The sensational news around Australia this morning, especially in Beaconsfield Tasmania, is that of the rescue of the trapped miners.

After 2 weeks trapped almost 1km underground, they emerged early this morning, almost totally unscathed. Amidst the jubilation, there were moments of sadness as well, when everyone reminded themselves that one man did perish, when the mine first collapsed 2 weeks ago, on Anzac Day.

It was in this context that one of the rescuers interviewed on radio this morning mouthed these very wise words – there is always good news and bad news.

Yes, that seems like such a simple lesson in life yet we allow bad handling and all sorts of bad permutations between these two bag fulls of truth, to make our lives miserable. We either live to make every moment a good news moment or wallow badly in bad news. We either let sure-to-arrive bad news to sour good news presently at hand, or let present good news go to our head. If only we master the art of balancing our approaches to the fact that there will always be good news as well as bad, we’d be half way back to Eden. I think.

·               Interest rate went up 25 basis points yesterday. Leading economists had until yesterday, said there were no compelling reasons for it to go up, and were confident the Reserve Bank would not increase rates. I guess experts can be wrong. The Reserve Bank realised their action was against expectations and so would release their statement as to the rationale for the increase. I cant imagine Bank Negara reacting in this way.

·               The 2 miners trapped in an underground gold mine (about 1km underground!) in Tasmania (a town called Beaconsfield) are still there. They were supposed to be out earlier this week but the rescuers thought slow-and-steady is the way to go, in case they cause a collapse and kill the poor men. Now they are scheduled to be out tomorrow. I can imagine the small town suddenly swamped with rescue teams, medical personnel, reporters, television crew and the like. All there to help bring about and report a miracle.

·               The cardinal of Sydney, George Pell, was reported to have said that the Koran encourages violence. That’s going to go down really well with Sydneysiders, especially those in places like Lakemba and Cronulla. Some in Melbourne would hop on and make their views known as well, no doubt.

·               Macca is England gaffer! Good on you, Stevo. Who would Boro replace him with? Alan Pardew? Tonight Australia play New Zealand in a trans-Tasman battle of… was it Rugby League or Rugby Union…

·               An ex-colleague of Theresa recently won a competition and went to Old Trafford! Hope he didn’t but anything from the Mega Store. Better bargains and more interesting merchandise can be bought outside the complex, some stalls are always outside, near the Lou Macari fish and chips shop. I don’t think the trip included Carrington – he would have stood a better chance at seeing some players there, but not Wayne Rooney. He would be inside an oxygen chamber, albeit in Carrington. May he not heal in time for the World Cup. It is more important he is fit and ready for the start of next season in the EPL.

·               Jeff Kennet, an ex premier, is mulling over a comeback. He was premier from 1992 – 1999, got booted out in a general election won by the current premier Steve Bracks, and is back in the picture to replace Rob Doyle who quit as leader of the opposition yesterday. Yawn…

·               Kiddo was down with a bad cold this morning. It has been building up since early this week. Sleeping late last night (her only concession in the week, to watch The Amazing Race) didn’t help I guess. But she remained her usual cheery (relatively) self. So all in it has been a challenging week for us – I had a rough couple of days at work and things continue to look challenging in terms of relationship with the principal. I think Theresa has some issues as well, but I’m not sure what these are and how severe they may be. I’m looking forward to the weekend for some recuperation and catching up with her.

 

A few days ago Theresa and I were scanning the newspapers, it was the day after a horrific crash between a semi trailer and a train took place somewhere in Ararat, to the west of Melbourne in country Victoria. Two persons died and almost 40 were seriously injured.

Yet, the newspaper we were reading had, as its front page headline, the story about the soldier who died in Iraq. Private Kovco was shot under mysterious circumstances and died in his own room. Then the return of his cortege to Melbourne was bungled – he got stuck in Kuwait while some other person’s body was shipped to Melbourne. On Saturday his body finally made it to Melbourne and that was the front page headline story. Not that of the horrific crash.

