While I was having dinner at home with my wife, a big ass wasp came buzzing into our living room. Emily, as usual, reflexed by letting out an ear piercing shriek and started to convulse violently like she’s having Parkinson’s. Me on the other hand, didn’t give any fuck to the insect, for I know, it won’t escape the death grip of the one and only, Critter Annihilator – that was in vicinity.

The said Critter Annihilator was my biological mother. I don’t know why but, she likes to kill. So far, I have seen her kill everything except humans (not because I don’t believe it but because I haven’t seen her doing it). If someone were to tell me my mom’s a closet serial killer and she had also killed hundreds of people she found annoying enough, I’d believe it without an iota of doubt. She’s the physical manifestation of critters’ Death with a fly swatter in place of a scythe. She’s just one thin line away from being a real murderer.

Anyway, after hearing the panic shriek, my mom (who was on the couch watching the tv) sailed across the living room, grabbing a fly swatter at the same split second and… ok, I expected her to smack the living shit out of that wasp, but to our bewilderment, she gently pressed the swatter onto the wasp, whipped out a handkerchief, gently cupped the little shit into it and let it went free at the balcony.

My wife and I went – WTF JUST HAPPENED!? with a wide eyed expression. THAT’S NOT MY MOM!

And then the wasp flew back into our apartment, beckoning for its life to be taken away for the second time. My mom looked on forlornly at the insect (I really don’t know what the fuck’s wrong with her), and then the ceiling fan hit it and kinda crippled it a bit. I had to grab the swatter and finished the job.

So what the fuck happened to my mom? Was she possessed by the devil or something? Wait… shouldn’t it be the other way round? *confused x 50*

Today is my first day of work. As a newbie, I was required to attend a 2-day corporate induction program by Company Y’s HR department. Again, curse on my rotten luck, I was the only exempt staff in the big group of production operators (mostly Indons, if not Malays) in the orientation. As a result of that, all of the materials had to be conducted in BeeEm (Malay language). When I first joined Company X 13 years ago, I had the same experience – orientation in BeeEm, amongst a group of operators who looked at me like I’m from another planet. What’s most heart wrenching was – I later learnt that all exempt staffs in Company X attended their orientation in English, nice setups, free lunch, with hot chicks etc. #$%^&*(

Anyway, there was a moment in the orientation when the HR couldn’t find the guy who was supposed to present his part (about general security). So the HR chap went to get the guy’s assistant instead, a middle aged Indian man (a security guard) with a belly bigger than Honda City’s trunk. The guy lumbered into the orientation room with a confused look, a clear sign that he wasn’t paid enough to do stuff like that. Even more distressing for him was, the slide projected in front of him was for IT security, which was not supposed to be on his missing boss’ turf and a mistake from the previous HR guy. It all looked very alien to him.

So instead of going to the HR guy to get the correct slide, he went on to fiddle with the keyboard (he didn’t know how to even use the controls) and managed to only press the ‘ENTER’ key until the slides expired. Then came the big ‘WTF’ expression on his face and he went for his plan ‘B’. He stood in front of the projector (slide image amusingly projected on his huge belly), and summarized the whole fucking shit in basically 5 sentences (not verbatim) :

- You orang mesti pakai badge di dalam ini building, kalau tidak saya tangkap.
- Jangan ambik keluar apa-apa barang dari ini building, kalau tidak saya akan tangkap.
- Kalau you mau bawak barang masuk, you mesti declare, kalau tidak saya akan rampas.
- Kalau you nampak asap, api atau dengar loceng, cepat-cepat keluar dari ini building.
- Itu lucah mia barang, you jangan tengok kat komputer.

He did it in less than 10 minutes (inclusive of the comical entry part), of what supposed to take an hour to complete. Same shit, different method. I think Company Y ought to promote this guy to become a Director, immediately.

My quest to look for a job has taken a dramatic turn towards the worst when I walked out of an interview today. Not technically an ‘interview’ yet but, it’s definitely a walk out.

Reason? I was pissed.

But first, a little disclaimer – I know many of you think that an interview is all about being a whore, and how important it is to be able to impress the shit just about anyone who deigns to see my prostitute ass. But that’s not really what I perceive the whole thing as. To me, an interview is like a blind date. We both lay what we have on the table, try to have a conversation and weigh everything in to make a decision whether to accept that partner. If everything’s ok, then we have a deal. Simple.

My deal went sour even before I met the prospective ‘blind date’ today. I should have seen it coming but I chose to ignore the signs. My bad and serves me right.

First sign: The fucking HR who called me couldn’t speak English. It was all in BeeEm (Malay language). What kind of a shit-tard HR officer couldn’t speak English? I should have rejected the interview right there, but I didn’t. Serves me right.

Second sign: When I asked for an official appointment email and interview details from the guy (in Malay), he refused to do it. I don’t know why. Either he must be too retarded to send an email, or he’s just plain lazy. I should have rejected the interview, but I didn’t. Serves me right.

Third sign: When I asked for a contact number of the person whom I’m suppose to meet, he refused to divulge any detail, but directed me to ‘just ask for Jamal’. I should have rejected the interview, but I didn’t. Serves me right.

