Day Twenty Four; The Office English

My alarm rang at 7.25am today and I went back to sleep. Suddenly Ah Boy called and told me that I could bring my extra clothes for tonight because we had a hotel room and we can shower there. Had she not called me, I might have continued sleeping. Hooray, party tonight! We arrive to find Desiree and Gokul seated at the bistro already. Vanessa soon joined us. Gin May and Calvin is not here yet. I went back to my place to find a McDonald’s mouse pad cellophane taped to my monitor. I wonder who the culprit is. Then I realized that my own mouse pad was on my desk. Two mouse pads? I asked Vanessa and she said it wasn’t her. So with my incredibly investigative mind of a investigator, I looked around for clues. Suddenly, a cylinder-like container on Gin May’s table caught my eye. A longer slimmer cylinder stuck out of its base’s mouth. It was wrapped in what I believe to be a plastic bag. There was a familiar logo scattered all over the bag and the cylinder-like material. Yes, it was a cup. Yes, the logo boasted a huge happy yellow ‘M’. Yes, it was a McDonald’s cup described in an exaggerative manner. It has to be Gin May! She must have ordered McDonald’s yesterday and got a mouse pad as well. Today seems to be another stressful day. Emi won’t be coming today because she has an eye infection so I guess Tricia and I will have more work today. Jenny seems really stressed as well and is trying to look for some CDs. Fred seems to be really stressed as well. The CDs were no where to be found and then Jenny asked me to looked for a Jamal who fixed the light to go to the storeroom and look for some boxes. I don’t know any Jamal yet so I went to Vivian and asked her to help me page for Jamal. He called Vivian immediately after being paged and I told him what Jenny wanted. Now, all I have to do is wait for those boxes to come back and then search for some CDs, extract some files and give them to Jenny. I also helped Tricia settle some close and bill files. These files would go to an Angie Ng and the only Angie Ng I know is the one in traffic. I have always wondered why would I be handing a finance document to someone in traffic. Angie wasn’t there so I told Tricia. Tricia told me that I had gone to the wrong Angie Ng. There was two Angie Ng in the office. Haaha. This Angie I am suppose to pass the files to is from the Finance department. It is 12.53pm now and I am supposed to meet Al-mu for lunch. He still hasn’t called. I think I am not going to wait anymore and hitch a ride from Tricia and Kristine to Low Yat Plaza. I want to go get a cable and some games and of course, lunch. Kristine dropped me off at Low Yat and my journey began. I bought my games but I wasn’t able to find the cable I wanted. At about 2.10pm, Tricia called me to inform that they were coming to pick me, so I went to buy some Cinnabons and Auntie Anne’s. Yummy. Kristine showed me Yasmin’s car because her driver just came back with it. It was a blue S-class Mercedes. Sleek and nice. I went to the bistro to eat my food when suddenly I heard a “Hi Jenhan!” I waved back and I paused. Moments later a hear joyous chants of “Aliya’s back! Aliya’s back!” Aliya had came back to visit us. I resumed munching on my cinnabon. Soon after, she came back out with a man. It might be Hamish but I’m not too sure. I finished my lunch and came back to my seat where Tricia introduced me to Hanifah, the BM copywriter. I was supposed to go check if a sentence was all right in the ad or not. Hanifah read the sentence a few times, occasionally mumbling it with intonations and style. He then suggested some alternatives and I proceeded back to my seat. I saw Aliya there giving Tricia a hug and then she saw and again, she said in an excited manner, “Jenhan!!!” and she then she gave me a hug. I gave her the card and the gift I had bought her last week and she was happy. I felt the odd sadness again! Aliya was my supervisor and she left and now she’s here again! I just feel so disheartened. She is doing her claims now and she says that she will definitely be there next Thursday for my comedy finals. She said that she might even come with pom-poms and a shirt that says “Jenhan”. Haahaha. My first ever job req. Now I don’t only deliver them, I write them too! My days of sending other people’s job reqs are over! Well, not really over yet. In the job req I get to put my name under the Brand Executive. Glamour maximus! Since this is a new ‘job’, I have to get approval from Traffic first and then I would have to brief the art director and the copywriter on the new job. I went to see J, the art director. Things worked out ok but I was feeling a nervous since it’s a first time experience. I met Yasmin again. She always says “Ni Hao” when she sees me. If I haven’t told you already, in the office, there is a whole new language here. It’s English but it’s of a different ‘dialect’. I have yet to come up with a name for it. It is very easy to understand actually. Instead of using words like ‘tell, give, ask” you use the word…”advise”. “Can you please advise me a dateline?” To refrain from asking “how” and saying things like “finish or not” …always use the word, “status”. “So what is the status on the job I just requested?” Now you might wonder what’s the difference? If you incorporate both the words I taught you today, you’d get a sentence like… “Can you advise me on the status of the job?” Compare these two sentences, “Can you tell me if the job is finish or not?” “Please advise me on the status of the job?” Miraculous isn’t it? How a change of a few words can sound so different. I just saw 5 boxes of Smirnoff. I said boxes, not bottles. In a box there is 24 bottles of Smirnoff. In a bottle of Smirnoff is 750ml of James Bond goodness. That means, there is 90 liters of Smirnoff for tonight! NINETY LITERS. Ok in case you’re as ‘un-fast’ as Vanessa, the volume 90 liters of Smirnoff are equivalent to 90 one-liter bottle of water. WOW. Ok, It’s 6pm and I have to follow Kristine to the club now already. PARTY! See you tomorrow…sober, Five “Fucks” heard today. --------------------------------------------------------------------- sorry for the late post, it was hell of a party last night.