One Chance

I'd been away from the office for a few days, and when I entered my room, I stepped on a little white envelope. I picked it up and found it to be a notice of resignation.
The sender happened to be in the meeting that I was about to leave for, and he was somewhat jovial. Word had already gotten around when I reached that office and everyone was casual and friendly about it.
The next day, we had our monthly meeting followed with departmental-lunch, and I got called away to attend some matters. When I got back I found that they had expected me to say a word or two with regards to his farewell. The following day, a smaller farewell was planned and I stood there, fully expecting to say my piece.
However, things moved fast, and before I knew it, the moment passed.
And I am reminded over and over that I'm always given one opportunity; and the great see this and grab it with both hands, while the weak rue the moment it passes by.
Here is the opportunity that I missed:
I couldnt say good bye to someone who gave his all to do an honest day's work, despite the trials and travails of working here.
I couldnt let everyone know how inspired i am of his courage to seek greener pastures at a time when grass was turning brown all around us
I couldnt let him know how I believed that his short tenure has equipped him with the skills he needs for his endeavour,
and that i bless his heart for all the good he has given me, and i bleed for all the time I couldnt return the same,
and regardless what everyone says, I believe that his tenure was filled with learning; either with the good deeds to follow, or bad deeds to avoid,
and that i dont hope him for success; I believe a man as good as he will never fail and success is there for his taking.

all these now are mere words, because the opportunity to make it matter has passed.

dar friend,
If we meet again, we shall smile, if not, this parting is well made.

5 reasons why boyfriends and husbands should not accompany partners' grocery shopping

1. They are uninterested and get in the way
2. They are engrossed with last night's football scores and get in the way
3. They are thinking of tonight's football scores and get in the way
   
4. They park their trolleys within earshot of their wives and get in the way
5. They lose themselves entertaining the kids and get in the way

The parting of an old friend

It started with reaching home late for dinner. Decided to go out so after much consideration, we decided to have dinner at our old hangout, a restaurant we have been going to for the last 20 years or so.
The regular guys who served us don't seem to be there anymore, and the placed seem staffed by foreign crew. There wasn't, thankfully, a smoking section anymore so we got seated a a fairly nice cubicle. In the need to impress, I guessed, before we could even unwind, the waiter was already there asking to take our order for drinks. To make matters worse, I am hard of hearing, the party across the room was having a reunion of sorts with laughing and screaming kids contributing to the already high ambient noise. The waiter mumbled with a thick foreign accent which very much meant that i could hardly make out what he wanted.
I do believe that as a society our ability to empathise and be considerate is all but gone. Its one thing to gather the famiy at a posh joint; but speaking at the top of their voices, kids allowed to roam free, and uncles snapping photos with an industrial sized flash clearly made my favorite restaurant have much less of what keeps me coming back.
Amongst the good things are that the waiters are always within sight, although they do not smile so much now, they do exercise their level best to keep the glasses filled, and the table cleared. However, I do feel rather uncomfortable that the placemats set for a party of four is not removed when its just the two of us, and when our orders came, we were just served straddling the two place mats on either side of the table. In the midst of it all, the head waiter, standing behind my wife's seat, suddenly slaps the back of the cubicle and walks off, much to our shock. The waiter sees our disgust, and runs off after the guy, and a few short words later brings the man to our table to apologize.
I am sentimental about the place as I enjoyed the friendly waiters who come by with a smile on their faces, genuinely friendly and warming up with a small talk during the good old days. And have always looked forward to the cozy and private ambience, and sadly, this was not there anymore, the last two times i was there.
I may have made the last trip to this place.

The journey

I started the week, back at work after a long break, on my feet facilitating a planning session, and ended it with another facilitation of a planning session. All in all this week I've had to facilitate some five or six sessions, which I suddenly realized I hadn't done in a long time.
As a facilitator, I treat each session as a show, going over the material looking for areas to improve, and looking for "hotspots" or areas in which people may not easily agree, going over the performance over and over again in my mind until I am clear of the paths that need to be taken. However, as the number of sessions grow, suddenly the opportunity to take a close look at each session at the same level of detail become scarce.
At the end of each of these sessions, I am overwhelmed by a sudden wave of tiredness, all the energy consumed, the adrenaline drained. Was it worth it? Sometimes I wonder.
I see my role as a scout. I make no decisions where to go, I make no decisions what to do. Yet, I am there to pinpoint the fastest way to the solution, I let the team find their own way yet I am there to make sure the things that need to be considered are not left out, the weak not jeopardized and the powerful not derailed.
At the end of these sessions, I wonder if I've made the journey easier for the team. Did it help? I wonder. The truth is, we won't ever know. Because the journey we experienced is the only journey we take, and arduous or not, we wont know if the paths we chose to ignore was for the better or for the worse.

Inspire

There are certain people that you just want to see as many times as you can. They're not necessarily your lovers, spouse or families. Neither bosses nor subordinates. These are those who look at you for inspiration, who bend over backwards for their need to do the right thing for you in return for all the inspiration you provide to them.

Its sad that sometimes we are *not* able to see the inspiration in their eyes. The desire to please us, the hope that the trouble they go to to make sure that our lives are easier. In not being able to recognize these people, inadvertently we brush them away and we hurt them.

