Friday, December 31, 2010
Happy New Year 2011!
Happy New Year,everyone! May it be filled with every happiness and fulfillment in the days ahead :)
Saturday, December 25, 2010
A Real Good Samaritan
A real Good Samaritan
One act of kindness that befell British writer Bernard Hare in 1982 changed him profoundly. Then a student living just north of London, he tells the story to inspire troubled young people to help deal with their disrupted lives.
The police called at my student hovel early evening, but I didn't answer as I thought they'd come to evict me. I hadn't paid my rent in months. But then I got to thinking: my mum hadn't been too good and what if it was something about her?
We had no phone in the hovel and mobiles hadn't been invented yet, so I had to nip down the phone box.
I rang home to Leeds to find my mother was in hospital and not expected to survive the night. "Get home, son," my dad said.
I got to the railway station to find I'd missed the last train. A train was going as far as Peterborough, but I would miss the connecting Leeds train by twenty minutes.
I bought a ticket home and got on anyway. I was a struggling student and didn't have the money for a taxi the whole way, but I had a screwdriver in my pocket and my bunch of skeleton keys.
I was so desperate to get home that I planned to nick a car in Peterborough, hitch hike, steal some money, something, anything. I just knew from my dad's tone of voice that my mother was going to die that night and I intended to get home if it killed me."Tickets, please," I heard, as I stared blankly out of the window at the passing darkness. I fumbled for my ticket and gave it to the guard when he approached. He stamped it, but then just stood there looking at me. I'd been crying, had red eyes and must have looked a fright.
"You okay?" he asked.
"Course I'm okay," I said. "Why wouldn't I be? And what's it got to do with you in any case?"
"You look awful," he said. "Is there anything I can do?"
"You could get lost and mind your own business," I said. "That'd be a big help." I wasn't in the mood for talking.
He was only a little bloke and he must have read the danger signals in my body language and tone of voice, but he sat down opposite me anyway and continued to engage me. "If there's a problem, I'm here to help. That's what I'm paid for."
I was a big bloke in my prime, so I thought for a second about physically sending him on his way, but somehow it didn't seem appropriate. He wasn't really doing much wrong. I was going through all the stages of grief at once: denial, anger, guilt, withdrawal, everything but acceptance. I was a bubbling cauldron of emotion and he had placed himself in my line of fire.
The only other thing I could think of to get rid of him was to tell him my story.
"Look, my mum's in hospital, dying, she won't survive the night, I'm going to miss the connection to Leeds at Peterborough, I'm not sure how I'm going to get home.
"It's tonight or never, I won't get another chance, I'm a bit upset, I don't really feel like talking, I'd be grateful if you'd leave me alone. Okay?"
"Okay," he said, finally getting up. "Sorry to hear that, son. I'll leave you alone then. Hope you make it home in time." Then he wandered off down the carriage back the way he came.
I continued to look out of the window at the dark. Ten minutes later, he was back at the side of my table. Oh no, I thought, here we go again. This time I really am going to rag him down the train.
He touched my arm. "Listen, when we get to Peterborough, shoot straight over to Platform One as quick as you like. The Leeds train'll be there."I looked at him dumbfounded. It wasn't really registering. "Come again," I said, stupidly. "What do you mean? Is it late, or something?"
"No, it isn't late," he said, defensively, as if he really cared whether trains were late or not. "No, I've just radioed Peterborough. They're going to hold the train up for you. As soon as you get on, it goes.
"Everyone will be complaining about how late it is, but let's not worry about that on this occasion. You'll get home and that's the main thing. Good luck and God bless."
Then he was off down the train again. "Tickets, please. Any more tickets now?"
I suddenly realised what a top-class, fully-fledged doilem I was and chased him down the train. I wanted to give him all the money from my wallet, my driver's licence, my keys, but I knew he would be offended.
I caught him up and grabbed his arm. "Oh, er, I just wanted to…" I was suddenly speechless. "I, erm…"
"I wish I had some way to thank you," I said. "I appreciate what you've done."
