about ME; ♥


♥ 8th April

♥ middle child

♥ pil-lion

A lesson learnt and a mistake to share


I am currently into my third month of my first “real” job and i am happy to share that i have been confirmed and no longer on probation! I have since received my own namecard (since young, i always thought that people with namecards are very important!) and at this moment, i can honestly say that i’m loving it. I know many people think that i have accepted a job beneath my qualifications and that my position is of a minor role and most importantly underpaid. However, i really like my colleagues and my working environment and most importantly i feel accepted by them as well. I like the rush and how we deal with different people everyday.


Even when i graduated from poly and embarked into my uni studies, i have no real idea of what i wanted to work as. I never had any real planning and just accepted what life or fate has thrown at me. I went into my secondary school because my mum said that it is convenient. I enrolled into business at np because my sister said that np business is the best. (when asked what i wanted to do after my o level, i just said “business” without any real idea of what it really mean.) Upon graduation, i realised that business basically mean a little of everything. You study bits and pieces of here and there without any depth of knowledge. I must say that i thoroughly enjoyed my poly life, mainly because of my friends rather than the modules i learn. Throughout my studies, i know that i am relatively better at modules without any numbers and calculations involved. Unlike my peers, i struggled with subjects like poa, business stats, microecons ...and i only survived because of help from my friends (namely my dajie, hp, cx, jy, im, jon, jh, kry etc) all these people kindly gave their guidance and knowledge. ( i must say that jy and cx are still encouraging and pushing me to study hard even though i am very lazy and unmotivated)
when asked to choose my specialisation in year 3, i took tourism because that was what everybody decided to. When I graduated, my family wanted me to get a degree . I only know that i dun wanna take any subjects with maths involved and somehow i ended up at curtin with jy and cx. I think to this day, the three of us really have no idea why we enrolled with them in the first place.


Back to my job. Although i did study 1 module related to my job in uni, i realised that the real working environment was very different from what i learnt in school.


Recently, i made my first serious mistake at work and i must say that i was kinda taken back by the seriousness and impact of a tiny detail. My department deal with alot of media and reporters. (my current highlight was the filming with guo liang!!) Because i am a small fry, i only liaise with these people mainly on the phone or through emails.


One day, my colleague passed me a newspaper clipping of this new Chinese writer and asked me to get more information about him. Lets name this person Mr X. Because i have to read alot of different papers everyday, i kinda noticed this new reporter as he freelances for a few publication. (on my first day of job, my colleague ask me to pull out an article of a newspaper. I asked her “what brand?” she laughed and said “please don’t ever tell people you are from this industry.. it is known as publication lah.”) anyway, the article that she passed me was in Chinese and i tried to translate his name into English by googling it. However, mr x has a special name. One of the Chinese character was a “zao zi” meaning that it doesn’t exist in the dictionary. This word was specially created for him. I didn’t know that and i just translated it the way i thought it was meant to be read. Anyway, he called up and said that his name was written wrongly. My colleague apologised and invited him down for a meetup to introduce us and sort of try to make amends. He rejected and said that his name is very important to him.... therefore, our first impression was ruin by my silly mistake.


I forgot about this lesson learnt and a few weeks later, we again invited him down for lunch. This time, i was to lunch with him and my colleagues. Remembering the incident on the phone, i was scared and nervous as i perceive him to be a obnoxious, fierce and unfriendly person, plus it was my first time entertaining a guest. When i met him, my impression of him changed as he was really nice and friendly (hmm..i think it could be because he was homo as he brought along his “best” friend whom he shared macaroons with) He did commented about the name thing and we apologised for it. Throughout the lunch, he tried alot of food and took many pictures. My colleague and i were pitching and hoping that he will feature us in one of his newspaper article. To summarised, i enjoyed myself and this mr x really left a very good impression on me.


A few weeks later, my colleague received a call from him. He just called to chit chat and complain about his job in general. In the conversation, he also highlighted to my colleague that he posted a review of our restaurant in his blog. We quickly went to the link to look for his post.


OMG. His first paragraph was about our name mistake. When i read that post, i really wanted to smack myself for my error. Mr x gave a very good review about our restaurant. I felt stupid , angry at myself and hurt about the first paragragh. Th whole review was ruined by the first paragragh. In my mind i was thinking..if only he wrote it at the back..


My boss was very nice about it and even apologised to mr x personally. My team never once put the blame onto me and mr x don’t know that i am the one responsible. I remember that d came and picked me up that day. when we met, i think he could that i was very upset and brought me to eat ban mian. (people who know me well will know that i have this thing about this particular ban mian store in singapore) i was crying when i told him about this incident and he just let me pour out my feelings.


When i got home, i told my sister about this and again i cried about it. i told her that i didnt dare to cry at work because i know that it is my fault. she listened to me and told me to be more careful the next time.


i still feel weird when i write this. i think it is because i met mr x in person and i really like him..and i am hurt that his first impression was ruined by my silly mistake. i dunno why.


anyway, back to work..i still have 2 reports to rush during this long weekend.


HAPPY NATIONAL DAY!