Old workplace drama storytelling
Tuesday, 31 May 2022 14:41![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elusivekI was commenting on an LJ-friend's entry and that reminded me of an old workplace drama... which I probably wrote about already, but, I'll write about it again, LOL. I guess the proper category on Reddit would be something like "Karma bites ass" kind of subgroup.
So.... I started my first job in 2003. The casino industry had just been opened up (used to be a monopoly), and the first "foreign-invested" casino company was hiring. I was still in university, doing my final year, and the final year was night school, so I figured I'd go try out for a job.
I got a part-time post. As I was pretty new to the working world, I didn't know about departments and what and whats. But now as i think about it, I was probably under an IT and F&B task group, because my first job ever, part timer, paid by the hour, was a "POS data entry" clerk thingamajig. There were 5 of us. We got stuffed into a tiny room, with 5 sets of PCs, a stack of papers dumped in front of us, and we had to input those into an excel spreadsheet.
Thinking back to those times, I'm now really amazed at the lack of planning. Those stacks of papers had lines and lines of food items. Now that I know what those really are, those are purchasable items to be inputted into the POS (point-of-sales) system or the cost control system to calculate food items, or some sort of thing related to that. So, there are items like Pork Loin sliced frozen 300gr and we had to type that into an excel sheet. There was 1, ONE single row of example. Apparently, I've been a stickler to formats since then, as I followed that first sample line and typed everything on my stack according to that sample. FRZN SLICED PORK LOIN IBÉRICO 300GR. The others just typed what the paper had.
Around 3 days later, this lady (let's call her Anna) comes in says "Only 1 person is doing this correctly", and that was me. Later on I find out she's the executive assistant to the.... president or Vice President of the F&B department.
Soon, this assignment is over, and the part time team gets reassigned. Before the reassignment, we were sent to do a training for a scheduling and attendance system. So from our original part time group, there were 2 guys, and 3 girls. The guys got reassigned to work on the MICROS system (the POS) and the girls got reassigned to F&B. This scheduling system was a test though, and since I did pretty well, I got reassigned as the "scheduling" system specialist, and the other 2 girls as F&B reservations.
However, we were seated in the same room, so while I had the "title" of the non-gaming scheduling system operator, I had to help out with the reservations, and the girls also had to help me with the scheduling.
The lady, Anna, was still lording over us. The team was getting the contracts changed to full time, but since I still hadn't graduated, and I needed to finish my work day 1 hour earlier than the others because I needed travel time to get to school, I asked to continue to be part time until I'm done with school. The guys soon moved to another office room, so it was just the 3 of us.
So, this Anna lady one time was getting really dissatisfied with the other 2 girls. I don't remember what they did that made her don't like them, but she was really rude and callous. I think I had just graduated, and so decided to take a 2-week holiday to Austria, and this happened. When I came back, the 2 girls were crying saying they were going to quit. This Anna lady had verbally abused them, screaming at them to "come back to work" when the work day was over, or something like that. We decided to collectively resign. But sh*t, those girls didn't know what they were doing. They just said "I want to resign", whereas I had a resignation letter typed and signed and all that.
What happened next, was we got called to the office of a manager. He has since passed, so I'll just come right out and say his name. Joey spoke to us together, then asked to speak one by one. When it was my turn, he asked me "how's your dad?" And I was like "huh?" And he said "oh we were colleagues back in Hyatt". Okay... my Dad's a chef, so okay. Old colleagues.
He asked me what was going on, and so I explained. Overt favoritism. Rude. Screaming at staff for nothing? He then imparted his words of wisdom to me. There will always be b*tches and f*ckers in a workplace. He said I'm free to quit if I want, as long as I can guarantee to myself that, in my next job, there are no such b*tches. If I am to change jobs, it should be because of better opportunities, new fields to explore, and not because of people. So, with that, I thought for a bit, and decided to stay. Oh, and that we report to him, and no one else. "Forget the barking dogs" he said.
This Anna lady, then, maybe annoyed, took us aside again, and showed us an O-chart, and said "according to this chart, you report to me". She got me alone and also told me "favoritism is not a bad thing. It means you are capable. They just said they wanted to resign, but you prepared the proper paperwork. Even in resigning, they don't know what to do." Huh. Touché, lady, touché. However, we never really put her in the "our supervisor" mantle anymore. It was Joey from now on.