"Not a problem," he said again. "If you feel the need to thank me, the next time you see someone in trouble, you help them out. That will pay me back amply.
"Tell them to pay you back the same way and soon the world will be a better place."
I was at my mother's side when she died in the early hours of the morning. Even now, I can't think of her without remembering the Good Conductor on that late-night train to Peterborough and, to this day, I won't hear a bad word said about British Rail.
My meeting with the Good Conductor changed me from a selfish, potentially violent hedonist into a decent human being, but it took time.
"I've paid him back a thousand times since then," I tell the young people I work with, "and I'll keep on doing so till the day I die. You don't owe me nothing. Nothing at all."
"And if you think you do, I'd give you the same advice the Good Conductor gave me. Pass it down the line."
Sunday, December 5, 2010
Roosters and Car Horns
Roosters & Car Horns
Saturday, 02 January 2010 at 21:40 |
One thing I'll never forget is waking up on that first morning of work.As I woke up from my bombed-out , anxiety-induced sleep, I could hear and smell my surroundings long before I could see them. A little past 6 a.m in the morning and I could hear a few sounds in the distance. Those sounds would always sum up my Working experience for me - an alarm clock ringing endlessly while up from the road came a cacophony of car horns & engine rumblings. Not to mention, the ice-cold shower and change into a working suit before the inevitable car ride.
The first car ride uptown was memorable for a host of different reasons. One was the rush-hour traffic. Good god was it terrible, one of the banes of my upcoming existence. The other thing I remember thinking was that it didn't look too different.Tiong Bahru looked like any other suburban locale,only with more office workers, smoked glass office towers and, as I may have mentioned, ungodly traffic. Either way though, it was different. My worries about not going to perform well were fading fast - life was definitely taking a turn for the interesting . .
Reality has a nasty habit of whacking you upside the head.We were finally pulling up to "City Plaza" , my workplace-to-be for the next month.I was dropped off in the shadow of the imposing office complex , and gingerly made my way up to the NETS office.
Then it hit me. Hard. I was a long way from home , I didn't know anyone whom I hadn't met within the last 24 hours. I had no job experience and my only prospect of earning that was by doing something I had no clue about - telemarketing.What if I got into trouble? What if I hated it? Worse yet, what if I liked it but they hated me? This was more than some exotic adventure. This was no friends, little money, no prior experience, sink or swim time.
Just when I was about to pack up and make a run for it , I looked at the flip side of the coin. Some company had taken me, basically sight unseen , and given me my first ever job. Now, if that wasn't a risk...
Also on the plus side was that my supervisor,Michelle,seemed nice,as did my colleague,Vanessa.And my previous experience with telemarketers had shown me that One didnt seem to need much skill in this line of work, or even have all one's marbles. It was time to get up and give this a shot.
After the initial introductions though,came my first test to workplace utilitarianism. Vanessa took me down two levels to have my thumbprint scanned for identification purposes by Roger, the chief technical supervisor. Was this an scene straight out of Orwell's *1984* ? There would be a time though, when I would come to appreciate all this finger-jabbing.
" Press HARDER against the glass panel!!!!! "
" Okay, I'll do that"
"Stop TREMBLING! There is nothing to be afraid of , just calm DOWN and relax your hand !! "
" I'll try."
" Oh finally,we have this thumb scanned. Now, the other hand"
Que horrors du horrors! To undergo another orgy of finger scanning , which would take another 10 minutes as per the first hand? The horror!! But it was eventually completed , albeit at the cost of more time and the sight of a bemused Vanessa.
But there was no time to dawdle over such trivial issues.A crash course in Stalinist-style filing soon followed , before I was left to collate the mountain of thick office documents & assorted recipts in alphabetical order , to be sorted out into corresponding folders. Which brings me to say,the folders could be scattered in any of several wall-mounted wind-up safe-like compartments. I swear those safe compartments could have just come out of the dingy vaults of the Bank of England.
I get ahead of myself here.Lets just say the filing continued for agonising minute after minute , dreary hour after hour - until the blessed lunch-time finally came.
