I got my first hate comment today for one of my old postings. According to my blog stats, this person got to my blog through search engine and he/she was searching for JJ Lin's song. So, obviously, this person is JJ's fan and loves his songs. It's understandable that he/she was pissed after reading the post.
Well, i believe any bloggers who had written about controversial topics or made fun of something or someone famous would have received this kind of comments before. I do know that things that i found to be funny may actually be offensive to others. I don't intend to apologize, nor do i think that it was wrong of me to make the comments about the song and the person who wrote the lyrics. After all, it was never my intention to be malicious; it was just a jape albeit some may find it to be distasteful. I respect this person's rights to be furious at what i wrote, just as i hope others to respect my freedom of expressing my opinion, even if it's in a form of a sick joke.
Anyway, it's just a song, which some may love it while others hate it. Hope this person would have the same passion when he/she reads about the calamitous and unjust events that are happening around the world.
Well, i believe any bloggers who had written about controversial topics or made fun of something or someone famous would have received this kind of comments before. I do know that things that i found to be funny may actually be offensive to others. I don't intend to apologize, nor do i think that it was wrong of me to make the comments about the song and the person who wrote the lyrics. After all, it was never my intention to be malicious; it was just a jape albeit some may find it to be distasteful. I respect this person's rights to be furious at what i wrote, just as i hope others to respect my freedom of expressing my opinion, even if it's in a form of a sick joke.
Anyway, it's just a song, which some may love it while others hate it. Hope this person would have the same passion when he/she reads about the calamitous and unjust events that are happening around the world.
I just found out today that the fake American guy was actually my colleague who had just been transferred back from overseas branch. So do i have to put up with his loud American slag in the office from now on? Nope, he was retrenched today. Yes siree, the company went through a so-called redundancy exercise today.
What redundancy exercise lah my foot! This is just the supposedly politically correct term for retrenchment. Frankly, i don't see how politically correct this phrase is. When you are being let go in a redundancy exercise, it's like instead of telling you that "you are fired", they are saying, "Hey, you good-for-nothing piece of shit, you are the excess fat in the company that we can't wait to zap. So now just pack your bags and get your sorry ass outta here!" See, isn't it a much better way of putting it?!
Anyway, this retrenchment was actually expected. In fact, it has been lurking about in our company since a few months back, when our situation took a sharp turn downslope. I have hoped that i could be one of the persons in the lists as a way to annul my contractual obligations. Of course, i wasn't in the list, or else the title of the post today would have been "I'm free at last" or something like that.
However, i was involved in the retrenchment process. No, i wasn't the one who carried out the execution, nor was i the hatchet man. I was, nevertheless, one of the accomplice working behind the scene to facilitate the retrenchment process. As an IT staff, i was informed of the news and got hold of the list a few hours before the execution, to ensure that the system was secured by denying the access rights of these retrenched employees.
This was actually my second time involving in a retrenchment. The first was with my previous company a few years back when i wasn't in the IT line yet. I was a Production Controller then and was tasked to escort the retrenched factory workers to clear their lockers. Boy oh boy, all i can say is that saying goodbye in such unpleasant manner is always hard and sometimes even emotionally taxing, for both the person being retrenched and the person who's carrying out the retrenchment.
When the actual announcement was made in the afternoon, some office staff went down to the the production floor to kay po about the situation. I didn't join in; not that i'm snotty or what but i just didn't think i could stand the gloom that pervaded the factory. My colleagues told me that some people cried because of their long-time working mates were asked to leave in such disgraceful way, and some were really upset because they had been working for the company for more than a decade and all they got was a lousy one-month pay-in-lieu accompanied by a bunch of superfluous placatory speech by the management. Regardless, given the current situation, i guess those retrenched staff shouldn't bear any grudges against the company.
Saying goodbye is always hard but inevitable. To bid farewell to someone who's not ready to part is even harder yet destined. I just wish all those retrenched today the very best and hope this would turn out to be a blessing in disguise for all of them.
Labels: work
