Working in Hong Kong affords many moments when you have to check that you're not dreaming or that the Martians haven't landed. In one way they have, of course, as the local business scene boasts more than its fair share of spacemen and spacewomen. If the lunatics haven't taken over the asylum, that's only because the astronauts got there first.
Chatting with our IT man a few months back as he was fixing my computer (why is it that, even if you send these guys a screen-shot of the dialog box telling them what the problem is, they are programmed to keep on asking you questions until they find one you can't answer?), he told me the latest story about a department head who will shall call Sarah Wong.
Now, Sarah's main achievement in the five years she's worked here is to be disliked by everyone. She also contends annually for the coveted title "Laziest Bugger in the Company" – Ivan the computer guy says he's yet to fix her computer when it’s not her private stuff that’s caused the problem.
In the summer, while I was in the Basque Country, we had one of those internal award ceremonies that Hong Kong is so fond of, and Sarah did her usual thing of turning up late. The only problem was that she was so late that the HR staff who were running the event had left their station in the corridor and gone inside to cheer on the MD.
The room where the award was being held is actually two rooms (with a folding dividing wall) and since a stage had been set up at one end, the door nearest to the lift lobby had been locked. When the HR drones heard Sarah tugging away at the locked door, they nipped out of the other door and cheerily asked her to join the party.
Without a word of reply, Sarah stormed back to the lift lobby, not able to comprehend first a door that wouldn't obey her and then staff who dared usher her towards the correct entrance.
Just this morning I was reminded of this story when I had occasion to go down to the 8th Floor, where HR have their training centre. I noticed that the door to the nearer training room was absent – its hinges bearing silent witness to its removal.
I may have an overactive imagination, but my mind was instantly transported back to Medieval times, when courts used to put pigs on trial for putting their snout in the wrong trough and condemn them to death when found guilty. Had this woman become more feudal than the feudalists, ordering the carting off the offending portal for judgement before a tribunal of Hong Kong'swhackier judges ?
Chatting with our IT man a few months back as he was fixing my computer (why is it that, even if you send these guys a screen-shot of the dialog box telling them what the problem is, they are programmed to keep on asking you questions until they find one you can't answer?), he told me the latest story about a department head who will shall call Sarah Wong.
Now, Sarah's main achievement in the five years she's worked here is to be disliked by everyone. She also contends annually for the coveted title "Laziest Bugger in the Company" – Ivan the computer guy says he's yet to fix her computer when it’s not her private stuff that’s caused the problem.
In the summer, while I was in the Basque Country, we had one of those internal award ceremonies that Hong Kong is so fond of, and Sarah did her usual thing of turning up late. The only problem was that she was so late that the HR staff who were running the event had left their station in the corridor and gone inside to cheer on the MD.
The room where the award was being held is actually two rooms (with a folding dividing wall) and since a stage had been set up at one end, the door nearest to the lift lobby had been locked. When the HR drones heard Sarah tugging away at the locked door, they nipped out of the other door and cheerily asked her to join the party.
Without a word of reply, Sarah stormed back to the lift lobby, not able to comprehend first a door that wouldn't obey her and then staff who dared usher her towards the correct entrance.
Just this morning I was reminded of this story when I had occasion to go down to the 8th Floor, where HR have their training centre. I noticed that the door to the nearer training room was absent – its hinges bearing silent witness to its removal.
I may have an overactive imagination, but my mind was instantly transported back to Medieval times, when courts used to put pigs on trial for putting their snout in the wrong trough and condemn them to death when found guilty. Had this woman become more feudal than the feudalists, ordering the carting off the offending portal for judgement before a tribunal of Hong Kong's
2 comments:
'(why is it that..they are programmed to keep on asking you questions until they find one you can't answer?)'
Every office has one.
The universality of the condition is why the "conversation" between Tim and computer guy was such a popular scene in The Office.
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