CAREER CHANGE

There will come a time in your life when you need to go through a career change. It can be due to many reasons - Better job offer, desire to challenge yourself with something new, getting caught with your pants down after office hours indulging in an office nookie with the girl from Accounting right there on the conference room table...

For me... it's curiosity. Curiosity to find out how another job would feel like. Some of you may feel like that is a dumbass reason to go through a career change. But after being stuck behind a cubicle for so long, I can't help but wonder how it would be like to work in a totally new environment.

The one job I've always been curious of... is that of The Automated Voice. You know, the lady who gets employed to do the calm, soothing and emotionless electronic voice that is used for many purposes, some of them include:



- Announcing the approaching train stop (e.g. "Next stop... Orchard")

- Giving callers instructions (e.g. "For Billing, please press '1'...")

- Expressing gratitude (e.g. "Thank you for banking with DBS"). Or...

- Telling elevator commuters the obvious (e.g. "Going Up")

I just think that it's a cool way to make a living. The only qualification you need... is to have a good voice. Imagine the time I'd save writing that resume.

But I can't help but wonder how one would get such a job since I don't think they accept resumes that says, "Great voice, like a nightingle. It's true. My grandma says so. And she's only deaf in one ear."

So if there are no resumes, how to get such jobs then? Do they get talent spotted while they're waiting on you at the restaurant or do they have to go through auditions? Are the auditions competitive? Is there a "casting couch" for such jobs... where "oral tests" take a whole new meaning?

Or perhaps it could be from recommendations from people you know... "Hey, I have this cousin who has the sweetest voice and I think she'd be the perfect voice for your new In Flight Entertainment System". Or... "My aunt has a gentle motherly voice... perhaps you'd like to consider her for the new Easy Bake Oven". Or... "I know her voice sounds really bad now but she'll sound as good as new after drinking the honey and lemon drink I gave her. You have to understand, she normally doesn't sound that bad. She recently had to go through a lot of... oral tests, that why..."

That said, I still think it's a cool job to have. I mean... it's such a powerful position be in. It doesn't matter how annoying your automated voice is, people will listen to you. You instruct them... and they follow. You put them on hold... and they'll do it. Grudgingly, of course, but they'll do it. They can't slam the phone. If they do, they'll have to go through the whole annoying process again. And again. And again...

Unfortunately, a career as The Automated Voice is not in the cards for me. My voice is too harsh and no amount of oestrogen injections can help change that. Pity... because I feel that I am mentally ready for this new career path.

Except for the bloody oral tests...

EMERGING JOB TRENDS

In a job climate where many people find it extremely difficult to get employment, I'm sure that you'd be surprised to note that there are always new forms of work emerging these days.

For example, when Singapore announced that they will finally allow casinos to operate here, we have scores of new job opportunities, from croupiers... to gambling addiction counsellors. These careers would never have existed in Singapore just a few years ago (being a dealer at an illegal casino run by a loanshark in a brothel at Geylang... doesn't count)

So here is my take at some jobs that could possibly emerge. Time to upgrade your skill sets, people.



- Interpreter... for Singapore Idol judge Jacinta

- Physiotherapists specializing in dance related injuries (to be stationed at the Dance Floor auditions)

- Pronunciation experts... to help Singaporeans pronounce difficult new fangled words like "Biennale"... and "W"

- Event Planners... specializing in events commemorating tragedies caused by nature... and terrorists

- Financial Logisitics Specialists... specializing in moving wealth of ousted politicians out of their home countries.

- Interspecies Liaison Officers... specializing in improving relations between humans and stingrays

- Billanthropists

- Speech Editors... for Venezuelan El Presidente Hugo Chavez


Senor Chavez: Has an innate ability to see... or should I say, smell... el diablo (click here for an excerpt of his speech).

TOP TEN THINGS TO DO AFTER HEARING ABOUT THE MILITARY COUP IN BANGKOK

10. Call your travel agent, cancel your Bangkok trip... and pray they give you a refund

(If that doesn't work and you have to go to Bangkok anyway, this is what you should do...)

9. Get yourself a fake MEDIA pass before flying to Bangkok. It'll help you get around. Best place to get one is in Khao San Road, Bangkok... no wait, that won't work, won't it?