Later on, another 2 new colleagues came in, to assist me with the "attendance". While the scheduling part of the job was simple (just set up the shifts, make sure they don't go against the local labor law, then it was just generating the staff schedules every 2 weeks), the daily attendance was brutal. We had to cross check each and every signed attendance against the clocked times. There must have been upwards of 1000 staff to go through... daily..... but it was really just a matter of it being a monotonous job, it wasn't particularly difficult.
It was at this time that I got to see the joys of foreign names. And it was times like these that I understood how lonely it can get when others don't really speak your language. The other colleagues weren't really fluent in English, so, they found no joy when there was an Indian staff with the name (forgot first name), KITTIPORN. You see, almost 20 years later, this name is still stuck in my head LOL LOL.
Anyway, anyway. Before I get away from this. I need to explain something more. So here we speak Cantonese. And the way we transliterate Chinese names is by phonetic sounds, so. In Macau, we use the Portuguese phonetic system, in Hong Kong the English (obviously)... so, say for example, someone surnamed 李, the transliteration can be (Macau/Portuguese) Lei, or (Hong Kong/English) Lee... But then maybe the person is from Mainland China, so they will use the Chinese/Mandarin way of Li. So these "Lei, Lee, Li" actually refer to the same surname in Chinese. Some other examples are the surname 張 (Macau) Cheung, (Hong Kong) Cheong, (Mandarin) Zhang... one more surname 金 (Macau) Kam, (Hong Kong) Kam, (Mandarin) Jin. The Macau and Hong Kong ways usually differ in a vowel but no matter how you read it, it's similar, because that's based on the Cantonese way of reading. When it's Mandarin, then it's the Mandarin way of reading. Sometimes we can make educated guesses of where a person is from based on how their surname is transliterated.
Anyway, so this Anna lady, her full name (again just made up here) is Cheung. So we know her as Anna Cheung. As you have read (if you went through that thesis above), I hated her guts.
Fast forward some 15 years later. I've since switched companies once, and been reassigned at least 3 times. Have also gained some work experience.
Apart from my main job role, I also help my Boss out on his own side project. Since his side project is more like a "private owned" business (as opposed to corporate), the structure is a little more relaxed as well. I'm pretty much the executive assistant to the owner (I don't put much weight on that, but other people do, so this is relevant, LOL)
So I'm told there's a new executive assistant to some department head... her name is Anna Zhang. I had to skip a beat. Anna Zhang....? That would mean her surname is 張, so is she really Anna Cheung? HR refused to show me her application form, neither her photo (okay, the powers of the owner's assistant only goes so far LOL) so, i could only wait.
I had a private office when that office was in that old address (it's since moved)... it was a glass-walled office so people outside can see inside. I didn't go there everyday either, since it was just a side-project thing. Finally, the day comes when I have to go to that office. I sit inside my office, and look out. I see this Anna Zhang woman, faintly resembling Anna Cheung, but it couldn't be her. Anna Cheung was an executive-woman, dressed to the nines, in power suits and all that. This Anna Zhang was in... sportswear...???? It couldn't be her, so I put my mind off it.
What do you know, half way through approvals, she just barges in, "oh it's you!", and in closer distance, I see that, IT IS HER! Why did she change the way her name is written in English? She starts asking me what I'm doing there, what department I'm in. I think she thought she was pretty big shot, because she was the assistant to the hotel general manager.
Well. This property is not just hotel. So the hotel general manager isn't really the biggest shot in there.
I calmly reply her, "just sorting out the approval stuff for my boss," and turn back to my work. In the next departmental meeting, she struts around like she owns the place, then my boss comes in (he's pretty much a.... if not a celebrity then a well-known figure) and sits next to me and calls the meeting to start. I look back at her and I just winked and started the meeting (the boss "hosts" the meeting, but I'm like the operator that gets the meeting moving along). LOL.
Later on, stuff happened, the GM wasn't performing well so he got sacked. Then she was "soulless" (no boss overhead), and she was given the choice to scram or to try working in another department. She tried another department, but very soon just decided to quit.
