Ah. So I discovered that when the worst comes, I can perhaps be a cashier at a fast food restaurant. After working there for one afternoon, I got a hang of it. Taking phone orders for deliveries, memorizing the menu, scooping food, being a cashier… It’s not bad. I felt more energized while working there than those hair-pulling days at work.

Cheers!

I got this from a chain mail. Feel free to pass it on.

Subject: the mayonnaise jar and 2 cups of coffee

When things in your lives seem almost too much to handle, when 24 hours in a day are not enough, remember the mayonnaise jar and the 2 cups of coffee.

A professor stood before his philosophy class and had some items in front of him. When the class began, he wordlessly picked up a very large and empty mayonnaise jar and proceeded to fill it with golf balls.

He then asked the students if the jar was full. They agreed that it was.

The professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the jar. He shook the jar lightly. The pebbles rolled into the open areas between the golf balls.

He then asked the students again if the jar was full.

They agreed it was.

The professor next picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar.

Of course, the sand filled up everything else. He asked once more if the jar was full. The students responded with an unanimous “yes.”

The professor then produced two cups of coffee from under the table and poured the entire contents into the jar effectively filling the empty space between the sand. The students laughed.

“Now,” said the professor as the laughter subsided, “I want you to recognize that this jar represents your life.

The golf balls are the important things–your family, your children, your health, your friends and your favourite passions—and if everything else was lost and only they remained, your life would still be full.

The pebbles are the other things that matter like your job, your house and your car.

The sand is everything else—the small stuff.

“If you put the sand into the jar first,” he continued, “there is no room for the pebbles or the golf balls. The same goes for life. If you spend all your time and energy on the small stuff you will never have room for the things that are important to you.

“Pay attention to the things that are critical to your happiness. Play with your children. Take time to get medical checkups. Take your spouse out to dinner. Play another 18. There will always be time to clean the house and fix the disposal.

Take care of the golf balls first—the things that really matter. Set your priorities. The rest is just sand.”

One of the students raised her hand and inquired what the coffee represented. The professor smiled.

“I’m glad you asked.

It just goes to show you that no matter how full your life may seem, there’s always room for a couple of cups of coffee with a friend.”

Please share this with someone you care about.

I JUST DID.

I spent a few hours working at my cousin’s fastfood restaurant as prepartion for next week’s real work.

I had never worked in a restaurant before, not even a fastfood environment. Most of my friends had worked in one place or another in high school and/or early college years. I guess I was quite fortunate that I had never needed to work in a restaurant. It was exactly because of the lack of this experience, I had always wondered what it was like to earn wages with physical labor.

It was hot standing behind the counter. There was a label that said that we had to keep the food above 135 Farenheits. o_O” That was not fun in a hot summer day with no AC inside. The first phone order I received, it was a new customer who saw the advertisement from the phone book. He had no idea what was on the menu. So he ended up asking a lot of questions about this and that, and I was at a complete lost after sweating for a minute there. Luckily my cousin came to my rescue. But I already got soaked in sweat because of that one phone call. Phew. That was something different from my normal work day.

Left work with a headache. I was supposed to go home afterwards, but instead, I went shopping.

The headache persisted and evolved itself to something bad enough that I called my mom to delay the time to go home. Then I took a pain killer, which relieved some of the pain yet also put me to sleep right afterwards. I even fell into sleep while talking to my mom on the phone…

Every day when the clock’s short arm touches the number 12, when noon finally arrives, my computer starts to make that noise again. It sounds like an old car running with loose screws somewhere, half broken, ready to break down any time.

This sound is a signal that the one hour of unusable work computer and zero productivity just start.

Why do they choose to run virus scan at noon time? Don’t they realize that there “might” be someone who needs to work at that time? The virus scan software consumes 98% of the CPU power resulting that closing a window would take more than 2 mintues and logging the windows would require at least 5 mintutes!

Err!

The last couple days have been… great. =) I know it may be due to the fact that I am in my manic state at this moment. I tend to forget how horrible it was in most of the mornings when I had to literally drag myself out of bed to do anything at all.

I had fun at work the past two days. There was the volleyball game that I went to cheer for our department, which we won by far. There were the lunches with a big crowd of students right now. I felt grateful for being one member of the big happy student family group. I was one of the very first person to work there as a student. As Adcom absorbed more and more students, this little circle of friendship grew as we embraced new faces and characters. Each of us is so unique yet we get along unusually well. I wonder where else on earth I can find this kind of “group” from a work place. It is definitely something closer than simply co-workers.