#7: Manager becomes my Bro

Today is just another day at work – just been doing some “record keeping” and my industry manager from my university gave me a ring to check up on how I was doing. I had a nice chat with her in front of my manager which ended up taking too long.

His face when it sounded like I was flirting with a girl on the other end of the phone – wasn’t pissed off, he just was laughing at me. I stopped giving long replies about my placement and replaced them with single word replies (maybe she will get the hint that she’s making me look bad in front of my manager and that I want to end the call).

She’s laughing or giving an overly enthusiastic response to everything I say, even the one word replies.

My face when it sounds like my middle aged civil engineering industry liaison manager has the hots for a 20 year old civil engineering undergraduate. Lolwut.

Meanwhile manager is looking at me raising one eyebrow and half-smiling.

Call finally ends. Thank ****.

I turn around and explain that the call was from my university and she wanted to check how I was doing. Manager doesn’t say anything other than, “She likes you, chasian,” and then carries on working.

Manager made a joke about me getting on a woman (probably will always be a joke).

Manager is now a bro.

Moral of the day: when asking about the length of an essay, don’t say, “So, you like it short then? Sorry about having such a long one.”

An Eid’s Barber Story

Not part of the Useless Intern series of posts I have got going on, just on the record but something interesting anyway.

Every Eid, every year, and I believe almost everywhere, there are males of all ages from juniors to seniors lining up to get a haircut.

New clothes, new hair, gifts, money, nice food and all that good stuff to celebrate the festival of Eid.

I was once part of a frustratingly long queue a couple of Eids ago and I rank this memory quite highly amongst the most memorable (lol).

There was a guy in barbershop in the “queue” who I’d never seen before nor did he sound like a local, judging from his accent which was created from his continuous jabbering.

I say “queue” because there were seats in the shop and everyone sat anywhere they liked without regard to an order – this will become important later on.

So newguy started talking to the main barber and his son, while they were scissoring away, and was getting to know them. That’s fine – anyone with a chattermouth would do the same.

“So how do you remember who’s next in the queue? There’s like at least 12-15 people waiting here.”

Oldman barber points to his head.

“But that’s really difficult and you’re going have put in a lot more effort in? You’ve been working all day as well!”

“That’s how I’ve always done it,” says the Oldman barber and he shrugs and continues to cut more hair, as his job dictates.

The shop is left with a usual silence where newguy has stopped talking and is just looking down and seems to be pondering about the conversation he’s just had.

I don’t know what was going on newguy’s mind but it was probably something like this:
>Oldman barber cuts hair all day
>Probably tired from all that hair he goes through
>Has to remember everyone’s position in the queue
>No wonder he’s losing his hair lol
>lightbulb moment
>I’ll give everyone a speech to help out then I’ll get out of their hair
>lolimsofunny.jpg

So newguy stands up in the middle of the shop and takes a deep breath.

“Hey guys, Eid Mubarak, hope you all have a nice day tomorrow… (Yada, yada)… and I’ve got one thing to say right now. Oldman barber has been working all day and is probably tired and I say it would be much better if everyone simply moves to their right whenever their seat empties. That way it would be easier to remember who’s next. So simply, just move to your right as soon as the seat is empty.”

Newguy sits back down and the usual silence continues.
I’m thinking to myself, not bad idea, newguy.
No one moves to the right and everyone stays in the same place.
Fricking lol.

I feel sorry for his two kids for having an annoying, loudmouthed, and controlling dad.

Eid Mubarak.

#5: Poor Gareth

NB: Skip ahead if you don’t want to read the beginning boring stuff, the main topic starts later. Also, I had to take a fuckload of swearing out of Gareth’s half of the conversation. Man, that guy has a filth mouth. What? I didn’t say anything.

>boringstuff

I’ve been busy for a couple of days, both working and not working and I’ve thought about blogging but haven’t really come round to it until just now.

I suppose I should start from the beginning. For the last few days I’ve been on site, performing site inspections to ensure the correct signs are in place, that the temporary works are in place and still adequate, monitoring the affects of the weather on the sites. There’s only been one day where I’ve done nothing and it was earlier this week when there was no one around to accompany to the sites. That day was still quite fun because I went on omegle – but that’s another story for another day.

Today, I went out on site to make some measurements of the length of the sites and how much area we will need to re-cover up with grass etc. (something to do with the local council who want to keep the area looking pretty, but whatever). I got back from site and updated my placement log and did a bit of my interim report, yada, yada. Boring stuff.

>/boringstuff

>maintext

I woke up from my nap to hear Gareth (renamed for privacy reasons), the project engineer, walking up from behind me as he was heading towards the kitchen for a brew.

