Sometimes, it's the smallest things that make one's day

Funny how sometimes it’s the smallest things that make one’s day.

There’s something peculiar about Monday mornings – Garfield could testify to that and most of my office mates would second him anytime. This morning was no exception.

I had a weird feeling as I woke up to pray Subuh – like things would go wrong, wrong, wrong. I tried casting the depressing thoughts aside, thinking that it might be partly caused by the restless night I had in my own warm room after spending two cosy nights in a luxurious hotel, lulled to sleep by the sound of waves hitting the Teluk Kemang shore.

My weird feelings were not unfounded.

First thing in the morning, my big boss asked me to see him in his room. Uh oh, not a good sign. A lot of things needed to be changed and since my immediate superior had gone to a three-weeks-course, everything was left to me. Memos to be amended, documents to be re-numbered, more documents to be re-worded, reports on this and that to be prepared, some information to be updated.

It was a bit frustrating when I realised that some of the issues that only now this big boss wanted to tackle could be addressed a long time ago had he gone through all the previous letters/memos carefully and thoroughly. I'd like to believe that it’s people like him – who likes to sit on stuff and make unnecessary reviews - that slows down the government delivery systems; consequently making our clients unhappy with our performance. While my immediate superior and I tried to clear our desks the soonest possible – things almost always got stalled as soon as they reached some smartypants who have the annoying habit of sitting on stuff.

Urghhhh….

Then, there was that emcee job I had to undertake. For the second time in less than a month, I’d been asked to emcee another function - the soft launch of the Malaysia ICT Week 2004. Which involved many eminent figures – the deputy minister graced the event, witnessed by the ministry’s senior officials, presidents and vice presidents of this and that agencies, other distinguished figures and members of the media.

I had prepared a draft emcee script last week – and found out that over the weekend, there had been a lot of changes to the program and thus I had to address the changes in my emcee script accordingly. That demanded some form of creativity and spontaneity - which I usually have in abundance - but this morning I felt so drained, resulting in producing an emcee script that just plain sucked. It’s not like it was the first time I had to emcee such function – but this morning, I fumbled a few times. I knew I could have done better. I knew I’d always done better in the past. Yet I messed up badly this morning – even made a mistake in addressing the deputy minister himself. Silly A.Z.

Urghhhh…

Then, a colleague from another agency dropped by my office.

“Hi, I’m just back from Vientiane. I just want to say hello, and Khamla gave you this”. She passed a red bag containing a nicely-wrapped-with-white-ribbon package, the size of an Atlas-kain-pelikat-PVC-container to me.

“Ohhh, that’s nice... Thank you”

I unwrapped the package slowly and carefully. What could Khamla be thinking? My Laosian friend had been sending me several gifts through mutual colleagues almost every other time he met another Malaysian for the tiniest reason. However, I could guess that this time, it was most probably meant as a thank-you gift since I’d proof-read (via e-mail) many of his correspondence with his sponsor, prior to a one-month training on ICT-related-subjects in USA.

Ahhh… it was a traditional Lao black cotton wall-hanging-letter-holder, with turquoise-and silver elephant motifs delicately made from sequins. Totally kawaii…(‘cute’ in Japanese)

I finally smiled a genuine smile on this otherwise depressing Monday – thanks to an unexpected, heartfelt present from a long-distance buddy. That kawaii letter holder – small as it was - really made my day.

Khamla-san – khab khun ka.