encounters

not a terribly good day.

the company we're doing a study on returned our pre-interview questionnaire with incomplete answers, signs of possible reluctance to divulge much info, signs of possible misunderstanding of questions, and, to add to that, criticism of our questions, as if the person answering it had something against us. We value the comments, and there was certainly some room for improvement in some of our questions .. but even with some of those comments, they could have still answered our questions but instead, the person took a "you guys don't seem to understand what you're doing, I'm not even gonna attempt to answer this question" approach. Team members are now totally demoralized, and we have a face-to-face interview with these people this Friday. i'm getting the "this company must think we're a bunch of incompetent kids" and slight tinges of the "i'm gonna totally fail this subject" feeling right now.

and, at 11.10 pm, after post-rehearsal supper, i spent a good 15 minutes blaring my car horn in backwater brickfields in hope that the driver of the car parked directly in my way out of the parking lot would move it out of the way. nothing happened, and the mamak patrons were probably turning deaf with all the noise i was making. i created such a racket that some guys at the mamak decided to come over and help direct my way out of the parking lot thru an extremely narrow bit of space on one side. yes, i DID figure earlier that i could try and squeeze my way out through that narrow space, but i really didn't feel like going through the struggle.. what with the dim lighting, the narrow road, the large number of visually-challenged pedestrians in the area and the wide 4-wheel drive i'm driving which side mirrors don't retract properly no more. and, hey, the blinkin' Proton WAS directly obstructing my path out of the parking lot (i was in a stress-induced "it's a matter of principle" mode). just as i had finished the arduous task of backing my way out of the lot with the help of the 'traffic wardens', the driver of the offending car appeared. let's just say i created a bit more noise pollution before finally driving off.

and on the Sprint highway on the way home, i was looking in the rear-view mirror while changing lanes and i saw (or i thought i saw)... a riderless motorcycle dragging closely behind it a car with no headlights on. the otherworldly vehicle finally passed me on the fast lane - it was a blinkin' Trike* scooter. it had a huge rear carriage, which gave the illusion of a "car with no headlights on", and, because the rider was leaning back and the height of the rear carriage extended above the driver, you couldn't see his head in the dark while looking thru the rear-view mirror. dang thing bloody freaked me out for a while...

* www.motortrike.com - tho i don't think there's a photo of the model i saw on the Sprint.