Mohammed, my supervisor at work turned 26 on Monday. Whilst in the middle of all our stocktaking work, he complained how there was no cake and candles for him on his birthday. I hadn’t known that it was his birthday.

I get along with Mohammed quite well, mainly because I work really hard and am about the same age as him. I had intended to try and get the blasted Oreo cupcake recipe right (after 3 failed attempts) and I thought it would be nice to make them for Mohammed. So in a baking frenzy the next morning (whilst running a smidge late for TAFE) I baked cupcakes (successfully).

So after the night shift scanning a supermarket of all places, I got the box of cupcakes out and lit candles and we sang to Mohammed quite awkwardly. Despite the fact that there were over 15 of us, it was decidedly lacklustre. No one really knew it was Mohammed’s birthday despite that I knew a few of them have been working longer than I have.

And then no one made a move to take a cupcake – so Mohammed took them all home to eat.

I found the whole experience bizarre.  It’s as if the little clique of Westie’s who worked for them for ages didn’t really bother to know them. Wherever I’ve gone, birthday’s have always been a big deal. In the office someone invariably brings a cake, at uni we sing the happy birthday song (Divinyls version) and my mates always have drinks or buys me dinner.

I always find it a culture shock dealing with the people I work with. Many of them smoke, a few of them are lazy at times and do things which I consider quite silly. They all get their mates in to work together and so they are this close knit bunch. I find it a bit difficult to deal with at times. A part of it is because they are still quite young – most have just left high school. They are all Muslim – which I have very little to no understanding of. I find it weird that many fast food places are inaccessible to them because of their dietary requirements leading them to make orders of  “A Bacon and Egg McMuffin without the Bacon”. Also,  because I’m a workaholic. When we wait around for data processing I usually have my knitting out because I just don’t like the feeling of wasting time which they find really bizarre.

Stocktaking is a very blue collar job. There’s not that much time for chatter whilst separated in aisles counting everything in sight. I can’t say that I’m very close to my workmates or supervisors. But I try to be friendly and make friends. I guess that this is very much a case of work is work, and outside life is outside life. I know that I haven’t kept in touch with anyone from my Chubb days – largely because my department was tiny and I wasn’t there for very long.

It still struck me as very odd. Maybe it’s the supervisor-minion dynamic. I guess I have been privledged enough to have work in environments where I’m one of the few in a department and have close relationships with my immediate superiors so I don’t feel there is such a divide.

But it has left me wondering.  Thank goodness there’s still an odd cupcake from the batch sitting on the kitchen counter.

I got a raise at work yesterday! This makes me happy.

Tim forwarded on a quiz on facebook and though I usually ignore most requests, I couldn’t resist a quiz entitled: “How much of a Math Geek are you?” The result came back as…

You Are A Math Master!

You are well informed in the ways of mathematics and find it enjoyable, even desirable. You are able to help others when they have needs in math, but know you are far from knowing everything about the subject. While math might not be the actual subject of your occupation or education, it should be a major component of your career.

Hahahahahahahahaha!

It made me laugh.

On a related note, I spent Wednesday and Thursday sorting out claims, loss ratios and experience rated a group life insurance fund. Go team Excel.

Last night I was going to see Comicide, but felt the need to be on my own. So I had dinner at Real Thai before heading off to the Ritz to see Forgetting Sarah Marshall. I enjoyed the movie.

In a feeling of wild optimism and the joy of life, I decided to knock on a door and talking to someone from the past, so we could bury the hatchet. Except they took the defensive and tried to bury the hatchet in my face. I said I just wanted to suspend hostilities between us and just be able to hang out, not to bristle up everytime I see them at a party, to invite them out to do things I know they like without reservation. But they were not willing to listen or to try.

I used to be so in awe of this person and I idolised them despite the horrendous antipathy we have with each other. But all I felt was sad regret when I was victim to their obstinancy. I asserted myself and my feelings knowing that I was making logical valid points instead of being afraid to voice my feelings as I used to. They ridiculed at my valiant efforts to try and mend fences because they weren not about to.

It ended rather badly. They told me that they have revised their opinions of me in the recent past and found me rather wanting. I said to them “You don’t even know me, so it’s shallow of you to base your opinions on so little.”

I walked away, not looking back. I immeadiately called David to try and sort out my fustrations with him and promptly burst in tears. Rather in direct contradiction to my earlier optimism of the evening. David told me that sometimes that you have to stop trying. But I said that if you don’t try, then you will miss out on things that are extremely valuable – like friendships.

I pondered on why that person would say they have revised their opinion of me and found me rather lacking. I can only see that in the past couple of years I have grown stronger then I have ever been before. So I called a friend from my university circle to help figure it out. He was not sure because I have rarely been attending parties of late and he said that my behaviour of late did not warrant too much criticism apart from the fact I wander about scantily clad.

So we dredged further back into the past and he repeated all the old gossip about me, about how people said some horrible things because they thought I was too high maintainence, and how I was too easy. Listening to those past criticisms was difficult. I was also amazed by the sheer maliciousness of some of it. Apparently I am not worth dating because you have not won anything as I am too easy. It made me laugh mirthlessly. Especially the part when my friend accused me of making it a habit to try to pick up all the boys in a certain demographic within our university circle and I asked him to name them – I found it especially not funny when he was unable to really name anyone despite his unshakeable belief in the prior statement.

However I am older and wiser now. In the past few months I have retreated from my circle of acquaintances at university and have been concentrating on my studies. When I looked up from the myraid of books, I realised that I actually felt quite happy. Eschewing those parties helped me feel more confident. I was sick of going to these parties and being sidelined out of conversations. Sick of hearing the underlying maliciousness being masked with sarcasm.

I lived with it before because I felt safe. That these people were the only kind of people I knew. But now I realise how dangerous it was to my inner self.

Most of these people whom I speak of have moved on, away from university. I am only now left with the shreds of a terrible reputation exacerberated by my inability cope with stress very well. However, I am  usually very easy to forgive and forget. I may get angry and use it in a destructive manner but after the storm has passed, I give it not another thought and will willingly apologise to anyone. It is shortsighted to forget that for others it is not so easy. (A lesson I will eventually learn is the ability to learn how to cope with that stress without offending people.)

The other day I shared with Jen a story of someones indirect personal attack of my skills and ability. When I had initally heard it, I was upset. I told Jen how I was trying to sift the truth out of it and take it in the manner of constructive criticism. I agreed with some of it – I am not particularly a good leader (my inability to cope with high sress) however I am a good second in charge. I told Jen how I thought of downscaling a bit. She told me that to be careful to not let their criticisms affect me to the point that I was limiting myself because of it. If I do that, then they have won.

“I can’t waste time so give it a moment, I realise that nothing’s broken. No need to worry about everything I’ve done – live every second as if its my last one.” Despite a lot of that song being irrelevant, everytime I those lyrics I feel emboldened to take on the future. God gave me very much to be thankful for in my life. I needed to live all that mess because it taught me to be stronger and realise exactly what is valuable to my life. As my boss and Sean told me, I’m still on my learning curve.

I have assessed what is important to me and in which direction I would like my life to lie. Despite the rehashing of some of that past has hurt me inside, I am grateful for the beautiful things that I do have in my life. All the friends who are able to share my joys and my burdens. The ability to study something that is interesting and stretches my imaginations my skills to the limit. A somewhat trying family who I still love dreadfully. I will build on the foundations of the wonderful gifts that God has given me because I can not waste time regretting things that I can not change.