Although, just the bean counter, as one Australian Engineer called me, my stint in the construction industry had me stretched both ways, by the demands of payments by the subcontractors and suppliers, and begging for payments from clients and employers.
Since 2006, I have further evolved to become even more stress intolerant. So much so, that when my current employer is now asking for attendance for our annual dinner, I had the inclination to tick the "not attending" box. My excuse, it will be on a Saturday night, and I am to dress up in the prevailing theme and I will have leave the comfort of my home in Shah Alam and drive all the way into the very heart of Kuala Lumpur... Like I have been doing, almost daily, for the last decade.
My perfect weekend will be waking up for the dawn prayer, and then crawl back into bed until the sun shines through my bedroom window and starts warming up bedroom above non-sweating temperature. Also, by then, those pesky birds would start making a commotion with their chirping and squawking outside my window. Thereafter, I would stumble down to the kitchen, finding my wife diligently doing something (if I am lucky, it will be breakfast, if not she would be starting lunch, or just cleaning up, and lunch will be on me...). After making myself a hearty breakfast of sunnyside egg sandwich and Ali Cafe with ginseng and tongkat ali, still in my kain pelikat and pagoda T-shirt, I go back up stairs, and plop into our reclining sofa and watch whatever that I may have the slightest of interest on TV, like a bunch of people forging a weapon, or some people bidding for abandoned self-storage facilities, or if I am lucky , some old movies that I have seen a couple of hundred times before.
At some point, I may possibly fall asleep, until my darling wife calls me down for lunch or wakes me up and say say lets go out for lunch. I prefer the former, of course, not willing to get out of my weekend attire of pelikat and pagoda T. Lunch is followed by the compulsory afternoon siesta.
Into the night, and I await the start of the weekend football, or when there aren't any football, any sport event will do, tennis, badminton, Formula One maybe, Ping Pong captures my attention sometimes... anything competitive to make up for my dormancy.
And to think I will have to give all these up, just for a few hours of mingling with my bosses, colleagues and staff, entertained my a local artist, eat a five-star dinner.... Are they out of their minds...
But, alas, I have to say "yes, I will attend" just for the sake of humanity (staying in touch with other humans) and, also, my boss expects me to be there.
Now I have to shop for a Hawaiian Shirt.
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