Moan, Groan, Go Away...

It's been a month now since i've officially joined the workforce, and i'm a tad sceptic. Why? Because everything's perfect..that's why.

The people are fun, my boss is great and I love what I do. Everyone wishes you a 'Good Morning' like they actually mean it, and they even wipe the sink for the next person once they're done washing their hands! Oh..and every Thursday is free lunch day.

So where do all those horror stories come in? You know..where your supervisor is a nightmare, the merciless office politics, and the fact that you have to drag yourself out of bed every morning?

So yeah..thanks to you lousy bunch of groaners, I can't love my job without the slightest uncertainty. I keep waiting for the axe to fall n' that bubble to burst. Thanks to you..i'm waiting for my boss to peel of his 'happy mask' and reveal his horns. I'm waiting for my colleagues to stop whistling while they work (yea, they whistle while they work), and for the office help to stop bringing me my daily cuppa with a smile.  

The thing about pessimism is that it's contagious. Contagious to the extent that it seeps into your sub-conscious and scares all those happy, satisfisfied thoughts right out of your cranium.

Quite the bummer really..coz' there actually are jolly people out there. If only you'd let them.

Cheers.

Things You Learn as a Salesperson

A week's worth of selling magazine subscriptions at GITEX (Gulf International Technology Exhibition) taught me the following (the hard way of course):

- Everyone is a potential customer : Who would've thought that 6th grade girls would be more than willing to fork up 20 bucks for a quarterly subscription to a tech magazine?

- Gimmicks work : Two girls wearing an afro wig and outrageous heart-shaped glasses attract more customers than a pair of ordinary-looking (comparatively) lasses. Fact.

- Know the language : A 50-year old arab man asking you to "Gimme keess" doesn't necessarily means he's trying to get fresh with you. Turns out he just wants a bag.

Material Girl turns 21

So when mum asked me the other day what i'd like for my 21st..I was stumped. "The new Sony Vaio in crocodile brown?" I thought out loud. "Or maybe a mall-wide gift-voucher? Ooh..or the new title from James Frey??"

But the voice with which I verbalized my musings seemed hollow; as if it was some other person expressing her thoughts and not me. Did I really not want what I said I did? What is it then that I really do want for my birthday?

This called for a good bout of speculation. So I made myself a cuppa and went up to my room; my speculation spot. What did I want? What did I really want?

I closed my eyes, attempted to shut out my conscious mind, and willed the voice at the back of my head to speak out. It's about time you had a go.

What I really want...is to get all my friends down to celebrate with me. And if could fly my brother and cousin down..that would be 'perfection'. I want those birthday calls at 12am and those well-wishing texts that last the rest of the day. I want for mum and dad to be proud of me, and for myself to be even more so. I want no enemies and I want more friends; not just the additions to my facebook list, but to my speed-dial.

I want everyone I love to have everything they've ever wanted. I want second chances for all those who wish they had them (myself included), and no regrets from here on out. And what I want most is a lifetime guarantee of satisfaction; not even eternal happiness...just plain old silly-smile-on-the-face type satisfaction.

Good Lord..am I slipping? Is this the same girl who could'nt take her eyes off those new leopard print pumps she'd sighted on display at NineWest? Hmm..turns out the best things in life really can't be bought.

To actually prefer chicken soup for the 'soul' over haute couture for the 'sole'...I really must be growing up.

Cheers. 

If all the World was a Stage

Apparently there's a reason why little girls love their Barbie dolls and the little (and not-so-little) boys adore their car-sets. For the very same reason, the loveless turn to romance novels for reprieve and the bored-with-their-lives seek refuge indulging in the lives of others. Turns out it's human nature to hunt down and cling on to the stuff missing in our own existence, or what we hope will shape ourselves in the near future.

Above-mentioned little girls would love to be as pretty as Barbie, and the boys long to one day own cars as cool. The broken-hearted want faith in romance again, and the drama-less want drama.

Most of us resort to a self-prescribed dosage of the idiot-box to get us through. The chick-flicks for a guaranteed happily-ever-after. A high-powered action film where the bad guys always finish last. Or a good old musical where there's a pinch of tension, but everything really is right with the world.

But at the end of each movie, we have to get back to our oh-so-real, drab and unfair lives. Where we can't just do things on a whim and expect everything to turn out alright. Where there actually is such a thing as unrequited love. Where people die and don't come back two episodes later. Where everybody's skinny sans-lipo.

