Summertime!: Not so exciting

I’m serious. I’m a total couch potato who would subtly destroy opportunities to get outside, so I’m going to do what I always do best during times like these–namely, sit in a cafe and surf the Internet.

I think what I’m trying to say is that although I’m glad to have some free time on my hands, I wish I had something more productive to fill it up with. I spent this morning wasting time on the Internet–literally–and my afternoon is slipping by in a haze of boredom and tiredness. Somehow, this feeling reminds me of the past summers I’ve had. It also reminds me of why I signed up to do work experience in the first place.

Yeah, I guess it is. Dull.

To earn some cash and in a desperate attempt at productivity, I’m spending about five hours a week doing the piano thing. It’s just sitting with them for an hour and telling them how to practice, but at least that’s doing something. The last kid just left around an hour ago and I’m still recovering from her aftereffects. That has got to be the most tiring, unproductive hour in my tutoring-thing history. Last time I covered an entire page with another kid; this miss barely got through half. *headdesk*

Two episodes of Daria, a cookie and an hour later, here I am, sleepy and exhausted despite having had no physical exertion whatsoever. I’ll go and look for a movie to watch later.

But first, a coffee. And it looks like I’ll have to plan for the rest of this month.

Work: the Last Day of

After countless harrowing days, a business trip and a bout of impromptu sickness, my internship finally draws to an end. I don’t mean to sound as relieved as I do, but the prospect of being able to get up whenever I want to–at last!–and having the option to laze around at home sounds immensely promising to me. No more rush-hour traffic. No more emails from the boss. Goodbye corporate drudgery and hello to long hours in cafes. Yes!

Regardless, I think this work experience was definitely worth the time and effort. Lots of things learnt on my part…and now I’m going to list them here. Perhaps this will save you from a brutal wake-up from your Utopian office dream in the future; I don’t know. Hope so. Anyway, to sort out my thoughts (and share them with you), and break the news gently…

1.  Halfway into the first week I realized that school really was better than work. What my parents and teachers have been trying to tell me is actually true. School is infinitely more relaxed and it has a much happier atmosphere. (Unless, of course, you work at Google.) Teachers are way better people to be confronting than bosses and managers.
2. Friends are scarce in the workplace. Once again, this backs up my “school is better than work” theory. You have friends in school, even if said friends are jealous and bitchy and fight a lot. You can talk with them freely and make crude, dirty jokes. Nobody cares. You don’t have to worry about sending them gifts or sucking up to them just because they’re in a higher grade. At least, not really. You don’t have to worry about them badmouthing you to your boss or cutting down on your salary or giving you impossibly difficult tasks to do. Neither do I have to, but it’s apparent that the assistants suck up to the managers. Ugh.
3. Your boss doesn’t care how you do your job or how difficult it is for you. Unlike your teachers, you can’t go running to Mr. Boss every time you encounter a problem. If the boss says “put the elephant into a refrigerator”, it’s your job to locate the elephant, and truck it around. It’s also your job to get someone to make/buy a fridge big enough to fit an elephant inside. If you ask your boss, he’s just going to tell you to find someone and give you a contact number at most. Sigh.
4. If you don’t plan your time, then you’re not going to get everything done. Anything, even. You might not, even with a fully functional schedule. Bosses have a habit of popping up at the least convenient time and assigning a new task to you. So…work avalanche. Not pretty (not very relaxing either).
5. Bugging people pays off, and it’s worth the annoying looks they give you. Being nice and giving them time may very well mean never getting them to do it. The tasks that my boss gave me that he didn’t bug me about are still lying there. I’m never going to get around to doing them…last day, remember? Do whatever it takes to get the people to do it. They’re going to do whatever it takes for them to not do it. Damn.
6. If you can pull it off without sounding overly insolent or rude, negotiate. I didn’t know you could do that until I heard another manager do it. The boss sat down with her and they negotiated about whether or not they should have a meeting on Monday. She even told him that she had too much on her hands and that if she did this extra task he was trying to set her, she would have less time to complete that other, more urgent job. Thatwas an eye-opener. Lesson learnt! …But it may have something to do with the fact that she’s a senior worker, I guess.

