Going to the office this morning was still a drag for me, and my spirit was still down. I think not only me who's feeling this way; the guys in my department are also being over-stressed, over-worked and driven up the wall by big boss, but the difference is that they do get joy from their families after work while i'd just be stuck in my rented pit.
The ambience around our department is gloomy... until this afternoon when we had a little comic relief moment.
Our regional office has a monthly birthday celebration for the staff born in that month. Basically, birthday cards will be circulated around the office before the day for everyone to sign on it, and then there will be a birthday cake on the day of celebration.
The celebration always coincides with the week in the month when all the big shots are back in the regional office for their monthly top management meeting. That is also normally the week when we all will be feeling super sian because big boss will be around too. (I wonder if that partly contributed to my low spirits.)
Anyway, we had the celebration for the August babies this morning. August seems to be the month with the most birthday gals and boys. There were 5 of them, and I remember when the 5 birthday cards were passed to me last week, I just repeatedly wrote the same phrase 5 times like a robot.
Today in the late afternoon, a greeting card was passed to me when i was busy doing my work. I didn't even bother to read the card or what others had written on the card before me. I simply took a quick glance at the name written on the card, and then monotonously wrote "Hi xxx, Happy Birthday" and signed my name. It took me less than a minute and after that i passed the card to ex-little boss who is seated at the cubicle behind me.
When ex-little boss saw the card, he asked me who the person is. I told him I do not know and I simply signed on it. Actually there are less than 40 people in this office, 10 of whom are Directors or above, and another 10 are managers. Yet, besides these 20 people and the few others whom i deal with (such as the secretary, HR, Finance, etc.), i do not really know the names of the rest of the colleagues even though i know the faces.
Just as ex-little boss was going to sign on the card, he was laughing like mad and showed the card to the IT Manager sitting beside him, saying, "hey, look at what she wrote!" The IT Manager looked at it and started laughing too.
That was when i sensed something wasn't right and realised that it wasn't a birthday card! It was actually a farewell card for this lady who's leaving the company soon.
What followed was a ROTFLOL moment for all of us because it was so funny that i actually wrote "Happy Birthday" on a farewell card. The guys then made fun of me and we were making so much noise that another two colleagues from another department joined in the "fun". (Our office is so small that i suspect that lady who is leaving might have heard it too.)
Then we started talking nonsense, with some conversations going like this -
The IT Manager to ex-little boss, "Gee, how would such thing even happen? 'Happy birthday'???"
After noticing that i was looking at him, the IT Manager said to me teasingly, "I'm not talking about you, ok?! We are merely discussing under what situation that anyone would even do that... it's amazing!"
A colleague laughed at me, "You know, this shows how insincere you are, even if you were wishing someone happy birthday!"
And to that i said, "Oh, you are sure right about that. I wasn't sincere about it at all!"
I then joked, "You know, there's a word for my kind of attitude - apathy. Or you can call it 'I-don't-care'. Or more crudely, it translates to 'I-don't-give-a-shit'. Or in Hokkian you can say 'boh chap'!"
Then the IT guy told a similar experience that he had in his previous job, when he also didn't look at the card and wrote "Happy Birthday", but only realised later that it was a condolence card for the passing of a colleague's family member.
After hearing the story, i said to them, "Oh, that is bad, saying happy birthday when someone had died! So mine isn't that bad... Ah, i know what i can do. How about i add to what i wrote like this - 'Happy Birthday! I say this to you now for the many years to come since you are leaving us and we may never meet again.'?"
"C'mon, that is lame. No way you can pull that off!" they said to me.
"Then how woh? It's gonna be very obvious if i blanco it off." I protested.
"Well, you don't have a choice, do you? Don't tell me you are gonna just strike it off!"
"Erm, how about getting a new card then?" I cheekily asked.
"No, we are not gonna do that and ask everyone to sign on it again. C'mon, everyone makes mistakes in their lives. You just have to live with it!"
So in the end, i used the correction fluid to white off my writing. Then i used red and green color highlighters to draw borders around the white-off area, attempting to make it like a drawing with farewell words within it. Unfortunately, with my limited artistic talent, i made an odd-looking shape of don't-know-what on the card and wrote "All the Best!" within it. They all had a second round of good laugh after seeing what i did, and ex-little boss even commented to me, "that is ugly."
Now i've come up with an idea. I am going to bring some nice stickers to the office tomorrow and paste it over that ugly patch on the card to remedy the mess i've made on the card. I just hope they have not given the card to the lady yet!
Labels: work