8. Carry roses to hand out to soldiers as peace offerings. The soldiers seem to like that.

7. Watch out for traffic when crossing roads. Tanks have lousy brakes.

6. Get a good map and mark out where to go to in any case of emergency. Good locations would be the temples, embassies... not go-go bars in Nana Plaza.

5. Avoid visiting locations like the Parliament Building, Thaksin's residence... and seedy Patpong go-go bars with one entry and exit point that's run by thugs out to scam you (the last one you should avoid visiting at all times, military coup or no military coup)

4. Pick up a few useful Thai phrases... like "Don't shoot me" or "Where can I buy bullet proof vest?" or "You sure this not an imitation bullet proof vest, right?"

3. Hire Thai boxers as bodyguards. They can double up as entertainment in your hotel room at night (and by that I mean free Muay Thai boxing matches, not some kinky Brokeback action)

2. Hire the tuk-tuk driver from the Visa TV ad with Pierce Brosnan (for quick getaways)



1. Never utter the words "Don't mess with me. I know Mr Thaksin!"

TRAIN SEAT PECKING ORDER

This morning, something fascinating happened while I was on the train. A commuter sat beside me. No, let me rephrase that... she CHOSE to sit beside me. Me. The guy who always get snubbed by commuters on the train... the guy who gets disdained looks from people when they see me seated... just because I happen to take a tiny wee bit more space than the average guy, no thanks to the train designers in the 80s who chose to design the train seats only for Lilliputian-sized Singaporeans.


Fat Man Waiting For Train. photo by sfbuckaroo from flikr www.flickr.com/photos/sfbuckaroo/sets/1535027/

It's like school all over again... it's Phys-Ed class and you are standing there hoping not to be picked last when the team captains are selecting who will be on their teams. Or like the poor girls in a Patpong brothel, sitting pretty in a room fashioned like a fishtank, hoping desperately to get picked by the men looking in (not that I'm at all familiar with this scene. I know because I just... read a lot).

Sure they don't say anything but I can sense that they are quietly fretting within when they see a big guy like me seated on the train, secretly wishing that I wasn't there so that they can sit comfortably and that their head won't have to end up being squished between my broad shoulders and the flat glass panel beside the exit. I don't blame them. No one likes to get squished... eventhough I personally feel fleshy bits of my arm does make for a good pillow.

Anyway, it's never fun to be at the bottom of the heap.

But today, I realized that I wasn't at the bottom of the heap. Because the commuter chose to sit beside me despite the fact that there were a couple of seats just opposite and the only guy seated there was a skinny dude. I pondered on the anomaly of this situation for a while and then, without warning, it struck me. Not the revelation to this anomaly, but a stench... the stench that was emanating from.... the skinny dude.

To put it bluntly... that dude stank so bad you'd think his body is a big bateria colony and all of them are feeding off the all-you-can-eat buffet in his armpits.



At first sight, you wouldn't realize that the stench was from him. His hair was carefully side-parted and he had nice polo t-shirt on. But upon closer inspection, you realize that only the top surface of his side-parted hair was wet while the hairs closer to the scalp were dry, almost crinkly. And the polo t-shirt he was wearing had faint outline near his pits, presumably from dried up sweat stains. And he still had crusts in the corner of his eyes! That led me to presume that skinny dude woke up late so he skipped the morning shower and did the bare minimum before leaving the house. And what's worse? He wore the shirt he wore yesterday. Bad idea...

It was then that I had an epiphany... fat guy trumps skinny guy IF skinny guy is smelly.

And with that, I drew up a pecking order of sorts that determines who is the best and the worst person to sit beside while on a train. Just out of curiosity... to see how low I'd end up in the hierarchy. And lo and behold... I'm actually quite high up there in the pecking order. A deluded exercise? Perhaps. But it does make me feel a tad better when I board the train now.

Whaddya know... I feel better. Blogging really is cheaper than therapy.