Neither of us are journalists so we cant fairly comment but we both felt it was strange the story about the crash was not thought of as a better story than that of the late Private Kovco. No disrespect to that soldier, but the story of his death was already several days old. The only reason it had continued media interest was the bungling of the return of his body, and of course, how he actually died.

I don’t know if this cast any light on the Australian psyche, and as we were not media persons, we didn’t bother what the other papers carried as front page stories that morning. We had The Age and the Herald Sun is, I think, a more popular and better read paper.

When we had that dinner 3 nights ago (see previous blog), one of the youngsters used the term “potong stim”. One of the not-so-young asked what that meant. To demonstrate my relative youth I attempted an answer. The youngsters were respectful enough not to challenge my answer. I guess I was right.

That has given me confidence to now use this term to describe how I now feel about my present work. A colleague went on paternity leave on Monday. He was a litigation lawyer. As his files got distributed around, I landed a few – all of them litigation stuff, of course. One was an employment law matter so I was on less strange grounds, having done a little bit of employment law matters recently – enough to avoid looking like a complete goose. The rest were building dispute stuff. I know jack-all about building dispute. There are various types of building and construction contracts, various types of insurance policies for building constructions, even various types of builders warranty insurance. And then there are various bodies, including the Building Commission which itself is governed by a stadium full of rules.

Trying to wrestle with all these issues mean, of course, that my own work suffers. Like…potong stim. On top of that, the boss is his usual savage self in his review of my drafts, not entirely because I was wrong. I am so tired now. I’m tired of battling this sort of stuff.

Yet, I’m thrilled I have these battles. I’m thrilled to have these challenges every day. I guess I have learned (and continue to learn) the lesson of the no-shoe-better-than-no-leg story. Of course I yearn to do other types of legal work. I wish I could do some corporate/ banking/securities law again. Yet, to be able to do this is a blessing. I guess as long as I can, I will battle on. I don’t know how long. I guess I will just plod on for now, potong stim or not.

            Last night we had dinner in this place called “Colours” in Forest Hill. It was a typical Chinese suburban restaurant but with a couple of elderly Greek/Italian blokes singing some old jazzy tunes. We were there to celebrate two occasions. It was Theresa’s Auntie Hooi’s birthday as well as Uncle Seng/Auntie Ann’s wedding anniversary.

            After dinner they decided to visit our home. I had a beer at home before going to dinner, had about 3 glasses of champagne and 3-4 glasses of wine during dinner and so was primed to go straight to bed after dinner. The decision to adjourn to our home made that somewhat difficult. It also meant the drinks would continue to flow.

            They came over and 2 hours and several more servings of alcohol later, I stood outside our house as I see them sped off in their cars, driven in the usual manner of those who have had a long night out.

            We cleared up the place very quickly and by the time we crawl into bed, I was so gone. I woke up this morning therefore, with great difficulty. I had loads to do this morning and I didn’t need this sort of preparation. Especially when my mood at work has been damp recently. Sigh… Will go and catch some coffee now – it’s lunch time…

Today is the last working day of the month. I was just mulling over this during lunch. I don’t know why. It never was a significant thing. Maybe it still isn’t. It may have been just an insignificant fact which popped into my head. But then again lately, I have started marking off insignificant dates and incidents. Maybe there is a subliminal urge to seek out a milestone. I need to know perhaps, where I stand now and what lies ahead. I get nervous when I feel the urge to seek out the next path, the next objective. I feel agitated when I cant see “what’s next”. I’m the sort who keeps peeking over to see what’s around the corner, what’s in the next page, or the next chapter. Somehow I have not managed to live and revel in the here and now. I think that accounts for a large part of my unhappiness. Am I odd?

The Australian labour laws recently went through some tectonic changes. The newest beast in town is a piece of legislation called Work Choices and it changed the face of labour laws in this country. It swung the pendulum firmly in the employer’s favour and it has been on PM Howard’s agenda for a long time. So what has this got to do with me?

I was asked to draft an employment contract for a client a few weeks ago. This was before the new legislation was gazetted but it was “anytime now” sort of scenario. So, that piece of contract evolved. And evolved. And evolved. Fast forward 5-6 weeks later I suddenly have become the firm’s de facto expert on Work choices issues. I now have 5 employment contracts on my table and the boss wants to generate a template for further contracts.