That’s my internship in a nutshell. We just had lunch outside (boss’s treat!) and are back in the office again. So…all in all, I’d say that my time was well spent, and that I learned more than I had hoped to. It was different, in a way, from my expectations. Apart from all the social skills, my translating skills–and tecchy skills–were also put to the test, via Translating A Website And 10,000 Other Documents. But it’s a good thing. I can now create and upload websites. Yay?

And last but not least, a thank you to all the people at my company who have been friendly and nice and supportive. I’ll miss you…and maybe, just maybe, we’ll meet again next year.

Another two hours, and then I’m going to settle into full Relaxation Mode.

Edit: I think I forgot to mention that they said that I was welcome to work there next year, too–which explains the “we’ll meet again” part, I think. Also also–did I forget to say that I’m tutoring kids on the piano? With income! Hell yeah!

Day in The Life Of #1

                                                  Also known as:

Brain stuck in shut-down mode and won’t budge

Overcoming suspicious puddles, low-hanging tree branches and potential killer escalators, you arrive once again at the familiar workplace. The huge, white sign that advertises plastic surgery remains stubbornly stuck to the gate despite all your prayers, and you try to slip in without too many people looking. Your company’s sign is much more humble; a rectangular panel artfully camouflaged in the dark brown of the building walls. As the gate swings shut behind you, already making your way up the steps, you make a rude gesture at the small clinic whose gate adjoins to your building.

Two hours later, as you sit beneath the air-conditioner with a pounding headache, you wonder why you ever chose to come here. But your colleague offers you a peach, and suddenly life seems much brighter again. You savor the peach until it’s all gone, then return to your spreadsheets and documents, resisting the urge to scream. Just as you prepare to sit back for a while in subtle celebration of the work you’d just finished, your boss replies to your email with more work for you to do. This time, you do scream. Your colleagues hardly glance at you.

When lunch break arrives and your bosses depart for some expensive meal, the peace and relaxation is more than welcome. You resist the urge to nap. Instead, you march yourself to the Starbucks by the corner and grab yourself lunch. You fail to resist watching that cartoon you’ve recently discovered. Three episodes later, very full and slightly late, you hurry back to the Plastic Surgery sign, where your good mood dissipates immediately upon the sight of it.

And so the afternoon drags on, despite your best efforts. Your diligent facade continues. Mixed and skillfully hidden between your documents and Google translations are the comics, cartoons, facebook…and even your blog. Wait. Whoa. What? Your blog?

How did the blog get there?

Oh well. You might as well write something on it. You begin to type after a moment’s thought.

“…Overcoming suspicious puddles, low-hanging tree branches…………”

******

There. Another blog post. After all those half-coherent, argumentative/discursive (Wth, IGCSE English still in my head) posts, I deserve a break. And I don’t want to torture myself–or anyone else further–with my loophole-filled logic and messy essay (post?) structure. Otherwise my Pageviews might just well dwindle down to zero.

So. Maybe this blog will see more of these things and some fiction posts as well, seeing as they’re much more fun to write (hopefully they’re okay to read too…?). But wait. Must not get out of practice for IB. …Alright, so y’all will have to suffer the occasional nonsensical post once in a while.

Just…just consider it community service or something, ‘kay?

The Summer Holidays, coupled with work experience…

  So after months of high-strung tension and late-night homework, it’s all over. The IGCSEs are over. What stands looming in front of us innocent, unassuming students is the monstrous form of the IB, the International Baccalaureate, official destroyer of free time and good sleep. Still encompassed in our post-IGCSE and pre-result bliss, we’re having too good a time to think about that. But the time will come, and we will cower.

  I wish I could say that I’m having a thoroughly relaxing summer holiday, complete with iced coffees, chocolate chip cookies and nice couches (not to mention 24/7 air conditioning), but sadly that is not the case. What IS the case, though, is a job/internship at Company XYZ, forcing me to get up at the ungodly hour of 7 (okay, better than school days, but still) and back home at 7 p.m. But I cannot complain. Why? For I have signed up for this myself, in the quest for a fulfilling, or at least somewhat productive summer. Too many holidays I have wasted roaming the house, reluctant to go on the Internet for fear that I may never switch my laptop off again for the remainder of the day. Too many holidays I have spent bemoaning my fate as I face the piano, my brain refusing to co-operate.