If only real life did resemble the movies. All we'd have to do to elevate world peace say, is get the nuns to sing: 'How do we solve a problem like nuclear warfareee?,' and soon all will be well with the world. If only the bad guys really would end up last. If only all men were like that chap in P.S-I Love You, and all women were well..oh I don't know. Lara Croft? And how great would it be, like in Grease, if given no notice whatsoever everyone knew the lyrics and steps to a sudden song and dance routine. 

But then we wouldn't have to rely on the TV for relief any longer. Unless it's those brocolli-stuck-in-teeth moments we're after..or wedgies.

Cheers.

 

For a Rose would Smell as Sweet...

I suppose the biggest hurdle an entrepreneur must overcome is the task of assigning a name to his/her brainchild.

Some just can't be bothered I'm guessing; just replacing the preceding article and capitalizing (the grammatical, not the political term..relax) the noun will suffice. 'A shop' will be elevated in rank to 'The (pronounced 'thee' for extra flashiness) Shop.' A publishing house will acquire the honourable title of 'The Publishing House.' If you get my drift.

Then there are some who are downright witty with their alias of choice. I found the tag 'HeadMasters' for a pouplar (obviously!) salon in Colombo so intelligently appropriate that I wanted to just drop my things in the middle of the street, and applaud. 

And finally, there are those enterprisers that I genuinely worry for; the selected designation is so random and unapt that I just know my 3-year-old nephew could come up with something more befitting.

Eg: 'Hyperpanda.' Hyperpanda??!! I honestly fail to comprehend how that one came into being. For (correct me if i'm wrong) the first thing that comes to mind when I'm told that the supermarket giant 'Hyperpanda' has just opened up in town, is the rather disturbing image of a massive, super-tripping marsupial running up and down the aisles like a child on a sugar-fix from the most mind-blowing lollipop in the world. Thanks very much, but I'll pass.

Inexplicably enough, Hyperpanda ia doing as well as HeadMasters which in turn seems to be on par with The Shop. For on the long run, all we want as customers, is a great haircut, top-of-the-notch service and fresh produce; even if it means running into a giant bamboo-devouring creature while we shop.  

Cheers.

You know you're unemployed when...

- You know the names of all the CNN anchors, including the weather reporters.

- The concept of a new chore is appealing.

- You become overly bummed-out when you reach the last page of the 'Appointments' supplement.

- A pigeon smashing against your window is the highlight of your day.

- Finding that missing sock is a mission on par with The Big Bang experiment.

- Time-management is a fast-diminishing notion, and the significance of a calendar is forgotten.

- That painting on the wall is never hung straight enough.

Bummed-out Buyer

Two weeks ago I was flipping through the TV, for want of something better to do (cut me some slack, i'm unemployed) when I found Oprah half-way through one of her advertising stints; the one she likes to call 'My Favourite Things.'

Brownies, Flab-hiding tights and some sort of stationery item later, I finally got to watch the program I was waiting for.

Now just yesterday I paid a visit to the local hypermarket, and having strolled (oh-so-involuntarily) into the stationery aisle I came across one of the products on Oprah's must-have lists.

And believe it or not..i got excited. Like, excited enough to exclaim out loud when I saw the thing on display...and still excited enough to joyously prance with it to the check-out counter.

I go home and the first thing I do is hurry up to my room to carefully tear open the cover-case...like some post-birthday party birthday girl.

So this thing I bought..it's called a 'Flag-pen.' It's a pen-shaped device having two operational components; a highlighter with which to..well, highlight, and an in-built post-it cartridge to flag the page you've highlighted on...all in one gadget!

Yea..it's not all that big a deal is it? No more than 5 minutes after I had experimented with my new purchase, the veil of  stupidity lifted and revealed the (much more reliable) demeanour of common-sense. I had become yet another victim of Oprahganda.*

So this is how they operate, is it...those darn marketing gurus? Big celebrity+little-known useless product=unimaginable profits. And oblivious customers running around screaming like excited little girls.

Call me bitter, but you would be too if you're just done studying and stuck with a gadget intended to aid that very purpose.

Hmm..maybe they'd let me exchange it for those tights...

Cheers.

*Oprahganda-Anything that changes a person's opinion after watching or reading something from Oprah. [urbandictionary.com]