15/12/05

I'm just such a bad boy, blogging in office. I finished my stuffs at about 4, and is now waiting for knock off unless my senior suddenly has thing for me to do. The two days experience at the tax department is really special because everyone is not as stressful as the people in the audit. At least my senior is smiling when we'll chatting haa. And the manager even better. I thought she is just a normal associate. She is just so friendly and smiling all the way loh. When chatting with you, she is like a friend friend type haaa. There was this occasion where she asked me if i've finished my things, and I told her yes. She just smile smile and give me the cheeky eye look, seems to say,"then wait for go home loh" haa.

Wa, halfway through the morning, my friend suddenly called me and gave me this monstruous task. I have to draft and email to send to all my peers and the supervisors loh. Wa lao, stressed haa. I couldn't do big things lah haaa, but in the end, i managed to finish it ah. I tend to spend alot of time "designing" my email when its so important. Scary experience. oh I got new things to do, I better stop and get back to my work. Hee, most prob won't add to this posting liao.

Ok i'm back again. Just when my senior started briefing me on some of the things, the manager released my booking loh. Ok, see who is going to book me next.

Tomorrow i'm going back to office for news haaa. Damn.

Slice of Life

Conversing or Merely Talking?

There's a saying that goes "One of the most boring things in the world is ME deep in conversation". Nobody likes a conversation-hogger, not even if the self-styled "monologue artist" is an interesting and knowledgeable person. No matter how engaging he or she may be at first, the smiles and nods quickly turn into blank faces and efforts to keep from yawning.

People like to share, yes, especially when it comes to their own experiences and interests. But people also like people who allow them to share. And who listen to them. The next time you enter into discourse with someone or a group of people, check yourself to see if you often feel the need to cut into a person's speech with your views on the topic.

Do you tend to go on prattling without allowing the other person to contribute his or her fair share?

Do you engage in conversation or do you simply talk?

You may have a lot of information. You may even be an expert on the subject. But unless you're a lecturer or a speaker at a seminar, YOU droning on about YOURSELF simply doesn't make meaningful conversation. The dynamic is lost. You might as well be talking to a mirror. It can be hard sometimes, I know, when you're just bursting with information. And it can be difficult to admit that you sometimes don't have an answer. But the danger in simply talking is that you may engage the mouth before putting the brain in gear.

I've said lots of dumb things because I didn't think before I spoke. Unfortunately, this may not only involve statements that are dumb, but sometimes statements that are also harmful. And, yet, though the right thing to do in such cases is to apologize, such does not change the fact we said it. This being the case, we'll never regret being slow to speak. Nor will we regret those occasions when we had nothing to say and just kept quiet.

There are folks who bring to mind the story of the man who was suing for divorce. The judge asked why.

"Because she talks too much," was the reply.

"What does she talk about?" the judge asked.

"That's just it," the husband answered.

"She never says." Silence truly can be golden. It's also a good idea to be silent when one doesn't have a proper answer. Or, better yet, a person might just say, "I don't know." No one has all the answers. So try to converse more, rather than just talking. As someone once put it, "Merely talking is about as far from communicating as merely not talking is from actually listening".