The fall of motivation

If there’s anything at work that’s pushing me onwards, it’s Maltesers and me being me. I do not like where I’m working at and I’m not ashamed to say it. I think my boss has a weird way of managing. It might be good for others but it totally does not click with me. Maltesers, on the other hand, is a friend of mine but also plays a very good role of being a good supervisor for me.

I was told today that I would have to go to Sittwe on this Sunday for the whole week. Soon much? I was a bit agitated actually but I was also excited given this means I would be free from stupid work emails I get. Work, to me, right now, is a place full of people who are just so unmotivated to make things happen and who just work for the sake of getting paid and I do not think these people are to blamed actually. The boss himself has been pretty stressed out understandably but then it does not mean he should lack his effort in follow ups. I have emails unread by him and I just don’t think the place I’m working in right now is systematic. It’s a mess and it’s all out of place.

To make things worse, even without me bitching about work to my workmates, I found a lot of my workmates who are totally unhappy at work and who don’t give a shit anymore. Maybe I should join that clan.

Listening to: Paris Avenue – I want you

Bunny on my wall

It amazes me how some celebrities are so snobby but how some of them are so not. I like to think myself as one of those unsnobby one since I’ve once told Sithu Lwin that I was his biggest fan in men’s toilet, while drunk. I have also fake drunk at 50th street’s staircase and I let those bartenders call me “Khant Sithu”, this actor who looks like me. So, I don’t think I’m NOWHERE near snobby. I might have a lot of expectations for those around me though but I can’t care less to have fun or be myself in front of others.

So, Bunny Phyo is this most famous RnB up and rising singer. I know this because I have heard his songs in internet cafes and at first I really like it but due to the users keeping this song on repeat in internet cafes, I kinda got sick of that song but my first impression of his song is honestly wow.

His style of music kinda brings the new RnB with the old. As much as I could see him struggling to be part of the new RnB clan, I could feel a bit of a basketball hooped slow jams like Aaliyah or Boyz II Men. So, I do respect him anyways.

He wrote on my wall on my Facebook music page, which was just amazing. First of all, it is a big boost to my fan base given now I’ll be advocating his fans as well and vice versa. Second, he’s THE actual real deal current star and I feel more than honored to have him write on my wall about how good my album is and ACTUALLY specifying which songs. Third, now I know he’s not one of those snobby bitches.

Listening to: Kelly Clarkson – A moment like this

Sold out

I’m not a big fan of Angel at work but what she said to me totally made my day and I couldn’t contain myself to find out that my album actually sold out in MyayNeGone City mart.

First of all, it might be a small inventory. Maybe, it’s like four or five albums distributed to sell at that record store but amidst all these albums not being able to sell during the ‘piracy’ era, I find it quite honoring and awesome that they sold out be it four or five CD’s. Finally, I could live the success.

To make things better, while recording Crazy DJ for KP at his place, he told me how he will start semi-managing me and he will find gigs for me. It’s just awesome to have a friend who would do things for you at times.

Listening to: Annie Lennox – Love song for a vampire

Green grass

Since NOL is out of the hospital, I can finally arrange what he’s wanted to do since the day the lower half of his body got paralyzed. Seeing on bed on Friday was quite annoyingly saddening and having an uncle who have been paralyzed for 13 years, I feel nothing but empathy and the temptation to help him out as much as I can is just deadly boiling inside of me.

I picked up my fortuneteller and went to his place. His mother and family were there and his little gay friend was there as well. It was pleasant to hear views about my billboard looking hot especially from gay guys. Ok, back to the story, as I’ve suspected, NOL’s case was a voodoo. It’s not like I do not believe the fortune teller but it’s also because I find it hard to believe that we are living in a world where black magic or voodoo is not done. That’s just bullshit when it’s still practiced no matter how un-third world the country is. If it’s any consolation at all, it does feel great to have a feeling of you got rid of it as opposed to you not knowing what causes some mishaps in your life.

I managed to squeeze in for a session with the fortuneteller, given I can come across as a big fanatic of going to fortune tellers. The funny thing was how I couldn’t come up with any questions. I’m just too happy with what I’ve got at the moment, be it good or bad. Maybe I’m not in Australia, maybe I’m not with BooMan anymore, maybe I lost my chance to even start anything with wifeyD and maybe things are not going well around me, but I can’t help being content with what I’ve got and kinda more focused on what’s happening now rather than what’s going to happen or what has happened.

I did meet up with GoldFish at night. Sad but true but I know that this kid has a HUGE crush on me and to make things worse, he’s still 20 and he has a mindset of a game playing ‘in love’ person, the types you would see in Asian drama movies.