So here it is... from the best to the worst person to have seated beside you while on a train-

TRAIN SEAT PECKING ORDER

Someone slim

trumps

Someone plump

trumps

Someone fat

trumps

Someone skinny but smelly

trumps

Someone fat and smelly

trumps

Someone skinny, smelly and picks their nose, roll their boogers up and flicks them indiscriminately

trumps

Someone fat, smelly and picks their nose, rolls their boogers up and flicks them indiscriminately

trumps...

Someone who pukes on the train

And until the day they have roll down windows on the train, guys who pukes on the train... stay at the bottom of the heap...

PRONOUNCING W

I did something terribly bad a few days ago. A local politician was delivering her speech at an event and I accidentally laughed out loud in the midst of her speech. Why? Because she pronounced the word "W" as "tub-you". I haven't heard anyone pronounce "W" that way since.... well, irony of ironies... back in school. By some of my teachers to boot.



I know, I know... it's extremely juvenile to laugh at someone's poor pronounciation. But it was one of those incidents where I just couldn't suppress my laughter. It was like way back when I was 13 and I chuckled to myself when saw a girl at school dangling a sausage by her lips a day after I watched porn for the very first time... knowing what I knew, it was just an extremely amusing sight to me.

Till she bit the sausage off. I never had a sausage ever again.

Back to the politician, I did try my best to hold back the laugh. But she just went on and said "tub-you" three times... because she was quoting a website address. What's worse? The website address she was referring to... didn't have a www in it.

GROWING OLD GRACEFULLY

I saw an old man this morning on the way to work and I couldn't help but stare and admire him. I'm not gay and I don't make it a habit of staring at older men while on the train but by god, at his age, that man looks amazing. Aside from the crocs sandals he was wearing (I can't understand how people can wear that oddly-shaped, technicoloured rubber sandal out in public, I don't care how comfortable you say it is. But I digress... crocs sandals are a whole other can of worms and we'll talk about that at another time), his turnout and bearing made him appear self-composed, assured and worldly wise.


crocs. comfy footwear? yes. to be worn outside in public? no....

The old man reminded me of my recently deceased grandfather and how well he looked when he was alive. In the final months of his life, he never missed his visits to his favourite barber in JB for a trim and a shave and in fact, even in his final days, he made sure we shaved his stubble and trimmed his eyebrows so that he'll look presentable despite being bedridden in hospital as he battled cancer.

Seeing that old man on the train made me realized how important it is to grow old gracefully. So now I pray that with age, I will not grow to:

- Believe that flimsy cotton singlets and striped pyjama pants are de rigueur attire in old age

- Belting up my pants above my belly, citing "better grip" as a reason for doing so

- Not caring that hair so long it threatens to turn into dreadlocks... are growing out of my nostrils.

- Stuffing those dreadlocks back into my nostrils with a Vicks inhaler. In public. And let it dangle precariously as I go about my business.

- Deciding that my colonge of choice in old age is... Axe Brand medicated oil

WELCOME NEW MEMBERS!

Since the post on the American Civil War Ghost In Tuas was featured in Tomorrow.sg recently (thanks guys for picking up on the story... appreciate it), this blog has been abuzz with new visitors... most of them probably curious on the authenticity of my claims. Or they're just wondering what I'm high on when I wrote the piece. Either way... it's all good.

To those people who've just recently had a sneak peek into my convoluted mind filled with a plethora of, well, gibberish... Welcome.

Seems like we're on track on getting our 1,000th visitor soon. Unfortunately, I'm nowhere near getting a sponsorship for the trip to Vegas to that 1,000th visitor that I was very much hoping for in my earlier post. What I can offer though... is my deck of"Girls of FHM" playing cards. It's a tad worn... but it's still good for a few nights of poker.

Maybe our 10,000th visitor perhaps? *fingers still crossed...*

AMERICAN CIVIL WAR GHOST IN TUAS?

I know what you're thinking you read the title. "Huh...?!", right? You're also probably thinking, "What is this damn fool high on to hallacinute this kind of... crap?". But believe you me... I wouldn't be able come up with crap like this even if I tried...

Here's a blow by blow of what happened last night...

I was at my guardpost in Tuas and the night went on like normal. The dogs were quiet, the surroundings still and I was just waiting for the time to pass and for my shift to be over. I clearly remembered the time to be around 3.30am (because I checked my watched at about that time). And it was around this time when I suddenly heard a faint tune.

