Flash backs and déjà vus

“Goodness, time is definitely flying by. We can hardly believe we've been here almost for 4 months already! We're running short of time to write stories for our weblog as work is piling up, both for Timmo and myself... It is past 8 pm as I'm writing and we're still at the office. But we both find our work extremely challenging and even though we work long hours, so far, it's very gratifying.”

This morning I woke up thinking: “Today I’m going to write a new blog” and as the day went on, I reviewed all sorts of opening paragraphs in my mind. Towards the end of the working day, I decided to go for something like: “Gosh, I can’t believe that it’s already the end of March, that I’ve been here for 3 months already and that I’ve only written one blog since… blah blah blah”.

This evening, as I settled myself into my blog writing position (half sitting, half lying in bed, Macbook on my lap, pillows behind my back), I thought: “Hey, let’s see what I was doing five years ago” so I opened my own weblog and navigated to Chapter I of my Life Travels. And believe it or not, on 21 March 2007, exactly five years ago, six days before my 32nd birthday, at exactly the same time of the evening (well, disregarding time zone differences), I was writing an opening passage that I could have copy-pasted as today’s opening line.

It proves how little has changed over the past five years. I’m still on the move, changing jobs, grabbing new opportunities to learn different things, continuously looking to develop myself. Similarly, I’ve landed a position that requires long long working hours. And as history repeats itself, I’m again working together with my boyfriend.

Plagiarising myself, the only editing required to make it stick to the now would have to be the following:

find-replace: "Timmo" with "Stefano"
find-replace: "gratifying" with "...???..."

Two quite crucial changes, as you may realise.

For new readers who wonder who he is, Timmo is my super great ex-boyfriend, whom I still love dearly as a friend, buddy and property co-owner, whilst Stefano is my super great current boyfriend, whom I love passionately as my lover, roommate and back up conscience and is the only one able to help me keep my sanity in these times. Come to think of it though, I don’t love him so much as a buddy (dive buddy that is). But that’s a different story ;-) .

Let’s move on to the “gratifying” part, for that is more interesting.

And with interesting, I mean essentially that I’m curious about the words that are going to appear on paper as the ink flows out of my pen, expressing my thoughts, feelings and emotions of the past few months.

Delete that.

With interesting, I mean primarily that I’m curious about the words that are going to roll out of my keyboard, as the letters appear on the screen, verbalising my thoughts, feeling and emotions of the past few months.

It’s a tricky one, I have to be careful and choose my words wisely because slander accusations might be a consequence that would be most undesirable for all parties involved.

Let me flash you back to early 2008.

Perhaps it’s a notion that has been distorted by time, but in my mind, one of the reasons why I left the corporate world was because the higher I climbed the career ladder, the less I liked the view. It became clear to me that too many incompetent decision makers and ass-kissing, two-timing, useless managers were ruling the business. And I didn’t want to be part of that club. So I cut the golden chain tying me to the banking industry, dove off the ladder and landed in the clear, warm, soothing under water world which confirmed to me that the grass can be greener, or more appropriately, the sea can be bluer on the other side.

My ambitions to climb however didn’t fade and got me out of the water again, thus today I’m back in a management position. Which I love. I love the challenge of multi tasking, organising, planning, improving, developing, motivating others, sharing my knowledge, forging teams, learning from others. Unfortunately, the deeper I get involved in my management tasks, the more déjà vus I have. I suddenly remembered what my main weakness was, when I was working at the bank. It became apparent during every personal development course I took, at every management training I attended, with every conflict on the work floor I encountered: I am allergic to incompetence.

I cannot stand people who thrive on their status, their title and the authority they derive from their salary slip but who, in reality, are incapable, unreliable, useless or plain stupid. Ignorance is something I can work with, as long as the person is willing to learn and takes responsibility for his lack of knowledge or skills. But by my definition, incompetence is worse than ignorance, it’s more than just a lack of skills. It’s a lack of common sense, it’s a lack of clear judgement, it’s a lack of self-knowledge, it’s a lack of willingness to self-reflect and to admit you are failing at your job. Incompetent people hide their inexperience instead of opening up and learning from others. Incompetent people focus on the mistakes others make only to distract you from their own blunders. Incompetent people make mountains out of molehills to divert your attention from the fundamental issues that they are incapable of dealing with.

I know the tricks, I’ve seen them all before and I see them again through the curtain of mosquito fogging smoke that envelops the island twice a day.

Unfortunately, I suffer from this allergy that no homeopathic, ayurvedic or mainstream doctor can cure and currently I’m reacting heavily to certain pathogens in my direct environment.

On the days that my allergy plays up, I dream of setting up my own business and dealing only with capable, responsible, hard working, eager & honest people (dream on…). On those days, I bare my soul to Stefano, we fantasize about where we could go, we calculate how many children we need to work in the avocado tree plantation that we want to have in the back yard while mom and dad are making love in the master bedroom, we describe our holiday destinations for the next ten years, we talk about the food and the drinks we miss (still no f****g policy in place regarding alcohol entitlements for staff) and I check my bank account online to see if I finally won enough lottery prize money to set up that yoga retreat in a country where the grass is greener and the sea is bluer.

Stefano is the only one that keeps me sane whenever I’m about to loose it and now he’s gone for two weeks. The lucky bastard was asked by our boss to work on a safari trip for which they needed a French speaking guide and since it’s still relatively quiet at the dive centre, I had no justifiable reason, as his manager, to keep him here. As his girlfriend, I tried (“But that means you won’t be here on my birthday!!!!….” sulk, pout, grumble…) but didn’t succeed. So while he’s out diving with sharks and drinking aperitifs with his European guests, I’m slowly going insane with my incompetence intolerance and my bottle of water.

While “gratifying” may not be the word I would use to describe my current work situation, I would not be completely fair if I would not mention the following really positive aspects of being here, on top of my ever growing respect for Stefano who deals with my tantrums with great patience, dedication and love:

- I have a great team at the dive and water sports centre, most of my staff are hard workers, reliable employees and really good company
- The directors of the dive and water sports centre are very supportive, understanding and appreciative of the work the dive and water sports team has achieved so far
- I am learning an unquantifiable and invaluable amount of new things about opening a new business, building a resort, setting up accounting systems, dealing with HR matters, coastal erosion, Maldivian culture and many other aspects of management in tourism
- I’m not spending any money, so my next holiday is going to be a splurge
- And all my personal frustrations set aside, probably partly due to a chronic deprivation of alcoholic drinks, I am convinced that this resort and our dive centre are going to be a fantastic, super luxurious, amazing, beautiful and high standard holiday destination once everything is finished. And being part of this enterprise is still worth all the blood, sweat and tears.


“Anyway, while I'm looking forward to a quick visit to Holland, the first week of April (for Ying Wei's graduation - at last!!!), I'll close off this weblog by promising that we will post some pictures of our life in Singapore soon...”

find-replace: “Holland” with “Malé”
find-replace: “Ying Wei’s graduation” with “my first days off”
find-replace: “in Singapore” with “on Mudhdhoo Island”

Many happy bubbles to all,

xxx

Yaisa