Another day, another dollar

At the MRT, on the way to work, a colleague tapped on my shoulder. While catching up on the weekend's football matches, he told me that he had tendered his resignation and that his last day was in the coming weeks. He is a relative senior colleague in his late-30's. He shared that he was joining a competitor but I couldn't quite guess which one it was. It was good for him. Our company has been having a few bad quarters and retrenchments - or reduction in force - has been on going. Budgets have also been scaled down although I would point out that investment in organic capability was scarce. The company preferred to grow revenue by acquiring other companies.

Colleague who had tendered agreed with us that the company didn't really care about employee feed back, despite appointing "champions" to better understand the issues that affected employee happiness. The track record of being ignored has been consistent during both our times with the company

Lunch. It was a very warm day but I made my way with some other colleagues to the nearby hawker centre. I had salad because I have not had enough fibre in my diet. The others had Malay food as well as some famous wanton noodles. I ended my lunch with ah balling. It almost caused another of my shirt button to explode. The first one came out in the morning and I shoddily sewed it back on with thread with a non-matching colour.

Lunch discussion escalated quickly after one colleague asked if I knew this person was a new colleague. She said she was busy this week because she was tasked to give colleague M training on how to use one of our products. Others in the lunch party started to chime in with their thoughts that another colleague D should be the one providing the training. The lunch party suggested that our product was easy to use and training could have been self directed.

Back at the office, I stood along the hallway that joining the lift lobby and the cubicles. The hallway was much cooler than the rest of the office, offering me respite from the stifling heat and humidity encountered on the way to and back from lunch. At my seat, I knew I hardly spoke to my team mate as we both had our own research agenda.  Most other days, we exchanged the daily pleasantries an nothing further. It was colleague K's gym day and so he did not join the lunch party. I let K know that another colleague had tendered his resignation.

The day came to a quick end. It was uninteresting. Deadlines loomed closer for me but I did not make significant headway as more research was needed. Research which included literature review. I was drained by the mental exertions. Nevertheless, I slowly made my way to the west for my dinner.