"Funnie" Director... and the Director who takes MRT

As a newbie, we are invited to have meet-up sessions with the Heads of each Divisons. Other than not remembering their names, I seemed to have forgotten how they looked. Only can remember those with mole on face, receding hairline, round tummies etc....

Anyway, I had a quite a memorable encounter with one of the Directors.


His first question to me was "Is your stationery provided for you on your first day?"
Secondly " How about your wastepaper basket?"

I told him I do not have as I was sharing it with my neighbour, he then related me his first day of work here as a newbie back in the 1990s. Felt ridiculed by carrying his waste-paper-basket and other stationery from the stationery central store to his work-stations, (newbies have to collect their stationery from the central store) he felt the urge to change the old system to a better one.

There came a day when he became the Head of the Division, he asked his staff who their customers were and what should be the service quality like. They answered that their "customers" are the fellow staff who had just joined the association. He questioned back:

"If they are your "customers", why do you let them carry waste-paper baskets around on the first day?"

I guess improving service quality is not just lip-service but action taken to improve things and moving on. He made it work. If it didn't, I'll probably be carrying my waste-paper basket around in the building. If he hasn't been hit by this ugly incident, probably things won't change. He also urged me to be a "spy" to feedback to them that anything that needed to improve on.

I'll probably keep that in view. It is not too right to be so frank and open in the first few weeks.

There are old birds that served the company for more than 15 years, technical staff that came to work early and went back on the dot. Most of them are loafers and you can see them walking around, mingling with aunties & uncles in the other divisions. Who knows, probably they have finished work long time ago and their superiors are too busy to assign them new ones.

There are also alot of meetings with other Stat boards. One of it is with Nparks. We are also asked to fnd out what kind of trees are planted in our area of research during the planning process. I can't even name the vegetables my aunt cooked for dinner, still to ask me to recognise the type of trees Nparks planted..... Siao...

I guess Director are quite well-to-do, driving big cars etc. While I was on my way back home(not on the dot, mind you!), I happened to spot a familiar back, hairstyle, laughter in front of me. Only thing is his work-shirt is kind of yellow and carrying quite a tattered-looking sling bag. Later did I realised I was taking the same train with our Divison's Director. After a casual chit-chat, he told us that he was going to Toa Payoh (he lived in Tanah Merah) and dun usually go straight home before this.


Hmmm.. visiting his mistress??? (heeee...)