Monday 29 January 2007

How was your weekend?

It was 23rd Oct 2000, my second Monday at my first job. I was in the pantry preparing my Milo and grabbing a few crackers for my breakfast. You know, I was so lowly paid at that time that I can’t even afford a roti canai at the mamak! Just as I was about to leave the pantry, a few of my new colleagues came in and greeted me (very nice of them). Then… they asked me a question that I couldn’t really answer… till at least a year later.

“Hi, how was your weekend?”… seems like a perfectly normal question right? Well, not at that time, so my answer was like…”Errrr, well, it’s normal. Why?” I can still remember the look on their face. Their look reads… “What a stupid young punk this boy is, a normal weekend?” Some didn’t bother to pursue further but others, perhaps trying to be nice, went a step further, “Well, what did you do?”. What the hell, don’t these people ever give up? It’s none of your business! (of course, I didn’t say that)

I was getting irritated but tried very hard to conceal that beneath my face, didn’t wanna piss off any of my new colleagues, some of them being my senior. In my mind, I was thinking, what nosy people this office has, what has my weekend gotta do with you? Of course, I didn’t tell them that.

“Well, hang out with friends, play some sports, the usual stuff, nothing much”, I said.

Now, my irritation went up a notch cause then, they said “oh, ok / oh, normal indeed / etc” with an invisible statement “What a boring weekend!!” tattooed on their forehead.

What the hell! First, they wanna know how was my weekend, then I told them it was normal, they asked more and now I am supposed to feel crap cause my weekend was normal? What is wrong with these people?

Have you ever been in my shoes before? I bet you had (for those who’re working). At that time, think most of us failed to grasp the full value of weekends. When we were a student , everyday seems to be weekend! Nothing special about Saturday or Sunday. In fact, some may even hate weekends, cause during such time, most of our hang out places will be crowded with people. Movie tickets are difficult to obtain, lack of places in our usual eating place and we may even have to pay extra for certain things during weekends. Weekend? Screw weekends!!

I was so tempted to tell all my colleagues that, perhaps even top it up with an aroma of sarcasm, just to make them feel stupid in return, but of course, I didn’t do it. I was a ‘freshie’ in the office, not about to offend any senior of mine.

Now that I have been rat race for a few years, the value of weekends has turned priceless! It’s the only time where we can take a break from our mundane work, no need to face our boss (I hope my boss don’t read this) and best of all, sleep a little longer. To all the working people out there, do I get 3 cheers for that?

To some, we even plan our weekends. We try to insert as many exciting activities into weekends and may even take leave to prolong our weekends. In some extreme cases, we do a countdown, starting as early as Tuesday! If you’re one who starts to think about the weekend even on a Monday, you’re normal, I will most probably join you soon. I am actually looking forward to the coming Friday night already.

So there you go, just like any other thing, we tend to be oblivious to their value until they became scarce, became priceless. Then only we will begin to cherish things. Now, I find myself asking almost all my colleagues the dreaded question every Monday morning, without fail. All the old timers (da*n, I am one of them!) will gladly tell me how interesting their weekends have been. Are you one of them who ask the infamous question?

Speaking of which, how was your weekend?

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

eh is this like part 2 of your Modern Slavery post? May not be but it seems linked.....Anyway yes...when u work weekends are priceless.......even more so when u r dating some1 i think hahahah....anyway in life if we chase the dream of the plastic chest, we may lose of the smaller and meaningful things in life...so enjoy your weekends!!!

Seaqueen said...

Hip Hip Hurray!!! ( for this Thursday as it's a PH)
So looking fwd to it...which means it's nearer 2 d weekend by then...

Weig said...

The math: We have 52 weekends this year 2007, with 6 of them lengthier ones (you know what that means, people)...add in those that most of us will likely to enlengthen via application of annual leave, makes it 119 days off for year 2007! But, even with 246 days to work, lets just write off half of February cause KL stands for Kill-the-Lights during CNY, so even if you're in the office, you're not really IN the office. That makes about 125 days off.

Out of 365 working days, we'll be working 65.75% of our year and that's not counting the additional leave we may have. If we were to clear our annual leave of say 15 additional days (some have the luxury of more, but lets just use 15 as an average to include any carry forward leave), we would have only have to work 61.64% of our year...

We are in week 5, having used up 8 days.

baggie said...

hie there and LOL to you... my blog's at www.evelynholic.blogspot.com not the one at www.blahblurbs.blogspot.com. blahblurbs' for template editing. :)

Anonymous said...

True word,Zwet,
Weekends are priceless!
My weekend was good,though I didnot get enough rest.

Thanks for stopping by my blog.

Anonymous said...

yeah, the problem with weekends is you look forward to them so much but then they slip away so so so quickly....so you end up lamenting the end of the weekend before its barely even begun! I know ppl who start getting depressed on saturday afternoons coz monday is peeking over the horizon....go figure. love weekends. hate weekdays.

Anonymous said...

hey there..
:D
i also remember my first job in malaysia....use to bring own lunch ~~sandwich to save on the RM10 lunch expenses in the heart of expensive kl...woo hoo...with parking fees + car installments...every cent counts :D
i also had similar experiences and was appalled by malaysians general nosiness in ppl's private lives, esp since i've just returned from the uk. :D
but hey, i guess we got used to it + am enjoying lovely msia + spending our hard-earned cash over the precious weekends.
:D

Anonymous said...

eh??? I'm completely opposite le...I look so forward to weekdays..not the weekends!! HAHAHAAHAHHA!! Housewife love weekdays..coz can rest abit. Weekends, like org gila..must do this, must visit that....hahah

but i understand..back in the days (ROLLS EYES..so OLD one this blogger!)..when I was working, I LOVED MY WEEKENDS!! TO SLEEP SLEEP SLEEP!!!!!!!!!! I MISS IT SOOO MUCH!'

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH

zewt said...

cirnell - as always, very phylosophical of you. I am sure what you said made us all feel much better. After all, 60+% aint that bad.

eyhastakenmysoul - you have a soul to begin with? haha !

freelunch2020 - welcome back to msia. Don't spend all your hard earned money away, save some for rainy days, or should I say... the flood.

To the rest - enjoy your weekends!!

Huei said...

You really have a great blog there!
My weekend, was normal! Haha

You have my agreement 100% on weekends were crappy when I was a student! Weekdays were heaven because shopping malls will be empty, parking will be easy, that was the life!

You get at least one BIG cheer from me about sleeping longer on weekends! That's my only activity! =D

BTW you didn't answer your question rite?
How was your weekend?

Anonymous said...

now.. everyday feels like uni. average of 3 hours of lectures+tutes a day! excluding friday sat and sunday. do u hate me now? XD