Tuesday 9 October 2012

Love moulds me, not Work

I had a lovely dinner with S, my Indian colleague who is now also a friend.  His wife P cooked for R and me.  Dinner was coriander puree mixed with lemon, cottage cheese in spices, and potatoes in spices.  P has never encountered anyone from SE Asia before so she was full of questions like what is the Singapore culture like, how do I celebrate Chinese New Year, what is the Lantern festival about. 
S is young, well younger than I am by 2 years, but… he seems young mentally.  He is unhappy at work because he was rated below average for the 2011 performance appraisal.  And why was he thus rated?  Ah the plot thickens.  I knew that he sustained an injury at work during the third quarter of 2011 – an accident that affected his back – and was out of work for at least 6 weeks.  Then he was put into a Performance Improvement Program (what the…) and the below average rating affected his bonus too.  Sigh.
I told him to leave if he is really so unhappy…. Over dinner, when S was out of earshot, P also shared that he is becoming a different person, less jovial, less open and more guarded.  Hey man, if work affects you like that to become a different person, then please leave.  I told him the story of the sales manager who was asked to leave 2 months shy of his 40 year tenure with the company, as he opposed the whole ERP implementation program that the company was going through.  Massive change journey.  This very same sales manager told the young chiku (literal = unripe green fruit, figuratively a young untried person) me that if I were to die tomorrow due to a freak accident, the company will replace me immediately.  If I were very good, maybe they would need to find 2, 3 persons to replace me, but replace me they will.  Let the people who love you shape who you are, I said to him.  [Now I am blogging to remind myself too]
Let the people who love you shape who you are, and who you are becoming.

The people who do not care about me, do not care anyway.

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