Mosaic

Well, just wanted to blog about the HC dance concert I went to on Saturday. A friend offered to treat me to it, so... why not, right? :p

The concert wasn't bad, definitely. Although we preferred different dances... My personal favourite was this semi-modern Chinese dance titled "Journey" because the costumes were pretty, the music was suitably sombre and enchanting and the style was very refreshing.

On the other hand, I wasn't too pleased with whoever was mixing their music. The tracks had an annoying tendency of just stopping short, one second of muteness, then launching into the next track without so much as a by-your-leave. So disruptive. And I suppose I'll never really appreciate hip hop. But all in all I think it was an entertaining and very enlightening concert.

Wow, I'm already 2.5 weeks into work ^^ It's not too bad, tedious but definitely doable. Must ren3 until end July. Think of the money! Sigh. Everyday I have two not-necessarily-mutually-exclusive thoughts - what were those parents THINKING, and why doesn't everyone who has even the most tenuous link to the service industry get schooled in PHONE ETIQUETTE?

The phont etiquette part irks me the most - while obviously we don't need hotel receptionist standards, we should know better than to do all these things that the people I call do:

1. Me: "Thank y-" -beep, beep, beep-
2. "What?" being substitutable for "Hello?"
3. Not putting the phone on hold while you tell the person to hold, then discussing loudly the unreasonable task set to you by this caller
4. Then saying within earshot of the not-put-on-hold-phone - "Ask her what's her problem, la!" - repeatedly and in a very churlish fashion.
5. Telling someone to call back in ten minutes, and when they dutifully do, tell them to call back in fifteen. Then in thirty. Then the next day, before telling them you don't have what they need.

Last note before I post (this thing has been hanging on since Sunday, eeks.) I thought all my calling would be done on Friday... Some 16 x 30 names over a couple of weeks. Unfortunately it seems I'll be going through them with a finer-than-fine tooth comb to pick out errant non-reporters-of-vaccinations, so help me, sigh. But it's not all that bad! I do like taking long leisurely lunches (ooh, alliteration) and the MRT nearby is so convenient :p It's also nice that Jo's working with me :D

Today we had a fire drill! It was quite fun. (Not bad, half an hour free pay!) Luckily Jo and I use the stairs fairly often so we're used to it ;) so we all ambled out to the nice patch of green grass, and I was quite alarmed to hear:

"Hey, where's X?"
"Aiyarrrrr, just say she on leave larrrrr!"

O.O

I doubt the usefulness of these exercises because if there was really a fire, and you took FIFTEEN minutes to evacuate, you'd either be burnt like roast pigs, as someone eloquently told me, or squashed by debris, or... at least get your curls singed. Some people just won't be able to hobble down six flights of stairs in time, much less exchange office gossip with the secretary on the fourth floor you haven't seen in three years. The attendance-taking is also a bit of a farce, because you get stuff like:

"Where's X?"
"I saw her over there!"

We all know how this could turn out. I've done my fair share of thinking that lady in red was Mommy. Ah well... A free half an hour is about as close as I'll get to a free lunch on this earth. When you put things in perspective that way, who am I to quibble over ineffective fire drills?