Joining a new organisation

I met up with a lot of nice people today at 1 go. It was great to be able to have lunch with Janice again today. She is probably one of the nicest econs friends that I know. But of course we did first know each other typically in school, which is probably why we hit it off so well. In fact we have never taken any econs modules together. And then she said that whenever she talks to me it will be more like telling me how sad her life is. Actually I did not mind listening to them because it gave me some space to think about my current situation as well. I also saw the ever chirpy Ming jie whom I knew since JC. She is still petite and chirpy as ever! Its kinda nice to know some nice people who are working in the same organisation but yet we did not know one another as colleagues.

I finally had the chance to talk to my old boss again, twice after I went back to EDB and he was on leave or away. I remember the first time I saw his profile was during the morning of my first day reporting to the organisation as an intern. All of us interns were in the meeting room configuring our laptops with the technical guy, and we were told to check out our reporting superiors. Excitedly we searched for our superiors' profiles. I remember all of the other interns had superiors that did not look so stern and so old. They were probably at most, 5 years older than them. My heart sank when I saw my boss's photo. He looked older than my father and looked real fierce in the photo.

It was not only until afternoon that day that I first saw him, because he had meetings. I was kind of scared to talk to him, and tended to be very cautious, especially whenever he call me into his office.

My initial reservations were soon overcome and I realised that he's actually a very chatty and funny guy and I grew to respect and like him a lot. And he also took great care of me as well, to an extent that other people did not dare bug me. I grew to like the department I was placed into although it is not as vibrant as the other departments other interns were posted to, meaning the staff in my department were mostly very senior staff, some old enough to be my parents. Although they were junior officers, however I had much to learn from them in terms of experience and age. One of them even passed me a winter jacket for my SEP in Germany, saying that the weather there is very cold and I need it. And also Millie who was also in that department is very approachable and does not act like the typical elitist overseas scholar.

Today I went down again and went to the old man's office looking for him for some talk cock session, one of the things I really missed from the internship. The first thing he said when he saw me was that "为什么你跑去 RDD 没有来 RSU? !" And then I learnt that he's actually going to retire this year on 2 July because this is the day he will officially hit 62. Then some of the other aunties heard me in his office, they tried to peep inside and see what's going on. And he said to them "要看就敢敢进来!"

It was a great 1 hour conversation with him. Like the good old days where he's call me into his room and complain how he kena fined for illegal parking the day before, saying that he has been maligned and the parking aunty was out to catch him. I learnt from him today that actually HR went to ask him about his comments about myself because I used to work under him and he's probably the best man to comment about my fit with the organisation. I also learnt that he's currently relearning Japanese in order to make his brains work, and he even showed me the notes that he took at the classes. He too admit that its an evitable process that we will all age some day.

The only pity I have is that he's actually one of the people whom I look forward to eating lunch together when I start work. However, it won't be long before he has to retire.