Lunch came and went with a hurried KFC meal & a bottle of water, until it was time to start work afresh. By 2 O'clock , the office had slunk into an unnerving mix between total silence ( the kind you would find in a library) and a constant but distant clamour of running feet, ringing phone calls and muffled voices. This was a trait that I would notice frequently over the course of my holiday job, NETS office workers tended to keep to themselves unless absolutely necessary, quite unlike what my other temporary staff colleagues would describe of the varying office cultures in other jobs they had held.
The main focus of my job though, seemed to include the duties of a general purpose office peon. There was the data-entry to be contended with , much time invested in typing the particulars of unknown persons into the system for one purpose or another. Then the classification of those lucky draw contestants into various catagories ( N.M for New Member , I.C for incomplete , A.C for add card, you get the drift..) , but not forgetting the mild irritation at deciphering the scribbling of some unknown person , who seemed to take pervasive delight in making their Zs look like a 2 , and to add in a few mangled symbols or Incomplete bankcard/identity card details.
At 5 o'clock or so though , came a ritual which I have had trouble believing it actually existed! It seemed that the honour of collecting various office envelopes , service reports and one very important Finance Book came to me , as the newest office temp.These were to be sent en-masse to the second level of the building, where they were to be delivered to the customer service agent (service reports) , into a tray labelled FRANKING ( assorted envelopes) and left on the desk of a specific person.(Finance Book) . Next up though, came the *fun* part of this ritual. I would hurry back to my office cubicle under a swaying mass of received office mail and assorted materials. * The T.K post office* would then commence operation , slicing through bundles of envelopes , sorting out their content and sending them to their respective places ( mail to the received mail section , worn-out NETS cards to be shredded, reports into the big yellow Report folder). I managed the entire mail allocation for the level I was on, just as I would imagine some other peon doing so for Post Danmark or the United States Postal Service!
The end of my first day at work seemed to come rapidly after this( the exhilaration of going home was ineffable),followed by a quick car ride back home and dinner, with some free time thrown. That would turn out to be all it took to get me ready for bed. By 10.00 p.m it was light’s out and slumber time until my friendly neighborhood alarm clock heralded in the new day. The remainder of my work days at NETS roughly followed the same pattern, with some variations in between.
Looking back in retrospect,I found my work at NETS to be extremely engaging. Even though it proved to be for a limited duration only , those days spent working injected new meaning into my character and beliefs.No longer would I fail to understand how my Father felt after coming home from his banking job , how precious a lesiurely weekend would be , how hard it would be to earn money & bring home the bacon. Of course,words like perseverance , determination , courage , friendship and grit , would seem much more personal from now on..
Where to from here? Who knows, it's a new day.
The first car ride uptown was memorable for a host of different reasons. One was the rush-hour traffic. Good god was it terrible, one of the banes of my upcoming existence. The other thing I remember thinking was that it didn't look too different.Tiong Bahru looked like any other suburban locale,only with more office workers, smoked glass office towers and, as I may have mentioned, ungodly traffic. Either way though, it was different. My worries about not going to perform well were fading fast - life was definitely taking a turn for the interesting . .
Reality has a nasty habit of whacking you upside the head.We were finally pulling up to "City Plaza" , my workplace-to-be for the next month.I was dropped off in the shadow of the imposing office complex , and gingerly made my way up to the NETS office.
Then it hit me. Hard. I was a long way from home , I didn't know anyone whom I hadn't met within the last 24 hours. I had no job experience and my only prospect of earning that was by doing something I had no clue about - telemarketing.What if I got into trouble? What if I hated it? Worse yet, what if I liked it but they hated me? This was more than some exotic adventure. This was no friends, little money, no prior experience, sink or swim time.
Just when I was about to pack up and make a run for it , I looked at the flip side of the coin. Some company had taken me, basically sight unseen , and given me my first ever job. Now, if that wasn't a risk...
Also on the plus side was that my supervisor,Michelle,seemed nice,as did my colleague,Vanessa.And my previous experience with telemarketers had shown me that One didnt seem to need much skill in this line of work, or even have all one's marbles. It was time to get up and give this a shot.
