Thursday, August 17, 2017

A Condemning Society

The other day I saw a comic made by sporean comic writer that tells a story about a youngster who scolds an elderly in a food court. A passerby records a video of it and uploads it onto social media. As a result, a lot of people see and share it and people starts to condemn and verbally abuse her on social media. Not only that, people also gives her death stare and purposely bumped her on the street. Because of it, she's now terrified to go out.

This morning, I saw another comic made by Indonesian comic writer. The story was about a guy riding a motorcycle without wearing a helmet. A police stops her and wants to issue a fine. The biker slaps the police on the head and says, "You dare? I'm in the army! You can't fine me!". A passerby records it and upload it to social media. The head of the army then catches the guy and hands him over to the police.

When I saw the first comic, I felt sorry for the girl. She's still wrong, but she didn't deserve to be treated like that. Not only online, she was abused in real life by people she didn't know too. And she isn't even a murderer.

The second one though, I think was used appropriately. In Indonesian society, some people still believe they are above the law and can just walk their way out of problem either just saying they have certain position, or by bribing.

Both were punished in the end, however, I believe the biker wouldn't have been abused in real life. I think people treated her that way because she was easier to bully. The biker could easily reports anyone bullying him on the street for going against an officer while she can't?

Another thing is, the biker was handed over to police, that will shut people up. But then again, he was breaking the law in the first place. In the girl's case, it was about manners. She didn't break any law. She can't be handed over to police. The most she can do is apologise, and based on the comments on the comic, she already did. But that's not enough and people still abuse her.

In today's society, or maybe I should say even before, people constantly judge other people. Nowadays is more obvious though. Through social media, people are turning into keyboard warriors and condemn others every single second. I might be considered one of them too, I guess, since I'm talking about them now.

The other day there was a post on facebook about a mum who ear pierced her baby daughter. A lot of women strongly condemned her for doing so by saying she has no right to her body, it's cruelty against children, she's hurting the baby just for fashion, and so on. It was bad. Of course, there were other women who came to her defence and said it's better to be done when she's little so her mum could take care of it, they were earpierced when they were babies too and they are OK with it, it doesn't hurt that much, she won't remember it, and so on.

Some even said they were grateful to have theirs done when they were babies. They saw how their friends had ears pierced during teenagers and saw what they had to go through with the infection etc. I'm also one of those babies, my mum pierced my ears when I was 1 or 2 months old. Even then, she regretted it. Saying she had to care for me myself. Next time she gave birth, she asked the hospital to pierce their ears on Day 2.

But yeah, the opposition group is pretty strong. It was like they were condemning a thief.

Society is really weird nowadays... Few weeks ago, a guy was shot by police for holding a florist hostage with scissors and broken bottle for who knows why. I think he had mental issues. Then, people started critiquing the police for shooting him dead. Even though he already hurt the florist' neck!

I thought people would have learned from Lindt Cafe incident 2 years ago. Back then, the police didn't want to have casualties and didn't barge in until they heard shots, as the result 2 people died. Back then, the police were blamed for holding back. And now they didn't hold back, but are still blamed.

It's a weird world we live in 😕

Thursday, August 10, 2017

Similar Different Fate - Part 2

One day 3 of us were shopping at Broadway, then Eva went to buy something at Go-Lo. When she returned, she told me and the other bestie the Go-Lo was looking for people for stock take. My response was, "What's stock take?". Neither of them knew what stock take meant either. But even so, I went and put down my details. Eva didn't, because she was going on holiday soon, but the other one did.

Few days after, I received a phone call telling me I got the job. The other friend didn't get it. It was funny, considering she put down her name right after mine, either I was the last person required, or they thought her one was a prank as we put same birthday. That time, I still didn't know what stock take was 😂

So I went, and turned out it was just a one day job to count the stocks in hand. No interview what so ever as it was just that. I was a bit disappointed, but at least I earned money right? It was a long job, I finished at 10. The manager told us, if we didnt mind, he'd pass our details to the other stores just incase they need people. Other store did call me, and I even managed to get the other friend to come work too.

Probably a week after, I received a call from that manager, saying he couldn't find my forms, did I fill them out? I said yes. He said he'd keep searching and would call me if he couldn't find them. Few days after, his phone call woke me up. Sleepily I picked up, and he asked me if I was looking for a job? I said yes, I was. Then he said he needed some casuals and would I be interested? Oh hell I was! He asked me to come in to chat, and I was officially hired 😊

OK, from then on, I became busy. I didn't work over my 20 hours limit, but enough to get me busy. In addition, I got another 1 morning a week handing free paper job. I followed rules closely to the t and made sure I didn't work more than 20 hours. Therefore, a lot of times I had to drop my shifts. Same with exam period, I'd be asking for a week off to study (though the most I got was few days off 😕 After few days off, my manager would call up saying the other girl was sick, could you please come? So I couldn't say no and went to work).

