Sweetcake

"Kueh Looby, if you leave, my heart will be so... troubled."

This came from one of my staff, Ah Choon. She's this senior citizen who reminds me very much of the beefy German barmaids that I sometimes see on the tele with their sleeves rolled up and not very good manners for people in their line of work.

(By the way, she calls me Kueh Looby because it sounds like kueh lopes, a kind of Malay sweetcake and uh, she just cannot pronounce my real name no matter what)

It's nice to hear such words from someone like her. Beneath all that, I do think she's one of the many people who cheer me up at work because she's just so funny.

Four other people persuaded me to stay today.

One of them was Ken, my new Area Manager who just took over David.

Blah, blah, blah, yada, yada, yada. I stopped him.

I said I was sorry but he was not the first person to talk about a promotion and pay raise everytime I announced I was leaving and it's all been just that - talk. Hot air. There's been a lot of hot air going around this company as far as I'm concerned and if he was gonna continue I suggested he had better came up with something concrete.

I asked him to consider my feelings all this time seeing other people, newer people getting ahead of me in the company and I sometimes wonder what the motive was.

He agreed.

He asked me to hand him my resume and he'd do his best to talk to Benny, the Area Manager in charge of 470 in Toa Payoh (my current hometown) about transferring there.

Fat Bernard is leaving he said and they are looking for someone to replace him.

At that point I just went, "See? They are looking all over the place when they've actually got someone right under their nose!"

Again, Ken agreed. He said I was right. There's no one in the organisation who knows FNS better than I do and I should have been the first option.

And I just had to lambast again, "See? Every one of you keep singing the same song. That I know FNS better than anyone. That I know Halal matters better than anyone. But what in the heck am I sitting right here seeing everyone else flying pass!?"

Right. He couldn't agree more. He asked me to do what he said with my resume and off he went.

But really:

1) Knowing the MD, I have an ice cube's chance in Hell.

2) I'm really trying to get out of irregular hours work.

3) But it'd be nice to put one up over my former teacher and now nemesis, Fat Bernard. Heh heh heh.

I've got my eyes on the prize outside and I'm walking towards the door but I'll keep the back door open just, in, case. I haven't actually tendered my resignation yet. It's all a matter of picking the right time.