First steps S01E02 : The Right or Wrong Post for Me?

"The moment I heard the news, all I could think of was do I really want to continue this job or would I be better off elsewhere. Somewhere where I am less miserable"

September 20th, Saturday

So after having a good four hour sleep, I woke up at around 4p.m to knocks on my door. When I opened my door, I saw three perfect strangers (a man, a woman and a girl in her teens, I am guessing that they are a family) standing outside my door. Most importantly, I realised that I was raining and all I could see was my poor pillows wet and my bed sheet soaked. As it turned out, they knocked to tell me to bring in my pillows and bed sheet. As grateful as I was, there was nothing else I could do. In autumn, it's almost impossible to dry your laundry indoors so I placed my pillows on top of my fridge and could bother less about them.

As I had four hours to waste before going to my part time job at a post office, located 30 minutes away by train, I reminded myself of the changes I promised. One of the changes was to not procrastinate anymore. So UNWILLINGLY, I arranged all the food I brought back from Malaysia which by the way, weights up to a total of 35 kgs. Arranging the food sort of brought me joy to what would have been a stressful day so far (that and probably the some sleep I managed to get) as I got to scheme through the different flavors of instant noodles I brought. It was almost theraupetic. After two hours of cleaning up my room, I sat in my room while staring at the wall, wondering what to do next. As I cannot shower and could not watch TV (cause I don't have one) nor could I cook for dinner (cause no gas), I decided that maybe I should just eat out.

After a quick change of clothes, I went to this tempura shop to have dinner. Ahhh...the few things I missed while I was gone, tempura...Despite the food being absolutely spot on for a good price of RM 24 per bowl, I was still terribly uncomfortable cause I have not showered for one whole day. I never understood how people can go on without showering for days.

Anyways, by the time I finished my food it was already 7 and it was two more hours before my part time job began. In an attempt to waste time, I walked around the area, window shopping and by the time it was an hour before my job starts, I board the train.

My arrival at my baito-saki (Japanese for my work place) was not exactly warmly welcomed. After being absent for the past two months (as I went back to Malaysia), people were shocked to see me. After the initial where have you been conversations, there was that usual awkward silence. This is exaclty why I never liked to take the elevators. You never quite know what to say to the strangers you meet.

Here's a bit of info about my job. I work at a post office where my job were to divide the parcels according to its destinations. I work from 9.45 pm at night to 6.30 am in the morning. I work three days a week, mainly Tuesday, Friday and Saturday. The job itself is not actually that tiring but the social bit is slightly difficult. Being handicapped as you don't speak native Japanese, most of the time, most of the Japanese tend to avoid talking to you. The only few who talked to me were either plain polite or had learnt to speak malay out of interest. I thought of changing my job but the pay was good, probably due to it being late night job and long hours.

However, that night, the guy who spoke a little Malay walked up to me and said that the supervisor had informed him that a letter had been sent to me to inform me that I will be laid off starting October 2008 as I was not around to sign my extension of employment contract. This was a little bit odd to me as I had informed them that I would be back in Malaysia for two months, and if that was unacceptable, they shouldn't have approved it. And if they approved it, then they shouldn't expect me to be around to sign the contract. They should at least wait for my arrival. The guy who spoke a little malay ( as the guy who spoke a little Malay is a little bit mouthful, let's just call him KC, which by the way is his actual nick name), KC, urged me to fight for my rights. He told me to go to the labor union if I had to. I was like...owkieee....I am not sure if I wanted to create that big of a mess...

The moment I heard the news, all I could think of was do I really want to continue this job or would I be better off elsewhere. Somewhere where I am less miserable. I do need the money thought to dig my way out of this financial mess...but would it be worth it if I had to work long hours without any social interaction and be an emotional mess? Hmmm...maybe change is coming to me without me going to it.

Coming up next
Faced with a dilema, I began to seek options. At this point, anything would do. The question, is it really that anything will do?