What goes around, comes around, baby. It was some 15 years in the making, but my evil little heart was so placated in that moment. Complete with the Naga laugh LOL.
So.... I started my first job in 2003. The casino industry had just been opened up (used to be a monopoly), and the first "foreign-invested" casino company was hiring. I was still in university, doing my final year, and the final year was night school, so I figured I'd go try out for a job.
I got a part-time post. As I was pretty new to the working world, I didn't know about departments and what and whats. But now as i think about it, I was probably under an IT and F&B task group, because my first job ever, part timer, paid by the hour, was a "POS data entry" clerk thingamajig. There were 5 of us. We got stuffed into a tiny room, with 5 sets of PCs, a stack of papers dumped in front of us, and we had to input those into an excel spreadsheet.
Thinking back to those times, I'm now really amazed at the lack of planning. Those stacks of papers had lines and lines of food items. Now that I know what those really are, those are purchasable items to be inputted into the POS (point-of-sales) system or the cost control system to calculate food items, or some sort of thing related to that. So, there are items like Pork Loin sliced frozen 300gr and we had to type that into an excel sheet. There was 1, ONE single row of example. Apparently, I've been a stickler to formats since then, as I followed that first sample line and typed everything on my stack according to that sample. FRZN SLICED PORK LOIN IBÉRICO 300GR. The others just typed what the paper had.
Around 3 days later, this lady (let's call her Anna) comes in says "Only 1 person is doing this correctly", and that was me. Later on I find out she's the executive assistant to the.... president or Vice President of the F&B department.
Soon, this assignment is over, and the part time team gets reassigned. Before the reassignment, we were sent to do a training for a scheduling and attendance system. So from our original part time group, there were 2 guys, and 3 girls. The guys got reassigned to work on the MICROS system (the POS) and the girls got reassigned to F&B. This scheduling system was a test though, and since I did pretty well, I got reassigned as the "scheduling" system specialist, and the other 2 girls as F&B reservations.
However, we were seated in the same room, so while I had the "title" of the non-gaming scheduling system operator, I had to help out with the reservations, and the girls also had to help me with the scheduling.
The lady, Anna, was still lording over us. The team was getting the contracts changed to full time, but since I still hadn't graduated, and I needed to finish my work day 1 hour earlier than the others because I needed travel time to get to school, I asked to continue to be part time until I'm done with school. The guys soon moved to another office room, so it was just the 3 of us.
So, this Anna lady one time was getting really dissatisfied with the other 2 girls. I don't remember what they did that made her don't like them, but she was really rude and callous. I think I had just graduated, and so decided to take a 2-week holiday to Austria, and this happened. When I came back, the 2 girls were crying saying they were going to quit. This Anna lady had verbally abused them, screaming at them to "come back to work" when the work day was over, or something like that. We decided to collectively resign. But sh*t, those girls didn't know what they were doing. They just said "I want to resign", whereas I had a resignation letter typed and signed and all that.
What happened next, was we got called to the office of a manager. He has since passed, so I'll just come right out and say his name. Joey spoke to us together, then asked to speak one by one. When it was my turn, he asked me "how's your dad?" And I was like "huh?" And he said "oh we were colleagues back in Hyatt". Okay... my Dad's a chef, so okay. Old colleagues.
He asked me what was going on, and so I explained. Overt favoritism. Rude. Screaming at staff for nothing? He then imparted his words of wisdom to me. There will always be b*tches and f*ckers in a workplace. He said I'm free to quit if I want, as long as I can guarantee to myself that, in my next job, there are no such b*tches. If I am to change jobs, it should be because of better opportunities, new fields to explore, and not because of people. So, with that, I thought for a bit, and decided to stay. Oh, and that we report to him, and no one else. "Forget the barking dogs" he said.
This Anna lady, then, maybe annoyed, took us aside again, and showed us an O-chart, and said "according to this chart, you report to me". She got me alone and also told me "favoritism is not a bad thing. It means you are capable. They just said they wanted to resign, but you prepared the proper paperwork. Even in resigning, they don't know what to do." Huh. Touché, lady, touché. However, we never really put her in the "our supervisor" mantle anymore. It was Joey from now on.