“What do you know lad?”

Tired-eyed Chasian waking up from his nap. “Huh, what do you mean ‘What do I know?'”

“Well, you tell me – what do you know lad?”

“I suppose I don’t know anything so that’s why I’m on this placement, haha, to learn I guess.”

Gareth smiles and laughs while I’m still confused.

Couple of silent moments pass whilst he’s brewing his tea.

“So, erm, Gareth, you happy with your job as a site engineer?”

“Project engineer… and well… I’m a firm believer that you have to love what you do in order to be successful,” and after mistaking my sleep-induced look for a look of confusion, “Well, the problem is that ever since I was a kid, I’ve never known what I really want to do. Right through from working 11 years with the Royal Engineers, where I left after reaching the rank of Sergeant and up till now after working 6 years with <this company>.”

Now I’m starting to wake up and I realise this is something quite personal to Gareth.

“But for the last 6 years, you’ve always been a project engineer on site, right? Have you thought about moving to office?”

“Hah, hell no, I was studying to be an architect/engineer (sorry, Chasian’s memory is fuzzy) before joining the Royal Engineers and I found myself behind a drawing board for 8 hours a day and mind you, I was good at that stuff, all the calculations and everything but that’s not my thing and being on site is much easier.

“That’s the question though, isn’t it? If money didn’t matter, what would you wanna be doing? When I left the army, I thought about doing something with seadiving because I had the training and everything, and it would have been nice to own a vessel and a few boats where you can let other seadivers on board and charge them for the facility to do diving. That would have been ideal but now I’ve got a family and I need something that pays.

“<this company> is good if you’re single- no, I’m serious. If you were single, you could easily move to this country or that country because remember <this company> is a market leader and it operates globally. But when you’ve got a family, you can’t settle down somewhere because contracts only last for a couple of years at maximum so there’s no point moving to another country if you’re gonna use work as an excuse to move.

“Nah, I wouldn’t be able to do that. If money didn’t matter, then what would I do… good question indeed… what would I do…”

Gareth looks down at his laptop and looks to have been lost away in the ocean of his thoughts…

>/maintext

Initially, I didn’t know what to take from what I was being told due to my heavy eyelids. Gareth is a cool guy; he might have a bit of a temper, he may dislike the company for his own personal reasons, and he may the biggest complainer I’ve ever seen (I’m terrible at making people look good) but he’s done nothing wrong and when you have a one to one chat with him, you get to see a whole other side.

Eventually when I got out of my zombie mode, I realised what was being said. Gareth may strongly think that you have to truly love what you’re doing in order to be successful but I think he meant something other than success – something to do with being content with your current situation and I have no doubts that Gareth, whilst not unhappy, isn’t feeling quite so fulfilled with his current routine.

I think it boils down one thing really, as clearly demonstrated by Gareth’s own story – you either do what’s right or you do what makes you happy.

Thank god I still have time on my hands to figure all this out.

#4: Being smooth is an art

I didn’t go to work on Friday and whilst I feel kind of bad… I should cut the crap and say outright, I don’t feel bad at all.

It all makes sense in the context of things – I turn up to work today, a Monday morning, 15 minutes late and I find 20 documents that need filing due to work continuing over the weekend. That is all the work I have been assigned and just in case you don’t know what this involves, let me explain:

I look at a document, I take out the appropriate folder and then I place the photocopied document into the folder. Then here comes the most important part – I place the folder right BACK in its place. If I didn’t do my job right, there would be mayhem all over the site office. I really am grateful to have been bestowed such responsibility. Frankly, it’s an honour.

Yeah, it’s a sad life.

I really hope that all this is a preparation for something bigger – I’m not saying I should get to design something and have it constructed but like, maybe, some kind of increased involvement in the project? Pretty please with the sugar on top?

Then again, having heard what happened this morning, maybe that’s a bad idea. Apparently, a worker hit an electricity cable during some earthworks – poor chap must have crapped himself. That amused the office for a few moments until we all realised it’s going to cost the company its reputation and money if it’s not dealt with quickly and quietly. Serious stuff going on.

At least all this typing is making me look like I’m working.

I take that back – just realised it doesn’t work because I’m on a blogging site.

Figured it out when my manager said, “Well that doesn’t look like work.”

New aim: look like I’m working, but do it better.

#3: I really am quite useless

So didn’t go into work today because of headache/feeling nauseous and/or sick combination. Since I’m fasting this wouldn’t have done me much good so I decided to stay at home.

So useless.

