Don't Waste Your Life

in this first instalment, you will be introduced to the three possible pupillage experiences (yes, there are only three).

Experience 1: Your Name is CG

your name is CG, and for some completely unknown reason you will have partners cold-calling throughout the day: “hello? i have work for you! oh, you’re working on something for so-and-so. okay! i have work for you!” very soon you start saying “****!” whenever the phone rings, much to the amusement of your work-neighbours (see Experience 3). associates will drop by and leave file after file after file after file until you have to sneakily employ a random desk-top fortuitously located next to yours. pupils not called CG will visit periodically and say “wah, so many files” or “wah, star pupil lor” or “wah, can’t see your desk already” or something equally annoying. but you are usually not around to hear it, because you are scuttling off (and occasionally, literally bolting) down the corridor to look for that partner who needed something an hour ago. associates will come by at 5.59pm and say “we have a meeting in ten minutes”, whereupon you have to call your friends and tell them you will be late for dinner or, worst case scenario, be a no-show. (you watch in envy as your work-neighbours leave on the dot.) it’s only 4 hours later at 10pm when the meeting ends that you realise this is the worst case scenario because your associate told you before leaving that she wants something tomorrow morning, which means you only step out of the office at 11.20pm. the saddest thing is that you are too timid to claim cab fare, and you don’t know the procedure anyway. the next morning, you come to work just in time to hear the “i’m so tired”s from your work-neighbours who are “just not used to this kind of working hours”.

Experience 2: The Seasonal Worker

you’re the luckiest of the lot, because you get to experience the double joys of utter boredom and utter busy-ness. all the mass emails sent to random associates/partners which you’ve spend one hour crafting and examining for “tone” and nuance are starting to pay off. “dear associate, i am desperate for work. please use me, before i start hurting myself physically the way i’m hurting inside. warm regards, ABC pupil, ext. 2467. don’t hesitate to call.” there is a fine, dangerous line between harrassment and pro-activeness, but that doesn’t bother you, because you know how to play the game. rather, your mentor has told all his associates to “get that guy off my back. give him something to do. aiyah, anything lah!” and so now and then, after a lull of a few hours of anxious waiting for the work to come rolling in, you get something that no other human wants to do, but which you receive with open arms and grateful smile because you are now a Busy Pupil. the smile starts to wane after you realise you have to translate 100 pages of mandarin to english and you’d studied in Britain for the last 6 years/fix the alignment of some Really Screwed Up Microsoft Word Document/locate a letter that even the secretaries believe does not exist. however, you count your blessings because there are enough on the dot days to counter the 9pm days, and you go to bed warm and happy knowing that your mentor cares.

Experience 3: Your Mentor Doesn’t Give a Damn

of course, you sit next to CG. every day you peer at him in curiosity while he peers at you: so close, yet worlds apart. you laugh every time he says “****!” when the phone rings. in the first week, there is no work. you experience much pain and suffering. in the second week, there is no work. the pain dulls to an ache, which is partially alleviated by many visits to the pantry and restroom. it is during this week that you start to explore the different possible ways of amusing yourself (more of that in another instalment). in the third week, there is no work. at this point, you are a tranformed person - no longer the sensitive, tremulous, eager pupil who is here to learn. instead, you’ve become something akin to a cabbage - the only productive thing accomplished every day being your marginal physical growth. you feel floppy and brainless and vegetably. as the days go by, you become increasingly bold, and converse with your fellow YMDGDs for longer periods and in louder volumes. there is much laughter and nonsense talk, but that doesn’t mean you’re happy. instead, you’re probably becoming insane (and i mean medically). there is only so much inactivity that a smart person can take. once in a blue moon you get a menial task that a Seasonal Worker didn’t have the luck to get *yeessss!!* but you’re not especially overjoyed because you know that in reality, you are a YMDGD. no amount of menial work that lasts all of half an hour (after you’ve purposely taken your own sweet time with it) can disguise that fact. every day, you leave on the dot, because “wayang-ing is the wrong culture to encourage”.

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haha.. i ripped this off elisa's blog.. it's pretty hilarious.. and i totally relate to it!! hahaha!