Syed Al Jabbar

I've no idea who has hired Syed Al Jabbar. I wouldn't exactly say he is my assistant cos we are supposed to work together in par. My colleagues always asked me how my new is 'assistant' doing and I always replied 'Fine' even though nothing is fine ever since he joined. Syed is older by me about a decade to be exact, 13 years older than me. I always have this mind set that whoever is older than me ought to teach me or lead me somewhere. When I mean somewhere, it means 'learn-something-new' not going to some back alleys and humping prostitutes.

 

My work scope doesn't allow me to stop or take a break to teach Syed things which he ought to know. So a month before he joins us, I've already made a list of the work scope, the process and how the documentation is done. I thought it would be helpful for any new comers cos when I first joined, my 'leader' Mahesh didn't even had anything prepared for me and I've to look all the drawings by myself cos he said the good way to learn is to always ask. He is a good leader by the way with patience. He probably held a lot of grudges with me for being dumb nut,no wonder he is bald. Unfortunately Mahesh left for a better paying job in Abu Dhabi, which is a good move cos he is paid peanuts while working for us here.

 

I'm a very short tempered person, I have PMS almost everyday. My PMS comes with timing usually from 9am till 2pm daily on weekdays, 10am till 12 noon on Saturdays and Friday is off. Can you imagine the amount of Kotex that I've to use if I really menstruate? I could create global warming just by having to use Kotex daily. Syed appears confident when he came to interview for the job infact he told me if he has to 'chase' people to meet the deadline, he would strike them hard. I thought I've found a great partner to do the job but one month later I started to regret that I even curse daily like chanting a mantra.

 

On his first day, I quickly brief him the job scope and assigned him a few tasks. A few hiccups but I thought its ok since it's his first day as it happened to me too on my first day. Each week I will assign him a new task so that he will get use to it for a week and I even planned that I would pass him some of my tasks as I'm handling too much load and there is more awaiting for me. Unfortunately my planned didn't materialized. I realized that Syed is not as confident and fast as I thought.

 

I've this habit or rather being nurtured since young that I've to look at a person's weakness, study it and learn how to make it beneficial for me just in case that person have some misunderstandings with me and I can use his weakness to pin him down. I'm so bloody charitable that sometimes I would teach this person to overcome his weakness and in the end those bloody people use it to pin me down. What a world. So anyway I know Syed has a weakness like for example his English is mediocre both written and spoken. He spells words the way it is supposed to sound for example CONSTRUCTION as CONSTRAKSHEN or PROJECT as PROJEK. This doesn't happen all the time thank God, he only does it if he the handwriting on the paper is illegible so he spelt it that way to make his life easier but my life more difficult. He does not correct wrong spelling if he sees one. This is irritating somehow. So I always have to spend an extra time just to check spellings. I really feel like a school teacher correcting mistakes.

 

One thing which really bothers me is that he does not know how to troubleshoot. If there are mistakes with the drawings, he just let it be even though the mistakes are very obvious. I've told him repeatedly several times like a daily mantra for Kamasutra how to solve problems and what he should do. Everytime when I told him that I've found some errors and he should rectify it he would reply to me 'WHAT TO DO? 'And he wobble-jingle his head like all Indians do. I hate all this 'WHAT TO DO?' responds. Every Indians hail from India love to use this phrase 'WHAT TO DO?' and they expect us to know what to do? And I hate when they wobble their head. It's like an epidemic and it has no cure. Even the rich Indians bastards who are western educated wobble their heads. It irritates me so much that sometimes whenever I talk to a stranger I told them not to wobble their heads cos I hate it and it irritates me and their reply would be 'WHAT TO DO?' I wish I could say 'LET ME TELL YOU ONE THING U MUTHAFUCKAS, I WANT YOU TO STOP WOBBLING YOUR HEAD AND JUST KILL YOURSELF'. I wonder which civilization started this head wobbling thingy. Could be the Aryans.

 

Believe it or not I try my best to make Syed stress on purpose so that he knows when I meant the drawings are URGENT it really means URGENT. It has to be completed immediately not 1 hour later, not in the evening and not tomorrow definitely. I keep on screaming in Arabic 'YAHLA YAHLA SYED URGENNNNNNNNTTT!!!!'. Sometimes I felt guilty for treating him that way but I really need these drawings to be submitted ASAP.

 

The Indian/Arabs mind set attitude is different compared to us Singaporeans. We Singaporeans are so used to get things being done immediately that no delay is tolerated. For them the word 'Later' could mean 1 hour later, tomorrow or even next week. For example like the plotter machine in the office. It's broken down since a week ago, our Lebanese IT Technician Nicholas supposed to look at the problem. Whenever I asked him when is the guy gonna repair our plotter. He would always say tomorrow morning. Now we have reached the 2 ^nd week almost to the 3^rd and the plotter machine is still not being repaired. So no one has been printing drawings. Our scanner broke down and even our printers. We have 1 plotter, 2 photocopying machines, 2 color printers, 1 black & white printer and 1 scanner in the office. Everything else is not working except for 1 photocopier, 1 color printer, and 1 black & white printer.

 

I think my colleagues know that Syed is somehow slow when being asked to do something that they have come to me instead when they need something. It really makes me angry cos they should ask Syed for help. He needs to learn how to troubleshoot. I really hate it; I don't mind doing it if the company pays me higher. Didn't I supposed to get a raised after one year working for the company? Where is my raise, its already July!!! Sometimes I really want to puke at their faces whenever they asked me for help. I just really really hate it whenever someone asked me for the same thing more than twice. If they lost their drawings, IT IS NOT MY PROBLEM!!! DON'T ASK ME FOR ANOTHER COPY!!!

 

DAMN THOSE FUCKTARDS…