Life of a Working Man
Time for an update doncha think?
So I’ve officially made my entrance to the working world. It’s not permanent of course, to my own relief. The experience so far hasn’t been that pleasant. Yes, there’s the cheap thrill of driving to a workplace instead of walking to a classroom. But seriously it’s not all that great.
We always say that the grass is greener on the other side. It’s so true. When we’re studying in college, we don’t really have any idea how protected we are within our university. Most of our mistakes can be corrected and there’s always a second chance. Not so in the working world.
I guess my biggest gripe about the whole working thing is the hours. My internship with Motorola takes up my whole day and pretty much the whole of my waking life during the weekdays. I wake up at about 6.30am (an absolute sin in my book) just to compensate for the time spent in traffic in order for me to make it to the factory by 8.15am. I am released at about 5.30pm and by the time I get home, it’s about 6.20pm.
It’s my fourth day working for the American company. The only eventful thing I have to report is that I’m starting to get used to the tacky uniform that everyone’s forced to wear. My only reprieve is on Fridays when uniforms are optional. Trust me, walking into a coffee shop for breakfast looking like a cabana boy isn’t cool. Actually people from Penang sort of know the source of the infamous orange, green and brown uniform, so it could have been worse.
My supervisor will be out of town until Wednesday. So for now, I’ve been placed under this other guy. I haven’t seen much action yet as a consequence. On the first day, I got a little orientation, on the second, I got to use the audio lab’s computer, on the third, I helped a mechanical engineer arrange some nuts and bolts, and today, I got to use the audio lab computer again.
Each one of those activities took about 2 hours of my 9 hour work day. The rest of the time was spent staring at the six pairs of electrical plugs right in front of my desk. At times, I look at my blank notepad for a change. These mundane things never looked so interesting.
If there was a need for retrenchment, I would undoubtedly be the first to go. And it doesn’t help that my cubicle is located at one of the major walkways of the RnD department. Every single day, people walk to and fro looking at me and wondering what is this trainee doing, mocking them with his idleness. I wish I had work….I seriously do.
One of the things I did to amuse myself today was to play around with a puzzle. Do you know of the puzzle where you have to draw this little house with a cross in the middle without ever lifting your pen or going over an already drawn line?
I found that there are at least 30 different ways to solve the puzzle. And you thought there was only one?
Yes, life right now is just that boring….
So I’ve officially made my entrance to the working world. It’s not permanent of course, to my own relief. The experience so far hasn’t been that pleasant. Yes, there’s the cheap thrill of driving to a workplace instead of walking to a classroom. But seriously it’s not all that great.
We always say that the grass is greener on the other side. It’s so true. When we’re studying in college, we don’t really have any idea how protected we are within our university. Most of our mistakes can be corrected and there’s always a second chance. Not so in the working world.
I guess my biggest gripe about the whole working thing is the hours. My internship with Motorola takes up my whole day and pretty much the whole of my waking life during the weekdays. I wake up at about 6.30am (an absolute sin in my book) just to compensate for the time spent in traffic in order for me to make it to the factory by 8.15am. I am released at about 5.30pm and by the time I get home, it’s about 6.20pm.
It’s my fourth day working for the American company. The only eventful thing I have to report is that I’m starting to get used to the tacky uniform that everyone’s forced to wear. My only reprieve is on Fridays when uniforms are optional. Trust me, walking into a coffee shop for breakfast looking like a cabana boy isn’t cool. Actually people from Penang sort of know the source of the infamous orange, green and brown uniform, so it could have been worse.
My supervisor will be out of town until Wednesday. So for now, I’ve been placed under this other guy. I haven’t seen much action yet as a consequence. On the first day, I got a little orientation, on the second, I got to use the audio lab’s computer, on the third, I helped a mechanical engineer arrange some nuts and bolts, and today, I got to use the audio lab computer again.
Each one of those activities took about 2 hours of my 9 hour work day. The rest of the time was spent staring at the six pairs of electrical plugs right in front of my desk. At times, I look at my blank notepad for a change. These mundane things never looked so interesting.
If there was a need for retrenchment, I would undoubtedly be the first to go. And it doesn’t help that my cubicle is located at one of the major walkways of the RnD department. Every single day, people walk to and fro looking at me and wondering what is this trainee doing, mocking them with his idleness. I wish I had work….I seriously do.
One of the things I did to amuse myself today was to play around with a puzzle. Do you know of the puzzle where you have to draw this little house with a cross in the middle without ever lifting your pen or going over an already drawn line?
I found that there are at least 30 different ways to solve the puzzle. And you thought there was only one?
Yes, life right now is just that boring….
posted by Mike Ng at 8:23 AM
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