The nice thing about weightlifting…

Even though I am lousy at it, meaning I’m not at all strong, is that if you put in the effort, you do feel good, so there is a visceral and material sense of progress.

When I worked, I always noticed I get shoved more work for being efficient, while others get by just laughing and chatting in the office.

(Then again, Lim Chin Soon is Malaysian Christianity. It is said that if you aren’t Dutch, you aren’t much—not I say one.)

Perhaps then, it is to my detriment that I was reliable. After all, I did used to:

  1. Plan my to-do list for the next day the night before;
  2. Research intensively after starting a new position before trying to make recommendations;
  3. Research the organisation before an interview;
  4. Spend an hour after work everyday just listening to music on Spotify to relax and think of new ideas;
  5. Research the material basis of the products I had to market just to understand the products

But of course, it never works out and then I have to leave.

It doesn’t help of course, that when I calculate the hourly wage, it always has diminishing returns.

At least when you exercise, the endorphins surge, the muscles grow, and there is a physicality to progress.

Nothing seems to ever grow at work. Because as I have noticed, others always gain a lot more from me being around since they make me teach them my skills to Filipinos and dumb NTU grads. And then I get told to leave.

And I still get told to empathise with Filipinos despite the fact that they don’t bother as much at work—yes, I have to write it down in point form because they are too lazy to research, analyse and then systematise the workflow. Your celebs aren’t even worth looking at, my dear.

Apparently some people are allowed to be upset because I interrupt their browsing of food blogs at the office and I’m not allowed to be upset.

I did actually join a German company partly because I was interested in German project management, but the company wasn’t very German. I read that Germany is formidable because of their project management.

Leave a comment