Timeshare

When I had newly started work 6 years ago something really resonated with me. I knew then it resonated with me, but I forgot why until today, which is also the day I finished my bond.

I had been walking nearby Orchard Towers, with its infamous "four floors of whores". It was also hungry ghost festival, and some transsexuals were loitering near the Thai (?!) embassy. With their heavily made up faces and long hair it was very easy to picture them as being the visitors from the other side.

I suppose it's not that alarming for us Chinese to see ghosts because they appear with a regularity that's almost reassuring.

It was then that a hot chick accosted me. OK, she wasn't completely hot because she was a little on the plump side but something comely about her, nice boobs, tinted contact lens. She said, do you want to take part in a lucky draw? And she said it so earnestly that I heard myself saying "yes". All you have to do is to take a short survey.

How many times have you travelled overseas before? More than 5? Good. Let's see your lucky ticket. Oh my god, you have won our first prize! Lucky you!

Then she pointed me in the direction of Delphi Orchard, where I just had to go to the 4th floor and give my particulars and attend a 1 hour presentation so that I could collect my prize.

What I should have done was to grab her hand say to her, "you are the real lucky draw ticket. Now tell me, what time do you get off from work? When am I going to see you again?" But all too predictably, the idiot I was, I let it go. And instead I ended up going to watch that presentation.

It was something about the timeshare holiday resort. My prize was a 2-3 day stay in some remote part of Bali. I attended this presentation by this skanky bitch who sussed out early on that I was just there to collect my prize, not buy anything, and then go. Of course she wasn't happy and pulled a long face. In the event, my prize was worthless because I figured out that it was only a crappy accommodation worth 2 days, and not really worth my jetting all the way there on the stipulated dates. Also there was the small matter of the terrorist attacks which took place soon after.

But I did reflect upon that incident, because at the back of my head was my trepidation at my new job. Of course most jobs get better when you work at them long enough, but it was far from the dream / perfect job for me. I had won a scholarship, almost like winning a lottery, where all I had to do to claim that prize was to hang around for long enough. Except that this was 6 years instead of 60 minutes.

What was going through my mind when I said yes to that? What would that prize be worth after 6 years? What sort of a person would I be like when those 60 mins / 6 years was over?

In the end, I had no clue. It was just a lazy assumption that at the end of it all, everything would be alright. I would be older, wiser. All first jobs are the same. You learn the same things, getting with it. Not rubbing people the wrong way. But after that, what?

If I didn't achieve much at work, maybe I could achieve something outside of it. I didn't want to have to think that much. I had already gone through this period of "you had the whole world right in front of you at one time, but what did you do with it?" I gave up the mastery of my fate in order to not have to face that sneering voice again: "what are you doing with your life?!". It was a nice cushy place to be in when I did not know what to do with my time.

And that's where I have been ever since, until the clock struck 6 just now.

I had a good learning experience, that's good. Nice colleagues, a nice place for me to hone myself up to a level of maturity I should have had by the time I was in J2 anyway. All good, all very good.

But good enough?