I was quite surprised to learn that women can participate to road rage as well.
This morning, I was on my way to work. As usual, my dad was driving the car and we were caught in the usual peak hour traffic somewhere near our place. The cars were inching forward, including the little black car before us. The driver in the little black car (yes driver in the black car was a man) drove his car towards a yellow box and stopped. He ended up a third into the yellow box.
On the left of the little black car was an exit from zebra crossing. There was a family sedan and a red Mazda 3. The driver of the red mazda was a middle aged woman, around late thirties or in her forties. She looked really really impatient because the position of the little black car was somehow in her way, blocking her smooth exit into the yellow box. To share a little, that little exit is usually jammed and often cars have slight trouble getting into the main road.
Then the behind-the-window actions begin.
We could not hear wat the woman was saying, of course. But according to my dad (who witness the entire process), she was saying something, with her hands flying - directed at the driver in the little black car. Then suddenly - she gave the man her middle finger! Of course, we could not see whether the driver in the little black car did anything to retaliate.
When the traffic finally moved, the red mazda found her way, sped passed the little black car, cut through our lane into the lane on our right and was gone in seconds. Nobody knows whether the driver of the little black car actually saw that gift from the middle aged woman.
I'm not sure if the middle aged woman has any idea, that her middle finger can cost her a couple of strokes and a jail stint if the driver in the little black car managed to find a witness for the entire episode.
So folks, remember this: you can let your fingers do the talking, but watch what you're showing!
UK is getting more and more interesting these days. Imagine: They are re-engineering the minds of the younger generation - children of yours and mine - to accept this point - its socially acceptable if your classmate has gay fathers, lesbian mothers or has male relations who are a little sissy.
While I applaud at the Brit Society's efforts to embrace the existence of both heterosexuals and homosexuals (see article) - I can't help but wonder how effective this will be.
Will the love story about two princes really make the child more receptive to our same gender friends? Will stories about children with gay parents make any difference? What goes on in the child's head?
Seriously, the Brit schools might want to start with stories about how not to judge those who appears to be different from us. And why it is important not to call people names.
Ironically, one of the school under this program to educate the young has a performance called "The Sissy Duckling". Now who is calling people names and differentiating them from the crowd?
The mouth is a Food Critic. Everywhere it goes, it likes to taste good food. It has tasted a wide range of food, and is particular about the kind of food that is sent into it. Quantity was never an issue - taste was paramount.
Its friend and ally, the stomach, was a more pragmatic fella. It does not care about how the food tastes. It only cares about how to best extract the essence from the food, and distribute the goodies to its friends. The stomach is a hardworker. It worked day and night without fail.
The most hardworking of all is the intestine. Unlike its friends higher up, it actually enjoys the work of cleaning up the mess for its friends. It will diligently sieve through the food that was passed down by its friends, and process the food to be discharged. As the process is long and windy, the work can be very tiring. Nonetheless, the intestine continued to work diligently. Thinking that one day, it will get to have some break.
One day, the intestine had enough and broke into a quarrel with the Mouth - one can't stop sending food to the other, and the other had to work long hours trying to clean up the junk. "Its your fault!" Said the Intestine to the Mouth "You're so greedy. What do you think we are? Don't we deserve some rest? Do you know that we can get burnt out just trying to process what you've passed down?" "You're just being jealous that you can't enjoy the food as I do!" Rebutted the Mouth "you guys are such sour grapes!".
The Intestine got really upset, yet it could not possibly let the work accumulate without doing anything. So it started to rebel. It worked very slowly, hoping that one day the food will stock till it reaches the Mouth. "Let that snob have a taste of its own medicine!" It thought. However, the intesting did not realise that by doing so, the Stomach turned out to be the worst hit in this dispute. It has to work as hard, yet the food is not passing down well due to the chokes.
In the end, the stomach fell ill due to overworking, and the intestine suffered overcrowding and constipation. As the for the Mouth, it got its just deserts. It had to taste the bitter medicine to treat the stomach and intestine.
Sometimes, people will joked about their new colleague, appearing to have been with the company for years. My colleagues did - and they said that its as if I've been with the company for years.
