am? No worries, a phone call will resolve all that. Anything you need, all home delivered within the hour. Anytime of the day.

I went into Manila at 6am Saturday morning and flew out 10am Sunday. That, I tell you, is exhausting! Plus the chaos that is the Manila airport didn’t help. It looked like there was a riot there, but it was just people saying bye to their families or friends as non ticket holders are not allowed into the airport.

Then Matt and myself had only a few more hours to spend together on Sunday because he was leaving Monday and I had to work. We tried to spend as much precious quality time as we could together but regularly lapsed into periods of frustration and depression that we couldn’t have more time together. Anyways, until the next trip.....

I went back to work on Monday, had zero concentration, was making mistakes at work, was snapping at people and was generally wallowing in self pity when I received a phone call at 4pm. It was from one of the senior staff members who is our HR rep. He was also one of those people who have been working in the school for centuries too long, has no tact and should have really retired instead of sapping off tax payers’ money.

He said to me, in a real stern voice : “Martyn Wong, I am serving you with a leave of absence due to the fact you came back from two H1N1 affected countries. You must leave the premises immediately and stay at home for a week.”

Me :” ok, so the leave of absence is given by the school yeah, not from my annual leave because I was on official duties?”

Asshole :”No, because you went to Philippines on a personal trip, it will be taken off your annual leave.”

Me :”No, the announcement for staff who make personal trips to affected countries needing to take annual leave to cover their leave of absence when they return was only made today. Had I known that my annual leave was to be deducted, I would not have gone to the Philippines. So its not very fair to deduct my annual leave without prior notification”

Asshole : (This popped my cork) “Its too bad. So can you please pack up now and leav.....”

I slammed the phone down and went straight to my boss’s office.

After 15 minutes of ranting and raving, I came to an agreement with my boss that she will talk to Asshole on my behalf. However, I was pretty confident he wouldn’t have the power to take my annual leave, but if he did, I would have taken it further, first to the top of the chain and if that doesn’t work, I would have gone to the press. I was prepared to lose my job over it, but was he prepared to lose his reputation? If I’m going down, I wanted to drag rude and irresponsible people down with me, or at least get my 15 minutes of fame.

Two days later, while I was “resting” at home, asshole called me and sheepishly said “ They’ve decided not to deduct your annual leave, the Poly will take care of that.”
“Consider yourself lucky, take it as a holiday from the Poly, remember to take your temp....”

I slammed the phone down again.

Some people just shouldn’t be born with any mouth if they don’t have a brain to match.