M/s A

I seldom write nowadays because all I do is work, and them come home. Even my meet ups with friends have been painfully sporadic and more sentimental than ground breaking (I mean, there is only so many new things that can possibly happen with people you've known for some years!) - as a result 70% of my life merges into some blurry blob known as my 1.5m x 1.5m cubicle at work, bordered by J, a secretary to a Type A woman, aforementioned Type A partner and another male Type AAA (he is so type A, he makes Type As look like snuggly teddy bears).

Type A woman scares me because she is Type A. She actually doesn't really do anything, and all the Type A-ness is self contained. Type AAA man however, shouts and berates people 50% of the time he is in the office, including his associates and his secretary. One of his associates is bald. I think this is because he has been stressed so much by his boss that all his hair fell out. Type AAA man is also very fond of using the loudspeaker phone and has used it on many occasions to scold his secretary, who sits like 5m away from him office. As a result, I am treated to surround sound scolding. Damn, does he make me quake in my flat (no boots, because Singapore if far too hot).

Working in the this office which is the largest firm I'm yet worked at, is rather eye opening. For example, needing to go through the central system to requisition stationary. Previously, all I had to do with ask the receptionist. Now, I need to go through a system and it is delivered every Wednesday. Every Wednesday! That means sometimes if I badly need a pen, I won't get it till a week later.

Then there is the issue of those damn tappy key cards which record your time. I used to just breeze though without tapping them after trailing people into the office. Now I need to tap them or else the system thinks I'm late. Nevermind that I'm earlier than the people sitting around me, if it's not in the computerised system, it doesn't exist.

I have also discovered I really really dislike being around middle aged women in dead end jobs because they channel their life essence into being Hesse's Child People to the max (hope I remember this properly). They spend their time when not working surfing the internet to buy shit (it's like nothing else exists on the internet except for shopping) and spend the other remaining bit that is spent not working gathering into little magpie huddles and gossiping away, while smelling like ageing human flesh.

Then of course there is the general feel of being totally insignificant. In a firm of easily 500 people, people come and go all the time. No one except the people you immediately come into contact with will be affected by your passing. You can work in the same firm for years, but because it's a large corporation people don't give it shit. It reeks of total and utter dehumanisation, not to mentioned sitting in your little caged pen day in and day out.

While I have met some really wonderful people while working these past 5 weeks, I must say I will not miss the experience very much. I am struck every day by how I feel less and less like a living and breathing human.