  Um, so is this my cue to quote that poem ‘The Raven’ and go, “Nevermore!” ?

  But that is besides the point. The work experience lasts one month for me, from 27th June to…25th?I think–July. My post-IGCSE relaxation consists of working 8 hours a day for no pay. If I didn’t know for myself how tedious and boring my summer holidays could be, I would consider this decision more-than-borderline masochistic. My daily routine now consists of waking up at 7, leaving home at 8, taking the metro and arriving after a 10-min walk at 9. And although I’m supposed to be done at 5, I sometimes wait until the others leave at 6. For those of you who are itching to get a job, let me say that it’s a lot less fun than expected. Sure, for the first week you feel all awesome and ‘grown-up’, but it becomes as much of a burden as school. More, even, considering that it’s the holidays and everyone’s out having fun. Doing buggerall, as some people would say. The temptation!

  Don’t mistake this entry for complaint. Despite everything, this is pretty much worth it. What I think though is that it gets pretty obvious that so-called friendships in the workplace are by no means comparable to friendships at school. This is probably not the best advice, coming from a  intern (with a one-week experience), but I think that it’s pretty obvious here that those with lesser statuses sort of suck up to those with higher statuses. And I don’t mean just during work time, but also when they go out. And I have something resembling evidence to back me up…

  On Saturday R invited two co-workers and me to go to She Shan (佘山) with her Samoyed dog C and then go shopping at Outlets. Naturally, I went. The two (N and L), who held lower positions, would say nice things to R (to make her happy) and go along (only seemingly willingly) with her decisions. Having no particular need to shop, I entertained myself at Outlets by being with the dog, sitting on a shady bench and reading my book while they browsed. By the end of the day, R acquired two shopping bags while the others got nothing (one of them complained to me privately that the shops R browsed in were too expensive for them–thus confirming my thoughts on the boss-worker status. Difference in payment -> difference in taste). What I deduct from this is that workplace acquaintances may mean just that; that these people are merely acquaintances, not friends. So I sit here at my desk, with these three people around me, and I continue to observe. To me, though, this is the kind of experience that I am looking for–to see how people communicate with others in the workplace, and how it differs from relationships at school. To me it is interesting.

  And in the office apart from ours sits L, and the boss–R. I like Lthe best, I think. She’s Asian, but she says she’s from London and has the accent to prove it. I like her outgoing personality–the kind of person who manages to be warm, personal, friendly and yet also businesslike at the same time. Dude, there’s my role model….hahaha!

  Besides being a creep and observing my co-workers (I’m kidding. I’m no creep.), I’m kept busy translating documents, typing things up, doing the odd job on editing a document and also translating their official webpage. And that webpage, no lies here, is a pain. Everything’s in picture format, which means that I have to do layers on it, resave it as another picture and fit it back in to see if it’s okay. I’m being driven crazy with that. And I do answer the odd phone call, picking it up and then transferring it to the intended recipient (answer-er?). Nothing particularly exciting, but it’s enough. During lunch I have a 10-kuai allowance, allowing me to buy next to nothing in terms of lunch, but I guess that’s what I agreed to and it’s what I’ll have to stick with.

  So maybe this summer isn’t among the most relaxing, but I’m happier in the knowledge that what I’ve slaved away (overstatement of the century) learning in school will be put to use in later life (e.g. jobs). It’s certainly motivation to actually learn the stuff. And although I’ll have to find extra pocket money (salary!) elsewhere (and almost certainly at some other time, e.g. next year), I’ll have this to back me up.

  It wouldn’t do to have them know that I’m also doing all this blogging stuff during working hours. Haha!

  But until the end of July draws near and I have time to myself again, I’ll make the most out of this, try to fool people about my age (N thought I was a new recruit) and enjoy myself.

  So. Back to work! xD