Then came today, the interview day, when I reached the company, the God of Technology and Cognitive Thinking gave me more hints. But I chose to ignore them all (serves me right),
- Guard asked me to fill in a form in the sun, the exact details I have listed comprehensively in my CV/resume, only to learn later that I could have done it in the comfort of an air conditioned lobby. (the form was apparently for the interviewer, which means I could have done the form in the lobby. The ‘under the sun’ part was for the guards’ amusement.)
- The Jamal that I was asked to ask, did not come to work today. The HR officer who met me didn’t know about the appointment. Confusion ensued.
- I was asked to state the interviewer’s name after a bout of frantic calling by the HR shapeshifter, which I did not have (see Second and Third signs above)
- The job requires working in shift (stated in the stupid form I filled under the sun), which was not listed in the original JD published in the newspaper (I wouldn’t have applied if I have known that).
- There were 5s posters everywhere in the lobby, but ironically at the same time, there was also a truck parking at the lobby entrance, with pallets of boxes all over the parking lot. Bullshit company.
- From the guards to the HR officer, to the workers who roamed around the lobby, none of them were any younger than 40 years old.

The tardiness of the non-existent interviewer was the straw that broke my back. I was fucking made to wait in the lobby for 40 minutes, and suddenly, I awoke and said “What the fuck am I doing here?” and walked out to have an awesome meal of banana leaf rice.

That’s right, I was interviewed by a fucking dipshit.

Tall guy in his mid or late 40′s. Fish belly pale in complexion, rotund, balding and had a condition that made his eyes half closed like Jughead in Archie’s comics. He looked totally like what a pedophile should look like, and the first sight of him gave me this uneasy feeling that my interview session is gonna suck.

And I was right. At one stage of the interview, that dipshit interviewer decided to empower himself by delving into the ‘root cause’ topic which totally ruined everything. This was his first question (verbatim):

“When a supplier gives you the root cause of a problem, tell me of a tool, which you can use to verify the effectiveness of the root cause.”

I’m sure all of you know what a ‘root cause’ is. So I went ahead to explain how I’d do it based on my experience – you know, technical verification, SPC, audits, etc. But the dipshit cut me off halfway, and told me that was not the answer he expected. He stressed on the word ‘tool’ and then rephrased the whole question, which to my surprise, was not what he originally asked.

“No no no no no. That wasn’t what I asked. I asked, name a TOOL [annoyed gesture], that ONE TOOL, that can find us the root cause of a problem.”

Like I said, it was an entirely different question from what he originally asked. And fuck me but if there is such tool in this world, then we wouldn’t need engineers. We can just hire Indonesian maids to use the fucking tool to find root causes. So I was kinda stuck there because I wasn’t sure I heard it right from that dipshit, and I eventually gave up.

“The one tool that could find me the root cause of a problem? I’m sorry, that’s beyond my knowledge then. Maybe you can enlighten me.”

The dipshit then lit up like a bulb and gave me this despicable smirk. He then smugly said this (which totally got me dumbfucked)

“Ahaaaa! Let me educate you here. The tool is called ‘fishbone diagram’. You use a ‘fishbone diagram’ to find root causes.”

!@#$%^&* (self explanatory, people).

If I could yell WHAT THE FUCK, I would have done it. But you have no idea how it felt like to suppress the emotion inside like it’s a wrong thing to do. A ‘fishbone diagram’, colloquial term for Ishikawa Diagram, is a tool to brainstorm for possible contributing factors to a specific set of problems. Advanced use would be to put numerical weight to each brainstormed factor, and with it, you narrow down your scope for higher efficiency. And that’s just the beginning of many more things to do. It doesn’t fucking directly find a goddamn ‘root cause’. And that was what I told that dipshit, and yet he still had the cheek to argue, like a 5 year old child.

“No no no no. It can. It can help us to find a root cause.”

Why maybe he actually used a fishbone diagram to find out why his car wouldn’t start in the morning.
Not wanting to drag the conversation further, I replied him this,

“Maybe in your world. In my world, a fishbone diagram is a brainstorming tool.”

Not sure if he got my sarcasm, but I have that feeling I won’t get the job – simply because I’m not from his world. Never mind if he has enough life in him to get offended with my reply. The interview was concluded about 5 minutes after that. Shortest interview I had (whole thing lasted just 30 minutes).

You know, I am always against the idea of getting my car vacuumed at a car wash. Usually, I’d wash Lorraine myself, but when I’m too lazy to do it, I’d send her to a car wash. But that’s the furthest I’m willing to go. Just the wash. Strictly no vacuum, no matter how filthy the interior is.

You want to know the reason why? Banglas. For some strange reasons, our local folks are not very keen to work in a car wash so most car wash business owners have to hire these foreign workers from the deepest and darkest trench of the underworld, in the scale of bad odor. And we all know, these Banglas – after a whole day’s hard work at the car wash, sweating and perspiring – their body odor would stink to high heavens. Letting them into the car would be akin to opening a few canisters of mustard gas inside the car.

But I apparently made a mistake the other day. I subconsciously unlocked the door to let them wipe the edge of the door, and as a result of my boner, my wife and I were gassed to death. I am now blogging from the deepest and darkest region of the underworld. If you guys need any 4D prediction, you can email me because I’ve became a discontent spirit now.

(Man, they should really hire young college girls to do car wash/vacuum work. For one, they won’t likely to stink up our cars, and secondly, the girls could save more from not needing to go to the gym and get paid to exercise instead. Why the fuck isn’t this happening already??)