Later on, another 2 new colleagues came in, to assist me with the "attendance". While the scheduling part of the job was simple (just set up the shifts, make sure they don't go against the local labor law, then it was just generating the staff schedules every 2 weeks), the daily attendance was brutal. We had to cross check each and every signed attendance against the clocked times. There must have been upwards of 1000 staff to go through... daily..... but it was really just a matter of it being a monotonous job, it wasn't particularly difficult.
It was at this time that I got to see the joys of foreign names. And it was times like these that I understood how lonely it can get when others don't really speak your language. The other colleagues weren't really fluent in English, so, they found no joy when there was an Indian staff with the name (forgot first name), KITTIPORN. You see, almost 20 years later, this name is still stuck in my head LOL LOL.
Anyway, anyway. Before I get away from this. I need to explain something more. So here we speak Cantonese. And the way we transliterate Chinese names is by phonetic sounds, so. In Macau, we use the Portuguese phonetic system, in Hong Kong the English (obviously)... so, say for example, someone surnamed 李, the transliteration can be (Macau/Portuguese) Lei, or (Hong Kong/English) Lee... But then maybe the person is from Mainland China, so they will use the Chinese/Mandarin way of Li. So these "Lei, Lee, Li" actually refer to the same surname in Chinese. Some other examples are the surname 張 (Macau) Cheung, (Hong Kong) Cheong, (Mandarin) Zhang... one more surname 金 (Macau) Kam, (Hong Kong) Kam, (Mandarin) Jin. The Macau and Hong Kong ways usually differ in a vowel but no matter how you read it, it's similar, because that's based on the Cantonese way of reading. When it's Mandarin, then it's the Mandarin way of reading. Sometimes we can make educated guesses of where a person is from based on how their surname is transliterated.
Anyway, so this Anna lady, her full name (again just made up here) is Cheung. So we know her as Anna Cheung. As you have read (if you went through that thesis above), I hated her guts.
Fast forward some 15 years later. I've since switched companies once, and been reassigned at least 3 times. Have also gained some work experience.
Apart from my main job role, I also help my Boss out on his own side project. Since his side project is more like a "private owned" business (as opposed to corporate), the structure is a little more relaxed as well. I'm pretty much the executive assistant to the owner (I don't put much weight on that, but other people do, so this is relevant, LOL)
So I'm told there's a new executive assistant to some department head... her name is Anna Zhang. I had to skip a beat. Anna Zhang....? That would mean her surname is 張, so is she really Anna Cheung? HR refused to show me her application form, neither her photo (okay, the powers of the owner's assistant only goes so far LOL) so, i could only wait.
I had a private office when that office was in that old address (it's since moved)... it was a glass-walled office so people outside can see inside. I didn't go there everyday either, since it was just a side-project thing. Finally, the day comes when I have to go to that office. I sit inside my office, and look out. I see this Anna Zhang woman, faintly resembling Anna Cheung, but it couldn't be her. Anna Cheung was an executive-woman, dressed to the nines, in power suits and all that. This Anna Zhang was in... sportswear...???? It couldn't be her, so I put my mind off it.
What do you know, half way through approvals, she just barges in, "oh it's you!", and in closer distance, I see that, IT IS HER! Why did she change the way her name is written in English? She starts asking me what I'm doing there, what department I'm in. I think she thought she was pretty big shot, because she was the assistant to the hotel general manager.
Well. This property is not just hotel. So the hotel general manager isn't really the biggest shot in there.
I calmly reply her, "just sorting out the approval stuff for my boss," and turn back to my work. In the next departmental meeting, she struts around like she owns the place, then my boss comes in (he's pretty much a.... if not a celebrity then a well-known figure) and sits next to me and calls the meeting to start. I look back at her and I just winked and started the meeting (the boss "hosts" the meeting, but I'm like the operator that gets the meeting moving along). LOL.
Later on, stuff happened, the GM wasn't performing well so he got sacked. Then she was "soulless" (no boss overhead), and she was given the choice to scram or to try working in another department. She tried another department, but very soon just decided to quit.
What goes around, comes around, baby. It was some 15 years in the making, but my evil little heart was so placated in that moment. Complete with the Naga laugh LOL.
