Work-life balance

Someone once told me that there's no such thing. You've just gotta love what you do because that's where you're going to spend most of your adult life. Not with your lover/spouse/kids/best friend; but at work (although come to think of it, sometimes work may not be mutually exclusive to some of the aforementioned alternatives).

"Well screw that," I thought. I'll work 9-5 (or, you know 8-7 if I have to), and nothing more than that. My evenings and my weekends are for my loved ones and my hobbies.

Well, you know that the balance is tipping toward work when you forgot one of your best friends' birthdays (forgot one of your best friend's birthday?), haven't shopped for anything for your granny even though you're going over for a visit really soon, still haven't bought the aforementioned bestie a present, and are in real danger of forgetting to renew your season parking/pay bills/shit daily.

Also, you know you're working to much when all you want to do once you get back (way past 7pm), is share random shit from 9gag and Pinterest.

And also have started using the word shit a lot on your blog even though you've tried to avoid any language that's about there or harsher on your blog. You know, because you've spent all day trying to avoid saying anything super duper mean to anyone, even if they're the ones whose incompetence is screwing up your workday and hence, screwing up your work-life balance. 

Arrive early, leave late

That's probably one of my pet peeves about being in an entry-level position.

You're usually hired in batches - whole bunch of you start out together, and in some ways that's pretty awesome. At least you've got work buddies by default.

But then comes the rivalry.

From what I hear from friends, it seems like at some places, they do this on purpose. Some kind of 'survival of the fittest' thing. But lucky for me, I haven't encountered any such thing at my workplace. Until now.

We're in a meeting where a bunch of us hired at the same time are involved, along with a few more senior colleagues. And I'm not sure if one of them is just trying to be humourous but falling flat, or just being a plain snide bitch. She makes lame jokes that sometimes sound like thinly veiled insults.

Ever since I changed department and therefore would have another hire from my batch as a direct comparison, I knew this was going to happen eventually - I just didn't know who would say it.

"The people in your department are always so busy! They all work very late. I see you around all the time when I stay late at work...," the lame or possibly bitchy woman says to the other girl from my department,"but you...," she looks at me,"I never seem to see you. How come you don't stay late?" She gives me this look and says it in a way that the next line is obviously hanging in the air, unsaid. "You're lazy and a pain in the ass for giving me more work to do a couple of months ago. Just you wait until I get a chance to give you a bad review."

I felt like saying, "Because I'm efficient and you're a stupid cow."

Okay I don't think cows are stupid...I just like the way that insult sounds.

And also you're not my boss: you have no say in my review.

And also don't try to induce some kind of rivalry between me and the other girl - she's a nice person!

I settled for giving her my best ditzy look.

Dammit. Why can't I ever think of a smart comeback that nobody will realise is mean/cutting/youshouldcurlupinalittleballandcryinshameformessingwithme, except the person the comeback was intended for?

"Are you just going to sit there and text?"

Okay so I totally sucked. And didn't make all that great an impression.

There I was: the snooty looking girlfriend with her sunnies pushed up on her head, sipping hot chocolate and busily tapping away at her phone.

But really, I had no idea how to react.

The part of me that had been so gung-ho and "I might suck now but I'm totally going to try this and be sporting about it" just totally froze.

When we got to the courts, my man's friend was already there. Brief hellos and all went fine and then we walked into the building. And I my insides just froze.

At the court nearest the entrance, there were 7- or 8-year-olds playing so well I could almost envision all off them stopping dead for a milisec and then laughing their asses off at me the moment I started playing.

I was snapped out of that horrifying thought by some guy who'd come over to say hi to my man.

"Oh that's one of the guys I usually play badminton with on the weekends," my man explains to me.

What?!

The only reason I'd agreed to play today was because I though we were only playing with a regular bunch of people, not his usual superawesome badminton kaki.

I mentally headslapped myself for not thinking of it sooner. What, did I think there'd be only one court at the place? Of course those fellas are going to do their usual Sunday morning thing even if my man wasn't joining them this time around.

For a little while I was like a deer in the headlights. I sat down on the bench next to our court and texted Hairy for help. What the heck am I going to do? Between the little kids who are so freaking awesome, my man's badminton kaki who are going to totally know I suck and my man's other group of friends whom he said weren't that great but were all a zillion times better than me, all I wanted to do was make up some excuse to leave.

And then Hairy texted back:

As long as you're wearing a knee-revealing skirt or shorts, you're fine.

Haha. Okay the lame joke really made me laugh at myself for making it such a big deal. And my man, with perfect timing, as usual came over to ask me if I was just going to sit there and text all morning?

And so we won a match against his friends. Mostly because I knew to just serve when I had to and pretty much got out of the way as much as I could after that...and maybe swatted the shuttle away whenever it came within arm's reach. I was actually pretty pleased with myself after that. After awhile, couples are a little hard pressed to find "firsts".

Well, I counted it as "the first badminton match we played and won together".

I suspect he doesn't quite see it that way.