Baptism of Fire

Finally, a huge boulder has been lifted off my back. My presentation to the entire sales team + technical support team (total of 8 person) of my company has ended as of 2:50pm today. A record breaking time for longest duration of presentation given to anyone in my entire lifetime. Official time was estimated to be at 1 hour and 20 minutes. Jesus! I didn't even realise I can tahan so long man! Even back during uni days, I would try to siam presentation becos I would galang gaboh, and read from my cue card as much as possible, no often lasting longer than 10 minutes. But today, I have outdone myself! I feel so proud of myself neh!

As usual I started quite jittery, but soon I learnt to compose myself and began explaining to them what I have learnt over the course of the past few weeks, mainly on the technical aspect of my job consisting of terms from the field of polymer science which would have bored anyone to death easily. I'm serious! But having said all that, it directly affects my rice bowl and so when one has a motivation to learn new things, however boring they are, he/she would put effort into it. And that explains why I flunked my chemistry back in secondary school, hahaha, because there was absolutely no point in doing it, except to pass the examinations, that is!

Not everything about my presentation was perfect lah, and while I certainly don't like people to point out my mistakes openly (hell, who does?!), but I accept that it is because I had genuinely misunderstood the concepts at hand and appreciate the fact that they correct me on the spot. In the corporate world, one has to be humble and accept it as part of the learning process. Respect for seniority still ranks high in certain corporate culture, and I was not about to break that. Afterall, their intention weren't to put down me or anything to that extent. It was for my own good.

We had a mini-celebration of sorts through dinner at Jumbo seafood restaurant at clarke quay. Supposedly it was to 'celebrate' the end of my technical training. Wah, so big shot neh me... I certainly don't deserve lah. But then again, it may be an excuse for them to drink alchohol like nobody's business. Hahaha. And it certainly looks that way from the amount of wine bottles and beer jugs that were opened.

Argh, head still feels dizzy from the many proposed toasts from the table. Damn, they're a hard drinking lot I tell you.