Caught in a maelstrom

I’m halfway between Adelaide and Singapore at the moment; I will post this log entry when I arrive in Singapore. I wanted to post a blog entry earlier but I didn’t have enough time. Work was really hectic in the last three days and I also had to tidy up the house to make sure that it looks alright. Kornelius from church has kindly agreed to take care of the house while I’m away. So, I have emptied and re-arranged the spare bedroom so that it looks alright and moved a lot of the junk to the study. Hehehe.

As mentioned earlier, it was quite a whirlwind at work before I left on Wednesday. A project meeting that I had on Tuesday had left me pretty cold about continuing to work at the company post my holiday. The meeting was railroaded by two quite senior personnel at the company who rejected the project proposal, but rather than approaching me or the department head prior to the meeting in a civilised manner, they chose to create a dramatic moment during the project meeting. When I opened the meeting with an introduction of the project background and objectives, I looked at one of the culprits, a Senior Product Manager. She almost looked very pleasant – I thought I detected half a smile. I thought to myself that perhaps the meeting would be successful after all. The bloodbath happened after she turned to speak afterwards – whilst she built up the moments by sounding all sympathetic and supportive, she then said “ … but, I do not support this project.”An audible gasp from the audience. Having done a successful coup-d’etat of the meeting, she then proceeded by listing her reasons without wanting to come to an amicable agreement. She didn’t mind it if the project tidied up and touched other divisions, but not her own division – uh uh. She was supported by her manager, who is also well-known for being the king of office politics and dramatic moments. A former insurance salesperson, he was elevated to becoming the Head of an area managing producs and solutions for one of the company’s division. He loves to appear smart and knowledgeable, thus he also loves to pepper his lines with statistical terms when he’s talking to me, even though he doesn’t not know what they stand for. He loves to undermine other people by sowing seeds of doubt. So, once again, he did it, assisted by his willing partner in crime. After the meeting was adjourned prematurely, the project team licked our wounds and commiserated. I thought to myself, “Now, tell me the reason why I should seriously consider about staying with the company longer?”. I would happily make my exit now – having exhausted my options and having been exhausted by the heady mix of office politics and big egos.

So, I was hanging on my last drop of optimism and energy in the last three days – tidying up things, moving my stationeries, books and other stuff to another desk that will be my home when I return to the office in August. I also did as much as I could on my second project to ensure that it’s in a good shape to be left alone for a while. I really couldn’t wait to start my holiday … yesterday morning in the bus, I daydreamt about being back in Schiphol Airport, Amsterdam, near the escalator to the train station. I had a flood of memories coming back to me, about being on the road, travelling – and that alone gave me  a sense of hope. 🙂

In about four hours, I will arrive in Singapore – I will relax a bit and take a shower before I continue my journey to Amsterdam. This morning was very hectic as well, as I rushed to do the last clean-up of the bathroom and the living room, packed my bags, and left the basic instructions for Kornelius. I arrived at the airport just 10-15 minutes before the flight was closed! I still had to wait a while before the passengers boarded the plane though, but still I cut it fine this morning.

Enough about the hectic, the whirlwind, and the headaches at work – I’m now officially on the road, accompanied by my MacBook, iPhone, and my digital camera.

World, here I come!

Postscript:

I’m now in Singapore – waiting to board my next flight from Singapore to Amsterdam. There was another drama when I landed in Singapore – when the passengers were allowed to turn their mobile phones on, I did so accordingly but the signal never came. I became more and more frustrated as I walked around the terminal, never to pick up the roaming signal from one of the local telecommunication companies. I thought maybe my iPhone couldn’t be used for roaming, so I took the SIM card off and transferred it to my old phone. Thank goodness, I have my old phone with me as well. I’m planning to give my old phone away to one of my sisters … I frantically fished it out of my luggage and then put the SIM card in. It still wouldn’t work. I bought a calling card and called Optus in Australia who advised that my global roaming access was off. I told him that I suspected that it was the case when I changed my plan to take the iPhone. Grrrr. 😡 Initially the officer who helped me said that I had to call again in the morning as he didn’t have the access to turn the roaming on. I pleaded with him, and said that I was about to go to another country and if I didn’t have any phone access, it would be extra hard! He consulted his Team Leader and then he said that it would be active in 30 minutes – we shall see, eh?

The positive thing is that I had my shower already – so I have fresh pair of socks and undies, and I’m feeeeeeling goooooood.