Once hurt, they never come back.

The truth is that the reason why we wait to meet them over and over again, is because they inspire us as much as we inspire them.

As always, we ourselves do not realize how much they inspire us and instead of seeing the good intention behind their actions, we see only the bad; because we measure them against what we do, and therefore they always fall short.

Sad indeed. What of the cleaning lady whose eyes perked up because we thanked them for emptying the basket?

What of the security guard who got a shelling from the neighbor just because he tried to do his job right? How much more better his day became when we smile at him, and acknowledge that he did the right thing?

Inspire them to do the best they can.

Some time ago, trying to fill up at a nearby petrol station with swollen wrists, the lady came to help me fill up my car, and as i thanked her, she looked at me and said,"i'm really glad u smiled, because its so much nicer when everyone smiles". How perfect my day became.

Life depends on friendship and Roses

I had another test today. Turns out OK, So nothing to worry, lah.
I took the opportunity to visit the office end see if the gang preparing for the show is OK.
Funnily enough, l entered the office to a chorus of "What are you doing here" "You should be at home!" and "You're not supposed to be working"
l can only give an embarrassed grin.
I'm really glad people around me are concerned enough. I'm not really hot on working, but for the last 20 years of my working life, the office has always been more home than home itself.
Like today, it was nice to be able to meet up with friends and chat rather than sit home all alone. And that's all that keeps me coming to office, not the work, but the reminder that here is where your friends are and here is what keeps you getting up every morning.
Take that away from me, and there's very little left to look for when the kids are in school and the woman you love is away at work.

Life without internet? no way!

I was in trouble the other day thanks to my penchant to pull long hours at the office and hogging every single bit of work (ok, ok, I exaggerate, but I'm allowed some literary license, no?). I felt disoriented, and when walking, I felt like I was walking with swimming goggles on.
First, my wife takes away the car keys. "No driving", she says, "until we know what's wrong with you and fix you up." So she drops me off at the hospital, and picks me up later.
I had to suddenly miss work, and it had to happen on the busiest day of the week, and my phone rang, and then rang again, and then rang again with all the cancelled appointments and the like.
I imagined my wife reaching for the phone and stuffing it into her handbag to keep the car keys company. No, no, no.. I terminated my calls and switched the phone off.
Stepping out of the clinic, I call up my office mates, and in a few minutes later, I bundle up at the back of their car and zoom off. After a good time with my friends, I figured I felt recharged. Well, to my horror, the next day when reviewing my bp trend, my BP peaked at the exact hour I spent with them.
The next day, well enough to drive, I stopped by the office to submit the paperwork, and within minutes, the swimming goggles came on. Ok, I took off and went home.
At home, the sight of my shiny black HP, no covered in dust due to 2 days of disuse, gets my fingers trembling. I reach out for the "on" switch and giggle nervously as the LCD display fires to life. An I hit the "outlook" icon and watch the progress indicator start to build as e-mails begin to flow in. at 5 percent done, my inbox was showing 10 unread mails; then 15, 20, 25, 30,... before all the mail arrived, my swimming goggles were back on.
The next day, at my doctor's office, I relayed this experience. And she says, "You are just like my husband,.." her voice trails of as my mind perks at the thought that I have found a sympathetic ally. Then she continues,".. I wouldn't just take away the computer, because you are going to check your e-mails on your phone; I'd tell your wife to take away the car keys, computer AND the phone so that you can rest".
Well, with those words, the swimming goggles came back on. 2 weeks without the office, internet and phone?
With that, I've decided a slight change in routine. I use the pc with no office software so I can still be on the internet but off the officework. My phone's call screening is activated so that all office calls are diverted elsewhere (its supposed to go to my voice mailbox, but I deactivated that a long time ago - thats a story in itself).
Because of that I actually had time to go to the gym, walk to the store and read a book. And the goggles are gone, too.
I wonder what that means.

It helps to have a Sense of humour.

My doctor has a bit of a theatrical flair.
As I enter his office, he swirls his seat around, jumps to his feet and offers me a chair. He rifles through the pages of test results, brandishing his pen across his note pages. In a swish of his arm, he dispatches me to Special Diagnostics for a stress test.
The Lab Tech sticks on the little pads on my body and clips the wires on. The treadmill starts at a slow pace; everything is ok until Stage 4 when I find its a little too fast to walk, and a little to slow to run. My wallet, keys and coins are jumping in my pockets. My shins are screaming in pain, and I'm hanging on for dear life on the handle bar. I had this vision of me stumbling, and getting tangled up between the rollers. And the Lab Tech looks up at me, head cocked to one side, asking me if I'm ok. I'm gasping for air and trying to keep up and say "my feet are *killing* me!" He looks at me and says, deadpan,"hang in there, not much longer to go".
Then suddenly it dawns upon him that I might be in trouble and he asks,"Any pain in your chest?" And I hiss, "Only in my legs!"
He rolls his eyes and say; " Oh, that's because you don't exercise! If you exercise regularly, this is no problem at all."
Well, needless to say, a lesson was learnt. When you need to get your point across, hit the guy when he's in trouble, and when you do, make sure you hit him as hard as you can.