The weird thing is... it was an old tune from the American Civil War. Granted, I'm no expert when it comes to the Amercian Civil War but I've watched enough Discovery Channel, Alex Hailey's Roots and the North And South miniseries as a child to distinctly recall that tune to be of the American Civil War era.

It was just weird. I knew the tune came from outside my post because it was faint and sounded like it came from a distance. But when I looked out, there was nothing out there. Just to make sure, I even asked the other officer who was with me if the tune was coming from his mobile phone or some other electrical device he owned but he insisted it wasn't. The tune went on and on... looping back again and again.

I wasn't scared but I did feel as if I was in a bad episode of the Twilight Zone. The faint tune finally stopped after about 10 minutes. Then it went all quiet and still once again.

I did some research to find out the title of the tune I heard. After 3 hours of listening to kitsch MIDI files on music from the American Civil War era, I finally stumbled upon the answer. The tune is entitled "Yellow Rose of Texas", a song believed to be written by a soldier from the Confederate states about a girl he loves. Attached is a site which has a link to a MIDI file of the tune I heard.

http://www.nationwide.net/~amaranth/yellow.htm

I recounted this to my colleagues in the morning when our shift was over but they just dismissed it as my tired mind playing tricks on me. I, of course, had a more fantastical theory as to what really happened, which is:

There in Tuas lies the remains of an American Confederate soldier.

Before you dismiss this as hogwash, listen to this - It is a fact that a Confederate ship, the CSS Alabama, was harboured in Singapore in 1863, right in the midst of the US Civil War (i.e. 1861 to 1865). This was reported on the front page of the Straits Times in an article titled "The Alabama" on Saturday, December 26, 1863. You can visit the sites below or just Google "CSS Alabama in Singapore" to get more information.


http://home.ozconnect.net/tfoen/alabamaphoto.htm
http://home.ozconnect.net/tfoen/semmes.htm

The CSS Alabama was in Singapore for supplies. Singapore, being the thriving free port in the exotic Far East, also attracted other American vessels, some of them merchant ships that came here to revel in the riches that came with the thriving entreport trade while others were warships like the Alabama (the USS Wyoming, an American Union ship, was also in Singapore in 1863). The warships' role is to attack and raid other American warships and merchant ships along the Far East shipping route and they would usually end up in Singapore for supplies.

Now, consider this - is it such an impossibility that an American Confederate soldier could have died here? We were once the lawless little island in the exotic Far East. Perhaps one of the sailors had a wild night at the American Club, drank a bit too much, pissed off the locals or some American merchant whose ship got raided one too many times and he unfortunately got butchered while on his way back to The Alabama.

His body was never found, left buried in the swamps for over a century... then during the reclaimation efforts of Tuas in the 90s, the land which was once his resting place got transplanted from where it was originally... to Tuas. It is a longshot... but you have to admit, it is a possibility.

And, the final smoking gun... The Alabama had a nickname, which was "Kapal Hantu" or "Ghost Ship"... well, they called it that because The Alabama had the ability to quietly appear out of nowhere and slip into battle unnoticed since it is one of the fastest and most feared of the Confederacy ships. That said... it's too much of a coincidence, don't you think?

Other than that theory, I really couldn't explain what happened last night. Well, of course there is a simpler explaination - perhaps a Bangladeshi worker, who passed by the area earlier, could've accidentally dropped his mobile phone in the vicinity and his ringtone was incidentally the "Yellow Rose from Texas". And at 3.30am he realized he lost his mobile phone and called his number but of course no one picked it up because the police officers nearby were too freaked out to seek out the source as to where the faint tune was coming from.

But that simpler more realistic theory isn't half as interesting as mine so I'm dismissing it... it's the ghost of an American Confederate soldier, pining to return home to his Yellow Rose from Texas, without a doubt.

But I leave it to you as to what you want to believe. I'm just doing a Dan Brown here...


Pissed Confederate soldier: "I want to call me yellow rose so someone better give back me mobile phone or so help me God I'll blow yer brains out..."