After the initial introductions though,came my first test to workplace utilitarianism. Vanessa took me down two levels to have my thumbprint scanned for identification purposes by Roger, the chief technical supervisor. Was this an scene straight out of Orwell's *1984* ? There would be a time though, when I would come to appreciate all this finger-jabbing.
" Press HARDER against the glass panel!!!!! "
" Okay, I'll do that"
"Stop TREMBLING! There is nothing to be afraid of , just calm DOWN and relax your hand !! "
" I'll try."
" Oh finally,we have this thumb scanned. Now, the other hand"
Que horrors du horrors! To undergo another orgy of finger scanning , which would take another 10 minutes as per the first hand? The horror!! But it was eventually completed , albeit at the cost of more time and the sight of a bemused Vanessa.
But there was no time to dawdle over such trivial issues.A crash course in Stalinist-style filing soon followed , before I was left to collate the mountain of thick office documents & assorted recipts in alphabetical order , to be sorted out into corresponding folders. Which brings me to say,the folders could be scattered in any of several wall-mounted wind-up safe-like compartments. I swear those safe compartments could have just come out of the dingy vaults of the Bank of England.
I get ahead of myself here.Lets just say the filing continued for agonising minute after minute , dreary hour after hour - until the blessed lunch-time finally came.
Lunch came and went with a hurried KFC meal & a bottle of water, until it was time to start work afresh. By 2 O'clock , the office had slunk into an unnerving mix between total silence ( the kind you would find in a library) and a constant but distant clamour of running feet, ringing phone calls and muffled voices. This was a trait that I would notice frequently over the course of my holiday job, NETS office workers tended to keep to themselves unless absolutely necessary, quite unlike what my other temporary staff colleagues would describe of the varying office cultures in other jobs they had held.
The main focus of my job though, seemed to include the duties of a general purpose office peon. There was the data-entry to be contended with , much time invested in typing the particulars of unknown persons into the system for one purpose or another. Then the classification of those lucky draw contestants into various catagories ( N.M for New Member , I.C for incomplete , A.C for add card, you get the drift..) , but not forgetting the mild irritation at deciphering the scribbling of some unknown person , who seemed to take pervasive delight in making their Zs look like a 2 , and to add in a few mangled symbols or Incomplete bankcard/identity card details.
At 5 o'clock or so though , came a ritual which I have had trouble believing it actually existed! It seemed that the honour of collecting various office envelopes , service reports and one very important Finance Book came to me , as the newest office temp.These were to be sent en-masse to the second level of the building, where they were to be delivered to the customer service agent (service reports) , into a tray labelled FRANKING ( assorted envelopes) and left on the desk of a specific person.(Finance Book) . Next up though, came the *fun* part of this ritual. I would hurry back to my office cubicle under a swaying mass of received office mail and assorted materials. * The T.K post office* would then commence operation , slicing through bundles of envelopes , sorting out their content and sending them to their respective places ( mail to the received mail section , worn-out NETS cards to be shredded, reports into the big yellow Report folder). I managed the entire mail allocation for the level I was on, just as I would imagine some other peon doing so for Post Danmark or the United States Postal Service!
The end of my first day at work seemed to come rapidly after this( the exhilaration of going home was ineffable),followed by a quick car ride back home and dinner, with some free time thrown. That would turn out to be all it took to get me ready for bed. By 10.00 p.m it was light’s out and slumber time until my friendly neighborhood alarm clock heralded in the new day. The remainder of my work days at NETS roughly followed the same pattern, with some variations in between.
Looking back in retrospect,I found my work at NETS to be extremely engaging. Even though it proved to be for a limited duration only , those days spent working injected new meaning into my character and beliefs.No longer would I fail to understand how my Father felt after coming home from his banking job , how precious a lesiurely weekend would be , how hard it would be to earn money & bring home the bacon. Of course,words like perseverance , determination , courage , friendship and grit , would seem much more personal from now on..
Where to from here? Who knows, it's a new day.
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