Rojak life

Some customers wonder if I paint shoes for a living. Yah sure, I wish! In Singapore? To survive on painting shoes, I'd have to be painting 24/7. I do in fact have a full-time job. Have been in the same job in an Aviation related trading company for slightly over a decade. Prior to that, I was a MOE school teacher; or what they nicely call, an Education Officer.

I'm such a Rojak pot! (Rojak-->Interesting Asian salad).
All business-like Manager in the day, crazy closet painter by night / weekend and wannabe writer (still dreaming). If only I could like mash them all together. In MY perfect world, I'd be writing and illustrating my own books and then making use of my business experience to sell them! Ha!

I love literature. I love art. Yes, I should have stayed a teacher. My dream was to profess the literary word to students. But alas, back then, I felt my personal time with my family was being compromised by the teaching workload. I've never looked back. When I first left the teaching profession, I took a drastic pay cut. I was willing to learn from scratch in an entirely new line and it's worked out great.

Many people have asked me how I did it (not that I'm THAT successful), finding this job and making it work since I was 'only a teacher'. But it's all a matter of your heart. Know what makes you tick. I just used all the skills I had learnt during my teaching days and put them to good use. I never said the teaching profession was bad. It's fantastic! I've never forgotten that it was MOE who forced us to use our holiday time to sit through all those computer lessons! Ah! Those were the days of 'Aiyoh! Where did my cursor go?' For that, I am forever grateful. It was the teaching job which allows me to stand before a crowd to speak today. It was all those typing classes in the Computer Lab which taught me to type with all my fingers (hee hee)! It was IE (now known as NIE) which taught me how to project my voice across a room without a mike (oops, I mean mic, wait or issit mike? Alamak!). Indeed, my teaching days imbued many characteristics in me which have never left.

I do miss teaching sometimes. But, we can't live in the past. So I adapt. I have learnt ALOT in my current job. From teaching to this. It's like having been a frog in a well, with your view on the world, seen only at the bottom of the well.

I got thrown into world of how do you say it? Cat eat dog? Dog eat cat? Whatever. You get my drift. In this industry, which is predominantly dominated by men, it's tough being a woman. I learnt this. The more mature men do not feel threatened at all by a woman speaking as their equal. They treat me with respect and they appreciate my input. You can tell by the manner in which they speak to you.

However, the eager-to-climb the corporate ladder types, they almost always assume I'm the receptionist or secretary just tagging along for the meeting. The guy/s I come with? Why, they must be the engineers or managers then. When they realise it isn't so, they give you that 'I don't think much about you' stance. I don't know why and I don't care. It's not going to change in the near future and I don't give a hoot. If I cared, I would not have made it through all those hurtful and caustic comments made by some MCPs. I put it down to them being insecure. Pity their girlfriends or wives. (Hubby, I love you!!! I know that's random but dealing with some other men makes me sooooo appreciate my hubs!). Do I get crap from females. Yes, sometimes but I've not come across mean ones. Are they more secure then? That's a thought!

One more thing I have to add. People actually care about the designation on your name card. It makes all the difference to how they treat you. How intelligent is that? That's what you are worth. Your job designation.

Let's see, what else have I learnt? That some people get nasty when things go wrong. Their true personalities shine through. They have no ability to think calmly and they just drown in the junk. Me? I'm a pretty panicky person too lah. But at the same time, I will think the whole process through in my mind and think of the best way to move forward. Thus, I would say, to summarize what I have to do at work, I'd say, troubleshoot problems and issues and how best to resolve them.

I never ever forget that I could lose this job tomorrow and I'd be starting from scratch or crawling back to MOE as an adjunct teacher again. In fact, I was just thinking that it'd be nice to be back teaching now that my kids don't really need me to spoonfeed them anymore. But that's just a thought. Meanwhile, I'm enjoying my 'real' 5 day work week and the fact that I can paint at night (without worrying about work) and on weekends!

As for my painting and writing......God knows that deep in my heart, I wish to paint and write but He probably also knows, me and another 10 million wannabes in the world. For now, I have bills to pay and responsibilities to fulfill so everything else stays part-time. My pay is adequate to meet my needs so I just wake up everyday and go to work, like everyone else and thank God that I even have a day job. I could say my dreams will have to wait. But I look at my husband, my kids and my home and I know, I'm already living them. I'll just have to say, my 'other' dreams will have to wait.