I might have a sick friend and I know I’ll be accused as someone who leads a twenty year old boy on but I can’t help being happy about the fact that I got nothing to ask the fortuneteller. Maybe, I’m finally thinking the green is actually green on my side too and it’s just a trick of light to make it green on the other side.

Listening to: Estelle – American boy

Interview with the celebrity with a hangover

Unaware and pretty much drunk, I managed to drag my ass to the radio station for an interview with City FM. The first interview went well since it was all a repetition of information about my album. I thought that was pretty much it until they handed out three more papers.

Health papers
So, of all the celebrities they could’ve interviewed, they interviewed about health. Hepatitis B positive although it is not contagious (thank god), a binge-eater and fresh from last night’s drinkage (arriving home at 7am in the morning and sleeping from 8am until 11am), I was totally not a fit candidate for this interview. I tried my very best to answer honestly and not to overstate nor understate any self-observatory facts.

Love papers
So, for health and my album related interviews, they still have someone who was asking me, which means I was sitting with an interviewer with her talking to me as well. The love paper was different. I had to keep babbling things on my own while answering all of the questions written on the paper. I don’t know much about love and I mentioned it straight away that I cannot define its meaning. However, I tried to encourage everyone to just go with the flow and not to theorize everything they encounter.

Hate papers
This paper was all about heartbreak. So, what do I do when a heart breaks? Do I handle break ups well? Am I the breaker or the breakee? I guess this was my department and I mentioned it to the audience as well that I’m freshly broken from a 10 months relationship last November. I said it like I see it. About how it’s useless for friends to expect you to do everything they ask you to do given you are in a vulnerable state to think right and you will not listen to anyone but yourself. I also mentioned how I now believe that there are more than one ‘the one’ in our lives.

Not sure if it’s the alcohol or the interview but it was not that bad to answer opinionated questions drunk.

Listening to: Nicki Minaj – Right through me

Threesome domino

Ever wonder how the domino blocks would feel like if they were allowed to have emotions and an ability to speak? Especially when they are arranged to fall with their heads on one’s toe in front of them?

Head first on someone’s feet while one’s head is on yours, sometimes I wonder if karma would be laughing at me at this minute. GoldFish finally hinted that he liked me. He did not literally say it but after a few conversations that involve a lot of his imagination with me in his mental pictures, he admitted he was not really happy that I would leave him one day. Now, you tell me what part of platonic measure does his phrase lay. If I have to lower down my intelligence and pretend that this is all happening between two friends, I wouldn’t know any more indications I should give if I want to go further beyond friends, be it sex or a relationship.

I wouldn’t know any more indications I should give to KiwiMan as well. Maybe not as heavy as GoldFish was feeling for me but I was so tempted to make a move on KiwiMan given it was his second last day in Myanmar. Why does he give me attention and his time of day. A conversation leaned towards me between me and this other Kiwi dude, a pool game where we both nearly won but he blamed it on the girls getting my attention whilst playing and following me and X (yes, the Myanmar Jewish girl in my other blog entries) to an after-pub breakfast at 4am in the morning when he could’ve just gone home.

Both GoldFish and I felt the same confusion about the term ‘platonic’, especially the ‘gay’ talk never got in the way. One of my good friends from Sydney mentioned not to care about the gender preference and I fully agree. However, we do find ourselves quite lost in the whole game when it comes to not knowing how much more you can pace forward between the other guy and you. I have never mentioned about me being gay to GoldFish and I tease him a couple of times but I expect him to know that I’m single, gay and available. Sometimes, I wonder if KiwiMan is doing the same thing as I’m doing to GoldFish.

Like three domino pieces, my head falls on KiwiMan’s feet while GoldFish rests his on mine. At the end of day, three of us mean no harm and worst of all, three of us are never meant to be.

Listening to: Brian McFadden – Mistakes (feat. Delta Goodrem)

Bureaucracy maze

Is development dependent only on the man leading the system? I’m afraid it’s not. As much as we like to blame others for dissatisfaction, it’s exactly you or any other complainers who can do something about it rather than the dude who leads the system.

Passport extension has never been this destructive to one’s weekday. There I was, today, happy with the patch-up I had with my boss. I’ve come to realize how my boss is bad at managing but it can only be better if only the people working for him gives half a shit about what they’re doing at work. Well, I would say ‘some’ since I know of some people at my workplace who’s actually in control of what they have to do and how they’re going to be doing it.

I took a lunch break hoping the passport extending bureaucracy would only take an hour or upmost an hour and a half but it resulted in two and a half hours of going through a maze. I went there with one of these girls who work with my grand-dad and despite the fact that there was nothing I could do to help, I hate it when she kept assuring those people in uniform at the department that my grand-dad used to work for the country before. I just felt like I was taking advantage.

