spider sense tingling
about a few moons ago, (yesterday night) i went to a "recognition dinner" that was held in my friend's honour. apparently he works for some company and he had invited a few friends and myself for the company sponsored dinner.
so like your typical singaporean guy, hard up for free food, i went. well, actually, the main reason was to support my friend cos he's an old friend. i actually had better things to do.
so anyway, once i was there, the moment i stepped through that door to the company office, it felt wierd. i couldn't describe it. it felt as if it was a very poorly masked attempt to try and catch as many new heads into the company as possible.
"oh no, this dinner is not about getting new people to join" ---my friend
so it struck me as mighty strange once the company bigwigs started going up one after another and impressing upon us slogans like
"you set your own limits"
"6 people working in a room half the size of this can make 120,000 US dollars in 2 months!"
"do you believe that i can make 60K a month? its possible! cos i just said that infinity is the limit!"
ok, so this isnt about getting people to join, more of lure them with prospects of get rich quick schemes, "success" (do you want success? YES!!), and "friendships" (we have a lot of fun here! most of us dont even want to go home!)
its pretty ironic that they couldnt smell their own poorly thought out and executed rhetoric.
coupled with the fact that they made a lot of hoo-hah about the importance of grooming and impression, (look at this young man! when he first came in, he was ..... now, he's ....!!!) assuming that there was a drastic change of extreme-makeover type. well, what change i could see was that my friend was wearing a 150 buck suit from Topman, which is a middle class range brand for young adults with little cash to spend.
also, one of the MCs was this guy who spoke broken english, paused a lot, made funny jokes (ohohoho), and changed from jovial to serious when the business side of the company started to express itself.
so well, i guess they made a great impression on me. i promptly walked out with my other friends once a lull in presentation took place.
"i hope you live your dreams"
was the last words i said to my friend as i shook his hand. i dont really know how much hes making or whether he was enjoying himself or whether he himself has been fooled into beliving his company's philosophy of them being caring towards their employees.
u have to be caring i suppose, cos i think the more employees you got, the more money u make.
i really do hope he can "retire by 25, latest!!" and that his pursuit of success gives him happiness (and a lot of cash)
strangely enough, when they were all harping about success and how HongKong people went out and took it while singaporeans were flaccid, i thought about the book Kenneth let me read just before we went down for Junefest.
"you cant aim for success cos success is what comes after, it is a result, not a goal. aim at success and you'll just miss the point"
hmm....
well, i guess i will never be successful like them. not by a long shot. working 13 hours a day and not being able to see your kids (which is what their CEO does) is not something i would wanna do.
maybe im just lazy.
maybe im not ambitious.
maybe i just want to be a bum my whole life.
yea, i guess thats it.
so like your typical singaporean guy, hard up for free food, i went. well, actually, the main reason was to support my friend cos he's an old friend. i actually had better things to do.
so anyway, once i was there, the moment i stepped through that door to the company office, it felt wierd. i couldn't describe it. it felt as if it was a very poorly masked attempt to try and catch as many new heads into the company as possible.
"oh no, this dinner is not about getting new people to join" ---my friend
so it struck me as mighty strange once the company bigwigs started going up one after another and impressing upon us slogans like
"you set your own limits"
"6 people working in a room half the size of this can make 120,000 US dollars in 2 months!"
"do you believe that i can make 60K a month? its possible! cos i just said that infinity is the limit!"
ok, so this isnt about getting people to join, more of lure them with prospects of get rich quick schemes, "success" (do you want success? YES!!), and "friendships" (we have a lot of fun here! most of us dont even want to go home!)
its pretty ironic that they couldnt smell their own poorly thought out and executed rhetoric.
coupled with the fact that they made a lot of hoo-hah about the importance of grooming and impression, (look at this young man! when he first came in, he was ..... now, he's ....!!!) assuming that there was a drastic change of extreme-makeover type. well, what change i could see was that my friend was wearing a 150 buck suit from Topman, which is a middle class range brand for young adults with little cash to spend.
also, one of the MCs was this guy who spoke broken english, paused a lot, made funny jokes (ohohoho), and changed from jovial to serious when the business side of the company started to express itself.
so well, i guess they made a great impression on me. i promptly walked out with my other friends once a lull in presentation took place.
"i hope you live your dreams"
was the last words i said to my friend as i shook his hand. i dont really know how much hes making or whether he was enjoying himself or whether he himself has been fooled into beliving his company's philosophy of them being caring towards their employees.
u have to be caring i suppose, cos i think the more employees you got, the more money u make.
i really do hope he can "retire by 25, latest!!" and that his pursuit of success gives him happiness (and a lot of cash)
strangely enough, when they were all harping about success and how HongKong people went out and took it while singaporeans were flaccid, i thought about the book Kenneth let me read just before we went down for Junefest.
"you cant aim for success cos success is what comes after, it is a result, not a goal. aim at success and you'll just miss the point"
hmm....
well, i guess i will never be successful like them. not by a long shot. working 13 hours a day and not being able to see your kids (which is what their CEO does) is not something i would wanna do.
maybe im just lazy.
maybe im not ambitious.
maybe i just want to be a bum my whole life.
yea, i guess thats it.
posted by tim tay at 2:28 PM
1 Comments:
"you cant aim for success cos success is what comes after, it is a result, not a goal. aim at success and you'll just miss the point"
hmm true enough success is not a goal. but to say success is a result is to say that it is a final product, a destination of sorts.
personally i see success more a process, an excruciating one at that. success is a habit, it is about doing things as best as possible. it is in the small things and the big things i do everyday.
the destination may seem all-important but once you've gotten there, you'll be reminiscing about the journey because that's where all the memories... and the success lies :)
just my 2 cents
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