The Day I Turned 26

This Monday was the day that I turned 26 years of age. To be exact, at 10:33am, according to what was stated in my childhood health booklet! I am always proud to announce the actual time that I was born!

I had expected and looked forward to this day being a happy and enjoyable day. But where was I on Monday? I was working at my office desk! It was rather disappointing that I was hard at work on my actual birth date, but I tried to cast that thought aside coz Rebecca’s Dad was hospitalized, so we decided to cancel my birthday outing on that day.

I knew that it was a responsible and considerate thing to do, and I was glad that I made that conscious effort and decision. Yet, I still felt sore about it coz my birthday only comes around ONCE in a year… and I had planned and looked forward to this day, where I could enjoy a long weekend and celebrate my birthday at the same time! In the end, I didn’t have a long weekend and I didn’t get to celebrate my birthday on the day itself. It was such a demoralized feeling when I logged into the staff intranet to cancel my leave application. And my heart let out a sigh when I clicked the ‘cancel leave’ button.

As if I wasn’t feeling bad enough, every Monday was our weekly KPI reporting department meeting… and I was scolded really harshly by my Dept Head. Being the most senior in the Projects Department, I was always called upon first to report on my achievements for the past week. Occasionally, I performed well… and once in awhile, I would get scolded for something. It so happened that last week was such a hectic week that there were tasks that I could not complete. Because of this, I could not give a reasonable update to my assigned tasks and got YELLED at by my Dept Head. He even banged the table and shouted at me.

I just sat there quietly while the scolding went on, each thundering sentence lowering my esteem into an even deeper end, while my subconscious mind continued to dwell on the disappointment of not being able to enjoy my birthday. My mind started to wonder off, thinking whether it was better than I came to work today to get blasted on my birthday, or whether it was better to enjoy my birthday then come back to work the next day and get blasted. I could not decide on which was better… so I decided to wake myself out of this train of thought, coz I was indeed and already at work on my birthday. And I was getting a huge railing at, on this 26th birthday of mine. Once a year and I had to get screamed at first thing in the morning… and it wasn’t even 10:33am yet. Sigh…

As I walked back to the office area together with my colleagues (after the department meeting), my mind was still in a daze from all that had happened in this supposedly-happy birthday morning. My mind was rudely awakened when I heard my colleague Brenda suddenly exclaimed, “Wah! Its 11 o’clock already! And I haven’t done any work yet!” That shook me up from my daze and I decided to accept this reality and hastened myself to get on with work.

Surprisingly, things soon took a slight turn for a better, when I received this e-mail from the Finance Dept Head, telling me to come and collect my Confirmation Letter from her! My heart jumped, but I was afraid of whether there would be any pay increment. But I decided not to expect and when to collect this document. Upon receiving it, I brisk walked to the toilet to open it, coz I was afraid of what I might see and I wasn’t sure how I would respond.

While walking to the toilet, my mind raced and started to think about how I would feel and how Iong I would decide to stay in this company, if there wasn’t any pay increment (after all, I had taken a pay cut to take on this new job). It turned out that God is good… and He granted me a 10% pay increment, which I am thankful for, though it was still lower than my previous salary. But still, that was better than nothing. At least I could save up more for my new flat and wedding.

Despite receiving my confirmation, the glooming feeling remained throughout the day, though I tried to portray that I was seemingly feeling alright. I didn’t know if it worked, but I didn’t bother to find out. And as if things weren’t bad enough, I even had to work through lunch hour coz there was just too much work to be done.

As I was nodding a little bit in front of my PC, I was astonished to be suddenly presented with a red packet from the admin staff, saying that it was my birthday and it’s a small gift from the company! I was surprised at this gesture coz I never expected such a practice! I wasn’t even sure if this was even stated in our HR or admin company policy! (Later at home, I opened the red packet to find $12 inside! I laughed coz it reminded me that it was almost enough to cover the cost of a taxi trip to office! Hahahaha…)

My colleague Steven was shocked to hear that today was my birthday, and he said, “Wow… that was a bad start to the morning…” Yeah, tell me about it. I don’t wish to be reminded about how it all started on the morning of my birthday…

But it wasn’t very long before my next surprise came about when I was greeted by a small birthday cake with a candle on top, as my colleagues started to quietly sing and clap to the song ‘Happy Birthday’ right smack in the middle of Monday afternoon! It was indeed really a surprise (a bit more of a shock than surprise) to me, but I was happy! My colleague John also took the opportunity to snap a few photos with his digital camera and sent to my department colleagues! What a pleasant surprise!

Towards the end of the work day, a few of my colleagues urged me to quickly go off to celebrate my birthday. Some asked if I were meeting my girlfriend for dinner and I said yes. Yet, in my heart, I was still feeling a bit gloomy. It was true that I was meeting my girlfriend, and for dinner… but I was meeting her and her sister at Mount Elizabeth Hospital and buying packet dinner for both of them! But how could I tell my colleagues who were in high spirits after surprising me with a small birthday cake? I couldn’t bring myself to tell the real truth, but I didn’t really want to anyway. Coz I didn’t know how they would react when I said that I am going to the hospital instead of celebrating my birthday.

Rebecca’s Dad appeared quite alright and I spoke to him a little while to find out how he is feeling. It seemed that he still had difficulty recovering well and had to continue to stay at the hospital for a few more days. But even so, we were all glad that at least he was staying at the hospital, and not at home, without the proper care of nurses. Hmm… so that was how I ‘celebrated’ my 26th birthday.

Oh well, I don’t know whether to call it a happy or sad birthday, but I guess it was both. But I am thankful to still be alive to celebrate it…