After several trips of three levels of crowds of people and rude service, I realized that blaming the service is just ridiculous no matter how rude they were. I mean, first of all, they have to sit behind the counter all day to deal with people who would do ANYTHING to squeeze an extra from them. Begging, complaining or finger pointing to cheat through bureaucracy, it’s not always the people behind the counter who’s the asshole but the people themselves who are being assholes.

Want a good system? Don’t break the one we’ve got for now.

Listening to: Ke$ha – Blow

Cats and dogs

So, grass is always greener on the other side and maybe my action towards my working place is just part of my version of that. As I was starting to find some fitting in done in my working place where I accept that my boss has bad management skills which can be balanced by the good management from my supervisor and as I start to feel the wetness of the greener grass I was sitting on at work despite the difficulty of stains on my pants, someone pooed on this green grass today.

Angel, who works with me and who’s one of those international seniors have always been using me as a messenger to help her out with those around her she doesn’t want to directly communicate with. I do not really like the way she works but who was I to judge, right? Somehow, one of the dudes working for her, who is actually one of my very good colleagues, emailed a resignation email and refused to show up to work. Shocking yet foreseeable.

I somehow could foresee a lot of things coming my way so I emailed my big boss about setting my roles and priorities right and somehow I got an email semi-assuring me that I no longer need to work on my priorities working with Angel. Somehow, Angel kept bugging me with lots of tasks from her so I emailed her saying I need to do other stuffs.

This was when she went all catty and mentioned how she could have also said she needs to do other stuffs as well, to which I replied was the reason why I emailed the big boss about setting my roles and priorities right. She replied with a “Today is a day of surprises”, which I figured she was referring to my colleagues resigning while working under her. I’m also guessing me not helping her is surprising for her as well. I replied that with a bitchy remark of “and also a day of clarity”.

It was raining cats and dogs outside and somehow the cat at work finally meets the bitch at work. I still do not have any anger towards her to be honest but somehow I was disappointed at her immaturity when it comes to getting what she wants and swerving it in such a catty way, which actually defeats any menopausal ladies’ depressive bitter mockery on pleasant things in life.

Climate change is spoken of at work and I guess the whole climate at work has started to shift a huge level with people dropping out and frenemies formed internally. How long can we last as an entity? The saddest thing is how I really hope Maltesers does not get involved in any of these since her patriotism towards her working place, which I respect, can somehow transform her into a villain which I 100% believe she isn’t.

Listening to: Bjork – I miss you

Karma is a motherf**ker

My grandmother never hesitates to tell me to make sure I pray for the best for those who hurt my feelings. Easier said than done. I mean, how in the world can we ever forgive others enough to be able to wish them well ‘genuinely’ when we know that they have done a lot of things to hurt our feelings? Let’s just say it’s possible and it happened today.

I am currently working on a website for my organization, “Org H”, and it has been a long time since I’ve started working on it. Last two months ago, Org A and Org M came up with the same idea but they’re linking with Org C. Org C, itself, acts as a resource bank of data from all the agencies and it has been there for quite some time. Let’s just say Org C is the bomb diggity of all information from all the humanitarian/development agencies existent in Myanmar.

Obviously, Org A and Org M have a huge advantage over us since it’s linked with something that has already existed and they were acting as ‘assisting’ or ‘revamping’ Org C’s website. I went to their workshop and found out that Org A, Org M and we can work together as one. I mean, Org C is the queen of resource pool and we have the interactivity advantage. So, we working together would be just perfect.

I was given a ‘verbal’ invite to the meeting today by Org A, claiming they needed me there to back them up on our collaboration. The dude from Org A asked me for a presentation that I gave last Friday for reference yesterday and I gave it to him because I was gonna give it to the other agencies anyways. So, at the meeting today, Org A and Org M asked me to give the presentation impromptu and I wasn’t told about the existence of the Government officials in the room.

In another ‘undiplomatic’ word, I was locked down in a meeting by my so called ‘partners’, who turned out to be my ‘rivals’ intentionally. I was cornered as I was giving the presentation about how it would be better for us to delete/decrease the functions whilst I was trying my best to explain how we could collaborate.

Ignoring the unethical cornering from my frenemies, I stuck to my virtue about how we can collaborate. After my presentation, Org A and Org M gave their presentation and I guess to their surprise, I supported them from A to Z, ignoring that they have totally cornered me and tried to fuck up my presentation about my website.