There is a little problem in all of this. I was hitherto, a complete novice on industrial relations matters. I know jack-crap about labour laws. Never practiced it, never had anything to do with it. The closest I have come to working on employment contracts was working on our in-house engagement letters while doing in-house work for a banking group. Those contracts however, never required complete grounds-up drafting. I only had to tweak certain clauses to cater to specific employees. The CEO would scribble specific terms for this or that employee and I would pull out our standard one and only work on those terms. I was usually too busy to re-hash the whole document. More importantly, there was always the HRD to make sure these contracts are consistent with what the organization required.

I guess being in a smallish suburban practice means you get your finger into every pie. I’ve been asked to draw up cause papers in Magistrates and County Court proceedings, dealt with family law matters, did debt recoveries, wrote letters to quasi government bodies and professional bodies and generally did stuff I had never done in my past professional life. I don’t like them. Like I said, I prefer not learning a new language. But that is my lot for now. I have to get used to it. One way or the other. Employment Contracts? Bring them on! For now.

There has been a spate of maladies at home recently. First I had my bouts of hypotension. For almost two weeks, I couldn’t do my runs because I was feeling faint. I only resumed running about week and a half ago. Then Theresa was affected by a mysterious form of allergy which caused itchy rashes to break out all over her body. Thankfully that disappeared after a couple of days and this morning, kiddo woke up with a nose bleed. It turned out she probably picked her nose too hard…

            I guess some in my church would term these “spiritual attacks” and would seek some form of deliverance. Maybe. To me it was just, well… “tough titties”?. Anyway, I did pray and they did go away.

A malady which wont go away is my work malaise. I am increasingly unhappy at work. The reasons are multiple but I guess the overriding one must be the uneasy relationship I have always had with the principal. From the very first week we have not seen eye to eye and it has truly been a wonder I am still with him, after more than 13 months. I prayed of course, but this one has so far refused to go away. Never mind, I will just plug away and see what gives, if anything.         

I just had a conversation with someone, which has triggered a series of memories, none of which is good. I don’t know if I can blog these events now, even if it is important for posterity.

I have chosen not to blog these events to date for 2 reasons: First, I am still shell-shocked. I don’t know if I have fully recovered from the psychological scars these events created. I don’t know if passage of time has meant I can now safely talk about these things in a relatively public domain such as this blog, or should I still remain vigilant and keep these things hidden away. I am after all, still a Malaysian citizen and subject to its laws and more pertinently, its enforcers, especially if and when I am in Malaysia. I still cannot be completely sure I would not be penalized or victimized in any way if I started talking about these things.

Secondly, I no longer have full details of everything that happened. These were incidents I have tried to erase out of my memories and to a large extent, I have succeeded. I’m not sure I can now accurately recall the details to render my accounts more legitimate than they would otherwise appear to be. If I don’t recall dates, names, places and actual exchanges in sufficient details, can I still be credible?

Like I said however, I think they are important events. Like all recorders of history, especially “bad” events, I often feel everyone affected – and I am sure many more like me were affected – should step forward and give a written account of what happened to them, in order to take a stab at correcting the wrong and preventing recurrences.

I write of the events in Malaysia towards the end of 1998, which precipitated a period of fear and anxieties amongst a small group of corporate players and their executives. These events escalated in 1999 and did not abate, for me, till as late as 2004. The bulk of these events happened in 1999 and 2000 however, and I remain haunted by them.

My running intensified, as did my drinking. They were both instrumental in seeing me through this patch. I was by that stage, doing 65-70km per week and drinking more and more scotch. Often I would be in a gym pounding the treadmill at 6.00 o’clock in the morning doing 12-15km before starting “work”, and knock off “work” by around 5.00 o’clock in the evening, proceeding straight to a pub or coffee shop for beers. It is then to some other place, often at home, for sessions with Mr J Walker. It wasn’t until maybe 2003/2004 when I resumed having regular dinners instead of drinks.

I have to try and recall these events. And then I will see if I can write about them…