Lonely Lunchtime

I'm alone in the office now.

The boss was the first to leave for lunch. Mom went for lunch with a client. The other two clerks ate together.

The office boys pop into the office at irregular times, it depends on the journey and the number of documents they have to deliver, but they never come back to the office during lunchtime.

After 2 and half weeks, I've done everything from typing formal letters (rigid, cold as steel, mundane words) to bending paper fasteners. And of course, learning the art of answering calls.

On the first 3 days of work, I started wondering how could people answer phone calls with a smile. It's difficult, especially when the caller informs you of a document the company should collect and they speak too fast, too indecipherable and too eager to hang up the phone.

I felt a little quiver in my throat when the caller asked, "May I have your name? It's for records purpose." That's when I started imagining the outcome of a misinterpreted message, a mispronounced name, or a memory loss.

Working in a legal firm certainly makes you fear a lawsuit.

Looks like a small matter but it could result in a delay of receiving something as minute as an acknowledgment letter; or as serious as the execution of will between feuding siblings.

I don't know. It just scares me.

The world nowadays are full with freshly graduated lawyers, eager to sue people over matters as miniature as sneezing 10 feet behind them just because you scared them, after they've been called to the bar for... 5 minutes before they wanna sue you.

Occasionally, I get rich Hokkien uncles who flirt; wealthy old men who speak fluent English with a hint of Singlish; voluptuous women from China clinging to their Malaysian husbands as if the latter were their Gucci bags; timid house buyers who have minimal knowledge about the procedures involved when you take up loans or buy properties.

Oh yes, I see almost all kinds of people from almost every walk of life.

But I haven't met a tall and handsome young man in working clothes with a tie, who'll walk through the pair of glass doors and dazzle me with his coy smile, and speak English with a banana accent.

I must be dreaming. And I'm blogging whilst working.