Tag: Glen Waverley Victoria

A 2013 Low Point – Losing an “Old Friend”


I wrote the below piece back in April this year, when I still considered David Chiang “an old friend”. I guess he was an “old friend” only in the sense that I had vaguely known him from our days in Klang. I remember seeing him take Ben his son, then a dark little chubby boy, to and from Sunday School. I rarely talked to him. When he was coming to Melbourne however, we connected and Ben and his mum came first and initially stayed with us in our home, before the rest of the family joined them later. They went to ICC Church in Glen Waverley, partly because we went there then. It was only from that point on that we came to know each other better.

He might have commenced planning moves against Jason around that time (April this year), if not earlier. I had left ICC months before and other than an anniversary party at his home, we barely spoke to each other since I left ICC. So the call came really out of the blue and the events against Jason some 4 weeks later put it into context I guess. Jason and I talked about this soon afer the Lifegate AGM fiasco and guessed this to be the case.

Needless to say, I have since been very angry with David for what he did to Jason and his (and his then fellow board members’) continuing refusal to face up to what he and they did. I was harsh against him and told him what I thought of what he did. He reacted badly and became feral with me. He hurled personal abuses while continuing to defend what he did. While I focused on his deeds, he called me names and made personal accusations. He did not pinpoint what I did despite my repeatedly telling him it was his act to remove Jason – specifically– which caused me to be angry against him. I have refused to have anything to do with him, not until he acknowledges that what he did to Jason was wrong from any perspective. Not just a procedural error, but a grave wrong against a brother.

I guess he would continue to deny what he did was wrong. Maybe he wouldn’t. I hope he wouldn’t. But there has been nothing to suggest he now thinks what he did was wrong.

So I guess I need to say that if I were to write him a similar email today, I would no longer say nothing has changed when I talk about our “old friendship”. I cannot continue to call someone so apparently obstinate, a friend. Things change of course and the day when he sees and aknowledges what he did against Jason was wrong, will be the day I would consider what I wrote below in April this year, to continue to hold true. Until then, I’m afraid one of the low points of this year is to completely disengage – on a deliberate and willed basis – from someone I once considered “an old friend”.

An Old Friend Called

03/04/2013 

From: Teh, Ian

Sent: Thursday, 4 April 2013 8:09 AM

To: [ ] ([ ]@yahoo.com)

Subject: Thanks – appreciate the contact

Hi [ ]

Thank you for your call last night, I appreciate that. Please be assured what has happened in recent months had nothing to do with you. You (and [ ]) are someone I knew from Malaysia so I guess that makes us old friends. Nothing has changed on that front.

Returniing to lifegate is out of the question for me. I cant be in a church where I am restrained from serving. As long as I don’t understand Tham Fuan’s statement that I only acknowledge the church leadership when it suited me, I can never serve freely. That statement means I am not to be trusted, that I am a fake. How can I remain in a church where the pastor accused me of that?

Tham Fuan has “apologised”  – it may sound ironic but that is taking the easy way out. What I needed wasn’t an apology, but understanding. One needs to spend time talking through things like that. Not a quickly blurted apology. I have said that to him before. But that is ok now because I no longer expect anything from him. He has shown nothing to suggest he is capable of, or wishes to, talk through that. I also no longer want to listen to him. No one should be expected to wait indefinitely – if the months following the event didn’t see any interest on his part, I should “cut my losses” and leave an organisation headed by someone like him. He has been that way from day one – uncommunicative and unresponsive. When it comes to personal relationships, being uncommunicative and unresponsive is a guarantee for failure.

Theresa and I continue to look for a church to call home. That has been very difficult for the reasons I said to you last night. But at least there is rationale for hope. Staying in lifegate does not provide that, as long as Tham Fuan carries on in the same way. There is nothing to suggest he won’t.

Thanks again [ ].

Ian

 

 

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Retail Tailing Off?


I was in the Dick Smith outlet in Box Hill earlier today, looking for an adapter for a very old printer in our office. I could not find the adapter so I thought I’d ask one of the 2 shop assistants I saw in the shop. Neither of them showed any interest in serving me, even though I was standing right at the front of the reception, making it as obvious as I could, that I was waiting for help. I stood and waited for easily 10 minutes. One of those 2 shop assistants was behind the reception counter on the phone, obviously on a personal call. He could not have missed me, the only person waiting at the counter at that time. When he finished the call, he walked away from the counter and went to the back of the shop. It wasn’t until about 5 minutes had passed before he came back to the reception counter. I wonder if both the workers were hoping I would go away after waiting for a few minutes. As it turned out, my near 20 minute wait was futile as all it took for one of them to finally attend to me, was less than a minute to say to me the adapter wasn’t available.

It is the same with the Myer Forest Hill Chase store. For as long as they have existed (since taking over the Harris Scarfe store), they are one of the worst Myer outlets I know. The service is near non-existent and when you do get service, it is the most unfriendly type.

Ditto the Gazman outlet at The Glen shopping center in Glen Waverley. You either get no service or when you do, you get the most unfriendly, almost rude service.

So why is there a prevalence of bad service in retail outlets? You hear complaints on talkback radio but it is only when I put my own recent bad experiences that I realise it isn’t an isolated or aberration of a problem. It looks like the trend now.

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March Equinox


I think today’s the March Equinox. If that is correct, the days get shorter from today. Soon we’d have the dreaded dark-at-five pm days. I have always said to Tress and Kiddo that I didn’t mind the cold in winter. What I dislike are the short days. I think they contribute to depression for many.

I also remember 21 March for a different reason – it was the day I started work since we moved to Melbourne about 6 ½ years ago. It was also a Monday and I went in to the office of Sharrock Pitman Legal in Glen Waverley. We were living in Mount Waverley then and Kiddo was attending Mount Waverley North Primary. Tress had also started work in Myer on Lonsdale Street in the city.

We were finding our feet in Melbourne. We started to go to the International Christian Community church (ICC) in Glen Waverley. Pastor Chek Chia was there then. Other than a new life in a new city with a new job and so many other things which were new for us, we also had a very new theology to contend with in the approaches of that church towards prayer, guidance and instructions.

In some ways, the shorter days ahead reflect how I feel now. Some things appear bleak. I wish things could be different and we could unwind the clock and set things right from those early days. I know however that God is sovereign and He is also good. God’s wonderful creation included not just the March Equinox but also the September one. We’d have to live through the coming “6 months”, work on things, keep our eyes on God and look forward to the September Equinox when days will become brighter and longer again.

The creation of our God is wonderful. The cycles of astronomy and seasons are part of His beautiful creation. The ever changing weathers, life experiences, joy and pain, hope and despair and indeed even life and death – have all been “signed off” by our sovereign Lord and as the wise proverb says, we need to trust God, acknowledge Him in all things, and He will set our paths straight.

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