Regardless, the last 24 hours have been quite something. Well at the very minimum, my first post looks dubious considering that I went to work and I was actually given work to do. I’m surprised myself…

Filing, shadowing others, asking them questions, and etc are some of the stuff I was asked to do – so basically stuff that no one likes to do so they toss it on the new guy.

In my report I actually said the following words:
“I renovated the filing system within my work place so archiving pages associated with the project has increased efficiency.”

What really happened: I put numbers on the folders.

The sad life of a useless intern.

Will update with more stuff soon.

#2: Morning Therapy

So I kind of screwed up last night and said something really out of line without thinking. I apologised, tried to speak to this person and eventually they said they were going to let it go, so some kind of result.

But not really. It still happened and I harbour doubts as to whether they had really forgiven me or not. They’re going to read this and think I’m making a big deal of it. Yeah, I am because I don’t like hurting people I like, regardless of how I’ve acted.

I suppose I am a bit like Dumbledore (no, not gay) because I don’t usually fuck up but when I do, it’s pretty major.

On my way to work now so that will help me get my mind off things. Funny how I work best when there’s something bothering me. Weird.

You know those clichéd scenes on TV and in the movies when a troubled person has a visit to a psychiatrist/psychologist and they lay down on a long ass sofa and get to speak the secrets of their mind? Yeah it kind of feels like that except I’m at a bus stop, there is no one asking me questions and I’m speaking to a blog site.

I swear I’m not crazy.

But morning therapy, I guess it kind of works.

Diary of Useless Intern #1: Why am I even here?

Today is Wednesday.

I started my placement last Monday.

I have never been so bored in my entire life.

Well that’s a lie – I remember I was pretty goddamn bored last summer at my internship with the same company. What did I do then? I used to go on facebook and browse and listen to music and watch videos, but that was only for past time when I was waiting on a piece of work to get back to me or when I was waiting for further instructions.

The difference here is that I’ve been sitting here for the last week or so without any instruction and I’ve only managed to occupy myself because I signed up to do a 20 credit module that is entirely based on this summer.

What the hell am I even going to write about for my module? So far it’s been bullshit and there’s a limit to how much I can spew in my report without sounding like a pretentious douchebag.

For a couple of days I accepted my fate and thought, “Hey I’m getting paid to sit around and do fudge all, not bad!” Not bad. Not bad? I should have shot myself in the face for thinking those words.

If I’m going to spend the next 9 remaining weeks at this placement in one piece whilst retaining my sanity, I better keep myself busy.

What’s a better idea than to illustrate to the entire world that I’m a useless intern who is doing the foggiest of nothings in the massive infrastructural company that I’m in? Yeah that’s right, great idea.

To top it all off, I commute from home and it takes me up to 2 bloody hours to get here, I have to leave by 7.30 and I arrive by 9 USUALLY. By the time I get home at around 7pm, I am too tired to do anything and I usually just eat and then fall asleep.

This placement is going to be torturous physically and mentally.

Welcome to my 9 weeks of hell.

The Subtleties of Racism

It is very well known that there are certain communities around the globe that are inherently racist.

For example, the state of Texas in the USA has 18 KKK organisations, more than double compared to any other state in the country.

An issue to consider is: does freedom of speech allow freedom to offend and provoke and practice hate speech?

I want to bring attention to the forms of racism within the UK. I’m not talking about specific parties who use the excuse of immigration limitation laws to prevent foreigners coming into the country – there are definitely many well-established racist politicians in those parties.

I want to talk specifically about the general public and their attitudes regarding racism. This issue reached my ears over a week ago when I watched an experimental documentary about how members of the British public reacted to discrimination. Since then, I guess I’ve had time to mull over it.

The point being demonstrated in the experiment was simple in its nature – how can an individual understand the severity and offence of racism when they have had little to no experience of it? Via empathy would be a good answer, but that wasn’t the problem.

Denial. Complete and utter denial that racism even exists, was the problem.

Let me explain using an example.

A black woman on the show quoted a statistic which I’m going to paraphrase and it was essentially: “It has been proven that black teenagers are more likely to be stopped and searched than any other ethnic group.”

A blonde white woman refused to believe the implications of the statistic that, of course, black people are being discriminated against. Instead, she had formed the idea that everyone experiences discrimination on a daily basis and any/all allegations of racism are just pedantry.

I’m not calling this woman racist – I’m calling her ignorant and a fool. If she were told assertively that, “Black people experience racism,” then I have faith she would realise the severity of the situation and accept it, and possibly do something about it.

Therein lies the problem with “racism” in the UK – it’s this subtlety that makes all the difference on how it’s perceived.