Frankly, I do feel that way. On record, I've only been with the organisation for close to 2 mths (15th will mark the end of my 2nd mth and the beginning of my 3rd mth) - yet I felt that I've been here since forever. Perhaps its the people here and perhaps its the way I managed my colleagues. The colleagues here are quite open and my boss (so far) has been rather easy going and flexible with the way things are going around between us (there are only 2 of us in a team). I have also initiated some projects on my own - e.g. mini dept polls on ways to improve working environment, and proposals to upgrade our systems, etc. I even introduced radio in office (it was too quiet!) and that won some votes from the colleagues here coz "its just too tense and stressful without it", one said.
Maybe thats why everyone felt that I've been here since forever. HAHA!!
I want to blog about this coz I thought it was something interesting perhaps it'll start people to think about how we behave these days.
The newspaper reported a murder at my favourite Soup Spoon outlet at Raffles City today. A 40+ yr old cook, a chinese national, stabbed his 25 yr old supervisor - a Singaporean. I hate to admit that yes, after reading the article, I jumped to conclusion that the murder must have been the cook's fault. I mean, a 40+ yr old man must have sufficient maturity to handle the stress and frustration - n'est pas? What else can a 25 yr old supervisor do to antagonise someone who is that senior, right?
My colleague on the other hand, ahem, jumped to conclusion as well - but for a different argument. Her conclusion was that the Supervisor must have antagonised the Cook over such extended period of time that Cook snapped and stabbed his supervisor with a 20cm knife. Clearly we are on different sides.
Upon hearing her conclusions, I asked myself,"Did I draw that conclusion because the cook was 40+ years old or was it because I considered him to be one of those bad mannered Chinese National that we sometime bumped into on public transport and malls?" Clearly, I would be unfair to the cook if I'd just concluded that he's guilty because of his nationality. I deduced that I have "jumped to conclusion" based on my rational assessment of the case, and not based on my bad experiences with some bad mannered foreigners.
Btw, based on latest news update, it was found that the 25 yr old supervisor was a model employee and had been with the store for years, whereas the cook was only with the store for about 6 mths.
Come 'on girls! Get on your feet! Its International Women's Day! A day where the world celebrates and recognises the achievements of women. Women out there, you all deserve a pat on your back for all the contributions you've made for the society. Of couse, we also do hope that there would be more benefits for stay-at-home moms who'd sacrificed their career to groom our younger generations and to prepare them to take over the helm when we have all passed on. I also wish that there would be better medical benefits for non-working mothers, and more financial assistants for women with low income jobs who have bravely taken up the role to bring up her children single handedly after their spouse had passed on.
May I also wish that working mothers be granted flexible work hours once she has her first child. Do not penalise working mothers who need to take time off from work to look after their children - if their performance is still consistent. Do not put unreasonable expectations on mothers- for they have a lot of juggling to do! At home, they try to maintain a healthy relationship with her husband, and strive to hold the family together when her husband is striking out to bring more bread for the family. At her in-laws, she has to manage expectations from new set of parents she's acquired through marriage. At work, she has to strive to be a good employee that contributes to the company's bottomline. Look here, she's a superwoman! So cut her some slack!
Our canadian boss is buying a cake for the women in the office today - to celebrate IWD. How nice! So whats your office to mark the IWD today?
My one month old laptop became the victim of a virus outbreak this morning. Well to be exact, its since yesterday. You dun wanna know who was our system administrator for our private on campus network. I can only hint that its a big reputable company providing the support. You will not believe how the network can be infiltrated by virus so easily, when users were not allowed to install any application on their own, yet they have to update their own virus threads. Kinda ridiculous? You bet! A self proclaimed techie, i am clearly unhappy with the IT support here since day one. Its not just me! The ms office application is yr 2000 version, SAP is still on R/3, quality of support staff is inconsistent (some of them just drive you up the wall with their poor problem solving abilities), and their respond time is long and painful. Are we to just accept such low standards as good service? I doubt their service is cheap! Wat a waste of our money! GRRR...
Call it vanity - I am moving my personal blog site from Friendster to Vox coz I find it so convenient to blog using my mobile phone these days! Friendster still requires me to log into the internet which can be rather expensive to do so via the mobile phone. If you'd found this blog post because you'd came through the Lim's Blog site, welcome! You're probably one of the firsts to have discovered this change. ;-)