Miraculously, greed got in the way for Org A while he was explaining his website revamping of Org C in such a way that he has stepped over the line of their abilities. Now, I’ve never asked for competition and I genuinely offered to help them since I was gonna get the data they wanted anyways. I even offered to give them the credit. I was glad when Org C decided to agree that we, Org H, was needed indeed to help these two frenemies of mine.

As my grandma has taught me, I stuck to my beliefs and I believed for the best. Win win at its best, I’ve managed to get out of a meeting where they tried to corner me and get me down unprofessionally with pride, faith and hope while grabbing my balls I’ve built to last any incoming unprofessional immature traits from other agencies in the future. The morale of this story is not to be fooled by so called ‘professional’ agencies directors or leads no matter how they have been working for a long time in this industry. It’s only been a year for me and I guess sticking to the actual win win has caused me to think that monopolizing and manipulating others as an advantage to oneself while trying to make others believe that one is doing for the advantage of saving other lives does not last long. Karma’s a bad motherfucker! Want a tissue?

Listening to: The Beautiful South – Dream a little dream

Not my kind of boss

How unprofessional can one be if he should blog about how bad his boss is!!!! However, given this blog does not involve any usage of backspace and given this blog entry is just about the end of clickage between me and my boss, this blog entry contains nothing bad about my boss. Just the right kind of wrong that one can suffice and one can’t. I’m team ‘can’t suffice’!

So, the more I work with my boss, the more I know of his tricks. It’s not always easy to not appreciate tricks from bosses since it’s awesome to learn how one deals with issues. However, the way my boss deals with issues, in my opinion, does not really impress my ‘respect’ ratings for him.

So, my boss is really good at diplomacy as a verbal weapon. I’ve been pretty honest with how I feel at work and to these, he’s responded with ultra diplomacy. Honest, genuine and caring and not scared to apologize, how can any employee not like that kind of boss? He mentioned once in the meeting how he expects people in his org to learn and he does not want to spoon feed.

My boss was faced with some issues today. To me, it was his lack of follow ups and his majorly bad management skills. It’s not like he’s not smart. He’s a very smart man but when it comes to giving time, he’s very stingy and the worst is how he would never stay up to date or make time for what’s happening under him until the very end when things have gone a bit haywired. To make things worse, I’ve never felt encouraged by my boss and he’s never given an impression that he knows which pie he has poked his finger in that I was talking about whenever we have to clear things to save our asses and most importantly the whole organization’s ass.

I’m not saying he’s wrong. Maybe one can stand his type of management and I believe there are loyal people who will stick to his way of working. However, I believe that a good boss to me is someone who’s on track with things and who is able to lead with a notion of what his staffs are talking about. Yes, my boss right now does not have time but is it too much to ask to give an extra effort in giving his staffs more time?

I’m seriously thinking of looking for a new job….. sorry boss!

Listening to: Jack Johnson – Rodeo clowns

The final days of Gaydar

Nobody wants to start the month of May with uncertainty but I guess I’ll have to break that rule in indulging the readers in yet another adventures of Hein at a coffee table with a cute guy.

Surprisingly KiwiMan showed up around 3:30pm after GermanChick and I asked him to come at 3pm to have coffee with us. So, KiwiMan is from New Zealand but he’s lived in Australia before and in Australia, some men are just major friendly at first sight. It’s annoying to the point where we, gay guys, completely lost track of the screws and bolts in our effective machine, gaydar. For some reason, the gaydar beeps a friendly signal around these str8 boys only to find out later that they are, in fact, not really into penis at all. Disappointment at its best, the gay boys come home with a realization that they’ve been having the best talks they’ve had in years with a rug eater.

KiwiMan, I’m afraid, would end up to be like these men but thanks once again to GermanChick, I somehow find a glimpse of hope in him. After GermanChick went home around 5pm, KiwiMan stayed and talked to me for three whole hours and we ended up going home only around 8pm. Now, I know I’m being a bit too crazily biased here but how many straight men would spend 4 and a half hours talking with a gay man one on one at a coffee table. It’s possible, I know, but we hardly knew each other and it’s only been one day since I got to know KiwiMan.

The going home was even more intolerable when he initiated the hug when I decided to let him slip without hugging him and him trying to fix yet another date to have with me asking me ‘are you free during the weekdays?’. KiwiMan is totally not one of those ‘no friends’ type but it seems like he’s enjoying spending time with me and it kills me only because I’m becoming more and more interested in him, leaning towards me strengthening the thoughts of his possible conversion from a muff eater to a fudge packer.

Can all of my fagfriends help me out here? Do you feel how I feel? Or have I turned way more desperate enough to be interested in a straight man with two failed marriages with two women. Yes, vagina, people… vagina!!!

Listening to: The Strokes – Hard to explain