It may look like I’m jumping to conclusions but the reasoning for these are very clearly shown – see for yourself (of course you’ll see how the experiment doesn’t go to plan and is sabotaged).

There are definitely a lot of racists out there, but a lot more ignorant fools.

British Humour

I’ve come to an internal conclusion that a lot of British humour is all about being in denial.

Disaster strikes around the world and we are usually the first ones to strike a tragedy with our version of comedy.

Yeah it’s probably the most cunt-ish thing to do after e.g. a flood or earthquake claims many lives, but that’s what happens. The politicians express their “sympathy” and the comedians and general public use it for potential entertainment.

It happens on a day-to-day basis and I doubt the British do any of it to purposely to offend select groups. I believe they do it as a coping mechanism – it’s basically a form of denial.

For some reason, the best time to create humour is when we’re in deep shit. And that’s what triggered this post – a serious transition took place in my life a few days ago and all I could at the time was smile and joke about it. So retarded of me. Classic British denial.

And you know what? If you were an onlooker at the time, you would have had no idea what was going through my mind at the time.

Time Visit

Time changes a lot of things.

Let’s think five years back.

What were you doing or not doing?
How much has changed?
How much have you been through?
Who’ve you met?
Basically… what’s different?

Five years ago, I was in year 10 – innocent with little appreciation of the world except for the things I was passionate about.

Music? Hah, I probably knew about 100 to 200 songs in my entirety. I wasn’t a big music fan then and neither am I now; music is just filler for me but of course there are favourites of mine. UK mainstream is what I follow now I guess… Just being a sheep, meh. I’m more open to new genres of music so that’s a positive.

Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything.

– Plato

Work ethic? Probably the same as it is now, but that’s probably why I miss doing A-levels. A-levels were when I was on the top of my game and I would study hard – I had the motivation, you see, from not doing as well as I expected in my GCSEs. Once you develop a sense of comfortability, it’s difficult to be on edge and perform to a higher potential for your exams. Exhibit A: first year of university, I achieved a first – I became lazy and didn’t work as hard for second year and now I’m regretting it (well, amongst other reasons as well but that’s another story for another day).

You can’t have a million dollar dream with a minimum wage work ethic.

– Author Unknown

Career? Yeah, I was one of those Asians who wanted to do medicine, of course. Eventually, I gave up on the idea quite quickly and easily to pursue a field more suitable for my strengths. Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry. Can’t be anything else but an engineering degree in all honesty and that’s what I ended up doing; Civil Engineering – a bit expected and boring really.

Hmph, at least I’m a student with a long term relationship with a billion-dollar company providing me with sponsorships and paid internships every year. Boring but not bad.

“A successful career will no longer be about promotion. It will be about mastery.”

– Dr. Michael Hammer, Business Consultant and Educator

Relationships? Let’s just say I hope I find someone who makes me happy just as happy as I can make them.

The scariest thing about dating someone is that you will either break up with or end up marrying that person.

– Author Unknown

Financially? The opposite compared to five years ago. Didn’t have a job or any experience. Now I’ve gained more independence from my parents and can pay for a lot more shit of mine. It’s a very demoralising feeling for me to depend on my parents for anything. They’ve spent their whole life raising me into a person through whom they want to achieve some of their dreams and wishes as well, so if anything, I should only be giving back and I am dedicated to that cause. I love my parents and without them, I’d be nothing that I am today.

When it comes to money, everyone is of the same religion

– Voltaire

This whole post has been pointless so far and I’ll tell you why. None of these things have told you anything that’s happened to me in the last 5 years. So here are the things that I feel have been the most prominent to me in my development as a person.

I’ve moved on from my secondary school and my sixth form college after having spent 7 years with many amazing people including students and teachers – I’m glad I’m in contact with some still today but I still feel the more the merrier. Even today many people wish they were back there and that’s no surprise to anyone.

A lot of relatives I knew as a child have passed away, which included a very close someone who lived in my household. On days when I’m not thinking straight, I sometimes forget they’re not there anymore and when I do remember, it feels wrong to know you’ll never see them again and that you’ll never talk to them again. I hope they’re at peace.

Meeting new people, learning about cultures, being subjected to different ways of life, and being open minded have all helped me become a much more sociable person. Sounds like something I’d say in an interview; not a bad foundation for a potentially strong point. Shy and quiet to more confident and opinionated is nothing but an improvement. Appropriately reminds me of “Stand Up” by Bob Marley.

So yeah, a shit load has changed in 5 years and I didn’t expect to see myself as I am today.

Time really does change everything, but I’m glad I am where I am.