This other bestie however, would be the one asking for more shifts and didn't ask for days off to study. She'd burn the midnight oil to study rather than taking days off work. There was once she had to fake a sickie on an exam day because she didn't finish her study.

Do you see the pattern between me and her now?

Even after uni, she went straight into job hunting while I was scared as hell and didn't apply for anything until 6 months after graduation. Even that, was forced.

She found a full time job pretty soon after graduation. But she still kept her Coles as second job for weekends and sometimes night shifts.

I continued with Go-Lo and 2 mornings handing free papers, then I got a part-time programming job (3 days a week). I kept that up until I changed job 1.5 years after. This time, it's a full time job. However, I still kept my Go-Lo job (around this time, the missing money incident occurred) for a few months for the weekend, and then moved to a souvenir store.

I honestly only planned to stay for a couple of months in that souvenir store. I joined, just because I was invited by the last manager of Go-Lo and curiosity. However, not long after that, my sisters graduated and couldn't find a job. It was GFC again. I had to keep 2 jobs to cover all of our expenses. My parents could support us, of course. But my dad was having depression, asking for money would just add up to his depression. If he's depressed and asked me all those questions, it would stress me out, so it was easier to just earn as much money as I could.

So yeah, if I think about it, me and my friend have pretty similar journey of life. However, in my case, it was not my choice. I don't know if it was luck, coincidence, or just fate. In her case, she chose to do so. It's in her nature to strive and earn money. Back then in uni, if she didn't get shifts for a week, she'd freak out and chasing her manager. For me, I'd just calculate to see if I can survive from last week's pay and I'd be content. I was sure too that someone would call in sick and I'd be called to work. If not, then I could relax. Mind you, her parents could support her too.

I was born at night, which makes me a night rat. They said night rats fate is tiring. It's the time when they need to go out and find food while everyone else is asleep. It's true in my case. I believe my friend was born during day time, and according to the horoscope, she should be the happy rat, sleeping in after eating all the food she's found.

Wednesday, August 9, 2017

Different Similar Fate

Okayyyy time for my random blabbering. Been wanting to just talk about anything, but haven't got the chance to. But I think this is not completely random.

My best friend, who's getting married in a month, just told me and the other bridesmaid that she had been made redundant yesterday morning. It was a shock for her. Her whole department will be taken over by their UK brand and everyone in her department was pretty much unemployed since yesterday. There was no gossip, no warning, no clues what so ever before she had the conference call yesterday morning.

I guess that's how life is, isn't it? It can suddenly throw something at you, good or bad. You can be having a good life now, and suddenly you don't have a job. Or, you could be doing pretty bad, and suddenly someone helped you and later on you become a millionaire. You just never know.

My friend was pretty depressed yesterday. I don't know how she's feeling really, as I never had the experience, but she sounded pretty stressed. Not surprising, of course. Especially with the wedding coming up, the honeymoon, and all the expenses she had to pay throughout the year. I don't know why, but she does have a lot of expenses this year, I. E. Her mum Permanent Residency fee (which is like 40-50k) and her investment property costs and fees. To make it even worse, she's the type who can't not work. She gets stressed if she doesn't go to work, and can't just sit idle.

Thinking about it, horoscopes divides people into 12 star signs. Meaning people born between 2 dates are in a same category and supposedly have same traits.

This friend and I were born on the same day. Different place and time of the day, but same day, same month, and same year. Though we do share some traits, we are quite different.

She's always been a workaholic. She came to Australia, thinking she's going to study and work. She straight away searched for information on how to apply for working visa and started asking her brother's mates for vacancies. When she turned 18, she applied for visa and started working 2 jobs at the same time.

Me? I remember coming to Australia, thinking I was going to study, but I can work casual during my spare time. I applied my working visa a week after my 18th birthday, dragged my other friend who wanted me to accompany her looking for jobs. She was also very eager to start working. I wasn't too eager, I was a bit scared and not confident as my English wasn't up to standard yet. That day, both of us found a job together.

I didn't last long in that job, only 2 months. I hated it. Then I quit. I found a job handing out free paper in the morning (this job will help me get to where I am now) , once a week, and once in a while I went for 2 hours job of trialling out noise blocking headphones. That went on for a year.

Her, on the other hand, dropped her McDonald job and kept Burger King. She worked a lot. She would be running out the door once tutorials finished to get to her shift. She'd skip some of her lectures and worked instead. She'd take shifts that her team mates couldn't do and she'd ditch me and my bestie when we're going out if Burger King called her asking if she could work.

After a year, 3 of us were shopping at Broadway when Eva saw a vacancy for stock take at Go-Lo...

Continue to part 2